Alright. Here it is.
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One more day before the weekend. Oh how I love Fridays!
Thursday, March 31
Top Secret.
What I am about to tell you is highly confidential. Even NASA doesn't know about this. If questioned by the CIA, your response will be, "I know nothing of the sort", using a British accent. It makes you sound smart.
Alright. Here it is.
Nutella Cupcakes with Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting. Oh my goodness. I need to find me some Nutella before everyone starts snatching them up. I certainly hope they're available in the desert. But seriously, this recipe makes me want to buy a muffin tin and a thousand little spring-colored cupcake liners.
One more day before the weekend. Oh how I love Fridays!
Alright. Here it is.
One more day before the weekend. Oh how I love Fridays!
Wednesday, March 30
A-HA!
I am an appointment booking wizard! Here's my schedule for the days I'll be back in town.
April 6:
- 1:00 pm - Dress Fitting
- 3:00 pm - Cake Consultation
- 5:00 pm - Florist Consultation
April 7:
- 3:00 pm - Catering Visit
- 6:30 pm - Hotel Event
April 8:
- 8:00 am - Marriage License
- 6:00 pm - Marriage Sponsor Visit
April 9:
- 10:00 am - Mary Kay Visit
- 2:00 pm - Hair Consultation
April 10:
- Rest!
I'll be flying into town the morning of April 6, and H. will be arriving the evening of April 7. We'll both be leaving the evening of April 10. So much to do in the time in between! I wonder how my body will react to the two hour time difference. I'll probably get up at ten in the morning feeling like it's the crack of dawn, when really I've wasted half the morning. I'll also probably sit outside in the sun and tell everyone "This is nothing compared to the great A-Z." And I'll be confused when people say they're going to Fry's to pick up some transistors instead of tomatoes.
And now if you'll excuse me, I have a pot roast to attempt.
April 6:
- 1:00 pm - Dress Fitting
- 3:00 pm - Cake Consultation
- 5:00 pm - Florist Consultation
April 7:
- 3:00 pm - Catering Visit
- 6:30 pm - Hotel Event
April 8:
- 8:00 am - Marriage License
- 6:00 pm - Marriage Sponsor Visit
April 9:
- 10:00 am - Mary Kay Visit
- 2:00 pm - Hair Consultation
April 10:
- Rest!
I'll be flying into town the morning of April 6, and H. will be arriving the evening of April 7. We'll both be leaving the evening of April 10. So much to do in the time in between! I wonder how my body will react to the two hour time difference. I'll probably get up at ten in the morning feeling like it's the crack of dawn, when really I've wasted half the morning. I'll also probably sit outside in the sun and tell everyone "This is nothing compared to the great A-Z." And I'll be confused when people say they're going to Fry's to pick up some transistors instead of tomatoes.
And now if you'll excuse me, I have a pot roast to attempt.
Tuesday, March 29
Blue Suede Shoes
I'm slowly making my way through the dozen or so phone calls to make appointments with every business and person involved in the wedding. So far, I have an appointment with the florist and for the dress fitting. There's an event that the hotel is having for some of their clients (I'm assuming it includes people who are using the hotel's services in the near future) - I believe it will involve a little bit of food and drink, but the invitation isn't exactly clear on that. The event is April 7, 6:30-8:30 PM. I am wondering if this will be the only time available for me to scope out the reception venue, but I also don't want to be stuck in a room with a million other people (23 have already RSVP'ed as Attending). I'm calling the representative tomorrow, and we'll talk about this event, among other things.
I thought I had a toothache yesterday. I had sharp pain in a very localized part of my mouth, and was scared that my teeth were falling out. That last part isn't an exaggeration, just ask H. Today, I went to see a dentist who had me bite down on various materials, then seemed puzzled as to why he couldn't explain the pain. I told him it stings a little when I press my tongue up against one specific tooth, so he took a look at it. He told me that when I last flossed, I nicked the gum on both sides of that tooth, and it was trying to heal. That would explain why it didn't hurt when I bit down on anything. I was sincerely relieved when he told me this, and told him I would take good care of it to make sure it didn't get infected or whatnot. Now I feel like I can conquer anything.
Dinner last night was a hit! H. and I bought this delicious teriyaki sauce from Costco recently, and I tried it out last night on strips of chicken. Add a little bit of brown rice and voila! Tastiness. Tonight we're having thin crust pizza (not exactly the standard of health, but hey, it has olives and green peppers and have as much crust as usual). I also picked up some froyo, since we were getting low.
I came across this picture on one of the wedding sites Iread every single day frequent, and thought it was just stunning. The baker was inspired by sunprints - I had to look up this term. Apparently there's a specific type of paper that will change colors when left in the sun. If you put an object on the paper, it will retain the image of that object. Neato! While the person that made this cake didn't actually use that paper (she mentioned that would be poisonous), she did airbrush it with edible paint or something, maybe dye? Either way, it's absolutely gorgeous.
Doesn't that just make you want to paint your walls blue and have white furniture? Maybe that's just me.
One last fancy photo for you all - a spring has definitely sprung centerpiece that has nothing to do with my wedding colors or theme or any of it, but I so so wish it did.
If I had all the time in the world, I would pick my own wildflowers and stuff them into vintage vases that I had coincidentally found from consignment shops and thrift stores. But, seeing as how I don't know where to get wildflowers for the wedding, I suppose we could go with a florist (prices depending) or use grocery store bargains to create our own magical flowery centerpieces.
Sometimes I wish I was obsessed with wedding stuff a year ago and had planned everything out down to the last boutonniere before ever getting engaged. That probably would've made me a crazy lady, so I guess it's good that didn't happen.
I thought I had a toothache yesterday. I had sharp pain in a very localized part of my mouth, and was scared that my teeth were falling out. That last part isn't an exaggeration, just ask H. Today, I went to see a dentist who had me bite down on various materials, then seemed puzzled as to why he couldn't explain the pain. I told him it stings a little when I press my tongue up against one specific tooth, so he took a look at it. He told me that when I last flossed, I nicked the gum on both sides of that tooth, and it was trying to heal. That would explain why it didn't hurt when I bit down on anything. I was sincerely relieved when he told me this, and told him I would take good care of it to make sure it didn't get infected or whatnot. Now I feel like I can conquer anything.
Dinner last night was a hit! H. and I bought this delicious teriyaki sauce from Costco recently, and I tried it out last night on strips of chicken. Add a little bit of brown rice and voila! Tastiness. Tonight we're having thin crust pizza (not exactly the standard of health, but hey, it has olives and green peppers and have as much crust as usual). I also picked up some froyo, since we were getting low.
I came across this picture on one of the wedding sites I
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| Sunprint Wedding Cake | Once Wed |
One last fancy photo for you all - a spring has definitely sprung centerpiece that has nothing to do with my wedding colors or theme or any of it, but I so so wish it did.
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| Nantucket Wedding | Once Wed |
Sometimes I wish I was obsessed with wedding stuff a year ago and had planned everything out down to the last boutonniere before ever getting engaged. That probably would've made me a crazy lady, so I guess it's good that didn't happen.
Saturday, March 26
Moar Cakes!
Seeing as how I never actually gave an accurate description of what I wanted in a cake, or perhaps my preferences changed since I started talking about it, here's a general idea of what I'd like. H. had the brilliant idea of having me draw it and putting it up on the interwebs. He really is a technical wizard.
I'm super excited about the bottom and top layers, but I'm unsure as what to do for the middle layer. I'll number the options so that we can keep track of them.
1. Vertical Dot Stripes - I spent half an hour on The Knot's cake gallery website, and couldn't find a picture of these anywhere. I know that cake-making people don't like to do horizontal lines (imagine trying to put something completely level around a circular object), but I thought for sure someone would have done vertical stripes using icing dots. Apparently not. The closest image I could get was this one below.
It actually resembles my drawing pretty well. Especially the bottom and top layers. Try to delete from your mind's image all of the flowers in between the layers. What do you think? I imagine that two columns of icing dots would be about the width I want. I don't really want thick vertical stripes on my cake.
2. Quilter's Diamonds - I realized that if we have two very textured layers on top and bottom, we might need something less textured in the middle for the viewer's eye to rest on (I've been watching waaaay too much Nate Berkus). This would be a good place to put a little blossom, don'tcha think? I'm also kind of in love with the color of these flowers in the next picture.
Love love love the simplicity of this cake. And the little flowers don't look overpowered by the design or anything. As far as flowers are concerned, that's another post. I need to know what the price point would be for the bouquets I finalized in a previous post. If we wanted to do our own flowers, I think we could do it, but it would be a lot of work and stress the day before. We might be able to do them two days before, but three is probably pushing it. But anywho.
3. Banner Drapery - Yeah, I just came up with that name. I have no idea what these things are actually called. This is the last option for the middle tier, and it looks kind of bridal-y. The more I write about it, the more I don't like it, but now you're curious as to what it is, so here it is.
We're looking at the second to bottom tier, the one with the least number of things on it. The little curtain, drapery banner thingies. My initial idea on this was that if we put flowers on the middle tier, the little banners wouldn't get covered them up by the flowers. But now I think I'll just edit out this entire idea from your choices. Bridezilla to the rescue!
So yourthree two options are (1) Vertical Dot Stripes, or (2) Quilter's Diamonds. Better number one? Or better number two? (Optometrist humor.)
In the vein of things that are not related whatsoever to the wedding, we thought that someone was moving into the apartment below us, because there was a moving truck outside and loud men yelling things at each other as they carried boxes to and from the truck. Turns out, our neighbors that live diagonal downstairs from us are moving out. Which means that now we have no military protection (downstairs diagonal + downstairs neighbors + neighbors across the top from us = all Army people). Now we have to deal with what will probably be college kids being super loud all the time, or old people that will rock our socks with their degree of quietness. I'm hoping for the latter. I will also take a middle-aged person living by themselves. That's basically like living next to an old person, right?
Went to Costco yesterday. As you may remember, Costco has samples of their products on some of the aisles where people gather and carts collide in a huge tasty traffic jam. Well. Yesterday H. and I had some of the tastiest samples: meatballs featuring this delicious teriyaki sauce that they were selling. We decided to buy the sauce, since it really was the best we'd tasted, and proceeded to make our way around the store. Our list of samples included the meatballs, chicken salad on bread (H. didn't try this), flax seed mixed into yogurt (H. didn't try this either, so uncultured), orange chicken, and cheddar broccoli soup (super tasty, also super cholesterol-y). As we were deciding which line to aim for while we walked to the front of the store, we decided that as long as the meatball lady was still there, we would have seconds (a testament to how awesome the sauce was). We downed the meatballs, then a scary realization crept into our brains at the exact same moment.
It's a Friday. During Lent. It's a no-meat Friday during Lent. Crap.
We had both completely forgotten somehow, and were now feeling guilty about what we had eaten. We promptly bought our things and drove to the nearest Wendy's for a fish fillet lunch as a means of making up for what just went down.
Couple of hours later, I'm on good ol' Stalkerbook, and H.'s younger brother commented on someone's post to thank Momma Mary for letting us eat meat. Scratching my head, I asked Google if this was true, and it was! If a holy day falls on a Friday in Lent, we are allowed to eat meat instead of abstaining. There was a huge sigh of relief in our apartment, lemme tell ya. So yup, there's your happy feeling of the day.
Now it's time to see which team will go through to the final eight or the sweet eight or whatever it's called in NCAA basketball. Side note: I always get N-C-double-A mixed up with N-double-A-C-P. It's like how I get Tom Hanks and Bill Murray mixed up. But back to basketball! I would like both UConn and Arizona to move onto the next round. Seeing as how their playing each other in five minutes, I don't think that will happen. But this also means I will like either outcome. :D
1. Vertical Dot Stripes - I spent half an hour on The Knot's cake gallery website, and couldn't find a picture of these anywhere. I know that cake-making people don't like to do horizontal lines (imagine trying to put something completely level around a circular object), but I thought for sure someone would have done vertical stripes using icing dots. Apparently not. The closest image I could get was this one below.
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| Vertical Stripe | The Knot |
2. Quilter's Diamonds - I realized that if we have two very textured layers on top and bottom, we might need something less textured in the middle for the viewer's eye to rest on (I've been watching waaaay too much Nate Berkus). This would be a good place to put a little blossom, don'tcha think? I'm also kind of in love with the color of these flowers in the next picture.
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| Quilter's Diamonds | The Knot |
3. Banner Drapery - Yeah, I just came up with that name. I have no idea what these things are actually called. This is the last option for the middle tier, and it looks kind of bridal-y. The more I write about it, the more I don't like it, but now you're curious as to what it is, so here it is.
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| Banner Drapery | The Knot |
So your
In the vein of things that are not related whatsoever to the wedding, we thought that someone was moving into the apartment below us, because there was a moving truck outside and loud men yelling things at each other as they carried boxes to and from the truck. Turns out, our neighbors that live diagonal downstairs from us are moving out. Which means that now we have no military protection (downstairs diagonal + downstairs neighbors + neighbors across the top from us = all Army people). Now we have to deal with what will probably be college kids being super loud all the time, or old people that will rock our socks with their degree of quietness. I'm hoping for the latter. I will also take a middle-aged person living by themselves. That's basically like living next to an old person, right?
Went to Costco yesterday. As you may remember, Costco has samples of their products on some of the aisles where people gather and carts collide in a huge tasty traffic jam. Well. Yesterday H. and I had some of the tastiest samples: meatballs featuring this delicious teriyaki sauce that they were selling. We decided to buy the sauce, since it really was the best we'd tasted, and proceeded to make our way around the store. Our list of samples included the meatballs, chicken salad on bread (H. didn't try this), flax seed mixed into yogurt (H. didn't try this either, so uncultured), orange chicken, and cheddar broccoli soup (super tasty, also super cholesterol-y). As we were deciding which line to aim for while we walked to the front of the store, we decided that as long as the meatball lady was still there, we would have seconds (a testament to how awesome the sauce was). We downed the meatballs, then a scary realization crept into our brains at the exact same moment.
It's a Friday. During Lent. It's a no-meat Friday during Lent. Crap.
We had both completely forgotten somehow, and were now feeling guilty about what we had eaten. We promptly bought our things and drove to the nearest Wendy's for a fish fillet lunch as a means of making up for what just went down.
Couple of hours later, I'm on good ol' Stalkerbook, and H.'s younger brother commented on someone's post to thank Momma Mary for letting us eat meat. Scratching my head, I asked Google if this was true, and it was! If a holy day falls on a Friday in Lent, we are allowed to eat meat instead of abstaining. There was a huge sigh of relief in our apartment, lemme tell ya. So yup, there's your happy feeling of the day.
Now it's time to see which team will go through to the final eight or the sweet eight or whatever it's called in NCAA basketball. Side note: I always get N-C-double-A mixed up with N-double-A-C-P. It's like how I get Tom Hanks and Bill Murray mixed up. But back to basketball! I would like both UConn and Arizona to move onto the next round. Seeing as how their playing each other in five minutes, I don't think that will happen. But this also means I will like either outcome. :D
Thursday, March 24
Coupon Win.
This post is brought to you by Michaels. Without them, I wouldn't be able to get 40% off of everything I bought this week. Mind you, they only allow one coupon per transaction, so I did get a snobby look from one of the cashiers when I told her I wanted to do two transactions because I had two coupons. But she did it, and now I have lots and lots of painterly stuffs. In all, I bought two canvases, one beginner's set of acrylic paints (six colors), a double-adjustable easel, an extra tube of paint (orange wasn't included in the six colors), a set of 25 brushes, and a plastic palette to mix colors and whatnot. Pretty freaking awesome.
The canvas that H. and I bought is 24"x30", which is a pretty decent size for a painting. Definitely bigger than your standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper. I thought the best way to paint the image I wanted was to sketch it out on some piece of paper first, then transfer it onto the canvas once I'd worked out all the kinks. I'm sure there'll be kinks. As luck would have it, we still had some of the packing paper the moving company used to fill space in the boxes they packed. It might be called butcher paper, but I refer to it as packing paper, and luckily we had two sheets of it left in the corner of the office that neither one of us uses. The paper is an inch or two wider and a half inch shorter than the actual canvas, which is a remarkably close fit if you ask me. I packed up my little world peace themed tote bag with the packing paper, a half-frozen water bottle, and the camcorder and set out for the nearby park.
Well, first I went to a nearby office supply store and bought pencils, a pencil sharpener, an eraser, and colored pencils. But I did make it to the park.
In the sun, it was about a million degrees today. In the shade, it was about 50 degrees because of the cold, cold wind. As I was walking from my hundred degree car through the million degree sun towards the park, I decided it would be nice to sit in the shade under a little gazebo thing that had tables where I could draw. Little did I know that after sketching the outline of the mountains I would start to freeze to death. I even switched tables under the gazebo so that the sun was shining on my back in an attempt to thaw out. I tried to tough it out, and got about halfway done with one color on the sketch, but eventually the wind started blowing in such a way that the paper started flipping up. Very frustrating.
Here's a poorly lit picture of my sketch, followed by a closeup for those of you who like details.
I'll probably do one more round of dark blue, then hit it up with an orange or a yellow, followed by a splash of bright robin's egg blue. Stay tuned for progress reports and percentage completed numbers.
What's that? You want to know how my gladiolas are doing? Well why didn'tchya say so! Two of them are growing tall and strong, and one of them got a little bendy in the leaves and started swaying towards the sun (again, chyea), so I had to rotate the box around. Haven't done that in a long time. The three of them are starting to become water hogs. I suppose that's a good thing. Well, here they are.
That's the canvas in the background to compare the greenery to. The canvas measures 30" tall, so I suppose these guys are right around 34" tall now. And to think we planted these a month and two days ago. The interwebs says it takes 90 days for buds to form, but it would be nice to see flowers before then.
And now for the awesome wedding-related picture of the day! I realize I've already done a bouquet countdown, but I can still admire more flowers, right? How sweet is this bouquet:
Any idea what the small blue flowers are? I was going to say Lily of the Valley, but I thought that only came in white.
Have a lovely night, folks!
The canvas that H. and I bought is 24"x30", which is a pretty decent size for a painting. Definitely bigger than your standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper. I thought the best way to paint the image I wanted was to sketch it out on some piece of paper first, then transfer it onto the canvas once I'd worked out all the kinks. I'm sure there'll be kinks. As luck would have it, we still had some of the packing paper the moving company used to fill space in the boxes they packed. It might be called butcher paper, but I refer to it as packing paper, and luckily we had two sheets of it left in the corner of the office that neither one of us uses. The paper is an inch or two wider and a half inch shorter than the actual canvas, which is a remarkably close fit if you ask me. I packed up my little world peace themed tote bag with the packing paper, a half-frozen water bottle, and the camcorder and set out for the nearby park.
Well, first I went to a nearby office supply store and bought pencils, a pencil sharpener, an eraser, and colored pencils. But I did make it to the park.
In the sun, it was about a million degrees today. In the shade, it was about 50 degrees because of the cold, cold wind. As I was walking from my hundred degree car through the million degree sun towards the park, I decided it would be nice to sit in the shade under a little gazebo thing that had tables where I could draw. Little did I know that after sketching the outline of the mountains I would start to freeze to death. I even switched tables under the gazebo so that the sun was shining on my back in an attempt to thaw out. I tried to tough it out, and got about halfway done with one color on the sketch, but eventually the wind started blowing in such a way that the paper started flipping up. Very frustrating.
Here's a poorly lit picture of my sketch, followed by a closeup for those of you who like details.
I'll probably do one more round of dark blue, then hit it up with an orange or a yellow, followed by a splash of bright robin's egg blue. Stay tuned for progress reports and percentage completed numbers.
What's that? You want to know how my gladiolas are doing? Well why didn'tchya say so! Two of them are growing tall and strong, and one of them got a little bendy in the leaves and started swaying towards the sun (again, chyea), so I had to rotate the box around. Haven't done that in a long time. The three of them are starting to become water hogs. I suppose that's a good thing. Well, here they are.
That's the canvas in the background to compare the greenery to. The canvas measures 30" tall, so I suppose these guys are right around 34" tall now. And to think we planted these a month and two days ago. The interwebs says it takes 90 days for buds to form, but it would be nice to see flowers before then.
And now for the awesome wedding-related picture of the day! I realize I've already done a bouquet countdown, but I can still admire more flowers, right? How sweet is this bouquet:
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| New Zealand Wedding | SMP |
Have a lovely night, folks!
Tuesday, March 22
Troubles
H. and I were very excited about something this last weekend. We had found a contest that we were sure we could win - play the new Major League Baseball 2K11 game, and pitch a perfect game before anyone else does, starting midnight of April 1. We understood that there would be a degree of difficulty, but it's actually not as difficult as it sounds. With a little bit of practice, I'm sure H. could achieve a perfect game, it's just a matter of him doing it first. So we went and bought the game on Sunday night.
We forgot one thing - the Xbox we have has a problem reading any disc that you put into it. H. fiddled around with the Xbox, and actually got it to work Sunday night. Monday I played during the day, figuring out the controls and whatnot, and H. played in the evening after work, perfecting his methods for getting batters out and scoring when his team was batting. We went to sleep thinking of how the night of April first would go, whether we would take a nap during the day and then stock up on Dr. Pepper or coffee or whathaveyou.
I turn on the console this morning, and it won't read the disc. Nothing that I do can fix it, and I'm not even sure H. can fix it when he gets back tonight. So now we're back to square one. The kicker is that when we first got here, H. had asked me to send the console off to the factory so that they could fix it and the warranty would stay in tact (if we really wanted to fix it, we would have to void the warranty on it). I didn't get around to calling them until early last week. At the time, we hadn't used it in three months, and I didn't forsee us using it at any point in the near future (we were going to delete our monthly memberships to save money, and hadn't even turned it on in all the time that we were here). And it's not like I didn't have a wedding to plan or a thousand things to do besides the wedding. So I put it off, like any other person would do. At least, that's what I imagine any other person would do in that situation. If you don't drink coffee, but have a broken coffee maker, why bother getting it fixed? Oh, because three months down the line you'll find the best coffee in the world and will want to have it everyday. Because that's predictable.
Anyways, now we're stuck. And without voiding the warranty, there's not a whole lot we can do. Turnaround time on getting the console fixed is 2-3 weeks, and we need it working by April first.
Enough depressing updates. Wait, one quick one: I have to call the hotel representative and ask why she gave me a price and then changed it a month later. From an email she sent me: "The $500 facility fee is waived if you are spending $30 or more in food and beverage through the hotel." I told her we would be spending about $300 in wine and beer, and she said that would be fine, which I took to mean that was the final price before gratuity. Apparently what she meant was you have to spend at least $500, no matter what. So whatever. Thanks for being absolutely a pain in my ass to deal with. This had better be the reception of my dreams or we're going to have something to talk about the next day. And I know, I know, she seems really nice in person, and maybe she's just senile or forgetful or something, but if you are trying to build a business relationship you might want to not be a liar. Just saying.
/rant. Let's see, what's happy and uppity in the world of Anna today.
Here's a neat little look into what the weather was like last night and this morning. Last night we had clouds rolling into the valley area, and when the sun set it was a nice peachy color. It rained a little overnight, and now all that's left of the clouds are a few little marshmallow clumps sitting on top of the mountains. It's going to be a sunny, clear day today with a high of 68 degrees, thanks to the rain.
Something fun I get to do today: buy paints and start sketching the mountains. I'll probably go somewhere that allows me to view them without apartment complexes in the way. The nearby park will do the job, or maybe I'll drive up a little into the base of the mountains and have a nice, clear view.
As a parting gift, here's something that I can't get out of my head (probably because of how it tricks the eye into thinking it's a lot of work to make). Also, it's very, very pretty.
I'm telling you - if I had infinite moneys, I'd buy flowers every day. I'd also probably go on a vacation somewhere, but the flowers are definitely first on my to-do list. I cannot wait until my glads start budding!
We forgot one thing - the Xbox we have has a problem reading any disc that you put into it. H. fiddled around with the Xbox, and actually got it to work Sunday night. Monday I played during the day, figuring out the controls and whatnot, and H. played in the evening after work, perfecting his methods for getting batters out and scoring when his team was batting. We went to sleep thinking of how the night of April first would go, whether we would take a nap during the day and then stock up on Dr. Pepper or coffee or whathaveyou.
I turn on the console this morning, and it won't read the disc. Nothing that I do can fix it, and I'm not even sure H. can fix it when he gets back tonight. So now we're back to square one. The kicker is that when we first got here, H. had asked me to send the console off to the factory so that they could fix it and the warranty would stay in tact (if we really wanted to fix it, we would have to void the warranty on it). I didn't get around to calling them until early last week. At the time, we hadn't used it in three months, and I didn't forsee us using it at any point in the near future (we were going to delete our monthly memberships to save money, and hadn't even turned it on in all the time that we were here). And it's not like I didn't have a wedding to plan or a thousand things to do besides the wedding. So I put it off, like any other person would do. At least, that's what I imagine any other person would do in that situation. If you don't drink coffee, but have a broken coffee maker, why bother getting it fixed? Oh, because three months down the line you'll find the best coffee in the world and will want to have it everyday. Because that's predictable.
Anyways, now we're stuck. And without voiding the warranty, there's not a whole lot we can do. Turnaround time on getting the console fixed is 2-3 weeks, and we need it working by April first.
Enough depressing updates. Wait, one quick one: I have to call the hotel representative and ask why she gave me a price and then changed it a month later. From an email she sent me: "The $500 facility fee is waived if you are spending $30 or more in food and beverage through the hotel." I told her we would be spending about $300 in wine and beer, and she said that would be fine, which I took to mean that was the final price before gratuity. Apparently what she meant was you have to spend at least $500, no matter what. So whatever. Thanks for being absolutely a pain in my ass to deal with. This had better be the reception of my dreams or we're going to have something to talk about the next day. And I know, I know, she seems really nice in person, and maybe she's just senile or forgetful or something, but if you are trying to build a business relationship you might want to not be a liar. Just saying.
/rant. Let's see, what's happy and uppity in the world of Anna today.
Here's a neat little look into what the weather was like last night and this morning. Last night we had clouds rolling into the valley area, and when the sun set it was a nice peachy color. It rained a little overnight, and now all that's left of the clouds are a few little marshmallow clumps sitting on top of the mountains. It's going to be a sunny, clear day today with a high of 68 degrees, thanks to the rain.
Something fun I get to do today: buy paints and start sketching the mountains. I'll probably go somewhere that allows me to view them without apartment complexes in the way. The nearby park will do the job, or maybe I'll drive up a little into the base of the mountains and have a nice, clear view.
As a parting gift, here's something that I can't get out of my head (probably because of how it tricks the eye into thinking it's a lot of work to make). Also, it's very, very pretty.
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| Spring Floral How-To |
I'm telling you - if I had infinite moneys, I'd buy flowers every day. I'd also probably go on a vacation somewhere, but the flowers are definitely first on my to-do list. I cannot wait until my glads start budding!
Saturday, March 19
Bzzzz.
That's the sound of H. and I buzzing around town, doing the errands that we've put off until the weekend. H. is making preparations for attending graduate school in the fall, so he's going to be extra busy for the next couple weeks making sure he's taken whatever test it is they need him to take. We stopped by Borders for a book with a whole bunch of practice GRE's in it, so he can see what the test will be like.
Borders happens to be inside the only mall in town, so we decided to walk around and look at what the jewelry shops had to offer as far as wedding bands go. Even though local jewelry shops might have a better price, we will probably go with a national chain, just in case we need to get them resized or something. I think we'll end up going with the first store we went to - the people there were nice, they had what we wanted (14k yellow gold in certain widths), and they even offered 10% off of what was a pretty decent price to begin with. The other stores we went to didn't have enough yellow gold, only had diamond-encrusted or patterned rings, or the price just wasn't as good. So we'll probably go next weekend and get the rings. I'm wondering if I should go with a 5.5 size ring instead of a 6, because apparently I've lost a teeny bit of weight everywhere, including my fingers. The rings I have now fit, but they do slide around quite easily, so maybe I should go with a smaller size. H. is of the belief that we should get the smaller size now, then have it resized later if necessary.
After lunch, we headed over to Michaels to spend the surprise money H. got from an old wallet he forgot to pack (the brothers brought it over). He suggested we spend it on some canvases and brushes and paints for me. How sweet is he? We purchased the canvas today, but waited on everything else - I've got some Michaels coupons that are valid for this coming week. First up on the painting list is the gorgeous mountains that we see everyday. I wanted to start sketching them when we got back to the apartment, but somehow the mountains are foggy today. It's sunny, almost 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, but for some reason the mountains are not as distinct as they've been the past couple days. They better clear up by the time I get some paints!
Speaking of problems, I've been notified from both sides of the family that some people aren't getting their invitations. All I needed was a little more wedding stress. Some people are receiving them, some people are not, and some people had to pay extra postage to receive theirs. H. and I might just call everyone next week to see if they got the invitation and give them the information if they didn't. I wish I knew what was wrong with the invitations so I could go back in time with my handy dandy time machine and fix them. All I want for Christmas is a wedding that will go smoothly.
Time for something uplifting! Did I ever talk about wedding hairstyles? I finally found some pictures that I think will accurately represent what I want.
Something like that, a low bun. It'll probably end up looking like the top left one, mostly because of the texture of my hair. I might leave it up for the reception, I might take it down. It'll depend on the amount of hairspray in my hair.
I totally just got distracted for an hour looking at a new DIY wedding website. Oops! But hey, now I've got a whole slew of awesome ideas to share!
I saw something similar to this a while back - it had fewer steps and probably cost less, but I can't find the link anywhere. I really like the look of this one, though.
Again, I saw a tutorial for something like this that involved hairspray and balloons, although this seems like a more permanent decoration.
I only skimmed this one, but it could translate to decorations for the reception hall beautifully.
This would be neat to try if we had a double boiler and however much wax it uses. My only concern is that it's made of wax, right? What happens when you put a candle in it? Maybe we'd put LED candles in it. But maybe that would up the total cost. But they look so cool!
Alright, H. wants to watch some Netflix with me, since I've been blogging for a while now. Gotta run!
Borders happens to be inside the only mall in town, so we decided to walk around and look at what the jewelry shops had to offer as far as wedding bands go. Even though local jewelry shops might have a better price, we will probably go with a national chain, just in case we need to get them resized or something. I think we'll end up going with the first store we went to - the people there were nice, they had what we wanted (14k yellow gold in certain widths), and they even offered 10% off of what was a pretty decent price to begin with. The other stores we went to didn't have enough yellow gold, only had diamond-encrusted or patterned rings, or the price just wasn't as good. So we'll probably go next weekend and get the rings. I'm wondering if I should go with a 5.5 size ring instead of a 6, because apparently I've lost a teeny bit of weight everywhere, including my fingers. The rings I have now fit, but they do slide around quite easily, so maybe I should go with a smaller size. H. is of the belief that we should get the smaller size now, then have it resized later if necessary.
After lunch, we headed over to Michaels to spend the surprise money H. got from an old wallet he forgot to pack (the brothers brought it over). He suggested we spend it on some canvases and brushes and paints for me. How sweet is he? We purchased the canvas today, but waited on everything else - I've got some Michaels coupons that are valid for this coming week. First up on the painting list is the gorgeous mountains that we see everyday. I wanted to start sketching them when we got back to the apartment, but somehow the mountains are foggy today. It's sunny, almost 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, but for some reason the mountains are not as distinct as they've been the past couple days. They better clear up by the time I get some paints!
Speaking of problems, I've been notified from both sides of the family that some people aren't getting their invitations. All I needed was a little more wedding stress. Some people are receiving them, some people are not, and some people had to pay extra postage to receive theirs. H. and I might just call everyone next week to see if they got the invitation and give them the information if they didn't. I wish I knew what was wrong with the invitations so I could go back in time with my handy dandy time machine and fix them. All I want for Christmas is a wedding that will go smoothly.
Time for something uplifting! Did I ever talk about wedding hairstyles? I finally found some pictures that I think will accurately represent what I want.
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| The Knot |
Something like that, a low bun. It'll probably end up looking like the top left one, mostly because of the texture of my hair. I might leave it up for the reception, I might take it down. It'll depend on the amount of hairspray in my hair.
I totally just got distracted for an hour looking at a new DIY wedding website. Oops! But hey, now I've got a whole slew of awesome ideas to share!
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| DIY chandelier |
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| DIY String Chandelier |
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| Ruffle Garland |
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| Water Balloon Luminaries |
Alright, H. wants to watch some Netflix with me, since I've been blogging for a while now. Gotta run!
Friday, March 18
Lobsters & Lace
I tried out a new recipe last night, something called Cheese and Herb Puffs off of Rachel Ray's website. Instead of making thirty or so teeny tiny little puffs, I just spooned a good amount onto baking sheets, making about twelve of them. Little did I know that they would really really puff up in the oven.
H. and I ate two a piece last night, and even though it ruined our dinner, it was totally worth it! I'm trying to go easy on them today, because otherwise H. won't have anything for dinner tonight. Mwahaha. I'm definitely positively absolutely fur shur that these are the biscuits at Red Lobster, by the way. Actually, these are lighter and fluffier than their biscuits, which makes them awesomer.
Speaking of awesomer, on one of the wedding blogs I look at for ideas ofwhat not to do what to do at our upcoming wedding, I found this drop dead gorgeous lace-inspired cake.
It doesn't even have any flowers! I'm imagining asking for this on my cake would result in upping the price by about a hundred dollars, but it is pretty to look at, isn't it? I thought I would have a problem with the half-layers in between the lace layers, but somehow I don't.
This next cake has a lace detail that is a little harder to see at first, but I like the idea of impression in cake frosting.
Without the flower, and with a different color of band around the cake (dusty pink, perhaps?), this would be a super pretty cake. I like the subtle detail, and I wonder if this would be less expensive than piping, since all the cake baker has to do is press lace up against the frosting and make an impression. Amirite or amirite?
I cannot wait for Spring to officially arrive on Sunday!
H. and I ate two a piece last night, and even though it ruined our dinner, it was totally worth it! I'm trying to go easy on them today, because otherwise H. won't have anything for dinner tonight. Mwahaha. I'm definitely positively absolutely fur shur that these are the biscuits at Red Lobster, by the way. Actually, these are lighter and fluffier than their biscuits, which makes them awesomer.
Speaking of awesomer, on one of the wedding blogs I look at for ideas of
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| Wedding Photo Shoot by Sedona Wedding Studio |
This next cake has a lace detail that is a little harder to see at first, but I like the idea of impression in cake frosting.
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| An Eclectic Chicago Wedding |
I cannot wait for Spring to officially arrive on Sunday!
Wednesday, March 16
Bouquet Finalists (Also, Dessert!)
In the neverending search for the most fantastic wedding flowers, I believe we have a couple winners in the bunch. I know I've already posted these, but here they are all in one post for easy referencing.
1. Light pink bouquet. This contestant features some sort of flower in wonderful shades of pink and orange and purple, and prefers long walks on the beach.Why yes indeed there are some roses tucked in there, although I think an all whatever-this-flower-is bouquet would be very lovely, as the different shades provide lots of life to this arrangement.
2. Orange bouquet. This contestant features its use of multiple types of flowers (dahlias, succulents, those little beady things) as well as a range of colors. To the question of whether I want succulents, I don't mind them, but I don't want them all over the place either. I'm coming from the desert where we have cacti all over the place here, and I want actual flowers for my wedding. I have heard that dahlias are on the expensive side, so if we chose this color of bouquet, we might have a different flower as the main attraction.
3. Sweet pea bouquet. I love love love this bouquet. Maybe it's the flower itself, maybe it's the color, and maybe it's the fact that it's a nice small bouquet and nothing too huge. I would really like to know the price for an all sweet pea bouquet, and I hope that it isn't extremely expensive.
4. Pale bouquet. Originally, I wanted to have this lovely dusty pink bouquet, but now I think I would rather have the pop of color. What I do like about this bouquet, though, are the little wisps of grass coming out from underneath the bouquet. So I guess my question as far as pricing goes is how much would it cost to have a little green in the bouquet?
So the final order of the flower finalists will be 1, 3, 2, 4. (I would go back and edit it, but I think it would be more trouble than it's worth.) Once we get the prices on these guys, it'll be nice to finally have that piece of budget information.
And now for some dessert table inspiration.
White chocolate dipped marshmallows with colorful sprinkles. Brilliant! And how easy would that be to do? Superbly easy.
If this recipe was a little simpler, I would definitely want these cute dudes at the reception. White chocolate raspberry tarts, people. Delicioso.
So I figure it's only fair to show you guys what I would like to accomplish in a dessert table for the wedding. I haven't quite decided yet if I want the cake on the table, or if the cake should go on its own table, but here's an image that's close to what I'm envisioning.
If we keep the cake on the table, it should go in the middle, and then we have lovely desserts on various trays or platforms around it. There could also be those lovely fabric pomanders hanging above/behind the table. I think for clarity we should put either one sign with a list of everything on it or individual smaller signs (like in the picture) of the desserts, so that anyone with an allergy can be aware of what's in the desserts.
And that's that! Have a nice night!
1. Light pink bouquet. This contestant features some sort of flower in wonderful shades of pink and orange and purple, and prefers long walks on the beach.Why yes indeed there are some roses tucked in there, although I think an all whatever-this-flower-is bouquet would be very lovely, as the different shades provide lots of life to this arrangement.
2. Orange bouquet. This contestant features its use of multiple types of flowers (dahlias, succulents, those little beady things) as well as a range of colors. To the question of whether I want succulents, I don't mind them, but I don't want them all over the place either. I'm coming from the desert where we have cacti all over the place here, and I want actual flowers for my wedding. I have heard that dahlias are on the expensive side, so if we chose this color of bouquet, we might have a different flower as the main attraction.
3. Sweet pea bouquet. I love love love this bouquet. Maybe it's the flower itself, maybe it's the color, and maybe it's the fact that it's a nice small bouquet and nothing too huge. I would really like to know the price for an all sweet pea bouquet, and I hope that it isn't extremely expensive.
4. Pale bouquet. Originally, I wanted to have this lovely dusty pink bouquet, but now I think I would rather have the pop of color. What I do like about this bouquet, though, are the little wisps of grass coming out from underneath the bouquet. So I guess my question as far as pricing goes is how much would it cost to have a little green in the bouquet?
So the final order of the flower finalists will be 1, 3, 2, 4. (I would go back and edit it, but I think it would be more trouble than it's worth.) Once we get the prices on these guys, it'll be nice to finally have that piece of budget information.
And now for some dessert table inspiration.
So I figure it's only fair to show you guys what I would like to accomplish in a dessert table for the wedding. I haven't quite decided yet if I want the cake on the table, or if the cake should go on its own table, but here's an image that's close to what I'm envisioning.
And that's that! Have a nice night!
Tuesday, March 15
Yeehaw! (Part 2)
First off, here are the rest of the videos documenting the weekend:
Pitching
John Thomas
Dennis Quaid
Pima Air Museum
Baseball
So let's start where we left off - the guys went to the Pima Air & Space Museum on Saturday whilst I stayed home with shin splints (cue Advil + magnesium regimen). Since we would be leaving early Sunday morning in order to get to the baseball game early, we decided to go to Mass on Saturday evening. I checked the diocese' website to see where the nearest church was, and we decided on St. Pius X as our Saturday Mass. Everything seemed normal at first, but as the Mass progressed, we started noticing little things that worried us. At first, I was okay with the fact that the priest had a mullet and a handlebar mustache. But I was not okay when we were saying the Our Father, that they left out a whole part, then went straight into saying Peace without any kind of a break. They replaced "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you ..." with "By the breaking of the bread, we will know." Then as we were kneeling, as people were getting up to receive Communion, I realized that we hadn't said the Apostle's Creed. I didn't know what to do because our row was already getting up, so I just went with the flow and wondered what the boys were thinking, if they had realized it, too. I get to the front of the line to receive communion, and the person standing there hands me a square piece of bread. My heart stopped, but the pressure of holding up the line was overwhelming, and I took the bread that looked nothing like the communion I'm used to. I went back to my seat, and when the four of us began to kneel, we all saw that none of us were comfortable there anymore. I'm sure all of us were asking God to forgive us for what we just did, that we didn't know this was a liberal Catholic church. [H. had some coworkers warn him that some of the churches around here did things a little differently, and to watch out for the liberal churches.]
As the service ended (and I think the priest skipped another part of the traditional exit), the four of us got out of there as fast as possible, and we waited until we were in H.'s car to discuss what the heck just happened. It was like a rush of words and anxiety and what do we do now to counteract what just happened. Do we go to confession? We hadn't intended on going to a non-Mass. We collectively decided to talk to the priests at our home churches when this weekend was over. For me, that means finding a real priest and asking what it is I do now. I just don't want to have that gut-wrenching experience again.
For dinner Saturday night we had In-And-Out Burger, which is one thousand times better when you order your burger "Animal Style", because then they mix in onions and their special delicious sauce in with the burger as they grill it. Infinitely better than just their regular burger. We ate dinner right outside the restaurant on one of the tables, which was a good idea up until a bee wouldn't leave us alone.
After dinner, we went to one of the local bowling alleys to see what the prices were like. Turns out after 9:30pm, they have "Cosmic Bowling"! It involves blacklights and laser disco balls and fog machines and loud club music! I can't remember how many games we bowled, but I think after the first couple we decided to do one game left-handed. That lasted about five or six frames, and then H. wanted to do something different for each remaining frame. We did the granny bowl, standing with your toes on the line, through the legs bowling, backwards bowling, and some that I'm probably forgetting. It was so much fun! I really wish we had brought the camera along with us to take pictures of the hilarity of it all.
The next day we set out fairly early for Spring Training in Surprise, AZ. We packed water bottles and some beer and sandwiches in a cooler, some popcorn in a plastic bowl, and some chips and dip for our picnic on the lawn of the homerun deck in the stadium. We found a nice spot on the homerun lawn somewhere between first base and second, and got to enjoy the sights and sounds of a baseball game. If you watched the Baseball video, you can see kind of where we were and what all we could see. It was a lovely time up until about the fifth or sixth inning, when I was just beaten down by the sun. While there was a cool breeze going, sitting still in the sun made me feel like a piece of meat cooking. I could have sworn that I had a sunburn, but the next day it turned out to be a tan (even though I put on SPF 50 sunscreen). H. was so sweet and took me to get a Powerade and a pretzel - I must've eaten the pretzel too fast or something, because that coupled with the heat made me feel like I was going to throw up. I sat in the bathroom (the only shade) for what seemed like an hour, although it was probably only twenty minutes or so. The guys were nice enough to tell me that we were leaving (they said the Rangers were losing anyways), and we started heading back home. I was overcome with exhaustion, and fell swiftly asleep for quite a while on the trip back. One of the guys got a great picture of me sleeping with my mouth open.
Sunday night ... I forget what we had for dinner. I think it was lasagna, but I could be wrong. The guys wanted to stay up and watch a movie, and I wasn't quite tired yet, so I decided to watch some of it. They picked Paranormal Activity, and I watched about forty five minutes before I gave up on it. The next morning, the two brothers said it was a good thing I went to bed when I did - they thought I would've had nightmares if I stayed longer, so go me!
Monday Monday Monday. We (the two brothers and I) had a nice lazy day. Waffles in the morning as we saw H. off to work, then doing dishes and watching The Price Is Right, followed by Panda Express for lunch. We then headed to Mens Warehouse to get the two boys fitted for tuxes for the wedding. It was pretty funny watching them trying to figure out how tall they were and what their shoe size was. Now all I need to do is get H. in the shop to have him fitted as well.
After tuxes, we headed to DSW on a whim. Those boys thought it would be fun to stop in and look at their clearance shoes, but little did they know I was there on a mission to find athletic shoes! Much to my dismay, all of the shoes were at least sixty dollars (even with the clearance discount). The guys wanted to leave, so although I hadn't scouted out my entire section, I drove them over to Fry's (the food store) to pick up oats to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The recipe I found online ended up making at least three dozen, so I sent the majority home with the boys. There was no way H. and I could have eaten all those cookies.
Driving to the airport was not as complicated as I thought it would be, thank goodness. I gave the guys each a hug and a farewell before leaving the airport. Such nice boys!
And that concludes our weekend! Today I am going to vacuum the apartment - I meant to do that before our guests arrived, so it's not like they tracked mud everywhere or anything. Also, lots of laundry, and I need to run to the store to grab some things for din dins tonight.
Wedding Countdown: 46 days to go! (That's a pretty small number, right? It's a good thing I get an email every couple of days reminding me how many days I have left, otherwise that number might give me a heart attack. :3 )
Pitching
John Thomas
Dennis Quaid
Pima Air Museum
Baseball
So let's start where we left off - the guys went to the Pima Air & Space Museum on Saturday whilst I stayed home with shin splints (cue Advil + magnesium regimen). Since we would be leaving early Sunday morning in order to get to the baseball game early, we decided to go to Mass on Saturday evening. I checked the diocese' website to see where the nearest church was, and we decided on St. Pius X as our Saturday Mass. Everything seemed normal at first, but as the Mass progressed, we started noticing little things that worried us. At first, I was okay with the fact that the priest had a mullet and a handlebar mustache. But I was not okay when we were saying the Our Father, that they left out a whole part, then went straight into saying Peace without any kind of a break. They replaced "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you ..." with "By the breaking of the bread, we will know." Then as we were kneeling, as people were getting up to receive Communion, I realized that we hadn't said the Apostle's Creed. I didn't know what to do because our row was already getting up, so I just went with the flow and wondered what the boys were thinking, if they had realized it, too. I get to the front of the line to receive communion, and the person standing there hands me a square piece of bread. My heart stopped, but the pressure of holding up the line was overwhelming, and I took the bread that looked nothing like the communion I'm used to. I went back to my seat, and when the four of us began to kneel, we all saw that none of us were comfortable there anymore. I'm sure all of us were asking God to forgive us for what we just did, that we didn't know this was a liberal Catholic church. [H. had some coworkers warn him that some of the churches around here did things a little differently, and to watch out for the liberal churches.]
As the service ended (and I think the priest skipped another part of the traditional exit), the four of us got out of there as fast as possible, and we waited until we were in H.'s car to discuss what the heck just happened. It was like a rush of words and anxiety and what do we do now to counteract what just happened. Do we go to confession? We hadn't intended on going to a non-Mass. We collectively decided to talk to the priests at our home churches when this weekend was over. For me, that means finding a real priest and asking what it is I do now. I just don't want to have that gut-wrenching experience again.
For dinner Saturday night we had In-And-Out Burger, which is one thousand times better when you order your burger "Animal Style", because then they mix in onions and their special delicious sauce in with the burger as they grill it. Infinitely better than just their regular burger. We ate dinner right outside the restaurant on one of the tables, which was a good idea up until a bee wouldn't leave us alone.
After dinner, we went to one of the local bowling alleys to see what the prices were like. Turns out after 9:30pm, they have "Cosmic Bowling"! It involves blacklights and laser disco balls and fog machines and loud club music! I can't remember how many games we bowled, but I think after the first couple we decided to do one game left-handed. That lasted about five or six frames, and then H. wanted to do something different for each remaining frame. We did the granny bowl, standing with your toes on the line, through the legs bowling, backwards bowling, and some that I'm probably forgetting. It was so much fun! I really wish we had brought the camera along with us to take pictures of the hilarity of it all.
The next day we set out fairly early for Spring Training in Surprise, AZ. We packed water bottles and some beer and sandwiches in a cooler, some popcorn in a plastic bowl, and some chips and dip for our picnic on the lawn of the homerun deck in the stadium. We found a nice spot on the homerun lawn somewhere between first base and second, and got to enjoy the sights and sounds of a baseball game. If you watched the Baseball video, you can see kind of where we were and what all we could see. It was a lovely time up until about the fifth or sixth inning, when I was just beaten down by the sun. While there was a cool breeze going, sitting still in the sun made me feel like a piece of meat cooking. I could have sworn that I had a sunburn, but the next day it turned out to be a tan (even though I put on SPF 50 sunscreen). H. was so sweet and took me to get a Powerade and a pretzel - I must've eaten the pretzel too fast or something, because that coupled with the heat made me feel like I was going to throw up. I sat in the bathroom (the only shade) for what seemed like an hour, although it was probably only twenty minutes or so. The guys were nice enough to tell me that we were leaving (they said the Rangers were losing anyways), and we started heading back home. I was overcome with exhaustion, and fell swiftly asleep for quite a while on the trip back. One of the guys got a great picture of me sleeping with my mouth open.
Sunday night ... I forget what we had for dinner. I think it was lasagna, but I could be wrong. The guys wanted to stay up and watch a movie, and I wasn't quite tired yet, so I decided to watch some of it. They picked Paranormal Activity, and I watched about forty five minutes before I gave up on it. The next morning, the two brothers said it was a good thing I went to bed when I did - they thought I would've had nightmares if I stayed longer, so go me!
Monday Monday Monday. We (the two brothers and I) had a nice lazy day. Waffles in the morning as we saw H. off to work, then doing dishes and watching The Price Is Right, followed by Panda Express for lunch. We then headed to Mens Warehouse to get the two boys fitted for tuxes for the wedding. It was pretty funny watching them trying to figure out how tall they were and what their shoe size was. Now all I need to do is get H. in the shop to have him fitted as well.
After tuxes, we headed to DSW on a whim. Those boys thought it would be fun to stop in and look at their clearance shoes, but little did they know I was there on a mission to find athletic shoes! Much to my dismay, all of the shoes were at least sixty dollars (even with the clearance discount). The guys wanted to leave, so although I hadn't scouted out my entire section, I drove them over to Fry's (the food store) to pick up oats to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The recipe I found online ended up making at least three dozen, so I sent the majority home with the boys. There was no way H. and I could have eaten all those cookies.
Driving to the airport was not as complicated as I thought it would be, thank goodness. I gave the guys each a hug and a farewell before leaving the airport. Such nice boys!
And that concludes our weekend! Today I am going to vacuum the apartment - I meant to do that before our guests arrived, so it's not like they tracked mud everywhere or anything. Also, lots of laundry, and I need to run to the store to grab some things for din dins tonight.
Wedding Countdown: 46 days to go! (That's a pretty small number, right? It's a good thing I get an email every couple of days reminding me how many days I have left, otherwise that number might give me a heart attack. :3 )
Saturday, March 12
Yeehaw!
Friday was such a blast! After having waffles + fruit salad + whip cream for breakfast, the lot of us watched The Price is Right while everyone showered and got ready for the day and whatnot. For lunch, we had tuna salad sandwiches, then we all headed out to a nearby park (it has grass!). The boys taught me how to throw a frisbee, and while my aim still isn't perfect, I did make great strides in keeping the disc level enough for it to go a short distance. There was also a baseball and a couple gloves, so I learned how to be a professional baseball player, too.
One of the gloves had its strings break (due to wear and tear and old-ness), so we switched to pitching and catching up against the back of a baseball field metal screen wall thing. It's where the end of a baseball field would be, with the metal fence and a taller fence on top to prevent homerun balls from escaping the field entirely. I'm hoping to figure out how to upload a video from my computer onto here, because then you could really see the field and everything. H. is currently working on that technical problem.
After baseball, we found a Sonic nearby and slurped down some slushies and ice cream. We were sitting in the middle, where you can order and still sit at a table, and there was this cute little girl there with her mom ordering lunch. Except instead of deciding what she wanted for lunch, this girl just kept saying, "Mommy! Mommy! I ... LOVE that car!" It was so cute!
Then we drove over to the only mall here (that I know of) and walked around looking at all the stores. Apparently, directly across from a Hot Topic, they are going to open up another Hot Topic. Also, there were a number of jewelry stores, which I particularly need to remember because we still need our wedding bands, and I don't really trust the local jewelry stores (maybe I should?). I'll have to scout out their prices. Helzberg has these beautiful and wonderfully priced bands, but printed on the inside is the name of the line they are from, Artiste. Who's gonna buy that? I looked through some booklet from one of the stores, and apparently nobody does yellow gold these days anymore. I just don't get that.
Inside the mall was a theater, so we watched Battle: LA. It was better than we expected, and even with some minor drawbacks, I feel it was a very well done movie. What I didn't like were all of the people getting up and going to the bathroom at various points during the movie. Around seven people did that. Blarg! For the first five minutes of the movie, I successfully suppressed my desire for some popcorn, and it really only worked because I know I bought popcorn at the store just in case the guys wanted to watch a movie this weekend. So that's definitely on my list of snacks for today.
After the movie, we returned to the apartment, and I made fish tacos (with a cucumber and sour cream sauce) whilst the guys watched Wheel of Fortune and The Office. The fish tacos were a big hit, but I ended up making much too much, so we'll probably have those for lunch or something today. We've also got lasagna to eat up, so I don't have to make dinner tonight! Right after dinner, we played this game called The Pit. I had never heard of it, but you have nine cards in your hand, and there are four types of cards. The object of the game is to get all of the same type of card in your hand, then ring this tiny little bell to say that you've won (one of those bellhop service bells that makes a distinct ding! sound). It's supposed to be like the NYSE, where people yell out "I've got 2!" and then two people switch their cards. It pretty much ended up in a tickling fight amongst the guys, with elbows and knees going into people, so I stepped in and made them do dishes before they really got angry with each other. The guys wanted to watch a zombie movie, so I went to bed instead (I was super tired).
This morning I woke up with shin splints, so I am declining to join the bros on their adventure to the Pima Air and Space Museum (H. and I went about a month ago as a surprise trip). As much as I would love to go, I don't want to walk everywhere that I know they will want to go, but hopefully they'll remember that they have the camera with them and take some pictures of everything that they find neato. While they're gone I'm on a mission to do laundry and clean things up, because making dinner last night was kind of a fiasco. We have enough space to cook for two people, but cooking for four seems to complicate things somehow. Not enough counter space for things to be placed and such. So that's on the to-do list today.
Tomorrow will be a little grueling - we're going to another spring training game in Surprise, this time to see the Rangers v. Giants. The only problem is that apparently the seating is all sold out, so we will be sitting on the lawn in the homerun porch area. Translation: tomorrow I will need to bathe in sunscreen to prevent any burns (I got a minor sunburn on Wednesday on my neck/chest area when I was walking to the game ... we put on sunscreen when we got to our seats, so apparently that little sun will burn me. H. believes it's because I'm a vampire).
Glad update! If I hadn't lost our ruler, I would know exactly how tall they are, but for now we'll just estimate with 8.5"x11" paper.
The plants are approximately 22" tall, which seems like a really high number for some reason. The info on the bag I got the bulbs in says that they will grow to be 48" tall. When I bought the bulbs, I thought that was best-case-scenario height, but maybe they will get that tall. I've already got plans to use paper towel rolls to support the plants once they start flowering, but as you can see, one of the little guys is already trying to bend towards the sunlight. I try to rotate them around to prevent this, but it's probably inevitable. I might end up gluing two tubes together, as the one just comes up to the halfway point on their 22" side.
That's all for now, tune in next time for "that's the way baseball go"!
EDIT: It's taking forever, but I've got some of the videos uploaded for you all to look at and enjoy. One thing you should know is that I had no idea that you can't simply 'rotate' the video like you would a picture in a graphics editor. So some of the video is vertical instead of horizontal, and for that I apologize.
Gilly Dance
Frisbee
One of the gloves had its strings break (due to wear and tear and old-ness), so we switched to pitching and catching up against the back of a baseball field metal screen wall thing. It's where the end of a baseball field would be, with the metal fence and a taller fence on top to prevent homerun balls from escaping the field entirely. I'm hoping to figure out how to upload a video from my computer onto here, because then you could really see the field and everything. H. is currently working on that technical problem.
After baseball, we found a Sonic nearby and slurped down some slushies and ice cream. We were sitting in the middle, where you can order and still sit at a table, and there was this cute little girl there with her mom ordering lunch. Except instead of deciding what she wanted for lunch, this girl just kept saying, "Mommy! Mommy! I ... LOVE that car!" It was so cute!
Then we drove over to the only mall here (that I know of) and walked around looking at all the stores. Apparently, directly across from a Hot Topic, they are going to open up another Hot Topic. Also, there were a number of jewelry stores, which I particularly need to remember because we still need our wedding bands, and I don't really trust the local jewelry stores (maybe I should?). I'll have to scout out their prices. Helzberg has these beautiful and wonderfully priced bands, but printed on the inside is the name of the line they are from, Artiste. Who's gonna buy that? I looked through some booklet from one of the stores, and apparently nobody does yellow gold these days anymore. I just don't get that.
Inside the mall was a theater, so we watched Battle: LA. It was better than we expected, and even with some minor drawbacks, I feel it was a very well done movie. What I didn't like were all of the people getting up and going to the bathroom at various points during the movie. Around seven people did that. Blarg! For the first five minutes of the movie, I successfully suppressed my desire for some popcorn, and it really only worked because I know I bought popcorn at the store just in case the guys wanted to watch a movie this weekend. So that's definitely on my list of snacks for today.
After the movie, we returned to the apartment, and I made fish tacos (with a cucumber and sour cream sauce) whilst the guys watched Wheel of Fortune and The Office. The fish tacos were a big hit, but I ended up making much too much, so we'll probably have those for lunch or something today. We've also got lasagna to eat up, so I don't have to make dinner tonight! Right after dinner, we played this game called The Pit. I had never heard of it, but you have nine cards in your hand, and there are four types of cards. The object of the game is to get all of the same type of card in your hand, then ring this tiny little bell to say that you've won (one of those bellhop service bells that makes a distinct ding! sound). It's supposed to be like the NYSE, where people yell out "I've got 2!" and then two people switch their cards. It pretty much ended up in a tickling fight amongst the guys, with elbows and knees going into people, so I stepped in and made them do dishes before they really got angry with each other. The guys wanted to watch a zombie movie, so I went to bed instead (I was super tired).
This morning I woke up with shin splints, so I am declining to join the bros on their adventure to the Pima Air and Space Museum (H. and I went about a month ago as a surprise trip). As much as I would love to go, I don't want to walk everywhere that I know they will want to go, but hopefully they'll remember that they have the camera with them and take some pictures of everything that they find neato. While they're gone I'm on a mission to do laundry and clean things up, because making dinner last night was kind of a fiasco. We have enough space to cook for two people, but cooking for four seems to complicate things somehow. Not enough counter space for things to be placed and such. So that's on the to-do list today.
Tomorrow will be a little grueling - we're going to another spring training game in Surprise, this time to see the Rangers v. Giants. The only problem is that apparently the seating is all sold out, so we will be sitting on the lawn in the homerun porch area. Translation: tomorrow I will need to bathe in sunscreen to prevent any burns (I got a minor sunburn on Wednesday on my neck/chest area when I was walking to the game ... we put on sunscreen when we got to our seats, so apparently that little sun will burn me. H. believes it's because I'm a vampire).
Glad update! If I hadn't lost our ruler, I would know exactly how tall they are, but for now we'll just estimate with 8.5"x11" paper.
The plants are approximately 22" tall, which seems like a really high number for some reason. The info on the bag I got the bulbs in says that they will grow to be 48" tall. When I bought the bulbs, I thought that was best-case-scenario height, but maybe they will get that tall. I've already got plans to use paper towel rolls to support the plants once they start flowering, but as you can see, one of the little guys is already trying to bend towards the sunlight. I try to rotate them around to prevent this, but it's probably inevitable. I might end up gluing two tubes together, as the one just comes up to the halfway point on their 22" side.
That's all for now, tune in next time for "that's the way baseball go"!
EDIT: It's taking forever, but I've got some of the videos uploaded for you all to look at and enjoy. One thing you should know is that I had no idea that you can't simply 'rotate' the video like you would a picture in a graphics editor. So some of the video is vertical instead of horizontal, and for that I apologize.
Gilly Dance
Frisbee
Thursday, March 10
New Hair!
I went and got a haircut this morning, and I absolutely love what she did. The salon that I went to has this lady there that specializes in curly hair, and she obviously knows her stuff.
Yeah, I'm pretty excited about my new 'do'. And while I should probably tell you guys how awesome yesterday was, I've gotta do some laundry and figure out what we're gonna eat tonight because the brothers are coming! I'm sure they'll be hungry when they get here (I think it's a three hour flight), so I better have something ready when they walk through the door. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the store I go!
Yeah, I'm pretty excited about my new 'do'. And while I should probably tell you guys how awesome yesterday was, I've gotta do some laundry and figure out what we're gonna eat tonight because the brothers are coming! I'm sure they'll be hungry when they get here (I think it's a three hour flight), so I better have something ready when they walk through the door. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the store I go!
Wednesday, March 9
Sunshine!
H. and I had a wonderful day at the ballpark! I would go into excruciating detail about our day, but I need to go sleep because I am exhausted. One fun fact about today is that H. and I saw a total of 19 police cars on our trip. We saw 10 on the way there (not including two parked in a Target parking lot), and 9 on the way back (not including three cop cars that had to back up the one that had pulled over some sedan on the side of the highway). So I guess our overall total is 24. Pretty unbelievable.
Tuesday, March 8
Well Well Well
Spending the weekend at a hotel with 18 other couples and 2 presenting couples took a toll on our weekend. While we did learn a little about ourselves and our future (H. will say he already knew everything), it seemed as though the weekend could have been condensed into one brutal, grueling day. Also, we're still trying to decide if we should call the Engaged Encounter people to see if we really do get $120 back, or if their brochure was out of date. I would have liked the weekend more if they had given us any control over the events at all. They said they weren't giving us an itinerary/agenda for a reason, but I can't figure out what that reason was. They would talk about a subject for half an hour, give us some questions to write answers to separately for fifteen minutes, then couples would join up and discuss their answers. Sometimes the questions were had a valid point, but sometimes the questions would repeat between lectures, or ask about how we were going to blend our stepchildren, or how we would blend our different faiths. I realize that they are trying to incorporate everyone, but it felt like if we didn't write for the whole 15 minutes, they thought we were slacking off. I would like to stress that the two couples who ran the weekend seem like nice people, but the weekend could have been organized better.
Tomorrow, H. and I will be driving up to a city called Surprise that houses the Rangers during their spring training. H. is obviously super excited about this trip, as The Ticket will be there, and we can meet both Rangers and radio personalities. The high for tomorrow is 81 degrees, although I hope it stays more along the lines of today's high (71 degrees).
This weekend is definitely something to look forward to! H.'s bros are going to check in on us and see how we're doing, and I'm really excited to cook for them (this will be the first time I've cooked for the brothers, mwahahaha!). I'm sure H. has a whole slew of things to do planned for the gang, but has he let me in on it? Nah, I'll just enjoy the surprise.
In my never-ending quest for flowers that I hope are cheap as bouquets, I've come across another picture that I really love. As much as I love the (what I also agree to be) sweet pea bouquet, if the flowers are very fragile I would be worried about how I'm carrying them and whatnot. Also, I have no idea what the bridesmaids would be carrying (green? white? other colors?). I think it would be best to go with a mixed bouquet, so that I have many many options when it comes to bridesmaid bouquets as well as boutonnieres, now that I think of it. So here's a picture of my newest inspiration:
This would be the bouquet I have, and then we could use the same flowers in other colors (or other flowers in the same colors) for the bridesmaids, and then the groomsmen can just have whatever looks the least girliest. Another color scheme I'm thinking about is this one:
I love love love the peachy colors. And maybe with a bouquet like (peach, pink, green, yellow) it will be easier to figure out what the other floral arrangements are going to be like. (I know, I'm crazy thinking this much about flowers. I should probably just talk to a florist already.)
I probably won't update until after the weekend, so see you then!
Tomorrow, H. and I will be driving up to a city called Surprise that houses the Rangers during their spring training. H. is obviously super excited about this trip, as The Ticket will be there, and we can meet both Rangers and radio personalities. The high for tomorrow is 81 degrees, although I hope it stays more along the lines of today's high (71 degrees).
This weekend is definitely something to look forward to! H.'s bros are going to check in on us and see how we're doing, and I'm really excited to cook for them (this will be the first time I've cooked for the brothers, mwahahaha!). I'm sure H. has a whole slew of things to do planned for the gang, but has he let me in on it? Nah, I'll just enjoy the surprise.
In my never-ending quest for flowers that I hope are cheap as bouquets, I've come across another picture that I really love. As much as I love the (what I also agree to be) sweet pea bouquet, if the flowers are very fragile I would be worried about how I'm carrying them and whatnot. Also, I have no idea what the bridesmaids would be carrying (green? white? other colors?). I think it would be best to go with a mixed bouquet, so that I have many many options when it comes to bridesmaid bouquets as well as boutonnieres, now that I think of it. So here's a picture of my newest inspiration:
I probably won't update until after the weekend, so see you then!
Thursday, March 3
Nothing But Glads
I figured it was time for a gladiola update. I know all of you are on the edge of your seats, just dying to see how my gladiolas are coming along, so let's check them out!
Well, they be a-growin'. Two of them are doing very well for themselves, and one is just popping up out of the ground. I thought that the middle bulb was a dud, and went in to remove it when I noticed a short little stalk growing out from it. It's growing pretty close to one of the sides instead of up through the middle, so I've got the lamp working on it to straighten it out (hopefully).
It's that little white bud sneaking up out of the dirt. I've read that glads generally need stakes to strengthen the stalks once the flowers start appearing. I'll probably just forage around the apartment for twigs and sticks, then find something like string to tie 'em up. If we get that far. We'll see!
I just realized that I have no idea what we're having for dinner. Internet recipes to the rescue!
Well, they be a-growin'. Two of them are doing very well for themselves, and one is just popping up out of the ground. I thought that the middle bulb was a dud, and went in to remove it when I noticed a short little stalk growing out from it. It's growing pretty close to one of the sides instead of up through the middle, so I've got the lamp working on it to straighten it out (hopefully).
It's that little white bud sneaking up out of the dirt. I've read that glads generally need stakes to strengthen the stalks once the flowers start appearing. I'll probably just forage around the apartment for twigs and sticks, then find something like string to tie 'em up. If we get that far. We'll see!
I just realized that I have no idea what we're having for dinner. Internet recipes to the rescue!
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