Baby Baby Baby....

So.....Pete and I have now been married for almost 2 months. The wedding could not have gone better (although the lead up to it left much to be desired) I can't think of one single thing that went wrong. Seems like everything bad that happened, happened before we left for NY. The honeymoon was AHHHHHmazing!! We went to Jamaica and did not do one thing for an entire week. Plus, I planned it perfectly so that our last night there also happened to be my birthday. And who doesn't want to spend their birthday in a tropical paradise.

So now we are back in the reality of things. We spent the last month looking for a place to live. It's only been a year since we last moved, but it seems like things have gotten way more strict in the way of rentals. We have a dog....she's part German Shepard....you've seen pictures of her. Most places will now no longer accept even a cross breed of a German Shep. The there are the cats. We are bad, we know. We only tell places we have 1 cat, because otherwise they won't take us at all. Never had a problem. Now what we were running into was that they wouldn't even take our "1" cat because he isn't declawed. Now I don't know about you, but I think that is the cruelest thing you can do to an animal. I mean, isn't pulling out fingernails deemed a form of torture in China?? So, needless to say, we wouldn't even consider those places. We we did finally find a really nice townhouse which is situated in between both of our jobs. We get to move in just a few short weeks and I can.not.wait!!!!! I do not even want to get into the problems we were having at our current apartment the week before the wedding.

So now that we have all of that figured out, we are on to our next big project. Starting our family. I'm hoping that it won't take us too long to accomplish this, but I know better. I do know that, on average, it takes a healthy normal couple at a mimimum of 6 months to get pregnant. So I am ready for that. But I'm also impatient, so we'll see how long my calmness lasts. We have just started our 2nd cycle. I can't wait to see where this blog goes as I start to chronicle this next journey in our lives.......Stay Tuned!

The Day Is Fast Approaching!!

It's hard to believe it but in less that a month Pete and I will be married!! Everything is starting to fall in place. My dress is done and it looks AMAZING!! The only hiccup is that my darn corset shows at the top, so I had to buy some lace that we are going to have to finagle to keep it from peeking up. I may check out the corset website and see if there is one on there that may be a little shorter. We shall see. Other than that, everything is pretty much done. We're in the home stretch!!

I started a new job and it is absolutely awesome! It's amazing what working for someone who actually appreciates your work will do for you! I actually enjoy going in to work daily. The only bad part is the commute, but we shall soon remedy that. We get to move again in just a few short months! I hate moving, but in a way I can't wait. I'm going to do a major purge on the junk that we have piled up here. Start fresh!

Other than that, nothing much going on. Getting super excited for the big day!

I must apologize again for neglecting my little bloggy space. I guess I just haven't had anything go on in my life that I felt the urge to write about. Even now, I am struggling to think of something interesting to say. I spend a good chunk of my day reading blogs (yes, I should be working, but business is slow....I can't stare at a wall for 8 hours ya know) I read about all of these interesting people and marvel at how they can continually come up with witty, funny, and inspiring posts day after day. It really makes me realize how utterly boring my life is. Other than work, my life consists of cooking, cleaning, Facebooking, and wedding planning. What will I do once the wedding is all planned?

Speaking of wedding planning...there have been a few new developments. I made my first payment toward my dress....only 9 or so more to go!!! I'm toying with the idea of using silk flowers for my bouquets instead of fresh. I went out and bought some that I really like, but I have no clue how to arrange them. My future mother in law and I are going to go out this weekend and get some more stuff and play around. We are also going to play around with centerpieces and see what we can come up with. I am craft challenged, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I made the joke that if I made the centerpieces there would be glue fingerprints all over them.

I'll be going home in May. Words cannot express how excited I am for this trip. For once, I will be home without something else going on (funeral, wedding...etc) I will be able to enjoy my family and friends with no pressure of HAVING to be anywhere. Other than wedding appointments I will be home free. The bonus is that my mother is buying my plane ticket. As my younger brother so aptly put it...."Holy shit....Hell froze over?" I hate to say it, but it's true. I love my mother, but she is the worst with money. Like I'm one to talk there though...c'est la vie!

I have been chugging away at my diet. I am currently down 6 pounds and I am so proud of myself for that. I would like to be down 10 more by the time I go home in May, but i have been sitting at 6 pounds lost for going on two weeks. I really just need to step up my working out. I've gotten a little slack in that lately and I need to not be.

Part of my diet entails me being able to have a little homemade sweet snack. So far I have been baking away making a yellow cake with frosting (from scratch), sugar cookies with icing (from scratch), coffee cake (okay it's all from scratch) and lastly chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies. I think being able to be "bad" once a day is keeping me motivated. I hate the deprivation that dieting gives you. I hate walking by store fronts or restaurants, thinking, man I wish I had one of those. Or going to the store specifically to buy a candy bar because I couldn't take it anymore....oh and a package of cookies for good measure too. If I consistently have something baked around me, I am less likely to overindulge when the cravings get to be too much. In these past few weeks I have found a new love of cooking and I have been trying out a bunch of new recipes. So far they have all been home runs. If you are looking for a great recipe site, then I definitely recommend www.sparkrecipes.com. Unlike other recipe sites, you can type in the ingredients you are cooking with along with the serving size and it will automatically calculate the nutrional values for everything. I have used it both to find new recipes to try out and also just to see how healthy my current recipes are. So far, not too bad.

Well, I suppose that is all for now. Take care

Happy Inauguration Day!

It's a great day today! The weather is beautiful (in the 60's) and we a have a new President. I didn't get to see the inauguration, but it is such a great feeling to know that change is on it's way. I just hope that people don't expect things to happen right away. Just have faith that it WILL happen.

In other news, a lot has been happening on my end. You may have noticed that I did another blog redesign. I need to make a new title screen still, but that will come in due time.

I got my engagement ring last week. Kind of a funny story. I was sitting at work reading the Denver Post and I see an article that my jewler had filed for brankruptcy protection. I literally screamed "NOOOOOO" and called up Pete. We both decided that it would be better to get the ring out of the store than to keep paying for it in installments....just in case. So now I have my beautiful ring on my finger!

I also went and found my wedding dress. It's funny, because it is actually everything I said I didn't want, but when I had it on....it was perfect. I did try on the two dresses I linked back to before, but neither of them looked all that great on me. I didn't even have this particular dress in the dressing room, but my consultant, Dea, (who is fricken awesome by the way) said she had the perfect dress.....and she was right. It's a Casablanca design and it's **gasp** strapless!!! I think though that it is the first strapless dress I have ever tried on that didn't make my shoulders look super broad. I wanted to send a link to a picture of the dress, but the website doesn't appear to be working right now.....hopefully that is not a bad sign :-( I'm actually going to be heading down to the bridal shop in a few weeks to put money down on it. They let you make monthly payments until it is half paid for and then they will order it for you.

Pete and I just celebrated our one year anniversary yesterday. He got me a gift certificate for a massage (1 1/2 hours!) that I am so excited to use!! I have never had a professional massage before, and being rather large chested means I have a knot field in my back! I got him tickets to go see the Reverand Horton Heat on the 30th. I have been to see him twice now since I moved to Colorado, bur poor Pete has lived here his whole life and has never been to a show. So he is super excited to get to go finally!

Well, I think I have just about gotten caught up here. I will definitely try to update more often.

More Changes

For the sake of my wallet I have decided to compromise on a pretty big factor in my wedding. I have decided to NOT have my dress custom made. So now I have been scouring the web looking for dresses that represent the 1940's era...and aren't strapless!! (why are all dresses strapless??) I found two that I really love here and here. Comments would be much appreciated :-) Out of all the dresses Maggie Sottero definitely has caught my eye. I can't wait to go out there and try dresses on. In a way that makes my decision a little less painful. The one thing I felt that I was missing out on was going out and trying on tons of dresses and finding "The Perfect Dress". Now I get to do that. I want to go out now and start trying things on, but I know it is way too early to do that, so I am patiently (patiently...yeah right) biding my time.

On another good note, I won a contest over the weekend. You all should definitely check out The Bobby Pin blog.

On a bad note, I got woken up at 5:30 this morning to my fiancee telling me that we have a problem. Apparantly we have a mouse (probably mice) in the apartment. We could hear the damn think squeaking in one of the cupboards. So we called the on-call guy for our apartment but he could't find it. And there are no holes in the wall anywhere, so we are thinking the dang thing in is the wall. Great! Poor dog was going NUTS this morning....as were the cats. I think they all thought they were getting a snack.

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

We had a bit of a ring snafu last week. Pete got a call from the jewler saying that the diamond we picked was mislabled and that it was actually quite a bit more expensive. He didn't really get/understand all of the details, so we decided to go down to the jeweler. My inital reaction to it all was that "it's not MY fault they mislabled the diamond". So we go down there and they sit us down in this private area. The sales woman explained to us that every week their in-house jewelers weigh and grade all of their diamonds. The diamond that she showed us and another diamond were very similar and somehow during the grading process were switched and put into the wrong envelopes. They brought out both of the diamonds so that we could compare the two and decide if we wanted to pay more for the one I picked (they said they would meet us half-way on the price) or if I wanted the one I "picked". Looking at both of the diamonds you could immediately tell that they were very similar. The one I "picked" is and I1 clarity, I color, and .99 carats. The one I picked is a VS2, H, .98 carat. Each diamond was only one grade off on each point. I could only see a difference when I looked at them through the loupe. The one I "picked" had an inclusion right near the middle. I could only see it when looking through the loupe though. I also got to put both diamonds in the setting so I could see which one looked the best. Surprisingly I went with the diamond I "picked" rather than the one I picked. Even though it had that inclusion, I thought it had just as much fire and it looked so much bigger in the setting than the other one. And as a bonus, the jewler gave us $100 for putting us through all that trouble!! We decided to go out to dinner at this really nice restaurant by our house (it's all organic and oh so yummy!!) and went out to see the new Bond movie. Very Good.

I have just jumped onto the Twilight bandwagon. I went out this weekend and bought the first book in the series. I opened it up on Sunday night and didn't close it until almost 3:30 Monday morning. It was almost like a fix....I HAD to finish it!! I went out and got the 2nd book (New Moon) yesterday. I was able to contain myself a bit better and was able to put it down fairly early so I could get some sleep. We are going to see the movie at some point this week and I am so excited!!

I've also joined a Fitness Challenge with some of the girls on one of my online message boards. I'm hoping that will help me to get motivated to start losing some weight. There's a $15 Lush gift card at stake!!! Wish me luck!

Still Here

I know it has been a while since my last post, and for that, I apologize. I guess I just didn't have anything worthy to contribute. Things are going well with the wedding planning. We have our site booked for the Greystone Castle (http://www.thegreystonecastle.com/) and we also have our caterer picked out, so the BIG stuff is done. Well, other than the dress, that's the biggest thing in my opinion. I started working my part-time job last week and so far so good. I wasn't sure if I was going to like being on commission, but I had a pretty good weekend for sales, so I think it will work out. Especially with Christmas right around the corner. My boss is giving me some premo hours this weekend, so it should be a good day all in all.

Let's see...I applied for a job as a Front Office Manager for a hotel here in Denver. Turns out they hired someone right after I applied, so that was a no go. I'm not even sure if I want to get back into hotels or not. I guess I would only do it if the money were (was?) right (which it usually isn't) The hunt is still on for a better paying job.

Other than that, we are just living the dream. We're still waiting for the first snowfall. I would be perfectly content if it decides to wait until Christmas myself.

Hope all of you are doing well and enjoying the beautiful fall weather!

Ch-ch-chaaaaannngeessss!!

I called the place where we want to have the ceremony and reception at to set up an appointment for my Dad, Mom, and MOH to go have a look-see and make sure it is absolutely what we want and found out that the date we had picked out is already booked!! Turns out there was a girl who wanted the 4th of July weekend in 2009, but they were booked, so she postponed her wedding a year and a 1/2 so she could have that weekend in 2010! We are both kinda bummed because we were looking forward to that date, but in the end it's all good because we have bumped the date up a little closer. Our new date will be May 1st 2010. So, as long as everyone likes the place that is where and when we will be having it. It's actually really nice to see my ticker say less than 600 days all of a sudden :-). So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all works out and that our caterer that we picked is available on that date too! My dad says the day he makes the final decision he is booking the caterer. I am getting so excited!! I can't wait for our trip back to NY in May so we can get all of the other little details finalized!!

We've picked out the ring!

I meant to post this last week, but as the title suggests, Pete and I have picked out my engagement ring!! It all happened by accident really. We went out one morning for breakfast and decided we wanted to go to a movie. So we decided rather than go home and wait around for a few hours we would go to the mall and walk around. So we did that and quickly got bored. Then we decided we were going to go to the shops that were near the theater and just wander until it was time for the movie. As we got in the car to leave an ad came on the radio for The Shane Co. So I said, why don't we just go there and wander a bit. Not really planning on buying anything, but just seeing what was out there. So we ended up going through all the cases and found an absolutely beautiful band. Its 14 karat white gold and has diamonds on the band (a little over 1/3 carat) So at this particular store, you pick your band and then you pick your diamond. The lady who was helping us brought out 3 diamonds of various grades. The first was .70 Carat VVS1 (barely any visible flaws) and the color was and e or f. It was pretty, but nothing special. The next was .83 Carat SI1(a few visble flaws) and a G in color. The flaws you could see were in very visible places. The last diamond was a .99 Carat I1 (flaws visible to teh naked eye) and an H in color. The "flaw" that was visible to the naked eye was that when cutting the diamond they put an extra facet in one corner. It even took the lady there forever to find the actual flaw. And the bonus was that even though it was the worst diamond "on paper" It sparkled the most was absolutely gorgeous and cost less than the smallest diamond we looked at. So even though we weren't planning on buying, Pete ended up putting the ring on layaway. He says that I can get it for keeps after Christmas. I really can't wait to get it. It will really make all of this seem more "real"

Back to Black

So I have dyed my hair back to black again. I keep flip-flopping on my hair color, but I always seem to come back to this one. I feel like it suits me. Both physically and my personality. Over the years I have had my hair several different colors from blonde (yes, I tried blonde...I looked like a deranged Barbie Doll), to red, to brown, to black. I've always gotten the most compliments with black. I guess that it helps that my features are naturally dark. My natural hair color is almost black, my eyelashes are black and so are my eyebrows. I guess having my hair black makes me feel like I match in some way. Weird? Maybe, but I like matching. So, now the goal is to get my newly black hair to grow so that I can put it in an awesome 40's style for the wedding. Right now, since I had it cut into a pixie back in June, I've got the beginnings of a mullet. Oh it is SOOOO beautiful lemme tell you!!! I am fighting the urge to hack off the back and let the layers grow down into it, but I think in the end it will be better if I just leave the back alone (with the exception of a trim here and there) and it will evolve into a nice long layered look. Luckily my hair grows pretty quickly. I cut it at the end of July, right before my brothers wedding, and the sides were above my ears. Right now, they are sitting pretty at about an inch and a half past the top of my ears. I think that I will be able to achieve shoulder length 2 July's from now. I hope. I just need to fight my hair ADD and just let it grow!!

I'm patiently (ha!) biding my time for when I can e-mail the lady back about our wedding venue. My dad and grandma went out there to check it out a few weeks ago. He said that it looks really nice from the outside, but he didn't go in because there was a wedding going on and he didn't want to crash it. He also to my grandma to dinner at one of the restaurants that caters there and spoke to the owner. He had nothing but high praises for the woman who runs the place, so that definitely eases any concerns I had about the place. He also stated that they cater around 20 weddings there a year. And probably for the first time in YEARS, my grandmother got a meal and DID NOT complain about it!!! This bodes well for my dad's choice in caterer!! I think that actually clinched the deal for both of us.

We are planning on going out to NY for my (30th!!! eeek) birthday in May, so we can do some checking out ourselves. I've picked a bakery to do our wedding cake, so we are going to price them and do some tastings. They have a cake on their website which is exactly what I am looking for. Plus they make cannoli cakes there (which are my fave) so I want to see if they can make the wedding cake a cannoli cake.

I haven't heard back on the 2nd interview for the job I applied for. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I'm kind of having mixed feelings about working 2 jobs right now. I know that we definitely need the money, but I think that maybe I should just put all my efforts into finding a better paying full-time job and go from there. I really want to go back to school to get a better job, but I just don't think that is something I will be able to afford. I would love to get into something in the medical field. I guess that I just have to look into it more and see if that is an option that I can explore. I know that I can't do what I have been doing for the rest of my life. I think I would kill myself!! Just kidding......maybe......yeah.....maybe. :-P

More Kitty Drama

So after all the drama with Purrsia last week, we had more drama, this time with Zorro. Last summer Zorro had a condition where he was producing "sand" of some sort in his bladder and he got blocked and couldn't pee. So he spent 3 days in the kitty hospital and was sent home good as new. Until last Friday. I got home from work and I am in the kitchen starting dinner and I see him squatting on the kitchen floor looking like he's a bout to pee. So I nudged him with my foot and I hear this god-awful howl. I grabbed him and brought him into the bathroom to put him in his litter box where he stood for a good 5 minutes straining to pee, to no avail. So I call a vet that was close and they say to bring him in. They can't get him unblocked while we were there, so he gets admitted for presumably 2 nights. Fast forward to Saturday night. I get the update from the vet that he has pulled out his urinary catheter and that they were going to see how he does. A few hours later I get another call. He is backed up again, so they need to reinsert the catheter and he will be able to go home on Monday. Yeah....right. So he does fine with the 2nd catheter...I think he learned his lesson the first time. They decide not to take it out until Sunday, so now his stay was extended until Tuesday!! It seemed a bit excessive to me, but whatever. I think they may have needed to pay the gas bill or something, so they were milking it. On Monday, I get a call from the vet that he needs a prescription, but that they don't carry it, so could I go pick it up? I think this is weird, but say ok. I mean, why would you prescribe something that is a common drug for cats and then not have it in stock, but whatever. After over an hour hassle at Wal-Mart getting the damn thing, I then have to BRING IT BACK to the vet. I love wasting my time. So finally Tuesday comes and he gets to come home to the tune of $1400. Goodbye wedding dress, I need to pay for my cats pee pee. And now he is on a prescription diet which is going to cost at least $40 a month because I have to put both cats on it. GAH! It never ends does it?

In other news, after much deliberation, we have decided to not have the wedding in the Thousand Islands. After speaking with reputable sources, we found out that the reception sites there are horrible and one that we were highly considering is actually being sued right now because the wedding was so bad. I decided that I didn't want to have a beautiful ceremony only to have it ruined by a horrible reception. We are now looking at the Greystone castle, which is near where I grew up. www.thegreystonecastle.com if anyone wants to check it out. I will find out in October if it is something we can afford. Keeping my fingers crossed because it is absolutely perfect!!

Goin to the Chapel.....

.....and I'm gonna get maaaaaarrrriiieeeeddddd!!! Yes, it is official that Pete and I are engaged!! We have been talking about it quite a bit and he asked me a few weeks ago. It's a cute story really. He woke me up out of a sound sleep to ask me and then the next morning I had to ask him if I was just dreaming or if he really asked me to marry him....definitely one to put in the story books. I went out ring shopping and have picked out the most beautiful ring ever! I can't wait until he actually gives it to me (which hopefully will be soon)

Since we had been talking about getting married we already had most of our plans for the wedding hashed out. For those of you who don't know here are the details. We have picked a date of 7-3-2010, pending site availability. We will be getting married in NY in the Thousand Islands (www.singercastle.com) again pending availability. We will be doing a 1940's themed wedding. I found a pattern online for a wedding dress from the '40's and I have already met with a dressmaker to have this dress recreated and custom fit for me. I am so excited about it!! I would post a picture of it, but I don't want Pete to see it until I walk down that aisle. I also have tentative bridesmaid dresses picked out (again, they will probably have to be made, just working out pricing issues now).

We told his family about the engagement over the weekend and it seems like they couldn't be happier. I called my family yesterday and spilled the news and they are overjoyed. My dad actually said that "Pete is the first guy you have brought home that I haven't wanted to kill" So I take that as a good sign :-)

So anyway, I will be updating with more details as time goes on.

I'm Still Alive!!

Ok, so I know I haven't posted since we left for NY (obviously) so yes, we made it, and yes, it was a blast!! We rented ourselves a nice SUV this time around and let me tell you, the car makes the difference! It was so much easier to spend two days in that car as opposed to in my poor cramped Jetta. So the wedding was awesome. I still can't believe that my little brother is married! And can I just say that I absolutely LOVE going down to sea level after living in the mountains? I swear, the day of the wedding I drank at least 3 beers and a good 4 gin and tonics (which were not small) and I was still able to stand on two feet. I didn't even really feel like I was drunk. I was able to pull of the peach dress, much to my surprise. I didn't think that it would be my color, but I got several compliments on it, so I guess I did ok. HAHA. Maybe they were all just being nice.

I took Pete to Niagara Falls for his first time ever. We actually went for a hike in the Niagara Gorge one day and went to the Falls the day after the wedding. The Gorge absolutely killed me though. It's a good 50 foot drop down natural stone steps. Then there are "trails" that lead down to the river. We had the dog with us, and thoroughly tired her out. We ended up taking one of the sketchy trails down to the river where I proceeded to fall on my ass giving myself a nice gouge and bruise. It was totally worth it though. We hiked over to a rock and sat in the sun for a little bit watching the rapids. So beautiful. When we went to the Falls we decided to go into Canada. So we parked over in the State Park and walked over the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. Pete smuggled a knife into the country. It was a funny story though because we didn't mean to do it. For any of you who know Pete, you know that he always has his knife on him. Well I didn't even think to tell him to take it off. So we are at the Canadian border and the guard there asks if we have any weapons to which I automatically say "No". Then after I say it, it dawns on me that he more than likely has his knife. The guard lets us through and after we get a good way down the path I say under my breath "you have your knife on you, don't you?" Sure enough there it was. So he just unclipped it from his pocket and stuck it all the way in so no one would notice it. So when it was time to go back to the US I tell him not to say anything about the knife unless they ask. So when the guard asks if we have anything to declare I can see him starting to say something about the knife, so I cut him off and say "No". The guard looks suspicious at this and says "So you didn't buy anything when you were in Canada?" Again I say "No" and he lets us through. After we got through I just started laughing because he almost let it slip and that wasn't even what the guard was asking.

I finally have my babies back and that has been going well so far. The dog has been really good. I was worried about her being able to poop while on a leash, but so far we haven't had any problems.

The diet is going well. We cheated really bad when we were on vacation, but were able to get back on track when we got home. I am back down to where I was before I left for NY, so the pounds are still coming off. I am hoping to be down to my goal weight by New Years, or at the very least within 5 pounds of it.

Other than that, I do have some other news to share, but that will be in a different post at a different time......

Nothing like a good cliffhanger, eh?