Let Them Eat Gazpacho

I considered going to the beach with friends this weekend, but in a suprisingly practical turn, my son reminded me, "Mom, you are going to Hawaii for two weeks in two weeks-- you should stay home and take care of things." Ah, the wisdom of youth.


So get things done I will, one small victory at a time...such as, I finally committed to the items we will be ordering from Obrigado to supplement the self-catered portion of the reception:

• Paella-style orzo, with chorizo, tomoatoes, peas & spanish spices
• Corn-cilantro-tomato salad
• Gazpacho

A million little things may fall through the cracks, but at leat we will have gazpacho! :)  And music; I confirmed with Eddie Pasa, our multi-talented, one-man guitar act.  Beer, food, music, an officiant and a good man-- the basics are in place, at any rate.  Oh, and today is DRESS DAY, heading to the seamstress after work.  I get to see the gown sans train for the first time.  My ring should also be shipped today.  Baby steps, but in the right direction! 

Perfect Pair?

Of shoes, that is.  I hope!  Bought my fifth and hopefully final pair last night.  I loved the "Me Too" pair I'd picked up at Nordstrom's, but they were a teeny bit too tight and when I went to exchange them they'd run out of the next size up.  I'm willing to balance on my toes through the ceremony for the sake of heels, but not to have my toes go numb.  Also, the heels are thicker, so I shouldn't have to worry about sinking into the grass.  Sorry, fashion, only so much I'm willing to suffer for you.

Fingers crossed that the Nine West pair does the trick.  Hopefully I will be adding to the great online reviews that I read before purchasing.  Otherwise, I'm giving up and going barefoot!

The "Or" Chronicles

I had an ah-ha moment during a recent professional seminar.  It was based on Emergenetics concepts, one of those personality testing methods that examines how people think and wraps up your psyche with a bow.  While we did not take the full test, there were exercises to help determine your "thinking type."  No shock that I received the Conceptual label, defined as being creative but not overly organized.  Not the ah-ha moment.

My "oh my God, that's ME" epiphany came when the speaker talked about how different thinkers handle decision making.  Analytics make charts (which means I MUST have a tad of that working, I love me some lists!), etc, etc.  Conceptual thinkers, us poor saps, we are burdened by the ability to visualize 1,000 different outcomes, our creative little wheels unable to stop turning, we just keep saying, "What about.......?"  followed by "Or..."

Which is awesome, at first.  However, it can make decision making nearly impossible.  When this conceptual conundrum was explained, I laughed out loud.  How could this stranger see inside my head??  The speaker went on to say the solution is to turn to the structurally minded people in your life and ask them to help you pull the trigger.  Luckily, I'm marrying one of those.   

Wait, this story DOES relate to the wedding, really.  Because at no time has my "Or Syndrome" been more paralyzing than now.  I just bought my 4th pair of wedding shoes after looking at probably hundreds.  I built five websites.  I have six different versions of the menu.  (Di-- I'm counting on you, corn salad or Mediterranean potato salad?  Only you can stop the madness!).  I have yet to decide on vows, a reading or recessional song, for a wedding that is 16 days away.  I wake up screaming, "Or we could..." in the middle of the night.  At least the pending deadline will force some decisions.  That and the begging from poor Mr. "Can We Please Check This Off the List?"   It looks like opposites do attract-- thank goodness for me!

Longest List Ever

Went to our website today and saw "20 Days to Go."  Um...ACK!  We spent couple time compiling a comprehensive list of everything that  needs to happen between now and the wedding.  Not even counting decorating/set-up at the lake house, I filled up more than a sheet of paper, two-column.  Progress is slow going.  We did manage a trip to Costco and finished purchasing beer and cheese, and also ordered the pics for the centerpiece frames.  Two items down, 200 to go.  Let's see, 200 divided by 20.  I'm not so good at math, but I think that means I need to stop writing and start sewing ribbons to pillows. 

Decisions Mahalo Style

How DOES one choose which Hawaiin islands to go to, and how long to stay on each?  Oh, and then, how do you further narrow down to decide which area of an island you should make home base?  Too many awesome possibilities, not enough decisiveness.  I know, I know, such a horrible problem to have. ;-)

That's How the Meatball Crumbles...

 It started out as SUCH a good day, and stayed that way for so much of it.  Why did I have to test my luck and start a major project after a very late dinner?  I should have realized I'd used up all the good in my day and quit while ahead. 

Upon waking, I ignored the rain and my grumbling tummy and worked out.  Yeah me.  The Colbert Report happened to be on when I got on the elliptical.  Score.  Made a yummy breakfast using only my Community Shared Agriculture (CSA), all-organic goodies.  Ok, still on track. 

My soon-to-be sis-in-law (SIL) and I decided it was too rainy to go all the way to Springfield for wedding relating shopping, instead starting our day in Historic Occoquan, with lunch on the river.  Our visit there yielded a veil at Labella's, affordable petals for the flower girls in the form of Larkspur at the witch store and yummy pie at Mom's Apple Pie (totally un-wedding related, but oh so good!). 

On to Nordstrom's, where I got sensational deals on wedding shoes-- finally!-- and two "reception dress" options, with some guidance from SIL and her two fashionistas-in-training daughters.  Michael's turned up ribbon on clearance, gifts for the kids in the wedding and bubble wands for the flower girls who weren't feeling flower tossing.  Plus, it was an awesome day of bonding and general girliness.  Having only been exposed to boys, it was a small miracle to be around children who....wait....LOVE TO SHOP!!!  I was ready to stop before they were.  Beautiful.

Getting home at 8:30, I manage to whip a very successful experiment for dinner-- lemon curry fried chicken.  Seconds for all, leftovers for none.  Nice.  This is the point where I let all the good luck go to my head, and decide we should make meatballs for the reception.  200 of them.  At 10:30 pm.  The first obstacle comes when we realize the air conditioner is not working and we are about to add oven heat to steaming cauldron of our kitchen.  In a last minute save, Kevin flips the breakers at 11:00, managing to turn the air back on.  When in doubt, reboot!

Next, I open the oven and remember that I only have one rack.  Crud.  I call my friend across the street, who generously agrees to let me take her oven racks.  Great!  Except, they turn out to be too wide. 

With 85 of the meatballs rolled, it it too late to turn back.  K and I squish the rows and overlap two pans.  Now, in the back of mind, I realize that these lipless pans will drip.  Somehow, I do not realize that these drips will CATCH FIRE, turning my house into a carcinogenic, smokey mess at 11:30 pm.  After a dramatic ordeal complete with a window lock breaking during the airing out process, we get the flames and food out of the oven.  Still, the smoke lingers so we retreat upstairs to find....dog poo.  Ugh.  Why oh why did I not listen to my much more practical fiance who thought 10:30 was maybe a TEENY bit late to play Martha Stewart??

The moral is:  Luck is not limitless.  In the words of the great Kenny Rogers, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.  When a crazy bride instinct tells you to play caterer with a barely functioning oven in a sauna-like kitchen at 10:30 pm after a long day of shopping...RUN...to bed.  Which is where I am finally headed, thank goodness!   

My Exciting Weekend, or cake plates & centerpieces

My Friday Night:

Painting platters white for the cupcake stand.  The goal is to make simple catering platters to look more like the very pretty plate that I bought for the top tier.   Goal #2:  Make sure that the less sturdy plates on the bottom do not break under the weight of the heavier plate on top. 




My Saturday Night:

Painting frames for the centerpieces.  Trying to add some colors to the tables with the frames and personalizing things a bit with the pictures.  My lesson for the night is that stamps work best with stamp pads.  Brushing paint on to them makes for a lot of guesswork!





Sneak preview of cupcake stand:

Was going to support the tiers with brass candlesticks I found for $.25 each at a yard sale last weekend.  But during this weekend's yard sale adventures, I found glass candlesticks that work even better with the white.   (Yard saling has become a weekly a ritual for my mother and I.  Good bonding time, but makes for sleepy Saturday mornings!)  I'm trying to decide if I'm feeling the purple flowers I experimented with on the base.  Hmm...Oh well, plenty of other things to do until I make up my mind.

Meeting of Musical Minds

Ok, as excited as I am to see Tom Petty this Sunday at The Lube (and Crosby, & Stills, & Nash...woo hoo!), I've decided maybe I'm not so excited to try to keep tempo with "Here Comes My Girl" as I nervously make my way down the aisle.  While Tom is still invited to the reception, I have decided to invite another man to walk me down the aisle.  The esteemed Mr. Billy Joel, circa 1977.  "She's Got a Way" is one of my FAVORITE songs by the piano man; the one that always made me mist up a bit, wishing that one day I'd have somebody who had that depth of emotion, those same feelings of awe, for me.

I float the idea by K, who makes me walk down the "aisle" of our kitchen to make sure it works, which it does, beautifully.  Then, he shares a secret.  It turns out that in the first version of his vows, the one that was scrapped for being a little too heavy on song lyrics, was mainly based on that song.  So see, I found the man who wants to sing that song to me.  With the help of our MP3 player, that is. 

He's searching out the "best" version of the song as I type.  I guess the song won't be a suprise, but the version will be. :) 

Bridesmaid Dresses Thus Far

Just a quick update of the bridesmaid dresses.  Three down, two to go. Just talking to Liz about doing the napkins in varying shades of purple as well, sort of reflecting the spectrum approach being applied to the dresses.  Both an artistic statement and a way to adapt to the fact that I probably do not have enough material of the dark purple to do all the napkins after all. Shh, don't tell!

"I Do" To DIY: Prelude to a Countdown...1 month, 1 day til showti...

"I Do" To DIY: Prelude to a Countdown...1 month, 1 day til showti...: "Tomorrow is one day until one month to go until The Big Day. That's right, I'm the kind of girl who does a countdown TO the countdown. Sud..."

Prelude to a Countdown...1 month, 1 day til showtime

Tomorrow is one day until one month to go until The Big Day.  That's right, I'm the kind of girl who does a countdown TO the countdown.  Suddenly all those projects I was going to put off until closer to the wedding have come leaping from my to-do list into my waking nightmares of trying to stuff 100 pounds of crap into a 10 pound bag. 

Ok.......first order.........breathe.  Better.

In the beginning, there was a lovely purple pillow that I could not wait to use as for our ring bearer.  So much so, that it became the driver for the color pallette.  Until there were two.  Ring bearers that is.  Which began the search for two pillows.  The purple beaded beauty that had been my inspiration would be impossible to duplicate.  I decided that "closer to the wedding" I would find fabric I loved as much and just sew some pillows.  Yesterday being MUCH closer to the wedding, I spent a fruitless hour purusing fabric at Jo Ann's.  The only thing that jumped out at me was $20/yard, of course.  I went home empty handed.

Today, I started going through files I'd favorited at the beginning of my wedding planning.  Low & behold, I stumbled across this project (right) by Laurie Cinotto of lalalaurie.  Loved it, and I even had spanish moss just begging for a project!

This led me to Village Thrift Store in search of scrap fabric for the pillow's bottom. Instead, I found something that made me scrap my plans and go for simplicity.  Two silk pillow shams, perfectly sized, the exact right shade of sage to offset my purples, with delicate golden embroidered edges.  From India.  For $.63 each!!!  I then searched out a plump, scruffy chair cushion to pull batting from, at the blue light special price of $.45.  That's right, my one-of-a-kind ring bearer pillows will cost me just over $3 (the ribbon will likely be some I got from Freecycle) and a bit of imagination.  Score! 

I also picked up 4 yards of scrap fabric in a deep purple.  This should work for making napkins, with the help of pinking shears.  I know that sewn edges would be lovely, but I only have 1 month & 1 day to go, must get moving!!!

On Regrets & Turbo Snakes

With the sending of the invites came our first gifts, and our first regrets.  Friday we received a card from old family friends of my parents, sending their love, regrets and...a reminder of the fragility of life.  I have not seen them in years, and remember them as an active, outspoken, resourceful couple from Pennsylvania.  Now, they are still outspoken and resourceful, but a trip from the Florida town that they retired to is simply too much activity.  Soon after came a card from Kevin's grandmother, who reminded me that her grandson is quite a catch, and also let us know she and his grandfather would not be able to make the trip up.  I expect a similar message from my grandparents in PA in the near future.

If only we had a private jet, or a time machine...These are people not only who love us and would throw lots of postitive energy our way, they are also inspirational.  All count their anniversaries in decades rather than years.  They have weathered sickness and health, the ups and downs of trying to get two people to fit into one relationship.  In this day when so many walk away rather than fight, it would be nice to look out and see these couples hand in hand silenty reminding us that lasting love is not just for fairy tales.  Maybe my IT-fiance can configure a web cam or some other way to let them "be there" from afar. 

And now to totally change the tone-- we got our first wedding gift today; Liz wanted to be the first.  Backing up a bit; we went to Target just before closing time on a Sunday because we were told we *must* register at least one brick & mortar store.  We were sleepy and hungry, and just started pointing that registry laser gun at all sorts of random things.  The height of randomness being when I aimed it at...a Turbo Snake for the drain.  When Kevin questioned my sanity, I defended its practicality, especially at the rate my curls clog up the drain.  That is how our first gift as an about-to-be-married couple came to be a snake for our drains.  Turns out, it now seems way more humorous than practical.  But I'm sure it will prove its value in the very near future!