picture pages picture pages

Here are more pictures.

First my new apartment
with my itty bitty kitchen
Check out the photo set here

Next some snaps of the dress

and me taking ridiculous pictures of myself in it.
See more here,
because I am sure you need multiple blurry pictures of a fluffy (off) white dress.

wedding wedding wedding

I need to settle all sorts of wedding stuff before I can start to do all sorts of moving to L.A. preparations (and truthfully somewhere in there I need to fit in work, internship and school work but that is another whiney post for another time). So this weekend I started to get things done for everything, I pried myself away from job listings and apartment listings to get out of the house and get things done. When I got home I was even so motivated as to organize my desk and computer and upload some old photographs. If you are feeling in need of some wedding rants by all means read on. If you know it will make you crazy stop now. And as usual if you have any questions or advice for the L.A. move let me know.

The Dress

Yesterday and today I went wedding dress shopping with my friend Lili. This was helpful in avoiding any actual thesis/portfolio writing. So I felt it was a good compromise, work & dress shopping instead of work & schoolwork. Of course this just means that I again need to alter my calendar and move back when I am writing what and try to convince myself to write more after school (with the kids) and class (with the other teachers) during the week.
And today I was able to cross something off the wedding list when I finally bought the dress. Or at least put 60% down on The Dress. I (like so many girls I know) went completely against everything I said I wanted in a dress to buy one that truly flattered my figure. I thought because I was tall I could look good in a simple slip dress (what my mother continually refers to as the Carolyn-Bisset-Kennedy-type-dress), but like my shorter friends I too looked like I was tromping around in my mommy's night gown in that type dress.
So the dress, the dress is ivory and plain and strapless (because in the early 2000's it is apparently only possible to buy strapless or halter style dresses and again you hafta go with what flatters). It is long and A-line and has the dreaded crinoline that I thought I could avoid. It has (wait for it Nora) a BOW. I love ribbons and it has a nice ribbon, high on the waist. The ribbon I ordered is called something stupid like baby's breath, but is really champagne colored with bedazzled jewels on it and flowery sort of shiny embroidery. (bored yet? I am) So I might trade that out for a blue ribbon, cause I like blue and I picked blue hydrangeas as flowers so blue, blue, blue, like the polar opposite of Shelby in Steel Magnolias and her signature colors of Blush and Bashful. Whatever. I have no pictures. Sorry. Just imagine me, tall, strapless, weddingy, but not like a total cake topper, because I totally tried on some dresses that looked so much like icing that I wanted to eat them.

New Ring

Here is a picture of my new engagement ring. It came from this company that Michael found online. All very ecologically responsible of him. I realize now it is better to do the little things you can do, than cynically give in to the idea that things are so bad there is no saving them. So I love it. It is blue and wedding ring like and very comfy to wear, which was my only issue with my first ring.








Here's the up close version. I will post more tonight I finally got out the camera cord and uploaded my pictures from Christmas on. Sad isn't it. I guess I need to make a resolution about monthly uploads, that and taking the camera everywhere, because I feel desperate without it whenever something crazy or beautiful happens.

Internet shopping (alt. title: I think something happened to my brain or maybe my bank account)

Really, someone needs to take the internet away from me.
This summer I went to David's bridal and tried on wedding dresses with Caitlin and laughed a lot about Suzy average bride. I forgot about buying dresses until the moms in my life started reminding me (in a very nice way) that I might want to start looking. So procrastinating my thesis never looked easier and I started looking online to get an idea about what I might want. I drew some pictures I have some ideas, I probably need to find a good seamstress/designer.
Last night I won a bid for a j crew wedding dress on ebay. (its my back up dress, to take the edge of my insanity --cost less than $100)
Two weeks ago I paid off my credit card, ah debt free (except for those pesky school loans but those don't count)
Today I called Michael when I was on my way home from school, we talked about frozen pizza, and somehow I mentioned computers and the idea of getting Michael upgraded to an operating system that will actually allow him to run the programs he needs to do film scoring.
This afternoon, I bought Michael a new laptop, software etc. at the online apple store* (won't ship until March 3 now)

--so really its like "we" bought it with the whole combined finances, getting married thing, but truthfully when that computer ships in March he could cut and run and leave me with the bill --bastard--maybe I should start drafting a pre pre nup. hmmm. Can you do that for debt only if you don't actually have any assets. haha.

I really think I need to put down the internet and get back to clipping coupons and eating rice and beans now. Mmmm I see Ramen noodles and more $3.99 bottles of Crane Lake cab sav in my future.

*Don't worry mom I know what I am doing. The education discount is steep and we are doing well.

mmm pickles and chips

Weddings make people crazy---its true and its a mom quote to boot.
my solution? be gone homework, I will spend the evening eating pickles and chips and watching an episode of the tv show, Wife Swap. In this one, a nature mommy switches places with a pageant mommy. Its horrible. I am loving it. wedding craziness? nothing a little bad tv can't fix. (keep in mind I don't have cable or else I would be watching some iron chef or something else suitable that is not on network tv.)
mmm, let me make another pickle and chip sandwich. yum.

bucket hat

There are all sorts of things I could write about including the week Michael and I spent driving all over creation with intermittent family visits, booking the place for our wedding next year, teacher orientation and so many more little, ridiculous things.
But really all I want to say is I woke up this morning, and I really wanted a white bucket hat with the rim that is a red visor. I know I remember these from my childhood either at the Jersey shore or maybe in the Dutch Wonderland Castle giftshop. Anyway, I can't find one online to show you so if you see a picture, send it my way.

checking in

to say.
sorry sorry, I will write for real soon.
I have about 16 things to say and at least two new recipes.
hope I remember some of them when I have a minute to sit down and write.
until then here is the preview

recipes: zucchini for noodles lasagna
some type of paella/creole/blackbean and rice dish with shrimps and oddly enough soy chorizo (no really its good!)

things:

• movies (elf, yes really, donnie brasco, basquiat)
  
• more wine with the girls (or drink-aid, my ghetto Kool-Aid)
  
• wedding plans extravaganza (and the ease that will be brought to my life if I actually book a place on the first attempt)
  
• lots of new books(Anne Lamott, cookbooks, and finally finished Love in the Time of Cholera and it took me so long to finish I think I forgot the beginning)
  
• and hurray for the ipod mini (so sad I will be eating ramen noodles for the next year to make up for it)

question for the next year so keep it coming: What songs do you like to dance to? What songs make your ears bleed? I need to start creating the compilation CD's for the wedding and no worries the obvious horrors (chicken dance, macarena, electric slide) will be eliminated as will Celebrate! much to michael's dismay (because I am positive he put it on a mix tape for me before we were even really "going out". ah, remember mix tapes?)

things that make me kind of crazy

when the catering manager at the place we may or may not be interested for our possible beach wedding, tells my fiance that we are a little late in planning for a 2006 fall wedding. a little late!
more than a year in advance is a little late!

the walmart of wedding dress stores

I spent Saturday with Caitlin sorting through a jungle of white fluff encapsulated in crunchy bags. We would wade through the aisles pulling on bags in the $99 Sample Sale at the fancy bridal salon, and then later at David's Bridal the Walmart of bridal salons. Wedding dresses are poofy. "Oh is that the style?" my mother asks, hell if I know. The only style I have observed is that of the poof, the strapless, and the tiara.
I have to thank Caitlin for spending the entire day sorting through the white, the tulle, the rockcandy beady dresses, interrupted only by some (mediocre at best) Mexican and a horrible terrible mumbly complainy waiter.
So if for some reason you are reading this and you don't know me here is the background. I am 5'9" tall. I am fairly thin. All wedding consultants work on commission. They say things like, "Oh my god, you look gorgeous in that" "That looks perfect on you" and "That dress is new and I have been dying to see someone try it on, it is gorgeous/perfect/blaka-blook-a-dee" (thanks Caitlin)
Meanwhile (as Caitlin has dubbed them) a bevy of "Suzy average bride" accompanied by mom look on as they try on VERY WHITE, bedazzled and trained dresses that are so heavy I am sure you need to climb into them. They stand on the raised carpet covered circlets in front of mirrors as bridal consultants swarm around them and bring crowns and tiaras and tulle to finish off the cake.
I thought I wanted a simple dress but I don't think they actually exist. And the ones I have tried on are shiny and make me feel like "Hi, I'm Calpurnia you know Julius Caesar's wife. Hold on I'll be right with you, let me just grab my olive leaf headpiece and strappy sandals."
I am so not a wedding person, though I do look forward to the wedding as much as I do any good party. I also don't expect anything I do, plan or choose to be entirely groundbreaking. I don't care about being one of a kind, I mean it is a wedding, I will be wearing a whitish dress, there will be my dad and some type of aisle, our friends and family eating catering chicken and drinking from the open bar. I mean it can't be that bad, but I am certainly not planning on hanging a 18"x24" glossy with fuzzy photoshopping (to make it dreamsicle) anywhere in my future apartments. So I don't really care to try to make the white dress prepackaged event into the celebrity wedding of the year. When I think back on how much I recall from the 8 weddings I've attended in the last 7 years, I really think that I don't remember much past the dancing and the appetizers, so I know what to make stand out. cheesy poofs and cool music of course.
Finally, I was talking to Michael on the phone today and reviewing my rant on dresses etc. He actually asked me how I am going to wear my hair. I told him I am growing it out because according to the bride magazines and websites you are not allowed to have short hair when you get married. Then I asked him how he would be wearing his hair. I mean for real. I think maybe I will break down and get it cut at a salon. woohoo. give up my art girl haircut that has arisen only through my impoverished student life that requires a bottle of wine over a haircut any day. for my wedding. sure

lets worry about today, and call people radishes

so I'm sitting here thinking my life's not too bad. this is good and the result of talking to someone worse off than me right now, drinking a glass of red wine, eating a bowl of doritos, a cancelled class, and talking to other people who have completed the dreaded language development midterm, completed without throwing a clot (thanks to tom to working that graphic description into my vocabulary). back to my good old theory of not doing homework unless it is due tomorrow. and trying not to think about the rest of my life because it too, is not due tomorrow. so I am forgetting about or resigned to the fact that I will be living in cincinnati for another year, becoming a sped teacher, when really, what was I thinking!, I will have to eventually marry this boy who proposed to me. and while I like the idea of being married to my beau, the wedding itself still makes me twitch. where are we moving?, who will support me?, oh, I have to support me?! bummer. I want to sit on the couch and eat chips and read books. but really, I can take it slow and I can try to just worry about this weekend and the papers due this week and possibly those due next week. instead of things that happen next month and the month after that etc.
tonight in my sign language class a girl asked our teacher to teach us curse words so we could really start communicating and the teacher said maybe in a couple of weeks. that'll keep everyone coming back. until then I will just emphatically sign the mean signs I know that are more like things you would direct towards a toddler. NO! Stop that! radish!
yes, radish doesn't make any sense but I do know the sign for that. and date (like the fruit not the event) this is helpful. radishes make me think of fraggles and this is a sign that I really need to go to bed. (it was just a glass of wine, I swear.)

tomorrow

I am flying to PA tomorrow, so posts may be patchy. if you know how to reach me please do so as the excitement of a wedding shower and a christening and this much family time is making me slightly uncomfortable.

untoward anger

things continue to be crazy around here now that michael has returned. I assume that they will be this way indefinitely. So I need to find my own patches of alone time, and me time, and steal them away from everything else. That way I can avoid bursts of untoward anger and further annoy the boy with the use of words like untoward.
untoward
un·to·ward adj.
Not favorable; unpropitious.
Troublesome; adverse: an untoward incident.
Hard to guide or control; unruly.
Improper; unseemly.
adj 1: not in keeping with accepted standards of what is right or proper in polite society; "was buried with indecent haste"; "indecorous behavior"; "language unbecoming to a lady"; "unseemly to use profanity"; "moved to curb their untoward ribaldry"

Yesterday, we attended my company picnic...something that made me realize how frightening my wedding will be. Except instead of introducing michael to everyone's wives and babies we will both be introducing our entire families to each other (not to mention friends). Do you think as things get rolling I could still convince him to elope?
Last night we went to the barnjam in dayton. michael played an awesome set even after almost having a heartattack as 9 people (a la a mighty wind) got on the mini acoustic stage and casually maneuvered around his elaborate setup to play such bluegrass/country favorites like will the circle be unbroken. (thanks to robb I know the words now). It was a weird scene lots of kids from University of Dayton and their 'hip' -read snooty professors history profs and some philosophy and one christian leadership....I don't know what that is nor do I want to find out. They seemed to enjoy michael's show so that was cool, but they were not the openarmed pachouli smelling, have some of my beer, hippies I am used to meeting at michael's shows....more like the young college students, just trying out the scene, natty light drinking, hippies. alas no good beer for me.

much more interesting

here is what I should have written when instead I got stuck and told a stupid, whiny story about my dreams and my sleep cycles so here you go....
everyone is very happy about the engagement and after some prodding from my mama (thru our work email accounts) I did tell her that the wedding would not be taking place in a church. (notably, not a catholic church) after waiting anxiously for her reply and repeatedly hitting the refresh button on my email....she finally replied. She said she expected as much and did not seem disappointed (at least not that I could determine through email) She also didn't think it would blow my dad away which is very cool as he offered to pay for everything and I didn't want him to regret the offer or rescind it. This is very cool as most of my wedding anxiety is linked to my family and their religious and --I guess the best way to say it is-- cultural expectations. Now I just need to tell them I asked my brother, Matt, to get ordained online. "Can you really do that, or is it just something you saw on Friends?" Well apparently you can really do that because while discussing his reaction over drinks with friends (or over friends with drinks?) Quinn mentioned that he had been ordained thru the church of universal light and happiness or something smarmy like that. Not for any reason mind you...just because...and it probably amused him. Matt was very happy with the website especially the price (free) and told me his friends already asked him to baptize their child. He will get practice with this on the 18th when he becomes 'the godfather' of our first nephew. So everyone is happy now (so far).