We're Off!

Sorry I haven't written since Monday - you can imagine how the week has gone. B had a particularly tough week at work when his best and most reliable employee gave his two week notice. Tuesday night we just sat in front of our fireplace staring at each other waiting for the anxiety to go away. Thankfully, yesterday was better for me, but he still seems pretty stressed.

We're off to Philly for the weekend - B is in the wedding of a former band mate and by mere serendipity, my brother is in Philly on business! So today after work we're headed down. Have a great Labor Day weekend and I'll see you on Sunday or Monday.

Adjusting

Today was the first day of the Brain Dump. What is the brain dump? That's where my boss tries to impart a year's worth of budgets, plans, donors, projections, committees, and knowledge over the course of a few days. It's going well... but it's a lot. It's also a lot of weight to know that I'm the one who will be called to task if we don't make the goals. And of course it's harder to meet goals that someone else set up than ones you were able to set yourself.

It's a new way of life, really. I work every night until about 6:30 or 7:00, go pick up B, race home to cook something, and then there is about one precious hour before bedtime. And lately there's just too much to do to allow that hour to slip by without loading some dishes, writing some thank you notes, making appointments with DJs, etc. Anything (i.e. emailing) that isn't crucial just doesn't get done.

And I know that a lot of people, usually those in some kind of grad school, live with their time this tight, but I never have so it's a new experience. And I'm sure it will settle a little once September is over, but it will be intense for a while. On a positive note, having so little down time certainly makes you appreciate the limited amount you get. What's that they say? The more you sacrifice, the sweeter the rewards?

On a NON-work related note, I was able to make Feather Nester's present that I promised but didn't actually get done in time for the baby shower. Homemade thank you notes! They're SO cute, I absolutely love them! So if you send her a present from here on out, you just might get one in the mail. Oh, and we registered for our wedding china and a few other things at Macy's yesterday, so you can check that out too if you're bored!

These are the fronts of the cards - each sticker is different, but the ribbon on the side is all the same.

These are the insides of the cards - half with green ink, half with pink ink.

These are the envelope seals that I stamped onto round stickers - pink and green booties!

And the world disappeared...

We had the most lovely, hermit-like day today. Due to all of the recent stresses, and aided by the 95 degree temperatures, we did not travel, did not obsessively clean, and just relaxed in our house. It was so desperately needed that I was perfectly content to sit amongst the dust and clutter and just relax. It made me realize how little time B and I get together lately where we can just be alone. Our one outing was a quick trip to the grocery store for some steak and corn.

And what might these be? I asked B that very question when he brought them out with our dinner. Mr. Fancy melted real butter, mixed in garlic and parsley, dropped dollops onto wax paper and then put them in the freezer! Only my sweet B would be so creative for a Saturday night grill dinner. (As an aside, if you've never tried the restaurant trick of putting a pad of butter on your steak, you definitely should! Not healthy, but really yummy!)

Miles felt particularly relaxed today as well.

TMW / TMI / TGIF!!!

Too much work... Too much information... Thank GOD it's Friday!

Let's start from the top - too much work. As most of you know, I took a huge, albeit temporary, promotion this week. I've been working until 7pm, in meetings all day, and generally operating at 110% all week. It's a massive responsibility and a massive turnover of information, but we're all trying our best. My boss's last day is next Thursday, so we have until then to transfer her decade of stored information, and then it's all on me and my co-worker. Luckily I'm smart, comfortable making decisions, and thrive on pressure. I'm one of those totally sick people who actually loved finals week during college.

Of course, keeping this breakneck pace means that the house is a mess and we haven't cooked once this week. Although, I did make a microwave burrito on Tuesday and if "one minute per side" isn't cooking, then I don't know what is. Of course, it was harder this week because B was in St. Louis on business. Also, it'll take several weeks to settle in to the schedule and figure out what will get passed on for other people to do, and what I have to do myself. Basically, I just have to get through September because our two biggest events, the Board Meeting and the Gala, are the last Saturday in September. Somewhere in there I turn 30, but B and I are postponing our celebration until October. "Sorry 30, I'm just too busy for you right now... you're going to have to try again next month."

Too much information. (Now, I'm warning you ahead of time, so don't be a cry baby if you read this paragraph and then later decide that you shouldn't have) Five years ago while I was backpacking through Europe, I boarded a ship in Northern England that was headed for Amsterdam. Only moments after beginning our 17 hour journey, I started passing a kidney stone. There was no doctor aboard and instead of receiving IV morphine, I swallowed the two Advil that I had in my bag. I won't get into it, but you've heard the stories on the level of pain associated with kidney stones.

Flash forward 5 1/2 years and I am just now going to a urologist to get it all looked at. You can blame the health insurance system about 80% and my own inertia about 20% for the long delay. I walked into the urologist's office yesterday and quickly realized that no one under the age of 100 goes to the urologist. But he was very nice and told me I have to come back next Monday for an ultrasound of my kidneys and - get this! - to pee into a special machine that measures my "rate of flow." How crazy is that! File that under "stuff I never knew existed!" B was very jealous and also wants to pee into the special machine.

And now to the TGIF part. Do I even need to explain that?!? All I want to do is clean our house and relish all of the special memories from last weekend. I wanted to spend all week doing that, but it didn't work out that way. It was so lovely that I just want to look at pictures, write thank you notes, and be grateful for our friends and family. Hope you all have an equally relaxing and grateful weekend.

Parties

We made it!! It was a three day whirlwind of dress shopping, cooking, hosting, opening presents, drinking, seeing all of our wonderful friends and family, and it was great. Totally exhausting and absolutely great.

The Friday dress shopping trip was good because Feather Nester and M. got to see two of the top dress contenders in person and see if we could find any additional dresses - we didn't. The second dress shop consisted of two pouty young girls who didn't listen to anything I said and were extremely put out by our very presence. The next trip - whenever that is - will be to Albany to keep looking. It's just such a big decision!

Saturday the house was a hive of activity from 7am until Feather Nester's baby shower started at 1pm. We threw a lovely and relaxing tea party. No baby shower games, just "nine ladies chattin'" as I told B.

Food table

Gift and favor table, with some before and after pictures.

Tea cup favors
(Thank you Ithaca Chick for help with the labels!)

After our tea party, we all took naps and tried to gather energy for the next party. The one thing about living far away from everyone you love is that you never get to see people all at once in the same room. Instead, you just make lots of one-on-one visits. So to have so many friends and family drive and fly into town for this was amazing. I felt drunk with excitement before I even walked into the restaurant. It was the fastest 3 1/2 hours of my life! There were only 30 people there and I couldn't even talk to everyone. THIS is exactly why we are having a weekend wedding - so that Friday night can be the time where it's a frantic game of catch ups and thank yous, and Saturday can be more relaxed and celebratory. I don't have many pictures of the party because I need people to send me some, but here are two.

Sweet Nothings & Feather Nester in front of the sign B's sister made for us.

After the party, the under-40 set all came back to our house for some post party drinking and present opening. Then this morning, after I nursed an awesome hangover for a few hours, everyone stopped by for a few hours before leaving. This was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. It was so nice to have everyone all together again and not have to worry about planning and cooking and hosting - just doing nothing but enjoying each other's company. The low key and impromptu nature of the morning just gave me the chance to really appreciate everyone's company. So thank you to everyone who came (and the long distance ladies who tried so hard to come) - it was such a special weekend.

The Fish Who Dug a Hole

Since we're still in cleaning mode here, I don't have anything too interesting to tell you. I did find something to wear to the party, so that's good. It's pretty fancy, but it's my party, so I can wear what I want! I just have to get through one more day of work and then all the fun craziness will replace the not-fun craziness.

To entertain you, I'll leave you with this video of my brother's fish. Every time the tank gets cleaned, the little pebbles end up on the bottom of the tank... exactly where they're supposed to be. But the little fish likes to have a more cave-like atmosphere, so he picks up the pebbles in his mouth and puts them up against the side of the glass. Enjoy!

When it rains...

Oh man... sigh... I really thought I was doing a great job at juggling the insanity and intensity that life is dishing out right now, and as of tonight it doesn't feel that way anymore. Like most things, it was set off by the smallest thing going wrong: I have nothing to wear to the engagement party and this town (almost literally) has no clothing stores. And it's not a girly meltdown of "I have nothing to wear!" - I really don't. I have a limited budget and a near inability to spend money on myself. Examples - I own 2 pairs of jeans, 3 bras, and 1 pair of shorts that I don't even like anymore. I could go on.

So anyway, all of my very very tightly packed organization plans quickly went to pot once a wrench got thrown into mix. And it's not just the craziness of the double party, there are all other kinds of things going on... I'm planning an incredibly complicated gala for the museum and my boss has been out of town and very ill for 4 weeks, the upstairs apt. is getting renovated and there have been workmen, blown circuits, holes in the ceiling, and a host of other little issues for several weeks now, I've been seeing doctors and trying to get referrals about my back, etc. etc. etc. There is still a ton of cleaning to do, airport pick ups to make, a damn shirt or dress to buy, blah, blah, blah.

And if you know me well enough, you know that I am usually a rock. I don't get stressed or anxious - I just take things as they come, deal with them, and move on. But man... I could use a drink! On an uplifting, focus on the positive, note, here are some pictures. The first is our new hallway decor. Where there once lived a barren hall, there now lives a framed Van Gogh poster that I have been carting around since 1999 all rolled up, 2 wine tables from Michael ($8 each!), and some pretty decorations.


This next pic relates to Feather Nester's baby shower. It's going to be very small, only 8 people, but it will be THE sweetest tea party ever!! I can't give away the cuteness that I have in store by posting too many pictures, but I will show you the fabric I bought for $1/yard. Pink... yellow... tea party cuteness!


And this last one is a blurry picture of the very tiny baby dear that comes into our yard every night at 7pm sharp to eat the crab apples that haven fallen to the ground.


And here was tonight's super yummy, restaurant quality, salmon that B. made. Pan seared salmon with sesame seeds and green onions, topped with a soy sauce and orange juice glaze. Amazing!!

Same old Same old

B. and Miles say hello. B. has been home from work for two days with some kind of throat illness. But fear not, he'll be just fine come Saturday morning when all the golf and strippers kick in for his friend's bachelor party in Philly. As for me, it's a room-by-room dirt, dust, and pet hair take-down in preparation for the arrival of Feather Nester and all of the other family and friends coming into town.

Other than that, it's been a typical work week around here. We needed a quick dinner so as not to mess up the kitchen too much, so we had Avocado BLTs from Cooking Light - yum! (Though as a side note, it's unbelievable how even the simplest of dinners cooked by sweet curly haired gourmet have the ability to mess up the kitchen :) )

Yet another hectic weekend

Busy weekend here in central New York. That seems to be the trend lately, though unfortunately it has left no time for wedding planning and I feel like I'm falling behind. Other than the venue and the photographer, we have no other vendors secured yet. Also, I'm pretty sure that nothing will get done in the next two weeks since I have quite a lot of prep work to do for the double-party weekend: Feather Nester's NY baby shower, and our engagement party.

Yesterday was Round 2 of wedding dress shopping (as well as a lovely BBQ with the family in Binghamton). I found three dresses I'd like to come back to. One made my mom burst into tears, so it's hard to be impartial when that happens :) Round 3 is in two weeks during the double-party weekend, so hopefully after that I'll have a better idea. It's just so hard because there are so many different styles that I like. At this point, my only hard and fast criteria is "not A-line." Anyway, I'll keep ya posted.

Today we continued our progress on the Great Clean Out. After a full year of not having curtains in the living and dining room, the shame of having all those people in town soon made us suck it up and buy them. It's not that we didn't want them, but there just always seems to be something more important to spend $200 on than curtains. So now the living room looks smashing (with the help of some small rearranging as well), and the rest of the house is still hurting. It's that age old problem that when you super clean one room, the other rooms suffer.

Living Room

Dining Room window

B's Man Room - we repurposed some old curtains and cleaned out all of the boxes that used to hide in the corner. Thanks to the clean out, his cub scout hat, eagle scout badge, and his dad's Army card now adorn the mantle.

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On a totally separate note, you must go look at the absolutely adorable onsies that Feather Nester made today!!

Ultimate Frisbee

B. had the second playoff game of his Ultimate Frisbee summer league last night. They lost, but they gave a good fight, so it was an exciting game. One of my co-workers at the museum plays on the same team as B. so we pulled out our full cheering squad and showed up with camping chairs and a grill. It was a great way to spend a summer evening.

Here are a few pictures for you. B. is the one in the tall black socks and camo hat - he tries to distract the opposing team with his sex appeal.

Garden Progress

The mini-garden has been coming along nicely so I thought I'd show you how everything looks. Here is a shot of the overall garden (this is what it looked like just two months ago!). We just staked the brandywine tomato plant because it got so tall (on the left), and we put a little growing cage around the sugary tomato plant because it's very wiry and needed lots of tying up. The onions are growing oddly (details below) and the tomatillo (on the far right) has turned into a full on tree, though no tomatoes just yet.

Apparently there were actually four onion plants in that one little plastic container because we have four onions. I'm not sure why they're so far above the surface, but I spoke to a much more seasoned gardener and he told me to just leave them alone, so I will.

Here are the super cute and tiny sugary tomatoes! They only showed their face in the last week or so.

And here is the very large banana pepper. We were waiting for it to turn from light green to yellow before we actually picked it. Uh... not that I would even know how to use it in a dish once I pick it, but we'll deal with that later. Any chance that you guys have a recipe that calls for a banana pepper???


Miles says "If you refuse to unpack from your trip, then I'm just going to sleep in your suitcase!"