HOUSE!!

We have a home. More photos to be posted later (when B sends them to me) and when we receive final confirmation that all our financial backgrounds went through ok. But, it's the top house on the last post. There are TONS of grown plants now, so you can hardly see the front door. We.love.it.

We're renting, but it's great. 3 bdr, 2 ba, 2 car garage, concrete constructioned walls so the heat is kept inside in the winter and cool kept inside in the summer, fireplace, deck, storage, etc etc. And, it's 1.5 mins from the freeway, so our commutes will be all on the freeway and not navigating clogged city streets. Woo!!

And the best thing is that the current tenant won't be out till early August, meaning I can give notice and we will only have TRIPLE RENT for 4-5 days (as opposed to a month or more if we had to move in sooner). Fan-freakin-tastic!

We'll move in the weekend of August 8 & 9... well, we'll be moving in from my/our place up here. B's lease ends at the end of August, so there's no point in shortening it any. Once my/our place is moved in, we'll then move B in a week or so later.

So happy!

A home: The next step!

Here's our current living situation:

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My apartment --> 22 miles --> my work --> 107 miles --> B's work --> 1 mile --> B's apartment.

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Unfortunately, it's in a mostly straight line, meaning my apartment is really about 130 miles from B's apartment.

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Sigh. Job market being what it is, we will not be switching jobs ANYTIME soon. We both have them, we both love them, we both want to keep them.

So, Friday = HOME HUNTING! We are searching in a town that is about halfway between my work and B's work. It's leaning a bit toward my work by a couple of miles, which is nice because if either of us get traffic, it will be me.

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The question we've been getting though is: Why aren't you buying? Several answers to that:

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a) it's cheaper to rent (and we don't have an acceptable-to-us downpayment saved yet)

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b) we'll only (hopefully) be doing this about 5 or less years. That's not enough time to build equity in a home before leaving it.
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c) we dont' know if the housing market will be better in 3-5 years.

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d) we can save up a pretty hefty chunk of money and have a MUCH smaller mortgage when we do buy a home.
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e) we will be able to afford more home and a better home when we do buy.

So that's our reasoning. We're hoping to find a nice place, that way we don't go crazy and want to move to a better place. We're not going for the cheapest place we can find either. We have our range, and it's flexible based upon what is included in the rental. We may get a house instead of an apartment. Or maybe a townhome. We'll see. But tomorrow, all day= home hunting.

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A few prospective photos:

Sneak peek wedding photos

Our photographer posted a sneak peek of our wedding photos. They're just unedited sneak peeks, but I love them.

MARRIED

B and I are married!!!

Countdown on.

The countdown is on. The projects are all very tiny at this point.

* Finish tailoring bridesmaid dress (need to fix one little place where I missed this weekend).
* Put some white beads on some bobby pins for my hair.
* Work with B to put together church programs
* Figure out seating chart
* Print name seating chart tags.
* Print table tags.

I get to do some fun things too, like
* pick up my dress (tonight at 5:15)
* Get my acrylics put on (don't like acrylics, but I want french nails and no chipping, so acrylics here we come), tonight at 6
* Show my future sister-in-law the cat monsters and meet the whole future family at the airport (tomorrow, 6pm)
* Drop the cat monsters off at their cat sitters (which will make me happier that they're taken care off), Wednesday, 6:30 pm.

The only other main thing is putting together an information packet for everyone. maps, phone numbers, schedules, etc. I want to make sure it's all on there for quick reference.

Yes, we may need to cut material for chair covers, we may need to cut sashes too. We may need to do some small jobs. BUT. It's all mostly done. At this point, if the wedidng was tomorrow,I'd be ok.

I'm breathing, don't worry. I spent way too much time bent over working yesterday andtoday my upper back/lower neck is SO sore and hurts a massive amount. But,it will be ok.

And on Saturday I become Mrs. Kaiser. Wow! I can't wait to marry B.

Fast trip down south.

Spur of the moment yesterday afternoon I decided to drive the (about) 2 hours south and see B. I thought and thought about the decision, and I think it ended up being for the best.

I got a decent inventory of what B has at his place, and so now I know what to be on the lookout for up here when I'm cleaning/packing tonight and tomorrow.

I sort of overviewed B's current projects to see how much he'll likely complete by this evening. He leaves Thursday for a conference that will go through Saturday late or Sunday early, so what he has done by tonight is pretty much it.

I finished the noodles. I may make one more batch, but I made 3 or 4 HUGE batches last night (used 6 dozen eggs). It really made a dent in the things to get done on Saturday. Now I"m breathing a bit easier.

I brought up a frozen pack of rouladin and a frozen pack of spatzle for the purpose of using my coworkers as guinea pigs. Yes, I'm shameless. But we do need to double/triple check that they handle freezing/thawing well, even though I've frozen and thawed them for years. Just need to make sure there aren't any food surprises on the 27th. At this point we can come up with a contingency plan, whereas if somethign goes bad on the 27th we'll be relegated to ordering pizza or McDonalds or chinese food (which wouldn't be bad, but if stress can be avoided...).

I met with our ex-groomsman and smoothed things over, which made me feel better. Yea, he's the one who screwed up, but I didn't want to harbor resentment and ill-will over it. He's still not going to be in the wedding party, but he'll come to the wedding.

Tonight: finish Tiana's dress (I'm putting in a corset). CLEAN apartment. Work on church decorations. Order photos.

Tomorrow: Finish cleaning apartment, work on church balls, figure out garter belt and ring bearer pillow. Seating chart.

Friday: Print seating chart, print name cards. Print menu cards. Print gift bag cards. Print gift bag outside cards. Determine church programs, print church programs. Spend evening putting them together.

Saturday: Order food from various places down south. Make gravy. Give dress to Tiana. But rocks for tables. ORGANIZE EVERYTHING INTO LABELED BOXES!! Go get food that is not perishable so all in order. Make sure have all the floral supplies. Buy B & my 2 champagne glasses.

I think it will all be in order by Sunday's end. I'm happy.

ACK!

THE WEDDING IS IN 11 days!!!!!

Bridal party switching out.

For the sake of saving a friendship, B and I discussed it and offered to a groomsman the option to not be in the bridal party.

The groomsman took the option.

After various comments and actions, B and I just... we just felt this person was really distracted and didn't want to support us through this wedding. I know he cares for us. And we didn't need him to slave. But he made various decisions that, in the end, resulted in us only seeing him for the wedding and the rehearsal.

Communication had hit a standstill, and it took us prompting him to get news to find out what he couldn't help with. I just couldn't shake this feeling that because we weren't pouring money into this wedding, it was somehow "lower class" and deserved less decency. Amongst other issues, we changed plans in March based upon his help, and to have that turned upside down made us feel pretty low.

From our perspectives, if you're in the bridal party, it's an honor. No, it's not an honor the bride and groom should abuse. But it means that out of all their friends, the bride and/or groom choose you to stand by their side. That's an honor, right? Obviously, by the decision, they respect you, and in return, you should respect them.You should respect that your friend(s) is taking a serious step. Some giving of yourself should take place, emotionally or physically, to your friend(s).

The thing is, if he was a regular guest, his behavior would be disappointing (of course we want him at the dress rehearsal and wedding, not doing other things that could have been avoided), but he wouldn't have been as depended on. We wouldn't have expected his support (emotional and/or physical) as much. And if he had just communicated things to us (rather than us feeling pushy and bothersome as we tried to obtain information), all would have been ok.

Sigh. I hope he comes to the wedding. He is a friend. And just because he disappointed us on this doesn't mean we shoudl hold a grudge. We're not. We're washing ourselves clean of the past, and we are moving on. But I just hope it's not at the expense of a friendship. We just wanted to surround ourselves with supporters in our bridal party, not people who had better things to do, and someone who didn't respect the marriage process. Maybe that sounds goofy, but it's how B and I both feel, so it is the way it is. Just hope we haven't lost a friend.

Music: Check

Music lists are done. DONE! I sent my friend the lists, and he is putting the music (which is on his computer) in order.

We ended up making playlists:

* Appetizer/dinner background music, which contains typical background music, but also songs that we like but which aren't really dance-able (eg: Major Tom by Peter Schilling)

* Dance music. We made this list super-long, because you don't know how long the dancing will go for, you know? I labeled each song "slow" and "fast" so that I wouldn't accidentally put 20 fast songs together. Each song was analyzed for "danceability." Sounds lame, but some of my favorite songs are just difficult to get your groove on to, so we wanted to make sure we were choosing stuff people could rock out to. And yes, there are slow songs. It's about a 1:4 ratio of slow to fast.

* The special playlists. These include: Bouquet toss, garter belt toss, cake cutting, first dance, father/daughter dance, and the second line dance. Yes, we're not from New Orleans, but the second line dance with glitzified umbrellas and canes just sounded like TOO much fun. My friend from NOLA turned me on to the idea, and she's totally jazzed that we're going for it.

So yup! That's it. Fingers crossed....

Why I love B

He's been a rock the past few months. He's picked up the pieces, picked up the pace, and picked up where others have left off (or failed to begin). And even when I've been a miserable grump, he's made me feel better.

I get to marry him in 16 days. SIXTEEN!