My Life, As Told Between (Baby Cakes') Naps

Just devoured the last two books of the Gemma Doyle trilogy this weekend. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes The Golden Compass/Harry Potter series, i.e., young-adult fantasy books, although this one had some very dark and scary scenes. I’ve been a little scared of the dark since I’ve started reading it. It doesn’t help that the last week has been cloudy and stormy with all sorts of noises in the middle of the night. Luckily for me, T’s still working days so he’s there to reassure me there are no monsters in the hall or hiding behind the closet door at night! =)

Aside from obsessively reading, I dragged T along with me to meet several florists this weekend. I don’t want to do it any more than he does and don’t see why I should be stuck with it simply because I’m the bride. Fortunately, he was a great sport about it (mostly) . . . although I think he’s developed a bit of a martyr complex after one of the florist accidently revealed that she doesn’t see many grooms at the initial consultation!  We also looked into hotels near our venue and will hopefully have a block of rooms reserved at a decent price for our guests soon.

Other highlights of the weekend include playing Trivia Pursuit ’80’s edition with T’s brother (T surprised us both by taking the lead before we all called it quits), finally putting up shades in the guest bedroom (T’s mom calls the guest room the Land of Eternal Sunshine because aside from the lack of shades, there’s also a light right outside the window), and watching The Bourne Ultimatium (which was a fun action movie).

Checked out some bridesmaid dresses and visited a couple of wedding photographers this weekend. We’ve decided to go with the first photographer we met. We really liked him and his work and his rates are reasonablish. (I say reasonablish because everything wedding related is grossly inflated and expensive.)

We also met with a DJ last night and are meeting with three florists this weekend. Since we don’t have any friends that have recently gotten married in LA, choosing vendors has been really difficult. Sigh.  Wedding planning is all about making decisions and neither T nor I are particularly good decision makers. I can’t wait until we finalize all the vendors and I can stop worrying about whether I’ve chosen the right person . . . cause, um, that worry goes away as soon as you sign the contract, right?

This isn’t my wedding dress, but how gorgeous is it?! If I hadn’t already bought my gown (which I still love), and T weren’t opposed to slinky gowns (although this has more shape than most), this one would definitely be a contender. Especially since it’s only $378 $225!

Survived my 22 mile run on Saturday, with energy left over to meet up for lunch and a movie with my friend L. I’d originally intended to go into the office to catch up on some work this weekend, since T had to work both days, but ended up getting distracted by fun things and domesticy things the entire weekend.

L and I had lunch at the Curry House and headed to Pinkberry for dessert, where we were pleasantly surprised to run into our friend, J, and her boyfriend. J, L and I had all trained for the LA Marathon together last year but they’ve since taken a break due to various running injuries.*

After Pinkberry, L and I went to see The Waterhorse, which was cute and a little touching. So bascially about what I had expected.** I was lured in because of the sheer cuteness of the titular Waterhorse and he lived up to expectations. We were the only ones there above 10 and/or without a 10 year old in tow however.

Sunday I used up my quota of domesticity for the year. I went grocery shopping, did laundry, took out the trash, dusted, ironed, organized, and cooked (a decent!) dinner using one of the great cookbooks we got for Christmas! Whew. Tired just thinking about it.

*Actually, I’m thinking of taking a break from marathons after this next one and sticking with half-marathons for awhile. They cause much less wear and tear on your body. I’ve also recently signed up for Pilates classes, which will hopefully help balance out all the running. I love Pilates and am excited the studio next to our place finally opened. I had my first class today and although it was painful getting up at 5:40am, the class was fun and passed by quickly.

**Added bonus – the fancy theater showing The Waterhorse sold Tim Tams at the consession stand! I’m ashamed to say it, but as beautiful as Australia is and as much as I enjoyed various aspects of it during my visit, Tim Tams may be what I miss most.

T thinks I’m going to be a terror between now and the wedding. This may be in part because last night, I forced him to take me to Office Depot to pick up clear mailing labels for our Save the Date cards, which I insisted had to be done that very day (our cards had arrived earlier that day) even though our wedding is still over nine months away, almost everyone knows the date already anyways, and we probably won’t actually mail them until sometime next week when we finish getting all the addresses we need.

He then witnessed me frantically searching the store to find matching clear return address labels, only to dejectedly settle for white ones because the clear ones only came in expensive packs of 2,000 – way more than we need for our small wedding!

What he doesn’t see however is all the insanity I’m actually saving him from! There’s a big old scary world of wedding etiquette and protocol out there to which T is comfortably oblivious thanks to me (i.e., I just don’t tell him about it). I can only hope most of our guests are equally oblivious because I’m already trampling willy nilly over a lot of the old rules.

If you’re a stickler for wedding etiquette however, I apologize in advance for using printed address labels instead of calligraphy, dropping your courtesy titles, whether it be “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” “Ms.” or other, daring to include both our names on the (white! grrr) return address labels, thereby acknowledging that we’re living together before marriage, and a million other offenses I’ll undoubtedly commit between now and the wedding! =)

Heading back to LA after a great ten day vacation, where we visited T’s family in Fresno and my family in San Jose. I’m five pounds heavier, but ten times happier having seen so many of our friends and loved ones!

Happy new year everyone! Wishing you all love, peace, health and happiness in the upcoming year!