Death and JuJu Beans

Don't ask -- it was just the first thing that popped into my head. wha?

It's been an interesting week. Well, some of it is, so I'll just lie and say the whole darn thing was.

Saturday (yes, my week starts with Saturday -- what about it...) I went dress shopping with Shea and my mom and sister. I found a couple that I really loved, and decided on my bridesmaid dresses -- yay :).

Sunday Shea and I looked at reception sites and chapels. I found one of each that I adored, but Christen and I will have to go again this week to make the decision.

Monday -- not interesting in the least. hehe.

Tuesday -- Luau!!! So fun, and the food was amazine -- thanks Richard! There were great friends there, and fireworks, and a mean game of Trivial Pursuit (you know me) ... the decorations are still up, and may stay up for 6 months -- who knows? Maybe I can come as a hula dancer to my own Halloween party, and I won't ever have to take the decorations down at all!

Wednesday -- my birthday! We had a nice night at home, with Chicken Bryan and garlic spinach. Yum! I got some cool things, and beautiful yellow and pink roses.

Thursday -- yep, not interesting.

Today -- nope, not interesting :)

Rooting for the weekend again! Aren't you glad you wasted time with this blog? I didn't realize I had nothing to say until I got partway through, and by then it was just too late. I'm sure it was the same for you. Thanks for coming!

It's my birthday and I'll blog if I want to!

Now if only I could light a fire under my ass and get to work. I guess that's what the fire pit is for that Shell and Rich got me for my birthday.

More later, I've got wedding crises to blog about!

Death of a Squirrel Toy

So Lola is into destructive chewing. My "parenting" web sites say this is because she is lonely and bored, and possibly stressed (she does have a lot of separation anxiety, so that makes sense). So I've been trying to get her toys so that she has stuff to play with. She has a Kong, and a rope toy (which has also bit the dust as of last night) and occasionally I get her stuffed animals. The problem with stuffed animals is that she tears them up in no time flat. So I bought her this one that was considered "indestructable". MmmHmm ... sure. I wish I had taken a picture of it before, but it took her about 2 hours to render it "destructable". Here are the pictures of it now:

The week

When you tell stories do you start at the beginning and work forward or at the end and work backward? I started to write from today backward but that seems illogical, so instead I’ll go back to Saturday: the engagement. I still don’t have pictures (I guess I’m going to have to email Kyle and ask for them) but here goes anyhow. I generally never make plans on weekends that Christen and I have off together. However, this time my sister called earlier in the week and asked if I wanted to go shopping with her and Mom and I agreed. Then, Thursday I decided I wanted to get my hair cut and made an appointment for Saturday morning. Christen said, “Are you doing everything on Saturday?” but I didn’t think anything of it. I told him we’d have Saturday evening and all of Sunday together. So I got up early on Saturday and got my haircut (it looks way cute, I’ll have to post pictures of that too) and then went shopping with my mom and sister as planned. I bought 4 books and a straw hat – isn’t that the way? So I get home and Christen said that his mom wanted us to go to dinner with them, and I said that was fine, and he said that Kyle wanted pictures of me for the web site … this is a long story, but it did seem plausible, so I got dressed up and we went out for pictures and ended up at the park where we had our first date. We had also been back a few times, so it still made sense that we were there. I sorta had the feeling that was something was going on, but I wasn’t sure – girls just know these things. But Kyle and Shea snuck up behind us and Kyle handed Christen the ring and Shea had the videocamera. It was all very sweet and amazing –Shea’s video was hilarious! So then they tried to trick me and say that we were going back to our house for a drink before going out to dinner and I knew at that point that everyone was going to be at the house, but I played along for that and when we got home everyone was there – all of his family and my mom and sister. It was such a wonderful night! I drank a lot of red wine and ate cheese and hung out with the family. Sunday: we drove all day doing nothing, and went to a craft show in Dunedin that was alright but horridly sweltering. I freaked out a little bit because I was trying to come up with a date and Christen kept playing his computer game, but finally he came out with me and we decided where we wanted to go for a honeymoon and set a date for the wedding. Monday I told everybody at work, and then went home and freaked out about money, because we don’t have any and either does my family. Which, of course, I knew – but who thinks about these things when they’re getting engaged? My mom helps, though, being the rational one who can help me decide about caterers and alcohol and venues … Mom is very good at being rational when others aren’t (namely, when I’m not) just as I’m the rational one when she freaks out. It’s a good balance. Monday and Tuesday night I went to bed early – I think the excitement of all this is getting to me – I get really tired really early. Wednesday Shell came over and we tried a new sushi place (the atmosphere was awesome, the sushi was only so-so) and looked at a couple chapels and talked a lot about weddings. This is my problem: I don’t like being the center of attention. I don’t like making decisions. I get selfconscious and worry about pleasing everyone else. I have a feeling that I am not going to get through this whole wedding thing. My friends are going to have to prop me up here.

So things I have decided: the date, the honeymoon, the colors, the dress (sorta), the bridesmaid dresses. Things I have yet to decide: everything else!

Anyhow, this morning I got to work and the power was off for an hour, so now I have lots to do and less time to do it. Woohoo for work!

The ring :)

Thanks to those who wished us Good Luck! I'm going to need it (all you who know me know how much I hate making decisions; do you know how many decisions I'm going to have to make?)

engaged!

So I was going to hold off and tell everyone on Monday, but y'all know I'm terrible at that.

So. ...



I'm engaged! Christen asked me to marry him tonight, and of course I said yes! Pictures of the ring to follow as soon as I'm sober enough to find the camera, and pictures of the engagement to follow as soon as Kyle's sober enough to email them to me!

I love you all!

Yay!!!! I'm engaged!

Huzzah for new books, coming soon!

So I was killing time at work before I got out, and I was perusing the internet (fancy that, eh?), mostly looking for luau-related recipes and items ... and I ended up on Amazon searching my favorite authors to see if any new books have come out ... and look was I found! I'm so excited! Yay, September! (that's when they both come out)