Back to real life

Well, the Mr and I arrived back home safely on Tuesday night. Yesterday was spent uploading our pics to FB and also going on 2 photo shoots so I was a little too busy to blog. There are so many awesome pictures to share with you from our anniversary trip--we took over 300 pics, but, of course, not all of them were good. It really was the perfect trip in every way. Although beach vacations are quite lovely, to me, nothing beats a trip to the mountains and being outside. I adore it. Walking in the woods, seeing some wildlife, having a picnic, looking at old cabins and imagining the people who lived there...to me, there's nothing better. Onto the photographic evidence.

This is a scenic view in our favorite place--Cades Cove.

Deer were everywhere. This guy was right next to the road.

For the first time we saw wild pigs. There were 2 parents and 3 little babies. Unfortunately we couldn't get any closer because they were way down over a hill, but they stayed in basically this same place all afternoon just munching away.

This is where it got scary for me. We were driving on this cut-through road to circle around Cades Cove again when, lo and behold, there was a bear right next to the road. Of course, I was terrified and took some pictures out the window. They weren't so great because there was foliage in the way so Mr says he will take the camera and get out of the car to get better shots. The bear then proceeded to walk onto the roadway and Mr stayed put--way too far from the car in my opinion. The good thing is he lived to tell about it and got some great shots.

There were 3 other bears playing around in the woods. We stopped and I got this pic of 2 of them sitting on a log.

Right as we were heading out of the cove, there was a momma and her baby. This little guy is a first year cub, judging from his size. Isn't he adorable?

This is Mr and I on our anniversary, drinking wine after a picnic lunch on the rocks by a stream. I'm sure we broke some kind of rule by drinking wine in the park, but it was wonderful so it was worth the risk!

After our picnic, we went on a 2 1/2 mile hike. This is a shot looking up through the trees.

I have lots more pictures to share with you, but it's taken me about an hour just to upload these so the others will have to wait until tomorrow.

Memories light the corners of my mind

Today we leave for the re-creation of our mini moon from last year--heading to Gatlinburg. We love Gatlinburg. It's become a special place for us. It's where we went the day after we got engaged and also where we went last year for our mini moon. I'm so excited about going back this year, especially with my new camera. I'm hoping to get a picture of a bear so close that you can count his hairs! With my telephoto lens, of course. We're keenly aware that they are wild animals and keep a safe distance--plus several feet--away from them.

I've had a lovely week of looking through our wedding pictures, trying on my dress again (oy, vay!) and just remembering what a special day it was. Of course, I did all of this reminiscing alone since Mr has been out of town until last night. I'm going to take our wedding video as well as the video montage we played at the wedding for us to watch on our trip. I can't wait for us to take a walk down memory lane together to remember our day.

I hope everyone has a great few days and I'll see you when we get back!

Still in Anniversary Mode

So, on this date last year the post name was "Wedding Dress Wednesday".



I picked up my dress today. All seems well with it and I think I'm liking it more and more. Apparently my nerves are hitting me, though, because I am having a beer at 2:00 in the afternoon. I feel better already. Good thing the wedding is only 3 days away or I might become an alcoholic. Like how I just snuck the wedding countdown in there and you didn't even notice?I really don't have much to do today which is why I thought I'd start drinking. I have to get some gifts together and work on some cards, but otherwise, I'm in good shape.



My Bean is coming up tomorrow. I can't WAIT for her to get here! I really can't believe the day after tomorrow will be the rehearsal where we're going to go over everything that's going to happen at the actual wedding. Unbelievable.



In the spirit of full disclosure, let me show you what I did last night:








In my defense, putting the dress on wasn't my idea (the goofy expressions were). I was supposed to be joined, via telephone, by a certain party partaking in the same "dress up" party, but this particular party pooped out on me so I did it by myself. Did I mention that Mr is out of town this week and a girl has to find something to do to occupy her time? At least I didn't put on the veil and tiara too!

One Year Ago Today--4 days and counting...

April 22, 2008

Yes, we are now 4 days from the big day. Today I am taking the dog to the vet to get her rabies shot and other shots that she is behind on so I can get her trimmed on Thursday. I have to be the only bride-to-be in history who is taking care of her dog and not wedding tasks the week of her wedding. It's called good planning, people. Just kidding. Anyway, it has to be done because the little girl has to have a haircut for the wedding, too!

Speaking of haircuts, tonight I have to give Mr. his haircut and I think boy child needs one, too. Having men in your life who like to have their hair buzzed is a blessing since you can do it yourself. I'm thinking of buzzing mine after the wedding--just kidding, folks. Although it would be so much easier to take care of.

By the way, the Reds lost last night, big time. We had fun at the game, though. I picked up the programs yesterday and they look really good. We are hand-signing the backs of each of them so that's also another to-do tonight. Still haven't gotten our marriage license. The timing just didn't work out yesterday. Mr. had to work in Dayton today but hopefully he'll be back in time to get it today. Time is ticking away so there's no time to waste.

Today's Agenda

Mr and I kinda have a rule--I take care of the inside stuff; he takes care of the outside. This week, however, he is out of town for work and we are leaving for Gatlinburg almost as soon as he gets back. Therefore, this week, I volunteered to mow the grass.

Now, to be clear, I hate mowing. At my old house, my yard was characterized as a "postage stamp" lawn. It literally took me a half an hour from start to finish to mow it--maybe less if I walked faster. I absolutely hated doing it. There were a couple of reasons why, but I think the main reason is, at my essence, I'm lazy. Physical work just doesn't appeal to me...at all. There are times when I get extremely motivated where I can get a lot of work done. Those moods are few and far between.

So, what was I thinking this weekend when I volunteered and told Mr that hey, I will mow the yard? Well, mainly I was thinking it will be good exercise for me. I haven't ever mowed this yard, which, by the way, in no way resembles a postage stamp. Think big manilla envelope. Plus, why pay someone to do something that I can easily do if I weren't so lazy? It just doesn't make good fiscal sense.

So, today I will be mowing the yard. Well, it might rain today, so maybe tomorrow. Well, tomorrow it will probably still be damp from today's rain so definitely by Thursday the yard will be mowed. Thursday is the last possible day I can mow and you know me, procrastination and impending deadlines always get me motivated.

Anniversary Week

Today is the "official" start of our anniversary week. I was talking to Mr last night and wondering what we were doing this day last year--only 6 days from our wedding day. This is where blogging comes in handy. I looked up my post from last year and here it is:

April 20, 2008

I love Sundays. I love to get up whenever I want, have a cup of coffee, sit out on the deck, do whatever I want. There really isn't anything better than Sundays to me. Saturday you feel like you have to do stuff--chores and then out on the town. Just because I "feel" like I should do stuff doesn't mean I actually do, but I don't like the pressure of Saturdays. When we are at the lake, Sundays are my least favorite day because it's "going home" day which means packing up, cleaning up, etc. It sucks and then Saturday becomes my fav. But for today, I love Sundays.

Got a lot done yesterday. The programs are done except I have to take them to Staples for scoring so we can fold them. The seating cards are done and alphabetized. The cupcake tree is finished. Life is good! I'm pretty much right on track for my scheduled peaceful week next week. Heard from the hair and the makeup girls and we're all confirmed on those. Like I said, Life is good!

Just for good measure, here are a few pictures from 2 years ago today--April 20, 2007:

A Quickie

Just a quick post since I have a lot to do this morning. We are leaving early for the lake so my Friday chores, that usually take me all day to do, have to be done in just a few hours. Hope everyone has a great weekend! If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get some photos to post on Monday :-)

Easter Review in Pictures

YouTube Tuesday Returns

I've been dying to share this with you ever since I saw it last week on Simply Timeless Photography's blog. Enjoy! (Recap of Easter, replete with pictures coming tomorrow)

Happy Easter!

I think I'm officially old

Lately I've noticed a trend with girls younger than me...they all look the same. Take a look at these examples:

Now, granted, The Girls Next Door have bigger boobs than the average girl, but come on. These girls basically look exactly the same. Where's the individuality?

The Hills' girls all look the same except, thank God, for Audrina. They throw one brunette in there to kinda help you figure out who the blondes are. Audrina lives with Lauren--or at least she used to when I used to watch this show.

I can hardly keep straight the new blondes on the country music scene. They look too much alike. Now I can tell their voices apart and let's be honest, no one's as beautiful as Carrie Underwood (who's not in this picture, just in case you can't tell them apart either), but still, you get my point.

Now, back in my day, you could tell the girls apart. There was individuality, self-expression, rebelliousness, the need to stand out from the crowd.

Designing Women--now there's a group you can tell apart. Look, each of them even has a different hair color. Now that's diversity.

The cast of Dynasty. They even had a black woman to attempt to represent the real diversity in America.

Our girl Reba. Now that's a unique style she's rockin' here...the curly mullet. Why has that faded from today's fashion scene? I'd love to see the lovely, bitchy Heidi from the Hills workin' this 'do. Nah, she doesn't have the balls to make this 'do work like Reba did.

Can I just say that I loved Valerie Bertinelli when she was in "One Day at a Time"? I still do think she's the cat's pajamas--whatever that means. In today's terms I think I had a definite "girl crush" on her. I think "girl crush" means I want to be her not do her. After all, who didn't want to be married to Eddie Van Halen and live the life she was living then. Come on.


The Judds. Even Ashley was rockin' some individuality, man.

And of course, the queen of all individuality and rebelliousness--Madonna, circa 1980s. This picture even has identified her marks of individuality.

Oh, what I wish the girls today had the fortitude we had in the 80s to say "Screw the world. We'll be who we want to be!"

Well, that's how I remember the 80s anyway.

Home improvement--The Mrs' Way

So, yesterday I got to do one of my favorite things in life--go shopping with gift cards. I bought all kinds of stuff and didn't spend a dime. Oh, how that makes my heart sing. I've also been doing some decorating around the hacienda and have been holding out on you, dear readers. Today is the day to come clean. First, let's start with a little of yesterday's purchases.

One of the things on our wedding registry was a utensil holder. That served us well...kinda. It really wasn't big enough to hold all of our cooking utensils so I have been on the hunt for months for something that would accommodate all of them. Yesterday it occurred to me to "think out of the box" and consider containers that aren't labeled "utensil holders". This is what I found at the lovely Hobby Lobby--another love of mine:

First off, the color is divine. It's the sage green that I have going in the kitchen and which will hopefully grace one of our walls in there eventually. I love the rusticness of it as well. It's shabby chic, but not so bad that I feel like I need to paint it RIGHT NOW. That's one thing I dislike about shabby chic style. I think all of that peeling paint would drive me nuts. To me, this little beauty has just enough that it won't drive me crazy every time I look at it. Plus, it's big enough that we have room to grow our utensil collection.

Next up was getting another pair of pillows for our bed. We got the loveliest, most heavenly pillows ever for our wedding, however, they cost a fortune, especially for a king sized bed. Yesterday Macy's had all of their pillows on sale--big time. I decided not to get the exact same kind we had, but still luscious. The cost of 2 of these was less than 1 of the other kind.

Yes, this is kind of a dorky picture since it's already in a pillowcase. And yes, the pillowcases are 2 different colors of beige--one isn't just dirty. The top one is our new one.

Now for the pictures I've been holding out from you. I've hung 2 pictures in our spare room which were crying out for something on the walls. This guy has been hanging up for quite a while.

While on the other hand, this little guy just got hung up this week. This is above the headboard.

Can I just say that I got this guy for $4!!! Yes, I did. You know I never pay full price for anything, but this deal made me almost sing out loud in the aisles of Kohl's.

Something else you may know is that Mr is the designated "wall decor hanger upper". One of the reasons is some of the stuff we have is too heavy for me to hang up myself. They require anchors and all that other crap. The other reason is because he's very precise. He measures lots of times, does math calculations, whatever it takes to get the picture centered precisely. Me--I'm an eyeballer. I look at the space, figure out where I want the picture that looks centered to me and then start nailing away. In my defense, let me just say that this has worked pretty damn well for me in the past. There wasn't a crooked or uncentered picture in my house. However, after seeing the precision with which Mr approaches hanging stuff, I thought maybe my method isn't the best. So, for the picture above the bed, I measured, remeasured, calculated, re-calculated and recalculated again. I figured out pretty quickly that I should've paid more attention in my high school math classes. Anyway, I got the measurements marked and proceeded nailing. Here is the result:

Yes, that is a nail hole that wasn't in the right location. How could this be after all of the measuring and re-measuring? I still don't know. Nevertheless, the mother is hung in the center of the bed now. Next time I will stick with my tried and true method and Mr can stick with his.

I've saved the best for last. These little beauties have been on our kitchen table for months. Ta da!!

Yes, I found a way to incorporate my love of damask. These placemats are to die for. At first, I was going to return them because black and white really doesn't fit into the color scheme of the kitchen/connected living room. Then I thought what the hell. I love them. It's hard for me to go against my matchy, matchy, poo poo compulsion, but here they are and I love them. My justification is there is black in the living room so it's fine.

So, our stroll through the recent home improvements is over. Hope you enjoyed it.

P.S. Sorry for the screwy spacing in this post. I don't even want to tell you how long I have been editing and re-editing this effin' post to try to get it to do a stupid paragraph break. Blogger sucks BIGTIME!!