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Photo overload! Finally, I have some pictures to share with you.  took all of these, but I snagged them and edited them myself, so they’re not the official pictures (does that make sense?). But, I couldn’t wait any longer and wanted to share, so hopefully he won’t mind.
 There wasn't a rehearsal dinner, so we ran through the ceremony before guests started showing up (and, obviously, before most of us decided to change into our dress clothes).
 The boys didn't come super early with Alison, but they were still quite early, and spent some time hanging out.
 And it seems I am not the only one who cannot stop taking pictures of them. Can you blame any of us? Sometimes I just want to eat them up!
 Then, the main event, the reason we were there (and wearing uncomfortable shoes), was finally upon us. Here they are, exchanging rings. Note: look at those heels! Every time I felt uncomfortable in mine, I looked at hers and told myself to stop complaining. It worked for most of the day.
 And, here's the happy couple! A bit blurry, and quite cropped, but you can see the look on their faces, and it explains everything.
 Me and the best man
 Alison and the groomsman
 There was a lovely reception in the church narthex (the area outside the sanctuary). I got to talk to my family - pictured here are Aunt Jane and Uncle Darrell and Uncle Ed. (I was introduced to the woman in the black top, I don't remember who she is - from the grooms' side definitely).
 There was a lot of baby holding during the reception. OK, Joey's 15 months old. Is he really a baby? My arms were killing me when I finally put him down!
 There is also a photo of me holding Grant as he eats a cupcake (the tables were super tall and there were no chairs), which everyone thought was quite brave of me, especially since pictures hadn't been taken yet. They didn't even know about the Easter cupcake incident. It all turned out fine - not a drop of frosting smooshed into my dry clean only dress. There is a picture of this, somewhere on a relative's camera.
There was a second reception for family only, a family dinner. The room we were in had a door to this nice little outside area, so some pictures were taken.
 Us girls. (We debated about how we should hold our arms, and I think we could have chosen better. Oh well. We're all smiling and no one is blinking, so we'll call it a win.)
 And then there was some goofing around. I think Mom was channeling her inner Alison for this one.
 This was taken while we stood outside getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I like this one because the look on my face is quite funny - why is it that I am always captured with disapproving looks? Perhaps I'm just pensive in this one, deep in thought about what Aunt Sue is saying.
Sunday,  and I hosted a brunch for our family (there were 9 of us) at ‘s house.
 The food got rave reviews. I have already received thank you cards from these two (Grandma and Aunt Jane), and the recipe for my cinnamon rolls has been requested. (It is posted here on the site, if you look around in the Recipes section, I believe.)
 Grant and I spent some time in the play house playing "dinosaurs." This consisted mostly of tickling each other with his new toys (ah, the joy of being 3).
 Congratulations! We are so happy for you both, and welcome Jim into the family with open arms.
Have you noticed the date today? Exactly one year ago, right now, the music started, and about half an hour later, we were officially married!
 Can you believe it has been a whole year?
Just over three years ago, on a website that was fairly unknown at the time (and is still probably not very big if you’re outside the community) called Geek-to-Geek, sent me a message and we started talking. Sadly that was several email addresses ago and therefore I can only tell you that he was charming and made me swoon. A lot. And after we met for the first time, we couldn’t seem to spend enough time together, and he spent a lot of time driving back and forth between our houses.
 And when whole weekends would go by and we'd barely spent any time apart and we still wanted to be together, well, we knew we had something special.
And even though I freaked out a lot early in our relationship because dating was not something I’d had much experience with, he was amazingly patient and kind and understanding and waited around for me to fall in love with him, and waited even longer for me to say it.
 And nearly a year to the day passed by from then to when he asked me to marry him, and of course I said yes.
 I'd already figured out that any future I had with him was infinitely better than the future without him.
Why does he love me? Who knows… and who wants to ask questions like that. I know that I love him for many reasons I can’t articulate. I know that I’ve chosen an intelligent, driven, handsome man who is as committed to marriage as I am, who makes me laugh, encourages me, tolerates my craft-supply-hoarding, and lets me take pictures of tiny little things (just to name a few). I know that despite all our differences that frustrate us, make us laugh, or just confound us, we are stronger and better together.
I know that the future is probably going to be more difficult than the past, that whatever it holds will require patience, understanding, persevering, continued commitment, and above all, love. I’m sure that the biggest struggle we’ll face will not compare to the stress of planning a wedding (last year) or the frustrating of trying to sell our house (this year). But I’m also sure that there will be lots more giggling, hand-holding, and moments of just being amazed at what a wonderful thing we have (and what a wonderful man he is).
 Keeping it all in perspective, like I said when planning the wedding, if at the end of the day, we're married, then it was a success.
One of the most interesting wedding gifts we got was “the ugly lovebirds.” There was a whole poem and everything, but the gist of it was, “here’s some ceramic birds you have to put on display in your house for a year. or else.” They were anonymously given to us. They’re not actually all that bad, truth be told.
The strange thing? We’ve got a silent auction going on today at work for charity, and there’s a matching (though perhaps slightly smaller) ceramic bird there. I almost bid on it. But what would we do with three?
Alright, I know that if I don’t post something soon, certain people might get a little snarky and pester me over email about that, even if I have talked to them during my hiatus. I’ll keep this short, because my pictures are currently trapped on my home computer and they’d make a better post anyways.
Short story:
- Wedding went off without a hitch. Or rather we got hitched. Or… huh. The day was a success, since all that needed to happen was for us to actually get married. Everything else was gravy, and there was a lot of gravy.
- Honeymoon was awesome. We did nothing, absolutely nothing, and reveled in it. The weather was good, and we basically did the stuff we did last time, only more relaxedly.
- When we got home,
 was a freak. We opened all our gifts and got them all situated away, or at least mostly. And Sunday after church we went to the Pottery Barn and bought some backup dishes.
- Sunday we went to church and received the “souvenir tickets” that are our marriage license, uncertified. Basically worth nothing. But we learned that the parties involved (bride and groom, that is) don’t actually sign the marriage license. Who knew?
- I am behind on homework, but that’s probably to be expected. I’ve had a hard time getting back into the mindset of a student, which is important when papers need to be written. If it was just reading, I’d be done. I’ll get on that tonight though.
- Commuting from Eagan is not so much fun, but not the worst form of torture ever invented. Sorry, but that’s about as excited as I can get about that.
- A co-worker gave me the Wyoming state quarter as a wedding gift. And he talked to our barista at Starbucks who was shocked and amazed that we didn’t want gifts, and that I didn’t want co-workers at the celebration. To each his own, right?
- And now I’m back at work. I only had 89 emails, which is pretty amazing for being gone two weeks. And about 15 of them were spam. So I’m mostly caught up, in the sense that I currently have a normal workload (when I have stuff to do, that is).
This is the sort of thing that makes brides cry, in case you were wondering.
So my aunt and uncle on  ‘s side cannot come to the wedding because my aunt is doing chemo right now. She wrote me a very nice letter about it, and I totally understand. I know she wants to be there, so that’s enough for me. (Sidenote: I need to stop being sad on behalf of people who want to come but can’t. It’s not helping.) Well,  emailed me and said that a friend of hers from back home said my aunt isn’t looking good. She asked if I would write her a letter, saying it would probably help her spirits, from her favorite niece and the bride (which is what my aunt called me in the letter she wrote). Initially I was frustrated that I was being asked to do something else. And then I was just sad about the whole thing. More motivation to go home for Christmas this year. After all, I can see  any time I want, right? And I wouldn’t get to see him on Christmas day anyways. We’ll see how my grandpa looks at the wedding, and that could cinch the deal. But it means missing ‘s family’s Christmas Eve celebration.
Back at work for the rest of the day. Not much exciting going on there.
I know is opposed to the fact that I’m wearing a veil. (It was, however, non-negotiable as far as I was concerned.) I would like to put out there that, everything else aside, at least my veil won’t be hideous. Let me present for you the birdcage veil, which I think is just atrocious, and that no one should ever wear them. They look like… well, if they were dyed black, they’d be more appropriate, and then only for funerals. Or if this were an entirely different century. I don’t get it. To each her own, I guess.
Spent last night at ‘s house taking care of my dress and veil. Both are 80-95% done. I have some minor adjustments to make on the veil and it’s finished, and the dress only needs to be hemmed and a few little details completed. Yay! There are pictures, but for obvious reasons, I’m not sharing them.
I didn’t get home until 10, which of course meant that the important phone calls I was supposed to make last night didn’t happen. Less significantly, I also didn’t get any laundry done.
We had a nice talk about many things, including sex. We talked about amazing/impressive/pick-another-word it is that we’re waiting, and how hard that is but worth it. In an email this morning, she said:
“Thanks for the good conversation last night: I’m so proud of you and who you are!”
Always nice to hear that.
Also, I think I have a hair stylist set up for the girls in the wedding. Yay!
Anyone wanna go for a Photowalk?
I have not talked to  or  in a very long time, it seems (unless leaving comments on each other’s blogs counts). I should probably do something about that. Unfortunately, we’re out of town this Saturday for a wedding in Madison. Very long day, but important.
- This morning, since I missed the bus, I walked down the street to the coffee shop where I’m meeting some girls tomorrow who are doing decorations for our reception. I don’t particularly like their coffee, but I have $14 left on the gift certificate
 gave me at Christmas, and it seems a good a time as any to use it.
- What I started out trying to say was that I actually remembered to get the drink I recently discovered for consumption at places like this (where the coffee just isn’t desirable): Chai. No, I didn’t just discover chai tea, but on a recent shopping trip with , I discovered that it’s pretty much good wherever you go, and a good backup in case one is forced to go to Caribou. This is an even better plan when I remember it.
- I actually slept through the night last night, for the first time since Saturday. Unfortunately, this victory was mitigated by my inability to fall asleep until after 3 am. I laid in bed, lights off, cat curled up, attempting to sleep for several hours before sleep, the elusive nymph that she is, finally came to me. But at least then I got four straight hours of sleep, so that’s something.
- In case you were wondering, no, I don’t know why I’ve been having problems sleeping. I can tell you that it’s not because I’m stressed out (due to wedding plans or moving timetables). Part of it this week was because it was frickin’ hot in my room due to the lack of air conditioning. But that was only a tiny bit of it.
- In bullet #3, my other choice for words was “mollified” instead of “mitigated.” Anyone have preferences?
- emailed yesterday to say she’s almost done with my dress, as in “final fitting needed.” How exciting is that? Now I just have to get myself over to ‘s to use her sewing machine and do the veil, and then I can take the whole ensemble up to ‘s and get the party started.
- Last night after left my house (car packed with my stuff), I hopped online and spent some gift certificates. Fun stuff.
- Also, I worked on the music playlist for the reception. I’ve got it narrowed down to 20 hours of music. You might scoff, but that’s not all that bad. I started with… my entire music collection, which was somewhere in the vicinity of 2500 songs (which is approximately 160 hours). I figured that would be an easier way than searching through the songs and individually putting them in a playlist, which was bound to result in duplicates and nearly not enough songs (I need 6-ish hours worth, or is it hours’ worth?). This way, I could easily delete the multitude that were inappropriate, undesirable, about breaking up, etc.
- There’s a chocolate-frosted donut here waiting for me to consume it, and I can’t really think of anything else to say, so… I’m gonna go enjoy the donut.
Yes, I realize the blog has been boring lately. Mostly memes and not much content. But, you see, that’s because life is kinda boring. Busy in many regards, but boring. Oh, you’d like me to prove it?
- Last night, I packed up 3/4 of my kitchen. Only the bare essentials remain.
- I also went through a stack of recipes I’d saved and threw out the ones I knew I wouldn’t make.
- Before that, I sorted through a pile of earrings and got rid of a bunch, and set a bunch aside because they need to be cleaned.
- I also did two loads of laundry (sheets and towels).
- And I made a yummy dinner (that’s two nights in a row this week!).
- At 11 pm I had a bowl of cereal.
- I’ve been getting crappy sleep for the last week, so I’m mildly grumpy. And my back hurts, presumably because of the lack of sleep.
- Oh, I also shredded a ton of paper last night.
- Tuesday night I made my necklace for the wedding. Well, mostly. I need a length consultation with the actual dress.
- Monday night I made my hair clips and tried to make my veil. But my sewing machine died, and I had lost all patience with it, so it went in the Goodwill pile.
- Then came over and gave me a very thoughtful (and not at all creepy) gift, and I persuaded her to let me use her sewing machine.
- I have had very little to do at work, so I’ve spent a lot of time making to-do lists and trying out various online collaboration tools for a work project. (Anyone have any suggestions? I’m looking for word processing and html exporting.)
- Today I am spending a chunk of my time grading tests.
- I managed to wake up early today, make my lunch, and have breakfast. But then I somehow ended up leaving for work late. I think when I have too much extra time, I get slow and lazy in my getting ready. I need to fix this.
- I have spent a minor amount of time (relatively speaking) being very aware of the fact that the wedding is quite close and the things I have to do aren’t done. But I have yet to freak out and go Bridezilla on people. So, we’re still spot-on for that goal. [Editor's note: I have had two occasions of minor freaking out. The first was over the invitations, and it was fixed with wine. The second was last week when I was overwhelmed with all the things to do, and it was fixed with emails and offers of help. At no time, however, did I make unfair demands on people, require all attention be given to me, assume that the world revolved around me and my wedding, or raise my voice. So I think that counts as being successful. Getting stressed out over a wedding is normal. It's basically organizing a huge party for all your family and friends, and not many people do that very often. I certainly don't. Plus there's the added tasks of moving and all the time spent thinking about what it might be like to be married and all that that entails. I believe Bridezilla is a long ways away from "being stressed out."]
- I have had several difficulties with Amazon.com this week. One is being solved, and I fear the other is a lost cause. And even the “solved” one didn’t turn out all that great. I got my refund, but what I really wanted was the product I ordered, which has apparently been discontinued. The other one involves the whole FedEx shipping fiasco, and both the seller and Amazon are telling me that the other one is responsible. I hope I’m not just out the $25, but I fear that may be the end result. Plus, I won’t have the cute lunch tote, which makes it very hard to bring food to work.
See? Told you things have been boring.
- Today’s wedding topic of discussion is: reception decorations. At least, it’s what has decided to email (multiple times) about. Nevermind that I’ve already laid it all out, in detail, including lovely Flash diagrams. I sent them to her and she’s been quiet ever since.
- Yesterday’s wedding topic of discussion was hair. called to talk about it after
 emailed about it.
OK, maybe not to you, but it is to me.
You see, quite a while ago (check the medical tag for the history of it all), I started taking Wellbutrin. I switched because I was having some… inconvenient side effects from generic Prozac, and because I could get Wellbutrin from Canada for free through a program at work. This worked gloriously for… 18 months, maybe longer. Then last fall, the website stopped carrying Wellbutrin. In fact, it stopped carrying a lot of things (which didn’t really matter to me except that there were no alternatives to try to switch to). Then, it went down completely.
Well, we just got an email from HR that said the site is back up and they’re hoping it will be working fine from now on, and they included a list of the drugs offered and via which health plans (we have 3 here – the joys of being union). And it’s back! I’m so very excited. I have a doctor’s appointment in two weeks for my physical and to re-up my prescriptions, so you can be certain that I will be switching back. Plus, I’ll have a refill of generic to utilize in case things get held up at the border or the site goes down again.
Really, I’m quite happy about this. It’s not a huge difference between the generic and the name brand, but it’s noticeable to me at least.
In other news, I sent out a slew of emails this morning and afternoon to attempt to alleviate some of my stress. And you know what, it worked! I’ve gotten a few replies already and am feeling better. The ginormous list of what needs to be done, packed, etc, did not really help. It did help a little when I put each of those things on the calendar and I saw that if I did a little each day I would, in fact, probably have time to do it all. But I’m skeptical. We’ll see. I am, however, still attempting to remain calm, or at least have a calm, low-key freak-out if need be. Still avoiding all Bridezilla-type moments. I will attempt to not abuse wine in order to get this to happen.
Also, I tried Quiznos again today. It had been several years, since the other two times I’d eaten there I was very… unsatisfied. But I thought I’d give them another shot, attempting to keep an open mind, especially since they’re right across the street at work and open later than most places (it’s hard to find a good sammich at 3). They had a commercial for a roast beef dip (essentially), which I love, so I thought I’d try. And I was… disappointed. It wasn’t inedible (like before), but… eh. I may go back to try something else – we’ll see. The au jus that came with the sub was… thick. Oddly thick. Au jus is supposed to be… messy and runny and, well, juice like. This was much closer to barbecue sauce consistency. Unsettling.
So on tonight’s to do list are: take down wine rack (easier to do now that the wine glasses are gone, and there’s only one bottle of wine left); pack up kitchen linens; pack up any remaining camping supplies, and; call and mother-in-law. I should call the contacts I have about the urban teaching field experience too. Last night I threw out two completely full, double-bagged because they were so heavy, garbage bags of things from the kitchen, including the fridge, pantry, and freezer. The freezer’s not finished, but I figured that was enough for now. I don’t know when the garbage gets picked up here, and if it gets too hot and it’s not picked up until next week, that could be gross. So that will have to get finished later. What remains in my kitchen? Surprisingly, my food cabinets are still mostly full, because there are quite a few boxed meals etc that can easily be moved. The pantry is nearly empty, except for a few spices I knew were at least less than 2 years old, an unopened package of flour, and some bags of chocolate chips. The fridge contains a half-gallon of milk that expires today, a bag of baby carrots, some cheese, and some aloe for sunburns I won’t be getting this year. So what am I eating tonight? I’ve got some cash from the wine glasses. Perhaps some Thai (or Vietnamese? what kind of Asian is that place by my house?) from down the street. Perhaps just some mac n cheese.
Hold on… I have pictures that I took last night. I’ll post those in a sec.
It’s time to take the advice of a Jones’ Soda top that I’ve been saving for years. It’s here in my cubicle, taped to the wall, holding up a fortune cookie paper that says, “Feel free to ask for assistance. Friends are willing to help.” Jones’ says, “People will listen to you and could be willing to help.” Gee, you’d think I knew I had a problem with that or something.
Yes, I’m quite aware that I have difficulties asking for help. I think it comes from multiple places: being perfectionistic (note: I didn’t say perfect), wanting to be self-sufficient, being an oldest child, not wanting to inconvenience anyone, and perhaps a tad of not feeling worthy (hey, it’s my blog, and my self-therapy, and if I can’t admit that here, where can I?).
Hence the various reminders to myself that, when feeling overwhelmed, there are people out there willing to help me fix that.
Of course, when it’s midnight and I’ve had wine, I tend to forget those reminders.
However, I remembered this morning on the bus. Last night I decided I needed to call , my trusty sister and matron of honor, who also happens to not be working this summer, and see what she can help me with. And I need to call my [future] mother-in-law to ask her to help me with flowers (I’ve been meaning to do that for… several months now). himself is already doing quite a few things both for the wedding and helping me move, so I think he’s exempt from further requests. And is busy making the dress and a few other tasks, as well as taking care of her family while they’re in town, so I think she’s busy enough. That leaves a very few key people who should be warned that I may be calling them to ask for help, assuming I can figure out something to ask for help with (aka something I’m willing to give up control of), even though I haven’t necessarily been the greatest friend of late or particularly deserving of said help. I think they’re pretty understanding about that.
Won’t it be nice in two months when I can have my life back? OK, not exactly “my life back” so much as “trade in for a new life” with hopefully the free time and energy to devote to others that I used to have. Is that too much to ask? It’s not the wedding. It’s not the moving. It’s… doing it all at the same time. This is what I’ve decided.
I’m off to make more lists. If I weren’t so good at that, I’d definitely ask for her help there, because she’s an expert.
Now, perhaps it was a bad decision to have two glasses of wine (to celebrate the kitchen clearing-out I did, and the selling of the wine glasses – more on the latter tomorrow) and then try to write out lists of all the things I need to do to move and to get married in the next six-plus weeks. Actually, it was probably a very bad decision. Add to that the fact that it is midnight and it’s not plausible to call anyone on the phone right now…. Had the wine not mellowed me out slightly, I think I’d be having a Bridezilla moment right now. You see, the lists of things to do are huge. And the time is so short. And I’m freaking out a bit about that right now. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to get myself moved out of here in 6 weeks. I’m not sure how we’re going to get everything that needs to get done for the wedding completed in the next six weeks. I’m especially not sure how we’re going to get both of those things accomplished. Hence the freaking out. Laid-back freaking out, of course, because I’m super tired and all wined-up. I’m going to temporarily block all thoughts about the upcoming semester for which I am also not prepared.
Sigh. I know it will all be OK, and this post should be filled under “why Kelly should not blog after midnight.” But right now I’d like a hug. This is where living with would come in handy. Six weeks. 51 days, to be exact. I would be impatient were I not all wined-up.
Unrelated: had a nice post on her blog that invited “your mom” jokes in the comments. You should add yours. Really.
Earlier today, I asked what kind of weird voo-doo he put on my engagement ring, since while I was out getting coffee I was hit on three times. Three! This, of course, is without my engagement ring, since I accidentally left it at home today. For the second time ever.
But while I was out getting lunch, it happened again, twice. Which makes me think, is it really the ring with the creepy voo-doo, or do I just look that awesome today? It could be the outfit (black heels, especially when paired with a skirt, tend to invite unwanted male attention); I know it’s not the hair, because… it’s just normal today. It could be that I’m tan, but doubtful. So, it’s either the cursed ring that has been keeping guys from hitting on me for the last six months (though what’s to explain the years upon years before that when I was rarely approached?), or the outfit. I mean, my Tommy Bahama red silk dress is cute, but is it that cute? I might prefer to believe in black magic.
I have a wedding dress. And it’s bea-u-ti-ful! Gorgeous. So happy!!!
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