wittle babiez

circa 1994 / circa 1992

still having fun editing and picking photos for steve's and my wedding slideshow.  look at those cute little mugs!

blogging ahead

despite the fact that we bought this cake to celebrate bill knapps day, which was january 18th when we decided to eat bill knapps cake and nap, i'll post this picture in honor of national chocolate day today.

perhaps it was one of my mentally unarticulated goals for the new year to put a bit more priority back onto my blog.  i'm not sure.  but lately i've been feeling a real urge to get this place back on track.  my free time comes in sporadic bursts these days, and to be honest, we don't have a whole lot going on at the immediate moment.  i'm too chicken to head out for cute photos in the snow (in all fairness this is like super ultra mega cold snow).

if you wanted an accurate run down of our day to day activities you'd hear things like "doing a lot of laundry, but leaving it unfolded."  Or "watching netflix and cracking a beer."  Or "simultaneously doing dishes while cooking chili."  Or "petting the cat and talking to steve."

we're just not all that fascinating at the moment i suppose.  but that's ok, it means i finally have a chance to get my tush back here and blog!

but on that note, you may not see my word count sign offs as it will be impractical to reconcile with scheduled posts.  no worries, however, i'll be sure to keep you updated on my writerly exploits.

so now what?  i just told you how boring we are.  so let's look ahead!  tally ho!  i'm going to start pre-writing blog posts to keep this place fresh when i get busy again!  make ahead meals so to speak.  and to compound on the forward thinking most of these posts will be varieties of future plans!  we do have a wedding after all, and a lot more than that on the horizon as well!

escapist announcements

in case nobody's heard, it's cold.  like really cold.  like dry ice in the face cold.

in honor of the occasion (and now that christmas gifts don't need to be purchased) steve and i have decided to officially begin booking our honeymoon, because imagining beaches and boats and bikini's is way way better than remembering the windchill is -35.

and now that the first of our hotels is booked we figured it's time to announce where we'll be going on our honeymoon... while we're hanging up blankets over our windows to try and keep the heat inside our poorly insulated apartment, steve and i are looking forward to our honeymoon in greece!!

tra la la, yes steve and i have decided to take the plunge (into the mediterranean) by visiting athens and celebrating our newlywed fun on the islands of santorini and mykonos.

we could not be more excited, and it's definitely keeping us sane while the temperatures drop, drop, drop.

word count: 36,882

it's the most wonderful (cold) time of the year

happy december (again) everyone!

we're getting in the seasonal spirit these days!  steve and i both LOVE christmas, and our place is as festive as our budget and tree-toppling cat will allow.  we are still busy bees these days, no less in honor of holiday time, but it seems like we're chugging toward a pretty awesome year the closer we get to 2014.

our landlords are offering a prize for the best decorated porch.  it's on neighbors.

we've hit a few wedding planning milestones this weekend, and we headed back to portage to celebrate steve's mom's birthday, and to get my childhood bedroom emptied out enough so my parents can work on converting it into something else.  i stumbled across enough old evidence from my creative high school days, i'm hoping to share some of it as soon as i get a chance.

for now, we're operating in future-tense mode: planning is the key word for the next couple weeks.  with any luck, we might know where we'll be moving soonISH, and then the world might start blurring from spinning a little too fast.  hope everyone is having as much fun as we are getting in the holiday spirit!

word count: 36, 443

a look at my to-do list

saugatuck selfies

in case you haven't noticed, i haven't been great about posting all the time lately.  since it's been a bit tough to stop by frequently to talk about what's going on, i figured i'd just present y'all with a little list of what you can expect to find me doing while i'm away from the blog these days.

1.  wedding planning.  specifically, we're starting to get down to the point where actual commitments have been made, which means the NEW commitments need to work with the OLD commitments.  i'm starting to feel like john nash in a beautiful mind, plotting the bizarre insane connections with string between flowers and bow ties and stemless martini glasses on a conspiracy theorist's basement wall collage.

2.  money planning.  seriously people,  no wonder we have worldwide financial crises.  cash feels like the least authentic form of currency in our world today.  i feel like i need a pirate map to figure out WHERE most of my money is between virtual wallet, checking accounts, growth saving, reserve savings, 401K, IRA, and each of the bloody credit cards.  actually we don't need a pirate map, we just need a home computer (which is supposed to arrive today, OMGOMGOMGOMG sweet panchen lama, i do believe i am mere hours away from a functioning macbook, be still my heart) and a serious sit-down with some file jackets and manilla envelopes.

3.  honeymoon planning.  ok, so we might have officially decided on our honeymoon destination and i might be pooping my pants about it a little bit.  i refuse to blog about it until the plane tickets are officially purchased, but the mind-blowing level of excellence is actually unreasonable.

4.  steve's birthday is friday, our four year anniversary is four weeks later and thanksgiving/christmas family festivities are filling in pretty much all of the blanks.  i'm pretty sure when 2014 hits we're both going to have full on psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

on the plus side, planning extravagant events and travels is literally one of my very favorite things to do.  is it possible to have too much of a good thing?  eh, probably, but you can bet we're definitely having a lot of fun along the way.  hope everybody has as much to look forward to as we do (though i wouldn't wish the stress on anyone)!  happy tuesday!!

word count: 33,709

my gals

so one of the things about planning a wedding, which i'm pretty sure was single-handedly invented by the collective internet consciousness known as pinterest, is engineering some new, creative, ridonkulous way to ask your girlfriends to be in the wedding party.

feeling that a boxed gift set of ugly, decorative, oversized diamonds was a bit over-doing it (not to mention the fact that my brother once bought me an ugly, decorative, oversized diamond from a gas station in indiana), i decided to flex my skills at photoshop instead.  i sent my ladies (well minus my sister who was already maid of honoring it up before steve and i were officially engaged) these awesome greeting cards with their lovely faces stitched onto the bodies of truly the least lucky bridesmaids the fashion world has ever known.

fortunately for me, none of them were too offended!  now that my girls are all signed up for the 2014 wedding-showdown i finally can show everyone my handiwork!  when i went to walgreens to pay for the cards the guy at the photo counter was very excited when i asked for my order.  "i hoped i would be here when the bridesmaid cards got picked up!"

hope everyone is having a happy wednesday!

word count: 33,709

it's cold so i'm dreaming of beaches

fun fact: my hair used to look like this in 2010.  also do not even try to guess what was going on in this picture.  you will be wrong and i will laugh.

i don't think it's gotten above fifty degrees this week.  i'm trying to remain cheerful about this because 1. it is riding boots season (and riding boots are probably the cutest most "outfit-making" shoe choice ever) 2. it is possibly the last year we will spend in such arctic conditions, which yucky freeze aside, does introduce a nostalgia factor 3. scarves (oh how i love cute scarves).  

however, i hate winter.  not like aww i prefer warm weather, but seasons are great; like 80 degrees F 24/7 s'il vous plait.  yep, let's face it, i'm a girl who could dig a natural year-round tan.

we are still trying to finagle where our future home will be... my sister is bragging about wearing flip flops right now... hey wesco, i know you need steve in san diego, right?  right???

ok enough stream of consciousness blogging about the weather.  point being:  i'm currently vacation planning.  the next 10-11 months are mainly going to involve pure insanity about mass-produced food, stationary, and probably cummerbunds, so i'm going to do my best to focus on pure relaxation ala beaches, palm trees, and all-inclusive in-room minibars.  yup, it's time to make plans for our honeymoon!

originally we'd hoped to fly into dublin and have a shamrockin' guiness & castle-filled week of oirish romance.  then i realized that planning a euro-trip WHILE planning an insanely expensive party with upwards of 150 people was not a way to remain calm, happy, zen or even remotely sane (also flights from the D to ireland are currently more expensive than flights from chicago to paris... mathematical logic where are you?).  we realized that traveling to europe is something we are both huge fans of doing, and therefore we don't really need to worry about getting our butts to the irish moors asap; inevitably it will happen on easier terms.

however, neither of us can imagine why we would opt to bask in five star tropical luxury if not on our honeymoon.  that isn't to say five star tropical luxury isn't top notch, it's just not our travel style (we're usually more into museums than hot rock massages).  so in honor of the ultra-sexy-two-person-jacuzzi honeymoon cliche (as well as the whole 'we wine you, dine you, and entertain you with the price of your room' thing) steve and i have opted to go the all-inclusive caribbean resort route for our post-nuptial vacay.  this means two things:

1.  pasta, you and i are about to put some distance into our relationship.  i know, i know, you're inexpensive and delicious, but i'm going to be spending an unusual amount of time in a bikini with my smokin' hot new husband around, so it's probably best if we limited our time together.  same goes for you, cheese.

2.  i, um, actually have to select one of these insanely amazing white sand beaches on which to sunbathe and make-out with steve... i know, hardcore first world problems right?

so far, here are a few destinations we are looking at right now:

jamaica

dominican republic

cancun

st. lucia

what's your pick?

word count: 33.365 (oh hush... writer's block /  wedding planning)

we're getting murried

at the gull lake country club to be more specific.

it's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but the room has a panoramic view of the lake, where we're hoping to have a waterfront ceremony outdoors.  it really doesn't matter what time of year you hold a wedding in michigan, you always want a plan b for weather.

hashtag: pure michigan.

lately things have been quite wedding-y and we are currently gearing up for a lot of travel in the upcoming weeks.  first, steve is flying to texas for business.  he's going to be gone for four whole days and i'm having trouble coping.

then we are heading to virginia for emily and colin's wedding.

then i am meeting my sister in chicago to go wedding dress shopping.

then we should have just enough time to squeeze in a nap before halloween.

so things are rather busy, but i still found time to throw together a wedding website for us.  personally i think the header graphic is pretty cute.

ta!

word count: 23,281