I Wrote You a New Post, Ash

Apparently my place of employment changed their hours. Our regional manager stopped by and saw three customers waiting for the store to open and decided that that was as good a reason as any to open the store an hour early from now on. And I guess not one day since have we had a customer come in before ten. I found that amusing. Until I realized that it means my hours are going to get cut unless they push back the shipment time to 4 am, which means I'll be getting up at 3 am and at that point I may as well just get an overmight job somewhere. Wonder if Walmart's hiring.

In other news, I started a new story but then I stopped it cause I sidetracked catching up on Pretty Little Liars. (I can feel you judging me, Ashley. And I've accepted it.)

Oh, and I went to Wales. For my honeymoon. Cause I got married.

No big deal.

Leaving on a jet plane...

Typing as we drive to New York to fly to London to drive to Wales. Well, dad's driving and we're hanging out all cramped and whatnot in the backseat. I'm both super excited and super nervous. I've never been out of the continent before, and I've only flown twice in my life; and the one time it was a helicopter and I was a tiny tiny child. I'm not nervous about flying, just nervous about being in two different airports and having no idea where I'm going. I hate not knowing exactly what I'm doing or where I'm going. We both got international permits so Jeremy doesn't have to drive the whole time but it costs extra to add me as a driver so we were thinkinh of just not. Don't tell the British transit authority that.

Alright I'm leaving it at that for now. We got a new camera so we'll take lots of photos and if I'm feeling interested I might keep updates and post some pictures. Or I might not and just enjoy my honeymoon. (Wedding post will go up though, it's necessary.)

I'm Drinking Peppermint Iced Tea

(That has nothing to do with this post, it's just delightful tea and homemade. By me. In my home.)

So it's been getting closer and closer to the wedding and I'm going to be honest: when I asked Jeremy yesterday morning if we were getting married in a little over two weeks and he said yes, I swore. Which was not the reaction he anticipated but as a planner (ie, a person who plans) this realization sneaked up on me, and it was not the reaction I would've expected from myself either.

The trouble, I think, with a small wedding is that because there is so little to prepare for that you think you have all this time and you really don't. There are no invites for the ceremony itself because it's a handful of people and I'm wasting a stamp on them (I said it). The reception invites don't go out out until the 11th (a Monday) because they say when we were married and I don't want them going out early and confusing people. However, I still haven't finished the invites (although the one's I have finished look lovely and I'm quite proud of them).

My dress isn't finished yet either. This is very irritating to me. (More irritating because I'm going to have to hear from my brother how he told me I shouldn't have had my aunt make the dress, and I'm going to punch him in the face when he says it. Be forewarned Scooter.) Over a year ago she offered to make the dress for me, I didn't ask her. Between my mom and her they decided it would be really nice and inexpensive for her to make my dress and I agreed, cause I figured she would have a year to work on it and it wouldn't be a problem and I could set it aside happily waiting for the day when I could wear it. And then until March, nothing happened. And then until last month, even after we had the material and everything, she still hadn't taken measurements. (To be fair, I did want to lose some weight but I was pretty close to my goal back in May and she hadn't made any progress.)

So I'm both annoyed and eagerly waiting for my stupid dress to be finished. Back to the planner thing though, I have a back-up dress. On the (hopefully) slim chance that my dress isn't done, I've acquired a cheap thrift store dress (shut up Ashley) that is surprisingly lovely and it's even white. Although that doesn't really make a difference. When I bought it, about two years ago, I didn't realize that the jackass who owned it prior apparently couldn't think of a sensible way to get out of it and so they cut the neckline. (It's a halter, you can see how this is a problem.) I saw it, it looked cute, and I bought it without trying it on. Then I got home and saw the clever hidden safety pins holding the stupid thing together and never got around to fixing it. So yesterday I took it to an alterations place where they informed me there were two options of fixing it:

1. we charge a chump-change amount and it looks like crap, or worse, something you could've done yourself
2. we charge a reasonable amount, that is still much more than you paid for it originally, and it looks like we actually tried to be professional and not snotty about it

I went with option 2.

I'm also struggling to find gifts for people. Etiquette tells me that I should give a gift to my officiate, my photographer, my maid of honor, and my dress maker. Well personal etiquette at least, they're not charging me anything and it's an important day for me and that they've cleared their schedule for that means a lot to me. They're also friends of mine and I should give them something for their help. My maid of honor is taken care of, and I'm pretty sure I have a respectable gift for my aunt, but I have no idea what to get the other two. I thought about a uniform gift for everyone but then it seemed impersonal. So I thought about individual gifts for each but then that seemed to exhibit favoritism. So I settled on a small individual gift as well as a small uniform gift. Except my maid of honor is my brother (yes, back to him which Becca agrees is the kinder and more suitable choice. plus she'll still be there cause I decided I don't care who wants to bitch about non-family being there. it's my wedding.) so if I go with something uniform it has to be unisex in some way. And then I feel bad for not getting anyone else a gift, like his parents, my parents, or his friend who is our back-up photographer, and especially my brother and his wife. Of all the people I want to be saying thank you to they definitely come near the top. AND, the backyard is going to look like a redneck's haven. Yay.

Work Rant Part... large number

I'm annoyed that my stupid supervisors have waited this long to give me more hours. They ask me to stay later and joke that they're doing it so I can have money for the honeymoon. Or they'll ask me to pick up a shift, or two, or three and smile knowingly like we're in on something together: 'These three hours you just agreed to will most assuredly pay for fine dining and souvenirs. You're welcome.'
If these hours are available a month before I'm leaving the country, why were they not available two months before? Or three? Or ever? You hapless retards.

In other news, we're buying cheap-ish announcements but I'm making the invites. There aren't a lot of people coming (fingers crossed, not that I don't want people to celebrate but I'm not a big-party person) so it's not a time consuming thing. I wanted to make them originally but then we ended up with a crazy guest list and I was all, fuck that. And then we cut the list in 3/4 and now I get to make them again. My brother off-handedly suggested that they should be on this stationary that I have but the colours don't match so I'm getting some pretty stamps and some ink, and I'm reception invitation-ing up this place! ... whatever that means.

also, i'm getting married in 32 days and i'm almost at my goal weight and so is jeremy. we still have to buy luggage. other than that, we're pretty much ready to do this.

This one goes out to the ladies

i'm posting this from my phone so punctuation just went out the window. this keypad looks a lot bigger than i remember it being. the buttons are like the size of my pinky nail, which isn't really that big but it's still quite large.

anyway, things that i've been up to:

had measurements taken for my dress

went on a mini family vacation (mini because it was both a weekend trip and half the family wasn't able to go)

saw my cousin get high, offer it to everyone (it was totally adorable), get the giggles in like a minute, then pass out like it was her job not even thirty minutes later

remembered why i love my brothers wife (i don't call her sister-in-law because i don't ever want people to think i mean jeremy's sister)

writing a cult classic about a girl who hears voices in the water and connects to her long dead family through them with the help of her cousin... that one's probably not going to happen. it sounds stupid. but i have been fairly diligently writing.

oh, i also had someone show interest in a coffee cup i designed on etsy and that seemed promising except thwy live in europe. and it would cost a crap ton to ship it there. i would lose money and i'm not ready to lose money when i haven't even made money yet.

I Bought To Much Fabric

I am now halfway to my goal weight. And I might actually get there before the wedding. But I feel happy where I am, which is much different from how I felt when I wasn't, so if I don't get there by July it's not a big deal. I'll still keep working out and eating right because it makes me feel better physically, and when I feel good physically I feel good mentally, and vice versa. Jeremy is also halfway to his goal, but he has a longer way to go than me once we get back from the honeymoon, cause he claims that he started out fifty pounds overweight, which I don't buy but then he showed me the jeans he had when we met that fit perfectly and they do look very small. Compared to him at least. He's a big dude to begin with though, and he's probably not going to get back down to that completely because of the muscle mass from karate and P90. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

I bought material for my wedding dress last week, twice. The first time, I thought I had found the perfect color and I bought four yards of it, (cause that's how much we need) and then I thought about it over the next three days. And I decided I didn't want that color. So I went out yesterday and found another color in the same area, but darker. And then I found the perfect accent color to go with the darker color. And I bought four yards of the dark. If I change my mind again, I'm just getting married in shorts and a T-shirt. (I should note that I bought both colors on sale so it wasn't a big loss or anything.)

I do think I made the right call in getting the new color though. It's very subdued and mellow and understated, which I feel is more appropriate for me and my personality, and for how I hope the wedding in general will be. But I do still love the first color I bought and I was thinking, how pretentious would it be to have two wedding dresses?

I'm sure I could find something to do with the first color but still, I'm almost a little irritated with myself that I didn't think of it before. I think it's because when I first looked at the color my mom said it looked to autumn-y and I wasn't sure if I agreed with her or not but she said she loved how the brighter one looked against my skin and I agreed because I like bright things. But then we saw the dark against me and I loved it. I also picked up the accent color, and then completely forgot to get thread for both colors.

And no, I'm not making the dress. First, because I don't even own a sewing machine (nor do I know how to operate one), and second, because I was told it's bad luck to make your own dress.

I did ask someone to be my witness though, because I really want her at my wedding but it's just parents and siblings so I needed a way for her to be there without having to hear about it from either side of the family. I've gotten enough grief on the guest front. We told his parents we only wanted thirty guests and that the reception would be a month after the ceremony and his dad was all snippy and "well if it's only thirty people why don't we just have it on the same day?" Um, because future-father-in-law, that's what we decided on. Also because I finally just let mom plan everything and she decided on that arrangement. And I don't honestly care.

I'm also trying to figure out a polite way to tell Jeremy's sister that she can't bring her kids. We found out that if you tell her it's an adults only service, she'll still bring the little demon spawns. She did it last year at a cousins wedding and we were baffled by her audacity. How can you completely disregard someone's wishes, and especially on their wedding day? I don't want them crying about the dogs, or not being able to go swimming, or worse interrupting the service to whine loudly about something that nobody fucking cares about. You're hot? Shut the fuck up, no one's interested. Did Noah hit you? Seriously, shut the fuck up. Do you want to get in the pool? Cause I will drown your rude, inconsiderate little self. These kids are ten, or possibly nine, but at any rate they're old enough to be polite and have manners and sit quietly for ten goddamn minutes while we agree to love to each other for better or for worse and blah blah blah.

I should probably just let Jeremy talk to her.