It Takes a Village

After we had a quick PC rehearsal the night before, my girls helped me check that my wedding dress fit.  I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep unless I knew I could get the thing on.  At my last fitting, it hadn't closed, like at all.  I flipped out about it, but I also didn't stop eating and drinking things, so it was my own bad.  At the fitting I wasn't wearing any scary knickers, and my girls promised they would get the thing on me, come hell or high water, so we gave it a dry run.  It took all five available bridesmaids to get me into that mother fucker.  It was rough, but we made it happen.  I could get a little sleep and not hate myself for enjoying my rehearsal dinner, and cake, and wine.  I wore even tighter spanks the next day.  I explained my anxiety to Angie and she made sure that all photos of me getting in to my dress were not horrifying.  I made the guy videographer wait outside until I had that fucker on.  

All photos by Angie Gaul at milestoneimages.us

I don't really know why we had this around.

I think Amanda and Chris had given it to Elise as a late present for something.

But when  you pressed its paw it sang soft kitty.

We had a good time with it.

The moment of truth.  There was a wonder woman bra sewn into my dress.

It was ridiculously tight and we had to put it as tight as possible to get the dress to close.

When I took the dress off at the end of the night I breathed a huge sigh of relief

The dress was so tight I could barely sit down, slightly embarrassing during the ceremony, let me tell you, especially since I was trying to avoid showing my shoes since they were nothing special and didn't even match anything.  

My abs hurt for about 3 days afterwards.

I love these photos.

I have a similar one of Elise powdering my nose at Jaclyn's wedding.

Another one of my favorite photos from the wedding.

I intend to sell my dress, but I'm keeping the veil.

It was beautiful and not too out there, something someone else might want to wear one day.

It actually took all six girls to get me in the dress this time.

Jaclyn isn't visible, but she is holding my veil up in the air.

The flowers were perfect.

Inexpensive, fresh, beautiful, and on time.

The dress originally had an ugly flower on the hip.

I cut it off and replaced it with this vintage pin I found on the internet

Helpful tip: Vintage = old

It was beautiful and I still have it, but it did break off my dress at some point during the reception

When we were just about ready we realized we forgot a crochet hook to help close the buttons.

Elise did a lot of them with her nubby Hufflepuff thumbs.

My dad did the rest even with his arthritic hands, with the help of a plastic knife we had left over from the breakfast bagels.  

Makin Sure My Do is Did

We wake up early and head downstairs to the spa area to get our hair and make up done.  It is super expensive.  I feel really bad for the girls about this, but with the grandparents and wheelchairs, it is just easier to do it all in one place.  Hannah doesn't get her hair and makeup done but still looks fucking gorgeous in our photos.  The girls allowed me to give them random bullshit to put in their hair.  Cynthia lets me pay for her hairdoing, Morgan's parents helped her out with hers, so despite being ungodly expensive, our ladies are looking as beautiful as ever.  I wish I could have saved them some ridiculous expense, but everything went well anyway.  Our grandmas get all dolled up, I get a pretty braid, and poor Nancy has to go last so she has literally 10 minutes to get dressed and has to get her zipper up herself because no one is left in the hotel.  God bless you all.  All photos by Angie Gaul at milestoneimages.us

Cynthia was such a good sport, she wore this headband through the entire ceremony even though it was squeezing her brain and giving her a headache.

I loved this flower on my wife

I think this was Morgan's first time having her hair done all curly

Is it weird that all my favorite wedding photos of me are the back of my head?

I may have self esteem issues, but damnit my hair looked good!

MomMom is still angry

Nanny kept telling the makeup woman, "more rouge I think!"

Nancy getting a good daughter-in-law squeeze

Our fabulously feminine hair guy

God Morgan, you are so pretty!

We had my makeup airbrushed on so it wouldn't come off when I had sweat dripping off my face

I should seriously just get one of those myself when I have a bazillion dollars

In retrospect I would have had my lipstick a different color.  

It comes out really brown in the later pictures. Oh well!

Cynthia giving a good demonstration of some of her bridesmaids' gifts.

The applique belt I made, the necklace, earrings, and elbow length gloves.

The gloves were actually Chris' idea, I just want everyone to know that.

Special props to Cynthia for putting up with one of my minor Bridal Bitch moments.

Cynthia had on a large knit kind of shawl sweater over her dress.  For whatever reason, I guess because everyone else was wearing more of a cardigan, I decided to be like, "Can you wear a different sweater?"

And then I tried to dress her in my own black sweater that I had in our suite, which was obviously way too big on her and looked ridiculous, and I just told her to put her other one back on.  Cynthia was all sweet like "I don't have another sweater." And it really didn't matter, I don't think we ended up taking any pictures of the girls with them on and they didn't have them on in the church, so I don't know why I cared.  Chalk it up to crazy bride anxiety.  Even so, sorry/thanks to Cynthia for having to deal with me being an idiot bitch.

Jaclyn's curls looked really damn good if I do say so myself!

How Elise happened to have all these random black hair doodads is anyone's guess.

I'd also like to point out that "doodads" is apparently a word according to google.

I don't have a picture of Mima in here for some reason, but as she was getting her makeup done Elise and I come over to tell her how beautiful she looks.  Her response, ever the dry humorist, "It doesn't hurt to be good looking." One of my favorite Mima quotes.

Rehearsal Dinner

Some of the ladies and I went to get our nails done, and some of the men folk went off to do whatever.  One needed a new vest because the other one was too small, and I think the rest went to Dave & Buster's to hang out with some kids who were there having a bar mitzvah party.  We actually ran into my high school music teacher, Mr. Ezell, at the nail place.  He was getting a manicure.  Love love love my small town ridiculousness.

I go back to the suite we have for our wedding night.  I was going to share it with my sister the night before the wedding, the same as we did for her and Jason's.  I spent an absurdly long time in the large bathtub shaving my legs, listening to music, and just chilling out.  Then downstairs to dinner!
All photos by Angie Gaul at milestoneimages.us

MomMom and PopPop

Married over 65 years

Still Cranky

My darling Cynthia with Chris

Chris' Uncle Bill with his two boys

Chris cutting into his groom's cake.  

His mother got it in Maryland and traveled the whole way with it on her lap in the car.

Elise & Jason

By the end of the night we had drank like 23 bottles of red wine

The one bottle of white that someone opened was still half full

I may have finished it

Just like old times

Chris pouring us all glasses of wine

My mother really loves to snuggle

My brother doesn't really

This looks so much like old times at RPI it's not even funny

Laughing so hard we're crying

Fancy Nancy and Bruce

The boys checking out the cake

Awkward Bruce hugs are my favorite

He seriously is adorable, he doesn't know where to put his hands

Doesn't know how much he should be hugging me

In my head I hear his internal dialogue going like this

"This is my son's fiancee, I really shouldn't be pressed up against her boobs.

She's kissing my cheek... WTF?"

Wedding Drama 3:  Besides my flipout about the nativity scene, which was entirely pre-wedding week, the rehearsal dinner was by far the biggest problem of the weekend.  The Viana is a Feng Shui crazy place, so their restaurant's menu is Asian/Italian Fusion.  They are so snooty and expensive there it really is ridiculous.  I don't think we would have chosen it, except they were willing to give me a really cheap rate on the rooms.  $99 a night for wedding guests is ridiculously hard to beat on Long Island.  Chris' Mom thought that every other hotel we brought her to was "in the projects," so we tried to up our game a bit, as they were the ones paying.  When they came to visit pre-wedding they stayed at the Holiday Inn by my house.  It was over $150 a night and they didn't sleep at all because they were too near the train.  Sorry guys, it's Long Island, we're in Queens, trains come by.  I can practically see the train station from my bedroom window at my parent's house, that's just how it is.  She even still thought the Viana was ghetto because there was a gas station across the street and we were even in like Garden City... anyway!

It is a really small restaurant, like it barely has a full kitchen, much of the food is made ahead of time as far as we could tell.  We ate there for dinner twice, and neither times was it particularly speedy, but the food was good, and we couldn't beat the convenience of not having to take the grandparents anywhere else in the car with wheelchairs, etc., so we had the dinner there.  The sales person at the Viana had changed like 3 times over the course of when we booked things to when they actually occurred.  The first woman was a complete pain in my ass, the second guy was great, but he didn't last long, then the third person ended up being their assistant who had actually be there all along and had dated one of my friends from high school.  Anyway, I went back and forth with them for a really long time about the menu.  It was an expensive place and I wanted to make sure everything worked out okay if I was going to be spending that much of my in-laws' money.  Their menu is Asian fusion.  Asian usually includes nuts.  My co-matron of honor, my cousin Jaclyn, is deathly allergic to nuts.  I had to be very careful to make sure things went to plan.  We were only using the Italian dishes off the menu, there were to be no nuts anywhere near our food.  Jaclyn wasn't even going to eat any of the food at the dinner, that would have been far too risky, she was going to be bringing her own food, but just had to be able to safely breathe the air in the dining room.  

The hotel guy had even talked to me in person earlier that day to make double sure that my cousin was still coming and that she wouldn't be eating anything.  I said yes, but still NO NUTS.  When we sit down to dinner our first course, a caesar salad is sitting at each place setting.  There are nuts on top.  Not only are there nuts on top, but it's not even a real caesar dressing, it's a nut based caesar dressing, like sesame or something along those lines.  Thankfully, Jaclyn hasn't arrived yet, but my best friend Libby's wife is also allergic to nuts, not to Jaclyn's extent, but enough to be very harmful.  I run over to him and all but smack the salad out of his hands.  I am PISSED.  The chef is literally right in front of me because they have no real kitchen, just a buffet window type thing, and I try to calmly explain what the problem is.  He says no one told him about the nuts, and that's just how their caesar salad always is.  So I run over to the hotel guy.  He says oh my fucking god wtf, basically, and I hurry to call Jaclyn, hopefully catching her before she gets there.  I ask her if she can even come to dinner now that there were nuts in the room.  She says she should be fine as long as they're not peanuts.  What kind of nuts are they?  Peanuts.  She is in the parking lot in the car with her husband and baby.  She can't come inside.  My matron of honor who was supposed to be giving a toast at dinner has to turn her car around and drive back home.  I cry.  We try to laugh it off, but my boss and his wife, who were not invited to dinner but were staying there that night are having a cocktail at the bar and are seeing me lose my shit.  I am horrifically embarrassed, and sad, AND mad.  Angie, who knows Jaclyn and my sister already from having photographed them for other occasions understands.  Takes a photo of the offending salad and sends it to Jaclyn.  We try to laugh about it.  Dinner goes on, and it is pretty damn good, but still.  The hotel guy comes up to me after, holding a copy of the menu we had agreed on.  He is so flustered trying to save his ass that he points to the salad description and tries to tell me that it says cashews.  I'm about to tell him that even if it did say cashews, that would have been passable, but they are peanuts, when I take a closer look at the menu.  It says croutons.  Idiot.  

When I return from our honeymoon I try to get some recourse from the hotel people.  They take off the two meals that our guests were unable to come and eat, but that's it.  My mother-in-law is pissed and lists off a bunch of other things that went wrong, trying to give me some ammunition to fight with them about.  It just makes me feel worse that the dinner was so sucky, that things were cold, and they spilled meat juice all over her dress.  I could have lived my life without hearing those important details.  I get sick of arguing with them on the phone.  I stop trying.  Life goes on.

Jaclyn understands that it's not my fault, but I'm still sad about it.  I try to get her to give her toast at the actual reception.  She refuses, but gives me the paper copy to keep.  All in all, still an enjoyable evening, but still quite the disaster.

Wedding Rehearsal

So we packed up our car and drove to my homeland, Long Island.  For the rehearsal dinner, hair/makeup, and wedding hotel we chose the Viana in Westbury, NY.  It is definitely beautiful, definitely small and classy, definitely expensive, but it suited our needs well and the sales manager had slept with one of my friends from High School, so we went with it.  Everyone piles into town and we meet at the church for our rehearsal.
Photos one and five stolen off of Kristen's facebook, the others by Angie Gaul at Milestone Images.

Andy and Elise

At the altar with Deacon Rich

Patrick and Cynthia

Dan and Jaclyn

Jim and Morgan

Jim Scott

PC Men in the Choir Loft

My beautiful church

Dadoo

This go pretty well except I forget what order the bridal party is supposed to go in and end up having to search through my email on my phone to find a pdf of the program so I can tell them what to do.  My lovely Folk Group friends take time out of their day to serve as our musicians, and some of the boys from my a cappella group do me the grand favor of lending me their voices for the psalm.  As we go through the wedding saga, I'm going to label the wedding dramas, because really, everyone loves to hear about the things that went wrong.  These are in no way big problems.  We had a wonderful, beautiful, memorable day.  Only little hiccups happened along the way, largely thanks to our photographer Angie who knew when to herd the masses and when to kap a bitch.

Wedding Drama 1:  We were getting married two weeks after Christmas.  We had always wanted a winter wedding because we really hate to be hot, and there was no way we were doing spring or summer.  We chose the winter break because we knew at least one of us would be in grad school and wouldn't be able to miss class.  My church, St. Raymond's in East Rockaway, NY, is beautiful at Christmas.  The wreaths and trees are lovely, BUT, I hate poinsettias   I was hoping that some of them would have died off by then, but they hadn't.  I asked the deacon and pastor to let me move them for the ceremony and them move them back, but they wouldn't hear of it, not even after I tried to convinced them that Jaclyn was allergic to them, which is true, but not to the extent I was making it out to be.  The poinsettias stayed, they didn't look bad, I didn't fuss, and life went on.

Wedding Drama 2:  Our new church pastor put up this gigantic nativity scene the Christmas before.  As I It was about 3 feet tall and 5 feet wide (see picture above), had straw all over it, and had spotlights lighting it up with their wires taped down to the floor in front of the altar.  I hated it.  I seriously BEGGED the church to let me move it off the altar.  It was seriously huge, we couldn't stand in front of it at all.  My mom and I had noticed it the year before and had already been worked up about how it would look for the wedding.  I don't know what it was about this nativity scene, I guess I just thought it was ugly and gigantic and was getting straw all over the floor, but that added with poinsettias just made me snap.  I am not proud of it.  This was by far my biggest bitch moment of the entire wedding proceedings.  I begged Deacon Tom, my mother begged him, I explained that half my family was Jewish and having the wedding in a Catholic church at Christmas was already a sacrifice for them and I didn't want to shove it in their faces.  I actually CRIED.  In the Deacon's office with my mom and my fiance there, discussing our ceremony.  Something broke in me and the floodgates opened.  I was sobbing over this stupid fucking nativity scene.  The nativity scene stayed, life went on, the world continued to turn, but I seriously flipped a shit over that one.  My apologies to the church for being a total crybaby psycho.

Our photographer Angie came to the entire rehearsal the day before the wedding to check out the lighting and such, so I even have awesome pictures of the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner... coming up!

Awesome Video

Hello All,

Here is an awesome video that my beautiful friend Cynthia just sent me.  In her words, "it's about math.  Only math and pie, so you really can't lose." 

Happy Half Tau Day!

As seen on the daily what.

For more information, and to read the tau manifesto, please see this.

Julibean <3

Life Changes

A lot of things have changed since the last time I did a real post here.  I have a lovely lady named Jes to thank for that.  She commented on my frustrated post with some really warm and genuine advice.  It was just the kick in the pants that I needed to stop whining and worrying about it and make it happen.  So thanks!

A week or two ago I decided that it was time to stop waiting for my life to change itself, and to start doing what I really wanted.  To be happy I needed a large project, something to keep me busy and motivated, something that I really truly enjoyed and had a set metric for progress and goals.  So one day I woke up, looked at Chris, and said, "I want to start my bakery".  He did not miss a beat.  He automatically started thinking of the techological aspect, bought my url and started designing a server for me on his old desktop.  He began researching rules and regulations for small businesses.  We went to the library and I took out a stack of cook books and small business ownership books.  We went to the Sam's club and I priced out all of the ingredients and found the unit price so I could get a ballpark for my materials cost.  I started talking to Elise about a logo and theme and she jumped up to the task.  I collected all the oddball ingredients I would need from Wegman's and started testing recipes or multiple recipes every day.  I started making adjustments and modifications, feeding people brownies, and getting really excited.  I bought a lot of tupperware and organized the kitchen.  I started writing a menu of offerings and organizing my recipes.  It feels amazing.

It's going to be difficult.  I can't really afford to rent a commercial kitchen or anything until I begin to turn a profit.  I can't take any orders until my website is active.  My website won't be active until I figure out what I'm selling and for how much.  Until then it will have to be classified as a "hobby" and I'll be feeding the people at Lauren's homeless shelter desserts until they beg me to stop giving them chocolate.  It's pretty time consuming.  Luckily I have a job that allows me to fill my day with other things, but you really don't know where the time goes when you're baking something every day.  My to-do list is out of control.

Chris was away this week so I tried to keep myself busy so I wouldn't be depressed.  I may have overdone it a tad, because now I feel like I didn't get anything done, but I did spend a lovely week with my valentine Cynthia.  We ate take out and watched Watson on Jeopardy!  We saw reruns of Big Bang Theory and watched the dvds of the fabulous BBC show she has introduced me to: Sherlock.  Seriously, it's amazing, go watch it, and try not to imagine Holmes and Watson having sex.  I dare you, try.

Another bit of my massive to-do list centered around cleaning the house and nesting.  I've been in serious nesting mode ever since we repainted the second bedroom and put the guest furniture and my desk inside.  We have so much more space and room in our closet.  I have my sewing machine out on my desk at all times and I can use it whenever I want for all of my sewing projects.  My stacks of magazines and notes to myself have a home that is somewhere other than out in the open of the condo.  Baking all the time means that the kitchen always needs to be cleaned.  In school, every day after class we would sweep the floor and then spray it down with water and disinfectant.  Then squegee the water into the drains on the floor.  Sadly, this cannot be done in my home kitchen, and if you walk in the kitchen you will inevitably track bits onto the carpet and throughout the rest of the house.  So we also need to vacuum and clean both bathrooms. 

Chris fixed up the TV cabinet and rewired everything so that it was nice and neat (I begged).  Put up a new towel rack and toilet paper holder in the second bathroom, put new hinges on the chest, and repainted and moved the furniture into the second bedroom.  All is going rather well.  I had so much energy on super bowl Sunday that I also organized the laundry room and our closet.  I placed everything strategically in the second bedroom closet, and my next plan of attack will be the coat closet.  Also, hanging the curtains in the second bedroom and  making a cushion for the chest so people can sit on it, and throw pillows for the couches.  Did I mention we have new couches?  My boss very kindly gave them to us when his wife was redecorating.  We have a like new, blue microsuede reclining 3 seat couch and love seat.  They are a bit too big for the room and carrying them into our place was among one of the most difficult tasks I have ever completed (so heavy that my arms literally gave out and I fell down a few times), but our place looks so much more like a home now.  We pulled the dining room table out so that we could actually eat on it. 

I actually got myself to a meetup from meetup.com and met a group of lovely ladies from all over the Baltimore region.  I will hopefully be going to another meetup soon to get to know them a bit better.  I reconnected with my friend Hannah from college which also feels AMAZING.  I am so incredibly happy to be talking to her on a regular basis.  We are emailing pretty consistently right now and I am going to try to do the same with Morgan and possibly Matt (who is currently recovering from heart surgery in the hospital). 

Wedding plans are going well.  I'm talking with our photographer now about when to schedule our engagement shoot and what our theme/ideas are going to be.  Elise's NY shower is booked, I have a flight booked for her NH shower and great ideas to help Amanda with some of the stuff she has planned.  Her bachlorette party is also booked and will be super fun!  We are going to the 80s prom in the city and getting all crazy 80s dressed up.  Heat up your crimping irons, this is going to be epic.  It feels like our calendar is filling up very quickly with all of these things.  So glad that we have a vacation booked for April.  We will be going to New Orleans and then on a few day cruise to Mexico, then back to NO.  I'm very excited to hang out on Burbon street and eat some bignets. I'm helping Elise book her hair stylist now.  We are going to my house on Long Island this weekend to help her put together her invitations.  Laura and Jason will be there as well, and hopefully I'll be able to catch up with Jaclyn and Jamie as well. 

I have a lot of pictures of things that I have been baking and a before and after of the kitchen organization to post next.  Hopefully I will get those up tonight.  Thanks for reading!

Julibean <3

Fill in the Blank Friday!

1.   I wish       I could find some more fun things to do around here and make some friends.  And stop worrying so goddamn much.  Also that my sister would move here and stay with me forever in sisterly happiness.

2.  Yesterday I   Had sushi with Chris and Cynthia, beat my stupid Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Gamecube game, and watched some TV.  Chris after insisting that we watch Twilight Eclipse, fell asleep during it and then begged me to turn it off.

3.  Today I will      work till 5, possibly return some things via UPS, bake something for tomorrow, and have a few drinks with my manfriend.

4.  Tomorrow I will   go to trivia finals and compete for $1000.  Not that we're really going to win, but it would be a pretty awesome after party if it were to randomly happen.  Then meet up with the trivia people at Jon & Sara's house.  Yay for being invited to a party!  I thought we'd never make any friends!

5.  Maybe      I got some Christmas gifts in the mail that I can wrap this evening.  Wrapping presents is easily one of my favorite activities ever. 

6.  Someday        We will get a puppy.  And redecorate and re-floor our condo. 

7.  I love       lamp.

I Can Haz Job?

I am employed! I am now working as an administrative assistant for LBC Solutions, LLC, which is a government contractor that comes up with ways to implement new initiatives of CMS which is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The work is dull. I spend most of my time sitting around proofreading extremely boring and seemingly insignificant articles on the Medicare Learning Network website. However, I will be getting a paycheck next week if the payroll goes through, so I can't really complain. The pay is decent, the working environment is nice. It's quiet, I sit alone for the most part and can play music on my new computer. No one calls and no one really comes into the office either. The upstairs office is new and we spent most of this week putting together furniture and hanging walmart pictures on the walls. Those would be pictures bought at walmart, not actual pictures of a walmart building, for those of you who were wondering.

I'm finishing up my first week here and so far so good. LBC Solutions is owned and operated by Cynthia's grandparents. They have fewer than 10 employees and the owners mostly work from home so there's not really anyone in the office except Cynthia and me on any given day. Hopefully this isn't the end all be all job for me, but it has benefits and pays really well for my first full time job, so I will be sticking it out here for at least until after Chris and my wedding.

Speaking of which... our wedding has officially changed dates to Sunday, January 8th, 2012. It still sounds really far away, but I suppose it will creep up on us ever so slowly. Since Chris was baptized in a Christian religion we were required to be married in a Christian church. We were thinking that my church would not be an option because it was almost an hour from the wedding reception area and I had given up on it being there anyway since we agreed to have the ceremony in the reception hall. Once we realized that getting married in the Thatched Cottage wasn't going to be a legit Catholic wedding (which is required by my mother), I put my foot down and said that if we had to get married in a church anyway, I wasn't going to get married in just any church just because it happened to be closer to the north shore. That just seemed silly to me. I have a really great connection to my church, I have been going there since my mother had me baptized there, I'm a well known parishioner, and I wanted to be able to include my Folk Group buddies. Also, did I mention that it's beautiful? Here's a picture.

This is what the alter looks like on Christmas.  I'm hoping there might not be quite that many poinsettias, but the trees and lights are really beautiful that time of year.  

Here's one of the outside.  It's actually quite a large church.  If you ignore the red traffic light, it's rather nice.  So our ceremony is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m. then we'll take pictures and everyone will be able to return to their hotel for an hour or so.  We will be chartering a nice bus to pick everyone up from the hotel and take them to the reception hall.  This way, no one gets lost or hurt driving if it happens to be snowing, and then whoever has been drinking will have a sober right back to their room.  The reception starts at 6 p.m. with a cocktail hour, and then a 4 hour party ending around 11 p.m. 

I'm pretty excited in the first place that the wedding isn't going to be in the afternoon.  I want my college friends to be able to get completely drunk and have an awesome time and I don't really expect that to be happening at noon.  Well I'm sure some of them would hit it pretty hard at 10 a.m., but not everyone. 

The next thing on the wedding planning agenda is to look for a photographer.  There are a few in the area that we could definitely take a look at if we ever actually took the time to sit down and decide on a few.  Word on the street is that Chris' parents will be paying for the photographer and we're going to try to keep it around $2,500.  That sounds like a lot of money, but when it comes to wedding photography, it really isn't.  Both my sister and Jaclyn's wedding photographers were in the ballpark of $5,000, but Chris and I didn't feel the need to go that crazy with it. 

Today is the first day of October and later this month Elise and I have an appointment to go look at wedding dresses at Kleinfeld's in the City.  I think it is going to be a lot of fun.  Elise is losing a lot of weight and looks great, I am not really.  They say that they have a really great selection of plus sized dresses, so hopefully we will be able to find something that I feel good in, nothing has really been fitting or looking that good lately.  It's really discouraging to try to fit in a wedding dress sample that is clearly like 3 sizes too small for you and then try to make a decision based on how you think it will look if it was the right size. 

Elise is hitting the job applications pretty hard and will hopefully have a few things to look at in the next couple of months.  She is really needing to get her stuff together and move down to Virginia to start helping Jason out.  Chris and I are really happy in the condo.  We could use a little more space, but in a few months or however long Cynthia will be staying with us we will not have use of one of our bedrooms and half of our living space.  Once we have that taken care of we may decide to get a puppy, which would be really exciting. 

Our tasks for this weekend are to install the Ensor's new family computer, pick a few photographers to make appointments with, and get the addresses filled out on our wedding guest list.  If we can get all of that done it would be great.  I am really loving all of the fall air around here and hope it starts to get cold soon.

Until then

Julibean <3

So Yeah...

So remember how I was supposed to post pictures of everything I was baking and keep everyone posted about pastry school... yeah well that ended a while ago. Class was great, I ended up making a lot of friends and having a lot of fun. After traveling way too much going down to Maryland to see the fiance, I ultimately decided to move right after classes were over and do my internship in "the MD" as we like to call it.

I started working an internship at a French bakery for a few days and it was pretty terrible. So I decided against that and went with the supermarket bakery job that I had received the week prior. It is quite torturous. About 70% of the things they sell come shipped to them frozen and they just proof and bake, top it off, or decorate it in some way. I've learned about mass production at least, and how to adhere to company rules a lot, but I'd say that's about it. The real kicker is the hours. My shift is typically 3-8 a.m., 5 days a week. It is killing me. I'm trying to force myself to go to bed by 8 p.m. Chris hung a sheet over our window to block out the sunlight that is still coming in at that time. I anticipate the time and anxiously wake myself up several times a night, and my alarm goes off at 2:15 a.m. so I can get to work by 2:50.

The man keeps telling me to suck it up and get through it, but I've got to admit that it's got me feeling fairly miserable. The only slight consolation is that I only have about 100 hours of my internship left to complete, and the two hours that I work before 5 p.m. I get time and a half, which was an unexpected surprise on my first paycheck. They pay once a week which is nice, but they have my hourly rate $2 lower than it's supposed to be so far, so I'm still looking for my retroactive pay that I've lost.

The condo Chris and I bought is great. We have a lot of space and a really nice and big master bedroom. I'm loving having my own space and getting to see my man every day. Our friend Cynthia moved into our guest room and will be staying there for a bit while she looks for a job in the Boston area. We have a happy little family dynamic going so far; watching Gossip Girl on the couch and playing Mario on Wii when everyone gets home from work and I wake up from my afternoon nap.

The job search for me isn't going all that well. I've had one phone interview and one group interview so far. I've been looking for administrative assistant and admissions representative jobs at the local colleges. Hopefully I will be able to find something soon so I can quit my job. The man of the house says I'm not allowed to quit my bakery job until I have another one lined up.

Wedding plans will probably pick up again in a bit. Mom and Dad refinanced and started moving some money around,(something Elise and I begged them not to do), and would like to help us start paying for some other things. I'm extremely grateful and looking forward to some of the fun parts like dress shopping. The future MIL calls and stops by a lot. I'm hoping it will ebb with time, but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet. Chris' uncle from Texas is in this week so we're going to be having our second crab feast of the week tonight. I love free dinner, it's basically one of my favorite things. And with that... it is 9:30 a.m. time for a nap I think.

Until next time,

Julibean <3

Valentine's Day Weekend

After many last minute plans and decisions, I packed up the cake I had just decorated at my Wilton class and hit the road at around 10:30 p.m. I made it to Morgan’s in Philadelphia around 12:45 or 1 a.m. I dropped her friends and her off at the movie theater to see the Valentine’s Day movie and then curled up on her couch, read a little, and then went to sleep. In the morning we stopped for coffee, and I dropped Morgan off at her sister’s house in Baltimore. The snow there was terrible!!! The roads were covered in tall, bumpy ice. There was nowhere to put the snow, so people we’re trying in vain to dig their cars out. Some roads were just entirely closed because the plows hadn’t even reached there yet; it was just a 4 foot solid block of snow.

I got to Chris’ apartment around noon with my cake present in tow. I unlock the front door with my key and sitting on the front table is a huge bouquet of flowers! We had said no gifts!

Now is time for a little back story... Chris and I have been dating since November 2008 when we got together at a belated Halloween party. So we call it a little over two years at this point. Not once in that entire time had Chris ever bought me flowers. He would joke about it, say things like, “I almost got you some, but then I didn’t”, things like that. It became this big joke that we’ve been in love for two years and he’d never bought me flowers. During my fall semester and winter break of senior year at RPI, I had a humongous mental breakdown. Crying, hyperventilating, worrying, having panic attacks, just generally freaking out. I couldn’t figure out what was causing it, I seemed to be worrying about everything and nothing all at once and I couldn’t find a way to make it stop.

Chris was beyond perfect. He comforted me, quieted me, held me in his arms until I finally fell asleep, but something still wasn’t right. I began to think that maybe it was him; maybe our relationship is what had me so on edge. It could have been any number of things, senior year class load, LSAT prep, graduation uncertainty, trouble with roommates, a cappella group drama. Yet somehow, I blamed it on our relationship, convincing myself that once we broke it off, I would start to feel better. But he hung on, telling me countless times a day, it’s going to be alright, you don’t have to worry, I love you, and I know you love me, I’m not going anywhere. In a last ditch effort to convince me of his support, he came to my apartment with flowers. They were beautiful, a perfect symbol of his love for me, I put them in a plastic iced tea pitcher, jumped into his arms, and wrapped my legs around his waist. He was perfect.

Later the next day I think, I finally snapped. I couldn’t take what I was doing to him. Constantly pushing him away, doubting our relationship, doubting my love for him. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I let him go. I told him I needed to fix myself, and hopefully after some time, I’d figure things out and find my way back to him. But even that was too selfish. If I really cared enough about him, I had to let him go entirely. So he came back to me saying that it couldn’t be an indefinite period of time. If we were going to be apart, it had to be for real, so he could start to move on. So we were apart for two months.

It was the worst time of my life. Nothing has ever compared to the amount of emotional pain I was in. I was alone, miserable, panicking, depressed, not eating, not drinking anything, not getting out of bed, skipping classes, constantly sick, completely and irrevocably heartbroken. Nothing seemed to get better; parsing out the problems in my life was not as easy as I had hoped. I was hoping that if I removed one piece of my life at a time, I would be able to isolate the problem. I would never know that it wasn’t Chris until I removed him from my life. I walked around like a complete empty shell of my former self. Not laughing, not caring, crying nonstop all the time, I couldn’t breathe anymore, my parents were worried. I was looking for help at the counseling center, but nothing was really doing it for me, drugs they prescribed me didn’t seem to help. My friends told me not to call him, not to break down. I couldn’t stand it, I knew something wasn’t right. I didn’t want to be without him anymore and still my friends said no, don’t call him, move on.

So I went on spring break without him, not having spoken one word to Chris in over a month. I cruised around the Caribbean, unable to get him off of my mind. No matter how many sunsets I saw, or margaritas I drank, it was still terrible without him. Then one day as I was walking to the astronomy class that I often skipped, determined to actually make it there for the first time in weeks, I saw him. I was un-showered, undone, wearing dirty sweatpants, greasy hair, and a stained sweatshirt. This is what my life had come to. And there he was, tall, handsome, and perfect. Slightly unshaven, blue tee shirt, jeans, new leather jacket, sunglasses, carrying the bag I had given him for Christmas. My heart stopped. I had been searching campus for his face for weeks, hoping to catch a glimpse. Remembering his class schedule, and hoping to cross him on his usual path. And there he was. Finally standing in front of me.

We both said hi, unsure of what was going to happen. I don’t remember much of what else was said, but I hugged him and began to cry. It must have gone on for quite a while, because after some time it began to rain again and we moved the embrace into the hallway of the building I was supposed to be in class in. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know if we should get back together, if it would be good for either of us. I didn’t know if he had moved on, maybe he didn’t want me anymore. Eventually we decided that it was senior year, our last few months of college, it would be a huge waste if we didn’t have fun together while we still could. So we did.

And slowly the pieces of my life fell back into place. I saw him for a night here, a night there, he invited me to a BBQ, his roommates were shocked to see me there. I could smile at him, have a nice time, and breathe deeply. And soon after that we were back together again. Me remorseful, him hurt, but both of us happy and thankful. After realizing what I had given up, and how it felt to have lost it, I know now that a love like Chris’ is very hard to come by. When I was literally pushing him, and yelling, telling him to please just let me break up with him, he stood his ground. He said this isn’t you, and I know it, and I know you love me, and that we belong together. It is something I will never give up or take for granted again as long as I live. I will marry this man, and I will become his wife in exactly 676 days, and I could not be happier.

So back to the point...the giving of flowers became a teasing and somewhat pained joke in our relationship. Chris would never buy me flowers again, because the one time he did, I broke up with him. They were like this bad omen of heartbreak for us. We also have a pretty bad track record for Valentine’s Day. The first one we spent together we had only been dating a few months, and decided to keep it small. I got him an alarm clock and a framed picture of us, probably a grand total of $25. He bought me this sexy, badass leather jacket. Not exactly an equal situation. The next Valentine’s Day we were in the midst of breaking up, and he didn’t get me anything because he saw it coming. Even though I had picked out the perfect cologne for him, I ended up choosing another one, which upon further inspection was terrible, and he hated it. Which made it better for him, because Chris said if he had liked it; it would have hurt way more. Thankfully when we were back together, for Chris’ birthday in April I got Macy’s to exchange this horrible smelling one small bottle of cologne that they didn’t even carry anymore and for which I didn’t have the receipt, for an entire gift set of the one I actually wanted him to have, with cologne, after shave, some lotion or something, and a really cute duffel bag. I win!
So it was for all of these reasons, and the fact that I told him not to spend any money (after all we are paying for a wedding and a new home this year), that I would never ever expect flowers. We aren’t even using them for our wedding really, he’s allergic, and they have this terrible connotation of, if I give you flowers you’re going to break up with me. So when I walked into the apartment and saw these on the table:





I almost cried. They were beautiful, a huge arrangement, the biggest amount of flowers I’d ever gotten from anyone. I could have done without the funny pink bear, but I knew that it just came with the flowers, and he wouldn’t have picked it out otherwise. I only have one stuffed animal I really love, and that is Quatchi! We spent the rest of the day relaxing together. We went to a belated birthday dinner with his parents and grandparents (MomMom’s birthday), had Becky, Andy, and Andrew over for dinner and a movie (I fell asleep on the couch as we watched the Hangover), and hit a few of the local bars with Amy and Cynthia. All in all a very enjoyable weekend!










I had Monday off from school as well for President’s Day so I left Chris’ early, picked up Morgan again in Baltimore, and drove back to Philly. While Morgan was in class I got to catch up with my good friend Jim. We had coffee and talked for hours. I love those times with Jim. It is so easy to talk with him about everything and anything; he is definitely one of my best friends from college, like a second brother to me. We met up with Morgan again for dinner, saw my godfather for an hour or so, and then I got back on the road.

Until next time,

Julibean <3