I Need a Hobby

I'm fidgety.

And kind of bored.

I need a hobby.

I love to blog, but I don't really have anything to talk about besides myself and I am not that interesting.

I start grad school in ten days (EEK) so that will keep me miserable busy, but I feel like I should have something fun to go to as a break between papers and crying fits.

Mike has his car aka the other woman and his well...craziness.  So that keeps him entertained.

What should I do/write about?

Tina Fey

I love Tina Fey.

I love her because she's funnier than me.  And you.

I love her because she's insane.

I love her because she looks normal and still gets to make out with Greg Kinnear and Steve Carell and Jason Sudekis onscreen.

And now after finishing her book in one day, (because I'm hungover and moving hurts and it's hilarious), I love her even more.

The baby fever part of me loves her the most for this:

The Mother's Prayer for Its Daughter

First Lord:  No tattoos.  May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain he tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it's the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach's eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered,

May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half

And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her

When crossing the street, stepping onto the boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boas, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called "Hell Drop," "Tower of Torture," or "The Death Spiral Rock 'N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith," and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance.

Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes

And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord?  Architecture?  Midwifery?  Golf course design?  I'm asking You, because if I knew, I'd be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie with Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.

Let her draw horses and  be interested in Barbies for much too long.

For Childhood is short - a Tiger Flower blooming magenta for one day -

And Adulthood is long and Dry-Humping in Cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever,

That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers

And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister,

Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends,

For I will not have that Shit.  I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord,

That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

"My mother did this for me once," she will realize as she cleans feces off he baby's neck.  "My mother did this for me."  And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me.  And she will forget.

But I'll know, because i peeped it with Your God Eyes.

Amen

Baby Fever

I admittedly have baby fever pretty bad right now.

Although it is mixed with some intense fear.

Here are some baby/maternity photos I just love and are partly responsible for my ever growing baby fever.

Get ready John, you're taking these photos for me!

Checklists

I love to make lists.

As you've witnessed on here plenty of times.

It helps me get my jumbley thoughts in order.

It makes me feel more in control of things.

So it should come as no surprise that when Mike and I decided our baby fever was going to stick and we should start planning for one, that I've been all about pre-baby lists.

We've done up a mental 6 month checklist.

So far on the list we've checked off one big To Do:  get a new car.

I love my Mitsubishi.  She's been places.  She's seen things.  She's been hit multiple times, she's driven across country twice, she's moved my entire life over and over.  Love her.  But she's not quite big enough for a baboo to fit in.  Especially a baboo with a combination of mine and Mike's gigantic melon heads.

Mike, being who he is, went into insane research mode to find the perfect car.  We wanted something that would be good for baboo, but wouldn't make Mike feel like I cut his balls off and shoved them in my purse. 

We were pretty set on a CUV until I test drove one and realized I'm way too short and not nearly confident enough of a driver to be powering that much metal.

Mike finally settled on a Hyundai Sonata and recently went out of town without me, (see...I'm not a total control freak!), and got us the perfect one at a great deal.

We've named her Sonny and I love her.  Even though I'm still pretty much too nervous to drive her, but I love being a passenger in her.

I might just enjoy the newness of her a little longer before I move onto the rest of the checklist.





Runspiration

In response to my whiny post about running hell from yesterday.  Here is some runspiration for you, me, and that annoying voice in my head telling me how awful I am at everything.

Running Hell

So running shouldn't be this hard right?

Like, it's hard at first.  Especially when you're out of shape like me.  But it's supposed to get easier right?

Like, normal people shouldn't have a hard time running a MILE without stopping.

But no, not me.  I am exhausted.  My legs feel like they're running through waist high mud.  I can't catch my breath.

I suck at this.

But my running outfits are cute.

After run smooch.  He looks ecstatic.

Rocking our $10 Walmart running glasses.

6:00am runs don't look good on me.

Mike's sweet morning 'do.

The Deets

Ever since before we even got engaged, I've been obsessed with scouring wedding blogs and magazines.  I love to look at the details that people chose and how they all fit together.  As someone who dreams of planning weddings, little details like mini chalkboards, tiny buttons glued to escort cards, and tote bags with the bride and groom's monograms on them are like crack to me.  So, in case anyone cares, here are the details of our wedding.  If you don't care, don't read this...I'm sure there's an episode of Real Housewives on somewhere.  I won't be insulted.

The ceremony location was outside of the cellar room on a cobblestone patio.  From the first time we saw it, we knew we would barely need any decorations; it was already so green and beautiful.  All we added were some poms from Pomtastic on, of course, Etsy.  Thank God our venue was in charge of all the decorations because I would not have wanted to sit and unfold all 20 poms and hang them, but they did a great job and I think the ceremony turned out perfectly simple.

A picture of the ceremony location at night, loved the lights.

Our beautiful ceremony, notice the poms!

I knew I wanted to do an "In Memory Of" table since there were so many important people to Mike and I who were no longer with us, especially his father who had recently passed away.  I wanted the table to look vintagey so we bought mix-matched frames from Kmart, Wal-Mart, and Target, (I'm thrifty, what can I say?).  I made a photo book on Shutterfly and left tons of blank room on each page and set that on the table with some nice pens for people to sign as a guest book.  

Our flowers, done by the amazing Shannon at Flourish, turned out beautifully.  Especially since we picked the type of flowers during a trip to Wal-mart, found our florist via google whom we had never met in person until the day of the wedding.  She did an amazing job and on a tight budget.  I couldn't believe she made our centerpieces and bouquets look exactly how I'd envisioned them.

My bouquet.  It photographs more orange than it was, they were bright yellow and gorgeous!

The bridesmaid's bouquets, I love the huge green leaves.

Instead of doing corsages, my florist made flower rings for the moms.  They were a big hit!

My escort cards were by far my favorite project.  I found embarrassing or silly pictures of all my guests and their dates, (thank G for Facebook), and printed them on business cards with their table number and name on the back.  I pinned them to the bulletin board I covered with our fabric (DIY post found here).  Everyone had fun finding themselves and it turned out really cute and funny.

We ended up having a candy buffet because, well basically we couldn't find any favors we liked and the mo-in-law really wanted to.  It turned out really cute though so I'm happy we did!  We bought mix-matched jars from a kitchen outlet, Target, and Wal-mart, (this is starting to sound like quite the white trash, Wal-mart wedding), and filled them with candy we bought online from this adorable store called Nuts Online.  Seriously, order from them...they send you little e-mails saying thank you and making nut puns.  I love them.  We bought simple plastic bags to hold everyone's candy in from Amazon and I bought white pipe cleaners from...you guessed it...Wal-mart and cut them in half for people to hold the bags shut.  My favorite thing on the candy buffet were the cigars, matches, and cutters my dad bought to surprise Mike with.  All the boys loved having the cigars and it was a nice extra thing for Mike since the wedding can end up being so much about the bride.

It was way harder than you'd think finding tasty yellow and white candy!

A great thing about our venue was that the price of the cake was included in everything so we didn't have to stress about finding someone to make that.  We opted for a really simple cake with some fresh flowers on top from our amazing florist.  One of my FAVORITE things about the wedding was my last surprise for Mike which was a groom's cake in the shape of a soccer ball made my one of the groomsmen's uber talented fiance.  Mike loved it and it was delicious to boot.

Red velvet cake with buttercream frosting.  YUM.

Both cakes with all of our bouquets, so sweet of the venue to have the vases ready for our bouquets.

How amazing is this cake? Made by Laura at Susie Cakes.

The tables turned out great which is actually surprising seeing as how I had never put everything together before so it was a surprise to me what it looked like the day of.  The table numbers were made by my bridesmaid Vanessa by painting wooden house numbers and they turned out super cute.  Our table runners were made by mo-in-law to add some color to the tables instead of having a ton of flowers.  We bought vases from Gilt and Wal-mart of course and our florist filled them with loose flowers.  I made the menus that were tucked into our napkins and the place cards.  Overall, they were pretty cheap, but cute tables!

You sick of the color yellow and hearing about Wal-mart yet?  It's okay, we're done.