Kate Spade and Snuggies

Is it just me or is registering for a wedding one of the most awkward and stressful activities on a wedding to-do list? There’s nothing like making a list of a thousand different things that you both need and love at any price range and at your favorite stores. It’s so awkward expecting people to go to these said stores (mine are Target and Macy’s by the way) and expecting your guests to get you what you’ve asked for.

There are so many wedding registry “taboos” too you have to watch out for. I mean, you don’t want to be like your second cousins goofy fiancé who put ten thousand video games on the list, but you do what your guests to buy things that you and your husband can enjoy together. You also don’t want to put on an ironing board, hangers, or rubber-maids on the list but they are items that you need. You do however want to make sure that your guests can tell that you let your fiancé have some fun with this project and you aren't a control freak. So, you allow your fiancé to add “snuggies” to the list and 30 giant dodge balls, but you spend the next few months praying no one actually buys them.

It’s such a stressful process! Especially if you drag your fiancé into Target and spend half a day picking out items that you need and come in two months later to find out that your list has been deleted!! That’s when I called my mom. I went to Florida and my mom and I went down every aisle at Macy’s (I had to fix Target’s by myself) and picked out even the obnoxious stuff because my mom is so supportive. She even convinced me that it’s okay to add a set of china even though I wasn't planning on it because I absolutely loved it. (I did, see above)

Most of the “awkwardness” from the project stems from the fact that you cannot wait to get the blue pillows (Target registry) for your living room and the fluffy white towels (Macy’s) or the plastic dishes for patio parties (Macy’s). I can’t pretend to think that I’ll get everything on my list from my luggage (it’s beautiful-Macy’s) to the steamer I added for Adam’s suits. I just hope that no one judges me for what I’ve asked for or hates my style.

In the end I have to remember if I didn’t have this registry most of my guests would feel more awkward buying me presents they weren’t sure I would like than I felt awkward by telling them what to get me.

Public notice: Our registry for Target is different online than it is in the store. One more frustration added to the process... At least my complaint with this is legitimate.

Lights and Dishes

Adam and I are having a “Creating Good Habits” week. You can tell I’m a teacher in the making when I theme my weeks for myself and even my fiancé. As most of you know, Adam is already living in the house we will be living in when we’re married and I spend the majority of my time there too. With this, we have already started to see how easy it is for us to make big messes in one night that I have to spend the whole next day cleaning.

After several hours of cleaning up dinner, the popcorn bowls, the cups in the living room, the homework books, paper, pens, game controllers, vacuuming the ants that got into the popcorn we left out, etc. I decided we needed a change before I’m living here too. So I went through the house room by room making a list of the little bad things we always do that need to end.

Some of the new ‘habits’ or chores were easy. I simply asked Adam to make sure to put his dirty laundry in the basket or to actually put the new toilet paper on the hanger, not just on the counter. Some of it was a little obsessive, like asking Adam to put all of his empty hangers to the right of the closet so it doesn’t take me two extra minutes to find empty hangers when I do his laundry. But the majority of the list was necessity; leaving lights on in rooms we aren’t in, leaving cabinet doors open (Yes Mom, I still do that), keeping an eye on how many dishes we use each day, and the list goes on.

It might be obnoxious that I’m thinking if we can learn how to fix these little bad habits now, our life together will be easier later when we have bigger things to worry about. I don’t think I’m crazy at all for it though. Next year we will both be in school full time and working full time. I won’t have the opportunity to thoroughly clean up our house like I have the time to clean his house now.

In Adam’s defense I have come over this week and his bed has been made and the house looks pretty good. Now I’m forced to face homework and wedding obligations because I don’t have cleaning as an excuse to avoid them. So here goes a week of building good habits. Wish us luck!

Next week “Good Money Habits”... Or maybe I’ll put that one on hold for a while?

Love and Strings.

The other night I couldn’t sleep as I kept thinking about how happy I am. How “content” I am. My oldest brother is about to get back from the Middle East, I am so in love, I’m doing well in school and working hard on planning a wedding. Everything right now is perfect. I used to think that a close friend of mine lived a perfect life. She has incredible grades, she’s beautiful, intelligent, she works hard, and she had a boyfriend, a house, a dog, and an immense love for him. But with incredibly bad judgment, he broke up with her and the break-up made it seem like she had lost everything. From my perspective she lost someone that she doesn’t need, but she’s crushed.

The three witches from Hercules (or mythology to sound more educated) held a string that once cut, ended a life. They had the power to decide whether mortals lived or died. I feel like Adam has that control over me and that my best friend’s boyfriend had that control over her. It’s amazing what love requires. I care so much for Adam that if anything happened to him or if he decided that I wasn’t right for him, the loss would be so great that I would want to die. In the same way I have that control over Adam because of our love.

I understand why so many people are apprehensive when it comes to love. You continuously put yourself out on a limb and pray that it doesn’t break because when you fall sometimes you don’t think you can get back up. But, you have to broken leg or not.

Making a commitment is so much more than signing a marriage license or moving in together. It’s promising that you will do your very best in taking care of each other and not dropping the heart that you hold. You might squeeze it a little sometimes, but don’t break it.

Is it right to allow someone else to control your ability to breathe or willingness to live? I don’t know, but it is nice while they are there to do it.

Scales and Zeroes

A few days ago, I bought a dress from American Eagle that fit perfectly. I dare say it’s my new favorite dress. This isn’t just because the price was right, but the size was too, a “0”. I wanted to run out of the dressing room screaming when the four and then the two were too big. Fantastic! I was beaming as Adam put the dress on the counter and said, “We’ll definitely take this.” There’s nothing more pleasing than true personal success.

My weight has been an issue for a long time as most of you know. I’m incredibly insecure because at one point I was a little on the “heavy” side. Looking back I hate myself for being so hard on myself about my love handles. I especially loath myself for allowing so many people to convince me that I was so disgusting when I never wore over a size 8 or a 10 on a bad day.

This recent pleasure of weighing in at 115 (a weight I haven’t seen on the scale since I was 15) made me want to scream from the roof tops. It’s sad that I hesitated. By losing all of this weight I felt that I was proving everyone right who ever questioned my beauty because of my weight. So I want to tell you that it was easy for me to lose the weight when I started to love myself and found a man who loved me no matter what my body looked like because I felt like we deserved it.

My wedding dress is a size “4”. I’m sure at this point they will need to alter the waist. I asked Adam if I could write a facebook status that said, “Dear x-boyfriend who broke up with me because of my ‘weight’, My wedding dress is a size 4 and I’m marrying a man far more deserving of a girl that size.” We decided that probably wasn’t appropriate, but I couldn’t resist to share it with you!

Thanks for reading and celebrating my success with me!

“Shores” and Keeping Up

This past spring a very dear friend of mine from high school reconnected with me. Ever since that glorious day I have spent endless amount of time on the phone with her sharing stories, frustrations, and everyday nonsense. It’s funny the stupid things that we can devour hours of time talking about, but it’s even better the friendship that we have built over senseless conversation. Sometimes having a relationship that is full of chatter and nonsense can be your most vital relationship.

Because of Shore’s social outreach and dedication to my life I have become encouraged to stay in touch and build other friendships with people I have put on the back burner for a long time now. I’m sure some of you have noticed that I’m suddenly flooding your facebook inboxes and calling you at least once a week. Blame it all on Shore. She’s the one that made me realize (even in high school) that being a friend sometimes means being the person who is (usually, not always) taking the first step.

I have built more friendships in the past eight months than I have had in four years because of the effort Shore has put into my life. I’m sure that it helps that with the use of her psychology expertise I am now sane again and no one is afraid to communicate back with me (just kidding).

My point is, appreciate the “Shores” in your life, that friend who is constantly there for you even when you forget to call on her birthday (my b). And not just that, but you too can become a friend like Shore. It has made a world of difference in my life knowing that I have friends out there because I push myself to stay in touch despite my hectic schedule.

This morning I woke up and was wondering when I was going to talk to my friends today. We’re a thousand miles away and Shore still fills me in on her dish washing experiences, while Alexis shares juicy gossip, and my sister-in-law in Ohio- well those conversations know no bounds!

Thanks friends, for being so awesome and thanks Shore for being a great example of a good friend.

Love you all.

Fostering Washers and Online Recipes

Adam recently moved into our future married townhome. I was so excited for the opportunity to begin moving in and setting up. I’ve always been afraid that we will get home from our relaxing honeymoon to discover we needed to open gifts, move in, decorate, etc. That’s a lot of work for two working students. We avoided that drama by having Adam move into the large and luxurious townhome early and without me. While being able to set up his possessions and the things I don’t need at my fully furnished apartment has been a blessing, it’s been a stress sharing a house I can’t live in yet.

There’s nothing like having to hang all of your hanging clothes at one house because your own house doesn’t have a closet. There’s also nothing like cleaning “our” house all day, decorating, and cooking dinner but needing to leave to go sleep somewhere else. I cannot wait until we are married! All these little things were beginning to become more than stress to complete frustration.

One stress was cured by my future fantastic mother-in-law who owns an awesome washer and dryer set. She’s not using the washer and dryer in her new apartment so we so generously offered to foster her machinery until she needs it again. I had been driving over to “our house” to pick up Adam’s laundry (somehow determining what was clean and what wasn’t) and then driving back to my house to clean, fold, hang, and driving back to “our house” to put it away. I hope I didn’t lose you there sometimes I lost myself in that situation. Anyway we are free of a drive back and forth now. Adam has two fancy machines to do his own laundry in now. But now I can’t wait to use the machines…

Two posts in one: Online Recipes

I was about to throw away a dozen sugar cookies yesterday that we had left over from a friend’s birthday weeks ago. They were stale and no longer enjoyable. Adam lectured me the other day on how much food we’ve been wasting. (I’m learning how to cook for just two) So in efforts to avoid wasting cookies (that we didn’t even pay for) I searched the internet for “stale cookie recipes”. I’m so smart. I found a recipe called “Yummies”.

1 ¼ cup of stale cookie crumbs
12 oz. chocolate chips, marshmallows, nuts, etc.
1 can condensed sweetened milk
1 tsp Vanilla

It sounded so easy! So I mixed it all together, poured it in a pan, and put it in the over for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. If you would ever like to feel like an idiot, please try this recipe. It came out mushy and gross. I imagine it would be good over ice cream though! Lesson learned: only take cooking recipes from legitimate cooking websites.

Streamers and Jacuzzi's

This past weekend Adam and I joined in on the beginnings of a wedding celebration for close friends Matt and Erin. For a whole weekend both Matt and Erin had the opportunity to celebrate their last weekend of “freedom” before their wedding this upcoming weekend.

I dropped Adam off in Bristol, TN so that he could ride with the boys to Asheville, NC where they (no doubt) had a great deal of fun. But I continued on to meet the girls for the Bachelorette party in Pigeon Forge.

Erin and I just met each other this past spring so I was nervous about celebrating with girls I barely knew, but I was wrong. The party was warm, welcoming, and wild. The cabin was big, very well decorated, and came equipped with a Jacuzzi. What else could a girl ask for? Oh I know, incredible friends who decorated the space with pink, black, and red bachelorette necessities and streamers. Erin had two future sister in law’s who went all out on the event and did an awesome job.

My favorite part about the bachelorette party was the idea that you could have fun without the typical “male piece” display or awkward games. It was a true girls weekend that made me feel young again. We talked makeup and hair, weddings, and family until 6:30 am. We played pranks on the future bride and woke up the next morning to go shopping. We ran through a hall of mirrors, snapping pictures and being loud. Later we went to take an Old Time picture and had a blast.

There are a few things I learned about the experience that I will do for my party. First being that there MUST be a Jacuzzi! Secondly, to surround yourself with girls that you can trust, laugh with, and enjoy. Finally, make sure there is plenty of food and Red Bull.

The weekend for the ladies was relaxing and so enjoyable. I haven’t heard much about the boys weekend. Who knows what that could mean!

Congratulations Matt and Erin!

DIY and Hear Me Cry

I am pretty imaginative. I have to say that on a scale of one to ten I’m about a five or five and a half. I run rampant with thoughts of tiny monsters running across beaches chasing little boys that dream of forts and kingdoms. I can totally watch Martha Stuart and figure out a way to screw up her projects and make it more my own. I’ve got skill baby. And with this big, talented, and imaginative mind I have, I successfully created one of the longest DIY wedding to-do list anyone has ever seen! Who can beat that?

My mother once said, “If you don’t like the way someone else will do it, then do it yourself.” Frankly, I don’t like the price tags. So I have creatively (with this super duper imaginative mind) found a way to make a TON of stuff that will be necessary for the wedding. I have cut the cost of projects so much so that I can eat off of the dollar menu at McDonald’s!

With all of that excitement I thought I’d share with you my list of DIY projects: Due JAN. 8^th.

Shoes, flowers, place cards, table numbers, garter, corsages, starfish, cake, cookies, chocolate favors, bridesmaid gifts, Adam’s ring, invitations, thank you notes, bridesmaids, groomsmen ties, ring bearers pillow, wine, flower girls baskets, centerpieces, hotel, mother of the brides dress, aspirin, bows, photo booth, etc.

So I have a good bit of work ahead of me. Now you see how this is so stressful? But totally cost effective!

Beaches and Airplanes

I haven't been too set on having a wedding that's "different". When I was younger my birthday parties always needed to be unique and memorable. It's hard to truly have a "different" wedding while on a tight budget. And of course with the wedding industries being so large and incredibly successful, there's a lot to "top". My fiance, Adam, and I made a few decisions that don't set us apart from other friends and families weddings, but the decisions were made for us. After all, isn't the wedding about us?

Adam transferred to the school we met at after living on the coast of Florida. (A hard transfer one from the beach to the mountains of Virginia). His love for the beach was never lost and my love has always been a love for home as I grew up very close to the east coast. Sharing our love of both Florida and the water (and the convenience of my family's location) we settled on a destination, uh, or beach wedding. Sounds romantic? The truth is, it's expensive!

As a result of money stress and wedding woes I've come up with a few solutions. Adam has politely declined each time. I thought though that I might share them with you to see what you think.

First was, The Shrek Themed Wedding. I'm not really sure what his hesitation was?




Next was the skydiving wedding! I could still wear my dress and not have to pay for the extra costs of flowers, food, etc. Too bad Adam is afraid of heights.


What I would really REALLY love is a Hindu wedding. My doctor's daughter recently married a Hindu man and was able to be a party of their wedding traditions. Did you know that the women in this culture don't have to work after the wedding until the Henna fades off of their hands? Which means, at the wedding she is served, when she get's home there is no laundry, cooking, getting up to get the remote. Sounds like a plan to me! I could totally do the dances they do in Slumdog Millionaire.


But in the end, we're going to have a traditional ceremony on the beach in order to honor our families and friends who came down to celebrate this wonderful day with us. It will be a good time. I don't think I'm above a costume themed reception though...

Silly Bands and Beginnings

I recently discovered that I am one of only a very small number of twenty some things that didn’t have a blog. I also realized that because I habitually shower, haven’t made a habit out of eating chalk, and am recently engaged I am also a minority. Oh, and I don’t wear a silly band.

Lacking all of these seemingly strong characteristics of maturing adulthood I also rarely stay up until 1 am with a mission of beginning a new phase in my life, the blog phase. Here I am though, ready to live and report to all of my viewers and the internet world that doesn’t care. I’m so excited. Fresh is my screen and ready is my pen, uh or keyboard.

In short, I wanted to keep friends and family updated on wedding plans and life plans while keeping a healthy distance. Isn’t that what the internet is for? Perhaps I’ll even discover myself while on this journey. Hey, Justin Bieber got his start on the internet.

Enjoy and please take this lightly.