Cereal.

Of the many internet time waster's I go to where I vainly talk about my life incessantly as if it were important, this is my home. My internet home.

And so I thought it should be the first to know.

TOMORROW I'M GOING WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1



(I wish I could draw hearts on EVERYTHING)

Resolve

So, I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions lately. I don't know if you know, but I'm a big believer in a good, solid NYR. I feel like people definitely shouldn't make them if they aren't ready to commit to it and I definitely think that a half-kept NYR is still a kept one.

If one resolves to exercise more and can get themselves to do it for 6 months, then that's 6 months improvement, and that much closer to having a better life or being a better person or being closer to happiness. I don't think a person should be completely unrealistic and expect to do something EVERY day for the rest of their lives.

Wedding Rambles

It comes as no surprise to those of you that know me and those of you that read this blog that I've been pretty wedding obsessed almost my whole life.

I wasn't the kind of girl that married her barbies or made her teddy bears date. I was never boy crazy. Come middle school all my friends had crushes or boyfriend or broken hearts. Most of the time I lied and said I liked someone just to say it. I knew deep down that it was no crush. That I was faking it.

I even went through a phase insisting that I was an independant. That I'd never get married. That I'd never relinquish my modern day womanly rights for something so silly as a marriage.

And then I fell in love.

Busy, Busy

I'm a bad blogger. I never blog consistently and even when I do it's just a bunch of garbage. Garbage, garbage.

To fill the empty space I attempted to do this long ass survey in the style of circa 2007 MySpace. It was vyer long. I do the entire thing and then realize it was much lamer than I had anticipated. I deleted it and here's what has resulted:

In case anyone is interested and hasn't talked to me lately here's what's going on with me:

• I've had Laryngitis for over a week now. It was one of the longest lasting, slowest healing sicknesses I've had. It's mostly just really irritating to be sick day in and day out. But yesterday I actually had a decent amount of energy for most of the day so, I think I'm officially getting better. I should be over it in a day or two.
• My cousin just had brain surgery to remove a pretty large brain tumor. As much as I complain about my family and as distant as I often feel, they are still my family. And one good thing about such a large familial network is the way we can rally at times of crisis. Everyone has been at the hospital pretty much every day he's been there. That means anywhere between 10 - 30 people at all times, whether he's awake to realize or not. Everyone takes turns bringing dinner and snacks for everyone in the waiting room. Everyone is there after work, constantly calling. It's a big thing and to be honest, it makes me proud to be apart of my family. (But don't tell anyone I said that! I'm not usually so sweet. I have a reputation to uphold!)
• Last weekend, Adam and I trekked ALL the way to Guerneville to check out a possible wedding location. It was really beautiful and it looked like a lot of fun, but I'm not sold on it quite yet. Wedding planning so far has been a slow process but location is one of the most important factors for us. Overall for the weekend we drove over 375 miles or something like that. It was exhausting (especially while sick!)

Here's a picture of the place we looked at.

• This weekend we're going to Sacramento because Adam's little niece chose us as her godparents for her first communion. Me? A Godparent? But she chose me and what am I gonna do? Say no? It's cute either way, and all we really have to do is get her extra presents. It makes me feel special, they like me. haha.

And that's about all, I guess.

Oh, and any feedback on the new layout? I'm loving Blogger's new template designer.

How?

The question I'm left with, now that I have finally begun what might actually be considered wedding planning, is how do I begin to know where to start and/or how to choose?

While I have these sorts of thoughts about all sorts of things (invitations, ribbons, flowers, colors) I'm going to talk about the impending D.

The Dress.

My earliest memories of planning out my wedding dress are from 7th grade. I was like 11. It probably started earlier than that though.

I would walk to and from science class with my friend Logan probably ENDLESSLY boring him with talk of bell sleeves and velvet (I know, right, wtf?!). I even remember the feeling of being in a school hallway, everyone pushing past us, and holding out one arm, with the other brushing it along in that entirely feminine and girly way to signify how I wanted the sleeves to fall.

In my disgustingly ugly taste I probably wanted something that looked like this:

From there my tastes changed (thank god). I went through a Sailor Moon lookalike phase where I swore I wanted my dress to look like this:

I even remember drawing sketches my freshman year of high school to put into my binder. I won't even consider embaressing myself and putting the scans up.

And as I grew up I even started opposing the idea of marriage. I still wanted a dress.

I'd secretly buy wedding magazines and pull pages of dresses I liked. My dream dress is still this multi-layered tulle with assymetrical roses on the skirt ball gown. I'd never wear it but I'll never stop loving it. It was quite honestly my first love of an actual dress. It used to make my heart race.

So here I am. A girl that's whole-heartedly getting married with an approximately medium sized budget considering what to wear to my own wedding.

Now that push has come to shove I'm at a complete loss.

People buy several homes in a lifetime, several cars in a lifetime, more pairs of shoes than most can probably even count, but some people will only ever buy one wedding dress. And for those that aren't true believers in the marriage forever concept you can't very well argue that there will only ever be one first wedding. One first dress for one first wedding. I imagine it to be like a drug high, there's never any as good as the first. Or sex, as bumbling, embaressing, or horrible it is, the memory of your first time having sex will always be there.

One wedding dress.

One wedding dress on a moderate budget.

One wedding dress on a moderate budget that will satisfy over two decades of dreaming and fantasizing.

And I guess you can argue that it doesn't REALLY matter, and I see that it doesn't. I would happily agree to wearing a pantsuit or potato sack if it was the only way I could marry Adam. I know that Love is the most important aspect and the exciting prospect of spending the rest of my life with him. Really, I completely understand that. But... I mean... I only get to do this once. I don't think I'm being unreasonable.

There's advice everywhere for "brides on a budget" that they are their groom should make a list of things that are most important to them for teh wedding so that way, as long as the top of the list is attended to, they won't feel like they're falling short. Or it isn't everything of their dreams. I'm a list maker, I practically did this before happening upon the advice. For me, in the scope of my whole life, the things that are and have always been most important to me about a wedding are:

1. The groom. He had to be my prince-charming, Mr. Darcy, Mr. SecretAgentMan, and so much more all tied into one.
2. The dress. Ah, the dress.
3. My family (my immediate, special, actually liked part of my family) being there with me, just as happy as me, just as happy for me, and beaming.

So, to sum up everything I've just said:

My dress is important. So how do I go about making such a big deciscion? I can't very well only be partially satisfied.

How do I find the dress of my dreams? Will I know the moment I put it on? Will it hit me suddenly and magnificently? Will it be a slow realization of a growing love and adoration?

I don't doubt that most dresses I try on will be beautiful, but will they be special enough? Will they be captivating? How do I finally commit, make the big jump, and after waiting and planning and hoping for so long pick just one dress?

Finding someone to marry may seem difficult enough but hell, there's all that time dating before hand. Dating is (obviously) like a marriage test-run. If they're no good you dump them, you find someone new and better and just a little more perfect. The same thing goes for homes and car and bad outfits. You have time to feel it out.

This dress? It's a move it or lose it type of deal. You get one shot. You don't have marriage test runs or dress rehearsals.

You have The Day, you have The Aisle, you have The One waiting there for you, seeing you for the first time in all of your weding day regalia. So picking and choosing The Dress is no small deal. I feel like on my wedding day I want to look like what I would look like in Perfect World.

How?

Room to Believe

While I may be constantly complaining about the state of the season and it's unbearable cold if there has been anything less prepared than my psyche it's definately been my wardrobe. Over the summer I collected the most beautiful skirts, dresses, and shorts. I had shorts for work and skirts for the every day. For the first time I accumulated a summer wardrobe to be proud of. I was always so cold prepared I was a coat kind of girl. Maybe it was a lack of funds this year or an increase in frugality but I took to summer shopping like... Well, to be redundant from past entires, like summer would never end. It sincerely felt like it wouldn't, couldn't, and shouldn't. It was a sunshine and feel like I look beautiful kind of summer.

Fall crept by me like it always does. We always have indian summers here in the bay area anyways. Plus with the feeling like everyone was dying or sick, the engagement (opposite feelings, do realize), moving, dog maintaining, and work time just kept fly, fly, flying right by me. So there I am, looking cute and be-hive-ed and be-shivering.

Anyways, I digress, all of that was simply to explain that Christmas has officially solved me of this problem. I received two coats, and two pairs of pants. And I had a bit of a shopping day today.

From Adam I also received a boxed set of signed and numbered Eels records. It's it's own kind of magic.

(In case anyone is wondering I also got a really awesome Bear Portrait Book, my long awaited and much beloved entire series of Sex and the City on DVD, some measuring cups, a duck pitcher, and a lot of other really great things. Not to mention all the goodies that I never talked about for our engagement with many more to come with our upcoming BIG engagement party).

So maybe now I'll be a little more prepared, a little better adjusted for this upcoming new year. Every New Year's Eve I turn every waking moment into a metaphor to interpret my past and future. It never works. Every New years is a dissapointment and so far, each coming year has held it's own kinds if failures (and of course, it's own small successes. It's been a difficult decade so far. Hopefully this year I can be a little more relaxed and have myself a little fun. Hell, maybe this year I'll even drink so I'm not so irritable at everyone else drinking.

We're considering having a New Year's Party. I've never had a new year's party before... As we all know I'm not even much of a partier. I'm slightly excited given that it's our first new years engaged and our first in our new apartment. But then I think that everytime I have a moment to breathe I crowd it with things to do as much as possible. "The Holidays" are finally over and so all I really have to worry about is work, catching up with my sadly neglected friends, and planning the engagement party. If I commit to a party for New Year's Eve then I have a little less than a week to prepare, decorate, and invite people. Which implies a week running around being busy, trying to squish in friends, and trying to force "quality" time with Adam. And when that's over then I have only 15 days (two weeks) to make final preps for the engagement party. There are RSVP's to track down, family members to hound, DJs to find, decorations to prepare, and other such things to worry about.

Like I said earlier, time just fly, fly, flies by me.

December

Ok, So I haven't been a very good blogger at all. It's a mixture of busy movingness, mediocre content-ness, lost soul feelingness, and spirit crush-ed-ness. I've started at least 15 entries without finishing about a wide array of things: sexual fantasies, ex-best-friends, the fabulous friends engagement party we had, our new home and the tasks of making a house a home, and even the Christmas spirit. I start them, I get distracted, I forget what I was trying to say anyways, and then I never go back to figure it out.

• Let's skip all of that because it's said and done with and onto the things I really want to talk about right now. I half want to start a wedding blog but I know I wouldn't keep up with it, the same way I had two entries on the dog blog. (BTW, my dog is ridiculously adorable.)
• I need to start scheduling appointments for locations for the wedding. Places we are considering: Spain, Italy, Chile, Washington state, or home (in the broader scope) and art museums, barns, rent-a-farms, (NOT vineyards), and observatories/conservatories (in the more specific sense).
• I need to start dress shopping!! I go back and forth between breathlessly anticipating with heart flutters trying on dresses and dreading with a sinking stomach sort of hopelessness feeling. Before I can dress shop (and even location peruse) I need to get a more definite idea of our wedding budget. I know what our budget is but I still have to have "The money talk" with my parents. My parents do not want to discuss wedding monies until after the engagement party (The *BIG* one) in January. We don't need their money or even depend on it, but I know for a fact that 1) my dad will be sad if he cannot contribute to our wedding fund 2) My dad has opened up a savings account some time ago specifically for this event and 3) Both my parents ascribe to the more traditional "bride's parents pay" sort of mentality. And SO! here's what I've got so far about the dress: I don't like organza, satin, taffeta, beading, bling, or ball gowns. I'm leaning more towards a mermaid or trumpet dress but only in the most subtle of ways. I don't prefer A-line dresses and I don't think I want a shorter dress. I love lace and tulle and ribbons (but not lace up ribbon backs). I like sweetheart necklines, strapless, some ruching and/or the pinch/twist in the front. I don't need a long train but I would like to bustle the dress post-ceremony. I'm definitely not getting two dresses and I hope to find that "Wow" factor love at first sight kind of gown.
• We're considering going to Spain in the Spring. My family wants to go to Hawaii after Christmas. And possibly romantic weekend travelling sooner or later.
• The engagement party is quickly coming together. I should upload the invitations so everyone can see.
• I have gotten 10 people off my christmas list via the internet and have 10 more to go (5 I still have to decide what I'm getting, 5 are just gift cards I need to stop by various stores to get).

I guess that's enough for now. Hope that everyone is well as the weather turns colder and colder

The Singular Sensation

arriage.




What a big word. What a big meaning. To some people it means phony commitments and to more others it's a statistic of divorce.

It isn't the idea of marriage that scares me. Adam and I have been together for over 6 years now. Most of them spent in relative happiness. We don't fight or yell or go crazy. We don't play head games or love games or toy with each other's emotions. We've been told more than once that "we're doing it the right way. the good way." At least, so far as relationship dynamics and the healthiness of them go. I don't doubt that. Being with Adam forever isn't what scares me. That's the most normal, easiest to swallow, simple thing for my brain to accept.

But there's something much bigger looming at almost the exact same moment the marriage begins:

edding.




Planning the wedding is looming. I have to start doing more than loko at pretty pictures eventually. And people are wrong to assume that it's JUST my wedding. A lot of girl's think that the only whims they have to cater to are their own. Maybe that's right for them. To me? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Adam's expectations and desires are equally as important as my own. And then there are our families. Obviously they aren't equals to myself or Adam but their opinions definitely come into play. It's like a REALLY big group project whose repercussions will be felt mostly by me.

I don't want anyone to feel left out but I don't want a large wedding. I don't have the budget for a destination wedding but I don't really want one here either. Some girls don't like certain dresses, some mom's want a something something. Both of our fathers are insisting on tradition which I'm highly opposed to.

We haven't been able to decide one measly thing other than the season. Summer. Even though Summer is "wedding season" and therefore overplayed and typical. I'm just a summer kind of girl. Ever since I can remember summer has meant more to me and is looked forward more to than anything else. The long days, the romantic feelings, the sun sun sun. I'm a summer girl.

Where will we have it? What kind of place? How far is too far? How extravagant is too extravagant?

And weddings are SO hyped up like they'll be the greatest day of your life but do people REALLY enjoy just one day THAT much? Setting it up so high only makes me feel liek there's only room for dissapointment. But at the same time, I can't BEGIN expecting it to be dissapointing or mediocre. I never aim for middleground so why should I now?

As of yet I haven't completely thought out whole thoughts. I've barely had time to digest moving and it's already time for the holidays. After the holidays it's the engagement party. So maybe after all of that I'll have enough time and space to really plan, think, and swallow and this won't be that big of a thing and I won't dread it and I won't keeping thinking, "weddingweddingweddingweddingwhatarewedoingforourwedding?"





(Also do take note of the really awesome site Daily Drop Cap where I got my fancy letters)