Wedding Dresses - round two

OK the novelty has worn off. I am tired of trying on dresses. Its not like playing dress up, now its more "why are you still trying on dresses".

There was one store where I SWEAR the lady put me in ugly dresses all day on purpose. Then she flaunted a couture dress in front of me. At that point, of course I loved it. She said I had Champaign-taste - Whatever lady, the other dresses were just UGLY.

I am what I am calling a "value" bride. I would not even touch a couture dress unless it was discontinued, off-the-rack, and more than half price. There were two that fit that bill. Of course I liked them, but I couldn't stomach the price. As I turned them away, the bargain shopper in me was yelling 75% OFF, ARE YOU CRAZY? GRAB IT AND RUN!!

At one point it was storming and the power went out in the store. I did yell "Grab the dress and run". No one thought that was too funny, except my mom.

At the last dress shop, I could tell I was narrowing it down. Two of the dresses were so similar, I was nit-picking to choose between them. The lady at the store suggested my sister try on the other one next to me so I could see them side by side. God-love my sister who obliged even though she hates the whole wedding dress thing. She helped me finally choose.

I have to send thanks to my Mom and sisters for bearing with me as I go back and forth and back and forth analyzing each aspect of every dress, weighing it against the cost implications.

So I spent more than I planned but I'm happy. Lets hope this doesn't set the tone of entire process.
I figure I'll cut costs from somewhere else (not sure where yet)

The point is, I picked one and moved on - phew, glad I'm done with that.

Wedding Dresses

Today I'm going wedding dress shopping with Momma T. This will be my second trip. Wedding dress shopping is an interesting thing indeed.

You spend time putting on an elaborate dress that is WAY more money than you would normally consider spending. Then you walk out and everyone gasps and tells you how BEAUTIFUL you are. Who would LOVE that.

The problem with this - I know, how could there be a problem with this - the problem with this is that by the end of the day my ego was so artificially inflated that my memory of how I looked in each dress was seriously warped.

The pictures brought me back to reality. No, the dresses didn't suddenly give me a waist or hide the extra pounds. I also had to look at the really bad ones again.

When my friends asked me how it went, I told them that I need my mom and sister to be my cheering section every morning when I get dressed!

At the end of the day, Momma T was ready for more. She planned the agenda for today - how could I turn her down. This time, I wont look back at the pictures. I am the most beautiful girl in the whole world!

Serious about blogging

Ok, I'm going to commit to updating this on a more frequent basis. I am in admiration of people that do this for a living. Not only are they witty writers but they also get all of the tech stuff. RSS feeds, Twitter, social networking....I am so out of it sometimes.

I am lucky enough to know one smart lady that has had serious success with her blog. www.indexed.com. She won awards and stuff.

Other sites I visit - NEVER at work though ;)
www.restaurantwidow.com
www.dooce.com (girls at work turned me on to this site. love it)
www.woot.com - A deal a day!


So it's been a slow start to blogging for me. I have only has 7 posts and 0, yes 0 comments. Come ON people. I know my friends (Mo, I'm calling you out) and family are reading this. To their benefit, I never update the site, so they are frequently disappointed with the lack of content.

NO FEAR, I am committed (to this, not an insane asylum)

Ok, I will starting thinking of good content so the next posts aren't so stream of conciseness.

Mr. and Mrs.

So this post is about a month overdue but it's here all the same. After almost 7 years Jonathan decided to pop the questions.

In true Jonathan fashion, he caught me TOTALLY off guard. He knew with all the "talk" that I would be suspecting a proposal on our upcoming trip. In order to make it a surprise, he did it on the flight (wedding-singer style).

Side note - Our trip was a cruise to celebrate getting my MBA. When I booked the flight, I didn't look too closely at where the layover was. My thought was, as long as we get there on time, who cares. I looked quickly at the itinerary and told Jonathan our layover was in Orlando. His aunt and uncle live in Florida so unbeknownst to me, he told them of his grand plan to propose on the plane. They decided to trek to Orlando and congratulate us as we disembarked. So here's the funny part - our layover was at ORD. Those of you that know your airport codes, know this is O'Hare, CHICAGO. I couldn't figure out why Jonathan was so upset when I told him about my blunder (prior to the trip). My thought was "So what, we're still going on vacation". Now Kenny and Annette (Jonathan's uncle and aunt) think I'm a real bonehead.

So back to the story - We were airborne one the way to CHICAGO at a god-awful early hour when Jonathan got up. I didn't think much of it. I settled into my first book of the trip.

I wasn't even through the first couple pages when there was an announcement. If you are anything like me, you just tune out the announcements. It wasn't until I heard something about "this isn't your crew." and "I'd like a moment of your time." that I realized it was Jonathan. No, I didn't recognize his voice - everyone sounds muddled in those things.

About the time my very sleepy brain had almost figured out what was going on, a very excited flight attendant pointed MY camera right at me. Please remember the VERY early hour. I was not expecting to be noticed, let alone photographed that morning. The camera pointed at me was the last trigger to my unaware self that "this was it". I suddenly was very shaky and nervous - as I can best remember, this is what he said:

"I would like to draw your attention to the woman seated in row 5. She has made the past 6 years of my life magical. I would like to take this moment to ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. Marci, will you please stand up?"

I stood but in that awkward way you do on a plane because there isn't enough room to stand upright. I also couldn't see him so I looked at the plane full of people and mouthed, "where is he?". Everyone pointed toward the front.

I walked into the aisle and towards him. He got down on one knee and opened the box to my beautiful ring!

This picture shows how fabulously unrehearsed and awkward it was. We both have hilarious faces and the picture is crazy blurry (that flight attendant was very excited). It is hard to post such a bad picture of myself but I have to share that moment with everyone!



After that I think I carried the ring around in the box- either totally forgetting to put it on my finger or too nervous to touch it.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep on the plane!

Sammy—my second kid

Sammy was a Christmas present to me in 2006. I had been begging Jonathan for a Great Dane—they are such beautiful dogs. They are also big couch potatoes, very lazy. The lazy part was rather important because Jonathan and I work long hours. In an attempt to find me the present of my dreams - at a reasonable price, he searched the shelters. That is where he found Sammy and I'm glad he did. Sammy is a great dog. She LOVES people. She is NOT, however, lazy. She is the complete opposite in fact - but I'll get to that later.

The funny part of the story is that Sammy was being "marketed" as a great dane mix. She is more like a pit bull/lab mix. The other interesting tidbit is that Sammy was not quite a cute little puppy when I got her - She was almost 9 months old.

So how did it happen? Well, we spend every Christmas Eve at Jonathan's mom's house. This is where he had hid her. I walked into the house and this medium sized dog ran up to me. The first thing out of my mouth was "who's dog is this". Everyone had this funny grin on their face, making it apparent they knew something I didn't. She was my christmas present. I was so excited and completely caught off guard.

Because Sammy was already so big (40lbs when I got her), it wasn't exactly like connecting with a puppy. She came with me to my parents house the next day. Poor Murphy, my parents aging golden retriever, didn't know what to do.

Sammy, meet Franklin
Bringing Sammy home was interesting because if you remember I already have a kid - Franklin. I wasn't too worried about Franklin when I was asking for a puppy because I thought they could get used to each other while the dog was still small. This was not the way it was meant to happen. Luckily, Franklin is a pretty curious and brave cat, fearless I might say.

Of course, months after we had brought Sammy home, I read an article about how to introduce new pets in the home. It was very in-depth and helpful, but way too late.

If I remember correctly, Sammy bounded in the house and practically pounced on the cat. Franklin backed way up and puffed into a round ball of fur. To his credit, he did not run. The minute Sammy was disinterested, Franklin, always curious, would try and steal a sniff. Although Sammy didn't mean any harm, she was too rough, trying to paw at the cat with her giant mitts. Franklin surprised Sammy with a couple good swipes across the nose. He is not declawed.

Slowly, the two began to tolorate one another. Every once in a while you'll hear claws scatter across the hardwood as Sammy decides to chase Franklin into a corner. Franklin will tease Sammy too. He'll run right in front of her, making a little noise, practically asking Sammy to chase him. It's an interesting dynamic to watch.

The Fence
If you remember, I mentioned that Sammy is not lazy. The fence is a perfect example of her pent up energy. Our backyard is rather large and is contained by a privacy fence. This is something I had considered when asking for a dog. The fence is old and rotting in a couple of place, but still stable, that is until Sammy got bored.

Our neighbors have a dog as well. Sammy and the neighbor dog, who I'll call Coffee, became fast friends. We would let them play together whenever we were around to supervise. After a couple months - Sammy got quite bored with our backyard. Nothing was new to her anymore. So she decided to leave. Sammy is determined. She proceeded to dig under the fence until she could get her jaws around the bottom of a fence plank. She would lock her jaws and pull back with all her might. She proceeds to rip the fence down panel by panel. Luckily, she was typically only going through to visit Coffee, and that yard is also fenced in.

At first we were amused—proud our dog that was smart enough, and strong enough to do this. The amusement did not last long. We began systematically replacing our fence - panel by panel. Not to mention, Sammy found a way out of the neighbor's yard as well. Soon we were searching the neighborhood. Needless to say, Sammy doesn't go out without supervision any more.

Franklin, my first kid

I love my fluffy cat - he will most likely be the topic of many posts. He is a large cat - close to 15 pounds, but not fat - just big.

Franklin loves foot pets. He will follow Jonathan around the house and flop on top of Jonathan's feet as soon as he reaches his destination. The flop is as much a description of his movement as a sound he makes when he does it. He will drop so hard that sometimes he grunts as he hits the ground.

Almost weekly Jonathan and I come up with new names for Franklin (who we really should have named Buddy because that's what I typically call him).

Most recent nicknames for Franklin:
Freido
Pumpkin
Pineapple
Number 2 (like the pencil)
Fluffer-nutter (cause he's fluffy)

Franklin often claims things for his own and we find him too cute to deprive him.
Things the cat has claimed:

A piece of luggage that lays on its side in our bedroom. I arrived home from a trip and unpacked the contents of the suitcase but did not put it away. Two seconds later he was tentatively testing the structure for support. It became his favorite spot. Franklin loves the way the closed, empty suitcase gives slightly when he lays on top of it.

His busket - this is a storage container that we aptly named his busket (cross between a basket and bucket) The interesting thing about this storage container is that it is rather small for a cat of his size. When he curls up inside of it, it looks like someone poured butterscotch fluff into the container - SO CUTE.




His water bottle - So the vet told me long ago that boy cats do not typically drink enough water. Franklin is a typical cat in that regard. He will not drink out of a bowl. The vet technician gave me a tip - try one of those bottles used to feed gerbils. I bought one at my next trip to the pet store. Jonny engineered a way for it to hang in the kitchen, where it stays today. He (Franklin, not Jonathan) often sits in front of it and meows for us to help him (we squeeze the bottle so the water comes out more quickly). He can get the water just as well on his own but prefers we sit there and squeeze it for him - we typically do not.

So that's a little about my first kid.

About me

To know about me, you have to know about my family. I have two sisters that are near and dear to my heart, my parents that I can't believe survived raising three girls, a fabulous boyfriend who you'll hear more about, a cat that acts like a dog, and a dog that doesn't know the meaning of 'easy'.

What are my interests? - Photography, food, travel, a good book

What do I do? - I work full time in the marketing/ad industry while going to graduate school for my MBA.

Where am I? - Where it's so gray, I have to take vitamin D to get my daily dose of sunlight. OK, maybe its not always gray here, but its February and spring can't arrive fast enough.

Why am I blogging? - Looking for a creative outlet, I guess.

What else? - You want to know? Email me and I'll post it.