#194: Engaged Again!

So for the last two weeks, I've been unengaged.

Ok, just kidding. But I have been without my gorgeous engagement ring! I had to take it in to the jeweler's with my wedding band. In order for them to fit together and sit flush, I had to have my engagement ring altered (again). I wasn't sure how it was going to look when it was done, based on the description by my jeweler Reza: "so basically, I'm going to cut off these two bars right here and voila!"

Um...

But I am happy to report that it looks great! It obviously looks weird with only two of four support bars underneath, but Reza assured me it's not any more fragile without those two bars. My e-ring does look a little funny by itself, but with the band, it looks amazing.

I also got the band resized and straightened out (it looked a little bent and wonky when I took it in). I love how thin and delicate it is! I had the option to have them soldered together, but I'd like the option of wearing just my wedding band by itself. Not that I would, because I love my rings together, but I'd like the option.

Just a reminder of what my ring looks like from the top :)

 Side view without the two bars. I'm wearing it with the empty side towards me.

 Side view

 Side view with the wedding band

Top view!

I felt bad having to alter the beautiful ring J gave me, but he assured me it was fine. I also felt guilty spending outside my budget for my wedding band, but I got exactly what I wanted and I'm not really a fan of the "upgrades" that some couples do. The ring J puts on my finger on June 25th, 2011 is the one I want to wear forever. Now...if he decides to buy me another band or two for our anniversaries...I could dig that. But it would be adding, not replacing.

PS: Like my nails? Wait til Monday when I tell you ALL about them. You're in for a treat!

#193: Why I Love My Dad

 This is a text conversation I had with my dad earlier tonight. I love this guy.

Dad: "Just wanted to say you are a princess to me and I love you"
Me: "Haha what do you want? :) I love you too"
Dad: "Just talking with mom about royal wedding and how it does not mean anything to me"
Me: "Haha we're sitting in DQ watching the recap of it"
Dad: "You will be a beautiful bride and make me cry"
Me: "You better not make me cry!"

I said it here first: If I cry at my wedding, it will most likely be because my dad started it. Mark my words.

#192: Royally Yours

I didn't post last night because I went to bed early in preparation for the 4:30am wake up call to watch the Royal Wedding!

Now, let me tell you. 4:30 is not a very pretty hour. I schlumped from my bed, grabbed my blanket and pillow and walked next door to the guest room (I don't have a tv in my room).

I've noticed on facebook today that there is quite a mixture of different thoughts and feelings on the royals and the royal wedding as a whole. I don't really understand the hating, because I doubt anybody who posted mean things about them has ever met them.

Let me tell you why I sacrificed sleep and have been enthralled with this wedding:

1. Prince William and (now Princess/Duchess/Baroness) Kate have shown themselves to be upstanding and responsible adults. They met in college and both continued on to get their masters degrees. That shows dedication and perserverance (although I did find out William wanted to drop out and Kate encouraged him to stay with it. Extra kudos to her (and him) for that!)
2. They really truly look like a couple in love. Watching the ceremony this morning, after William first saw Kate in her dress (he faced the front of the Abbey the whole time she was walking down the aisle, while Prince Harry stole some glances behind his back), he whispered to her, "you look beautiful" and kept stealing glances and smiling. My heart melted. When she was getting into the carriage after the ceremony, Kate exclaimed, "I am so happy!" and I bet she was!
3. This whole thing is a fairytale come true! A commoner meeting a Prince at school, an eight year love affair and then you marry the guy you love and become a Princess? It's every girl's dream! The romantic in me just can't deny how amazing and magical this whole scenario is.

I'm sure I'll be writing more about the wedding later, but that's my two cents for now!

Photo courtesy of People.com

#191: Ta-Daaaaaaa

Here they are. In all their glory. 80 beautiful invitations.

I'll save the heart-wrenching post office Bridezilla story for another day. It's really a good one. I feel like I should've had a camera crew with me (My patient, W, will really enjoy this story when I tell him the next time he comes into my office).

But for now, let's just stare at my beloved sent-out invitations:

All together now: Aaahhhh.

#190: The Voice

Sorry for another late post! I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Minus the blood. And severed head. And feathers. So basically nothing like a chicken with its head cut off. But you know what I mean...right?

Tonight I decided to relax and watch a little tv after work. I got a shower, made a grilled cheese (I was starving since I decided to be a bunny and eat celery and carrots with hummus for lunch...and that was all) and watched The Voice on NBC. The coaches are some amazingly talented performers: Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and my favorite, Blake Shelton.

They started the premiere episode with the four coaches performing together....I loved it!

Check it out and tell me what you think! I mean, Blake Shelton singing "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley (Danger Mouse and Cee Lo himself)? Kinda nuts, if you ask me. Which you didn't. But that's ok.


Anybody else as excited for this show as I am?

#189: Super 7

I had some of my girls and J's mom and sister over tonight (along with my momma and wonderful sister-in-law) to help put all the invitations together. And boy, was it quite the task! I feel like I did little to nothing and I made them work super hard. They all said they had fun though so...thanks to my super 7!!!!

I feel SO much better now that the invitations are fully printed and put together and stamped. The only thing left to do is address them! My mom and I are going to attempt to get them all done tomorrow. We shall see. Once this is done and they are sent out, I feel like I'll be able to breathe easier.

And breathing would be good right about now...TWO MONTHS exactly to go!

#188: Happy Easter!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter with your family! Here's a little Easter-themed baking project for you.

My mom made these to take up to our family Easter dinner in Maryland. Love how they turned out! And they were delicious too, which is always a plus!

Step 1: Dye coconut. My mom just mixed some coconut with green food coloring. The coconut itself is pretty moist, so there's no need to add anything but the food coloring. We actually left it out all day to dry and blotted it with a few paper towels every couple hours and made sure there was no color transfer, which would tell us it was still too wet to work with. 

Step 2: Bake cupcakes! Mom decided to use German chocolate cake since it's one of her favorites.

Step 3: Make your frosting. Mom used my grandma's recipe for frosting, but you can really use any frosting you like. Add a few drops of green food coloring to this as well.

Step 4: Decorate the cupcakes with the green frosting, add some coconut and then add a chocolate candy covered egg or two on top!

How cute are these?!

#187: Mossy G

Remember this post? Well, here is part 2: Mossy baby. Like the name? I came up with it myself. Yeah, I'm that good. The creativity is just flowing over here.

Ok, so let's get started. Obviously, I started with the above letters. I used this glue to glue the letters together. I made them flush on the back and most importantly, flush on the bottom, so that they sit level and stable.

I let the glue and letters chill out for about 30 minutes while I did some lipstick trials for the wedding and put on some teeth whitening strips. I figured this project would take about two hours and the strips took two hours, so why not kill two birds with one stone?

Then I got started. Basic supplies: Elmer's white glue (less than $3 at Wal-Mart) and moss (I used two bags from Michael's that were $5.99 each, but I got one for half price and with a returned item, I ended up spending on $6.92. Score). And last but certainly not least, I grabbed my companion kitty and let her hang out all over my extra newspaper. I love her.  And she loves newspaper something fierce.

This project was mostly trial and error. I was initially spreading the glue onto the letters with a folded up ghetto looking paper towel "brush," but it was just falling apart after a few swipes.

So I switched to just drizzling a little onto the letter and using the top of the nozzle to spread it out a little. It seemed to work well.

There were some branches and weird stuff in the moss that I picked out because I didn't really like how it looked. This was my pile o' weird stuff after only five minutes...I forgot to take a completely "after" picture.

Here's some progress shots:

 Bird's Eye View

 You can see the texture in this one.

 Front shot

 Almost got the whole front and top done!

Working towards the inside to the back. It got a little tricky at this point because I wasn't able to lay the letters on their side or anything. It took a little creativity, a lot of maneuvering and a pretty healthy dose of patience. 

And it paid off!! Here's the finished product:

Love love LOVE how this turned out! What do you think?

#186: It's Friday, Friday, Friday

Well, I was going to enthrall you with the details of my moss covered letter tonight. But seeing as how it's already 11:54pm and I haven't even uploaded photos yet, I think that will have to wait until tomorrow! I was just at a friend's house and we watched the Country special "Ladies Night Out" and it was awesome!!

So enjoy this video of Carrie Underwood singing "How Great Thou Art." I had goosebumps the whole time I watched it. Amazingly talented!

#185: With 65 days left to go...

We finally printed our invitations! I am so overjoyed.

My mom actually bought a new printer specifically for this task. It was quite a process to set up this newfangled contraption. But once we got that baby running, there was no turning back. In less than an hour, I printed all of our invitations and response cards, hand feeding each sheet into the printer (card stock tends to stick and the printer would pull two sheets at a time. Luckily we only had one casualty.).

There's still a lot left to do before we can send them out, but we're making progress!

#184: BFFs

I spent the evening with one of my longest friends, also named Erin. She and I have been friends for...well, as long as I can remember. I remember we became really close in ninth grade because we sat next to each other in English/History. And we've been friends ever since!

She has the most adorable kiddos ever! I got to hold and cuddle her youngest, A, tonight for a few hours. I love holding babies. Something about them is so pure and simple and therapeutic. But I can definitely wait for my own.

Erin is such a good mom. I enjoy watching her interact with her kids and I love seeing how much joy she gets out of being their mom. Her middle kiddo, D, is such a flirt. He was smiling at me the second I walked in the door. And ok, I definitely flirted back. With those cheeks, who can resist? And her oldest, P, said he didn't want to be my friend when I asked him. So there goes that. But he's still a cutie!

So here's the hard part: Erin is moving ALL the way to Texas. This Saturday. As in, three days from now. I am going to miss her like crazy. I'll miss our down to earth chats and I'll miss just sitting around doing nothing and have the best time doing it!

Thank God for the iPhone 4, because we will definitely be doing a lot of FaceTime chatting in the future! I can't wait to watch the kids grow up and see how awesome and hilarious they're going to be.

Erin, I can't wait to see what God has in store for you and your family. You are going to be great in Texas! I am so happy you get to be reunited with your husband after all these months and I will be praying for you guys! I love you :)

#183: Royal Wedding

I am a girl.
And most girls like weddings.
But some girls LOVE weddings.

I am like some girls.
And add the word "royal" before that, and I am in major love.

With the royal wedding less than two weeks away, I am getting super stoked. And before you ask, yes, I am getting up at the crack of dawn to watch the wedding. I can't wait to watch history unfold before my eyes. I can't wait to watch a commoner pull up to the church in a Rolls Royce and leave as a Princess in a horse-drawn carriage. I love fairy tales.

What I am most obsessed with, however, is the ring. I adore that ring. I think part of the reason I love it so much is that sapphires are my birthstone. I love the cut of the gem and I love the surrounding diamonds. I also love the thin band! That's one of the reasons I love my engagement ring so much. It has a delicate band and it looks great on someone with slender fingers.

 Or maybe you would like an artistic shot, without my super skinny bony fingers? Ok, here you go:

So anywho. I've been searching for a replica of the royal engagement ring because I'm one of those girls. I would love to have one to wear as a right hand ring.

This is what I've found everywhere:

Look on the right. See ring. Look left. See ring. Compare rings. Sigh.

That is NOT a replica! Kate's (Diana's) ring has ONE band, not a combo of two. I am so disappointed that this is being touted as a replica. The slender band is such a huge part of the 18-carat ring!

Since I cannot find an exact replica, I've taken to searching for similar sapphire rings, and this is the best I could find:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3f9h8wu

I like the modern feel of this ring. And even though it might seem a bit pricey, I think it's a fair cost. Now if I could get J on board...

What do you think of the royal wedding? Will you be watching? Are you as enamored with the ring as I am? What do you think of my version?

*Kate/William/ugly replica ring picture from emitations.com

#182: Nothing New

Not much new to report today. Ran some errands with my mom this morning, then went to work.

Lots of lists are being made recently. But not much is getting crossed off said lists.

Maybe soon?

#181: Beautiful Weather!

It is amazing to me how beautiful weather can be such a motivator!! Today was a very productive day for me.

I went to the early service at church with my parents. I sat right in between them. I love being the "only child" sometimes. My mom shares her lotion and her sour candies with me. And my dad pats my leg to make sure I'm awake. Yes, both of those happened this morning. Early service is TOO early for me!

The reason we went to the early service was so mom and I could head to Silver Spring, Maryland (about a 40 minute drive) to check out a floral warehouse. Long story short, I think it was a waste of a drive. The manager was very unhelpful and acted like we were a nuisance. We did get to walk through the flower fridge and we got a good look at some pretty flowers. We made mental notes of what we liked. I saw some absolutely stunning white peonies and my heart fluttered a little. Guess what flowers will be in my bouquet?! (Remember my all-white flower post?)

After we got home (and it was only 11:30am! How's that for productivity?), I wanted to finish the massive move of my desk stuff from the basement to my bedroom that I started yesterday. I hadn't planned on bringing everything up, simply because there was A LOT of stuff. But my parents had other plans for the desk, so everything had to be cleared out. I brought everything up two flights of stairs (that was my workout for the day, I think I made over two dozen trips up and down total) and then went through and threw a lot of stuff out. Today I finished going through things.

 Then I went to TJ Maxx and bought this gorgeous dress! As you can see in the picture, I tried it on in gray as well, but J liked the periwinkle better. And so did I. I'm planning on wearing this for the plane rides to and from Cancun and maybe one night at dinner. It's so comfy and I love the length! I just have to remember to NOT put it in the dryer, so it doesn't shrink.

 Did second coats on our monogram letters. This is currently the only finished set. I love how they turned out!

 Then I hung out with this cutie in the backyard. I love this little guy.

 Aren't we cute? (By the way, he is saying cheese in all these pictures. He is such a ham.)

 As if I didn't do enough painting yesterday, I remembered I bought this frame at a thrift store for 69 cents a few months ago. It was pretty ugly, but that's why there's paint! And I figured if I screwed it up, I wouldn't be heartbroken.

 I used the same paint as I used on the "E" hook from yesterday.

It was looking pretty good after two coats, but the wood was so dark it will most likely need three to four coats total.

Were you productive today? What do you think of my dress? Is my nephew absolutely adorable?

#180: Perfect Day for Painting

Today's weather was...well...gross. It rained, thundered, lightning..ed? and of course the usual tornado warnings. I took the weather as an opportunity to get some DIY projects for our apartment and the wedding started.

 Started with some initial hooks for our apartment. They'll go in our entryway/living room.

 The three colors :)

 All done!

 Onto some monograms for the wedding!

 Since this set was cardboard, I decided to sponge paint them instead of brush painting.

 Got this far when I realized I painted the wrong letter...

 Oh, hey right letter!

 This letter will be covered in moss, but I decided to finish sponging the top just in case anything poked through.

 Onto the next set of monograms!

 LOVE this shade of green. This monogram set is really cute all put together!

 The colors I used for the final monogram set.

All in all, I spent about three and a half hours painting and waiting for paint to dry. But don't worry, I didn't watch paint dry. Because I've heard that's not fun. 

Can't wait to show you the moss-covered G! I'm going to try to get it done tomorrow. 

Did you get any inside projects done today during the bad weather? It seems like the whole east coast got horrible weather today!