My friend's little boy who had heart surgery this week is doing awesome. He's certainly still pretty sedated and on a lot of pain medication but things are going as well as can be expected. They're steadily removing lines and tubes and he's looking more like a regular sleeping child each day. And, the Ronald McDonald House organization and all of its supporters are taking great care of his parents.
It warms my heart to know that they're doing okay.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
No One is Coming to Our Party
I just had the cold, cold realization that we invited 205 people and only 110 people are coming. Kind of makes me feel like a fool for working so hard on all of this and spending all of this money and going through all of the stress for so many people to not care to come. Well here's a little secret: it's going to be so kickass. If you didn't want to be there, we didn't want you anyways.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Perspective
After the kind of weekend that left me in a frustrated, "For crying out loud people, you're adults, act like it and handle it!" mess (For example: one person in a certain couple has a 50/50 chance of being able to make it so they would like to RSVP as one because 'he doesn't eat much' and then I'm supposed to remember that one means two and I should save him a seat. People, I can't keep track of 200 people's crazy business. Decide if you're coming or not and stick with it.), I'm working on remembering that this is small change in the grand scheme. A friend of mine from high school had a son born with a slew of medical issues - essentially, his body simply duplicated the right side of all of his organs. He essentially has two right lungs, no spleen, etc. The worst of it is that his heart duplicated the right side. He has defied the odds and after something like five surgeries in his first two years, he's now in the last major planned surgery until he gets much older.
Now, I've never been the type to say that just because other people have mountains you don't have molehills and you should feel bad about being upset over your molehills but still, reading her blog about preparing for the surgery and the anticipated recovery for a poor little kid who's too small to really understand why and today's updates as the surgery progresses really reminds me that while, yes, this other stuff of mine needs to get done, dealing with all of it is super small change compared to the really hard stuff.
Now, I've never been the type to say that just because other people have mountains you don't have molehills and you should feel bad about being upset over your molehills but still, reading her blog about preparing for the surgery and the anticipated recovery for a poor little kid who's too small to really understand why and today's updates as the surgery progresses really reminds me that while, yes, this other stuff of mine needs to get done, dealing with all of it is super small change compared to the really hard stuff.
Monday, May 2, 2011
I Miss My Grandma
Throughout the planning process, I've been painfully aware of the people I haven't had around me. My mom and sisters, for three. I was alone when I found the dress. Then I remembered that I wouldn't be able to show it to my grandma. Ever.
Five years ago today, she passed away. Just as she was getting ready for summer visits. Literally. She was making TV crunch (chex mix).
As much as I continue to mourn her death, I mourn especially this year as I keep wanting to tell her about wedding plans and show them to her as best I could (she had macular degeneration - wear your sunglasses!). Most of all, I'm truly sorry she and my fiance never met. She would love him for the same reasons I do but especially for how good he is to me and the way he looks at me. She's always missed but especially this year and especially today.
Five years ago today, she passed away. Just as she was getting ready for summer visits. Literally. She was making TV crunch (chex mix).
As much as I continue to mourn her death, I mourn especially this year as I keep wanting to tell her about wedding plans and show them to her as best I could (she had macular degeneration - wear your sunglasses!). Most of all, I'm truly sorry she and my fiance never met. She would love him for the same reasons I do but especially for how good he is to me and the way he looks at me. She's always missed but especially this year and especially today.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Finally Invitations and What People Can Do To Help
Fingers crossed, the invitations should arrive today and I can keep my wits about me until late enough into the night to assemble them all and stick them in the mail tomorrow. Note to self: assemble invitations first and tuck the pieces into the envelopes later. That part's harder to screw up.
A number of people have asked what they can do to help. I've figured out the #1 thing I need and that is forgiveness for being absentee and flaky recently and for the upcoming month. (Um, holy s*** one month). Just let me know that I can turn down plans and forgive me if I don't get back to you in a timely fashion and remind me if it's past time to get back to you. Seriously, I can't find my butt with both hands right now. But I'm having nightmares about people hating me for being selfish, so I just need your promise of understanding.
A number of people have asked what they can do to help. I've figured out the #1 thing I need and that is forgiveness for being absentee and flaky recently and for the upcoming month. (Um, holy s*** one month). Just let me know that I can turn down plans and forgive me if I don't get back to you in a timely fashion and remind me if it's past time to get back to you. Seriously, I can't find my butt with both hands right now. But I'm having nightmares about people hating me for being selfish, so I just need your promise of understanding.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Getting Stuff Done!
With my Good Friday holiday, we accomplished a lot. We went from engagement photos to lunch to a meeting with the officiant to getting our marriage license, and booking our ceremony cellist. After a long day, we celebrated with beer and wings. (Can it be Friday again?) It really was a spectacular day.
Saturday was gym, gym, shower, then coffee and going over the to-do list. I don't know if we really accomplished much besides him finally saying that he totally hates the idea of a mad libs guest book. Ohhhkay. Back to the drawing board. It was a beautiful day. My first of the year in capris. After we got home, we spent a couple hours on cleaning and organizing. Mine was mostly in the shed moving stuff around to make more room and taking pictures of stuff we're going to offer to friends and then sell what's left. Some of it I'm sad to see go but by now, I'm just happy about the prospect of not climbing over it anymore.
After a couple hours of that, we went to his brother's house to hang out a while. My wedding accomplishment pride was short-lived when I asked his brother's wife about her sister's wedding plans. "Oh, it's over a year away and she has all of this and that and that done and she's hired a planner that she's BFFs with and talks to her every day and she found the perfect dress on Craigslist but it was off-white and, and, and." My mind translated that to, "I'm a giant failure" and I juusst about got really unhappy. Luckily I figured out a quip, "Sometimes things just fall right into place. Glad it's like that for her!" Because it's been effing hell for me.
All in all though, we had a really fun night and I was happy that I was able to hang out with his brother's wife solo for at least a little while and find stuff to talk about.
Sunday was okay. This whole getting married and making concessions on holidays stuff stinks. I always just get home feeling like I missed the holiday because it wasn't "right". But, of all the holidays, Easter's one of the ones I can give up most easily.
Saturday was gym, gym, shower, then coffee and going over the to-do list. I don't know if we really accomplished much besides him finally saying that he totally hates the idea of a mad libs guest book. Ohhhkay. Back to the drawing board. It was a beautiful day. My first of the year in capris. After we got home, we spent a couple hours on cleaning and organizing. Mine was mostly in the shed moving stuff around to make more room and taking pictures of stuff we're going to offer to friends and then sell what's left. Some of it I'm sad to see go but by now, I'm just happy about the prospect of not climbing over it anymore.
After a couple hours of that, we went to his brother's house to hang out a while. My wedding accomplishment pride was short-lived when I asked his brother's wife about her sister's wedding plans. "Oh, it's over a year away and she has all of this and that and that done and she's hired a planner that she's BFFs with and talks to her every day and she found the perfect dress on Craigslist but it was off-white and, and, and." My mind translated that to, "I'm a giant failure" and I juusst about got really unhappy. Luckily I figured out a quip, "Sometimes things just fall right into place. Glad it's like that for her!" Because it's been effing hell for me.
All in all though, we had a really fun night and I was happy that I was able to hang out with his brother's wife solo for at least a little while and find stuff to talk about.
Sunday was okay. This whole getting married and making concessions on holidays stuff stinks. I always just get home feeling like I missed the holiday because it wasn't "right". But, of all the holidays, Easter's one of the ones I can give up most easily.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Like I've Said Before...
I rarely force the time to write when I have happy news to report. But maybe I'll start with the happy now and it will help me scrounge up some rose-colored glasses.
Progress:
Received the flower girls' necklaces I ordered for them. They were about$15 each off of Amazon for some type of pearls. Not sure how genuine or what grade or whatever. I do know that they were listed as original price being about $50. While I think I got a decent deal, I think I'd be kind of pissed if I had spent $50. But, pearl necklaces for eight for $15 each that they can wear plenty and their moms won't stress about damaging them: Good deal.
Received all of the stamps I ordered. Our address, the logo two ways, and "A Toast!". For anyone shopping for custom stamps, I know Etsy is awesome and I like supporting small businesses but, obviously, I also like supporting manufacturing (and they definitely used a CNC to make these) and, while the Etsy turnaround time is longer, I had to pay overnight shipping but otherwise, I got them all super fast and the base price was something like $15, each, tops. I highly recommend Simon Stamps. However, the smell in my office after smoked salmon for lunch and then receiving a brand new rubber stamp... P.U.
I also found a stamp that I was able to cut the middle out of and use the border to make a border around the mail to address.
Received the coasters. Unfortunately, the one stamp with the huge stamped area, doesn't work well with the textured coaster. I need to find new ink (I think this stuff will run when wet anyways) and maybe new coasters. Crap. However, when they're done right, they're going to really great. I like them a lot.
Spent the weekend stamping envelopes. 130 envelopes with one stamp on them and 130 with three stamps. That's a lot of stamping. But now I'm getting a little stressed that the USPS will have a freakout over the white on gray writing. That's just crazy, though, right? Surely people will get their invitations and we'll get the RSVPs, right???
Then I spent the last two nights addressing envelopes. Glad we ordered more than we needed. I burned about seven of them. For instance: one I addressed to my cousin's family: Mark, Cindy, kids, etc. and then her maiden name. Don't know why I'm obsessed with her maiden name. They've been married something like ten years, I like him... don't know. I addressed her birthday card to her maiden name, too.
Figured out how to make a thing so that I can assemble the invitations perfectly and quickly. Duh. That took forever. I work for a company that makes CAM software. We'll make one here. Stupid. And, since I'm not spending $70 for the envelopments Jigster, and it's a computer program, we can make two of them and assemble simultaneously. It will go by quicker, we'll both be pleased by the perfection, and then we can put stamps on them, put them in the mail and get hot dogs and celebrate our behinds off.
Fiance's ACL can wait for surgery. Downside: it's that much longer until we can do some of the things we like to do together. Also, as his schedule worked out he has this week off. Downside of that: he keeps talking about how much he needed this time off and how he's going to do something fun. Okay, Hi, I've reached a breaking point with half the people I work with and I've been sick three weeks of the last six and when I'm not at work I'm at the gym, cleaning, working on wedding stuff, or being guilted into social events because I turn everything down because I have mad s*** to do. Which makes me an a-hole for turning every social invite down and I don't want to be 'that girl' so I go and then when I get home I feel guilty for spending the time that way and for the calories in what I ate/drank. But if I get a salad and iced tea, people say, "Oh, come on, you're not going to become one of those calorie-obsessed people." Because they don't understand that even in the last week when I worked out six times (total of about 2,000 calorie burn) and didn't eat all crazy, I gained four pounds.
Oh, and not only are some of people I work with driving me nuts but I'm scattered, depressed, and unable to focus. = seriously decreased productivity. = I suck.
Bottom line: I have to get back to work. Haven't yet found my rose-colored glasses.
Progress:
Received the flower girls' necklaces I ordered for them. They were about$15 each off of Amazon for some type of pearls. Not sure how genuine or what grade or whatever. I do know that they were listed as original price being about $50. While I think I got a decent deal, I think I'd be kind of pissed if I had spent $50. But, pearl necklaces for eight for $15 each that they can wear plenty and their moms won't stress about damaging them: Good deal.
Received all of the stamps I ordered. Our address, the logo two ways, and "A Toast!". For anyone shopping for custom stamps, I know Etsy is awesome and I like supporting small businesses but, obviously, I also like supporting manufacturing (and they definitely used a CNC to make these) and, while the Etsy turnaround time is longer, I had to pay overnight shipping but otherwise, I got them all super fast and the base price was something like $15, each, tops. I highly recommend Simon Stamps. However, the smell in my office after smoked salmon for lunch and then receiving a brand new rubber stamp... P.U.
I also found a stamp that I was able to cut the middle out of and use the border to make a border around the mail to address.
Received the coasters. Unfortunately, the one stamp with the huge stamped area, doesn't work well with the textured coaster. I need to find new ink (I think this stuff will run when wet anyways) and maybe new coasters. Crap. However, when they're done right, they're going to really great. I like them a lot.
Spent the weekend stamping envelopes. 130 envelopes with one stamp on them and 130 with three stamps. That's a lot of stamping. But now I'm getting a little stressed that the USPS will have a freakout over the white on gray writing. That's just crazy, though, right? Surely people will get their invitations and we'll get the RSVPs, right???
Then I spent the last two nights addressing envelopes. Glad we ordered more than we needed. I burned about seven of them. For instance: one I addressed to my cousin's family: Mark, Cindy, kids, etc. and then her maiden name. Don't know why I'm obsessed with her maiden name. They've been married something like ten years, I like him... don't know. I addressed her birthday card to her maiden name, too.
Figured out how to make a thing so that I can assemble the invitations perfectly and quickly. Duh. That took forever. I work for a company that makes CAM software. We'll make one here. Stupid. And, since I'm not spending $70 for the envelopments Jigster, and it's a computer program, we can make two of them and assemble simultaneously. It will go by quicker, we'll both be pleased by the perfection, and then we can put stamps on them, put them in the mail and get hot dogs and celebrate our behinds off.
Fiance's ACL can wait for surgery. Downside: it's that much longer until we can do some of the things we like to do together. Also, as his schedule worked out he has this week off. Downside of that: he keeps talking about how much he needed this time off and how he's going to do something fun. Okay, Hi, I've reached a breaking point with half the people I work with and I've been sick three weeks of the last six and when I'm not at work I'm at the gym, cleaning, working on wedding stuff, or being guilted into social events because I turn everything down because I have mad s*** to do. Which makes me an a-hole for turning every social invite down and I don't want to be 'that girl' so I go and then when I get home I feel guilty for spending the time that way and for the calories in what I ate/drank. But if I get a salad and iced tea, people say, "Oh, come on, you're not going to become one of those calorie-obsessed people." Because they don't understand that even in the last week when I worked out six times (total of about 2,000 calorie burn) and didn't eat all crazy, I gained four pounds.
Oh, and not only are some of people I work with driving me nuts but I'm scattered, depressed, and unable to focus. = seriously decreased productivity. = I suck.
Bottom line: I have to get back to work. Haven't yet found my rose-colored glasses.
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