you are invited

So much for that posting-every-day thing. Sometimes life just gets busy, right?

This month has flown by. I cannot believe Christmas has come and gone already! Today I realized that we have 146 days until the wedding. [Insert panic mode here]. We have had such a long engagement - it has always felt like the wedding was so far away. I swear it was just yesterday that we hit the 9 month mark. I wrote down all of my 'to-do' items in one place yesterday and the list is a little overwhelming. I am DIY-ing a lot of things (invitations, programs, favors, table names, place cards, etc) so I need to get my butt in gear as far as starting all of those projects. My goal is to have all of my DIY items completed one month before the wedding - which only gives me a little under four months.

I am not a very crafty, creative person by nature. I totally missed out on the artsy gene in my family. I like to scrapbook but I get frustrated with my boring layouts and design ideas. I am never sure if my color combinations or fonts fit well together. I've been ordering paper samples from this website to try to get a feel for what works well together within my color scheme. Now I need to bite the bullet and order the supplies - these invites need to go out 3 months before the wedding which is fast approaching.



This is my inspiration design-wise. I like the pocketfold and the option to insert enclosures with additional information. Having a destination wedding is a lot of work - coordinating 40 people's vacations is quite a task! These enclosures will be a nice way to include information like things to do, places to eat, etc. I think I'm also going to have one enclosure with an itinerary for the wedding weekend so our guests will know where they can meet up with us if they'd like to. I can order the pocket fold from C&P, and then go to a local craft store to get cardstock for the invitation and enclosure portion. I'm excited about picking out ribbons and accessories to spruce them up a bit. Hopefully they don't come out looking like a 3rd grade art project. This is why I need to give myself a good six weeks to work on them!

Anticipate

As I read more about Reverb10, I found that the same challenge was held last year, so I've decided to combine the two and choose whichever prompt inspires me more.

December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Trying to sum up a whole year in one word is not easy. There are so many big and little things that happen over the course of 365 days - things I have forgotten and things I will always remember. There is one major theme that sticks out to me from 2010 - Wedding Planning. I have spent this year scouring the internet, bridal magazines, and Disney forums gathering inspiration and ideas for our wedding next May. I have daydreamed and imagined time and time again what it will be like to finally walk down the aisle, to dance with John for the first time as a Mr. & Mrs., to spend a week of bliss with the people who mean the most to us. I remember sitting on a bench in Epcot in January with John right after we met with our Disney sales consultant talking about how long we had until the wedding. 2011 seemed so far away, and now here we are less than 6 months from our big day. It doesn't seem real.

So, I think it's fitting to choose anticipation as my word to sum up 2010. I've spent the year waiting, dreaming, and planning for one very important day. According to Wikipedia, anticipation is an emotion involving pleasure (and sometimes anxiety) in considering some expected or longed-for good event. That's about right, don't you think?

Resurrection

Hi, my name is Emilie and I haven't posted a blog in....months.

I wanted to make blogging part of my New Year's Resolution for 2011. I want to capture all of the fun wedding plans that John and I are coming up with, and I also want to write to stimulate my mind because let's face it: not being in school anymore makes me feel like I am losing my integrity. I can't afford to take any classes just for fun, so maybe trying to be creative and keep this thing going will help me feel better about my state of mind.

I came across my friend K's blog (did I also mention that in my own blogging hiatus I also stopped reading everyone else's blogs? I did.) and the prompts she is doing for the month of December. I thought that would be a pretty neat way to get myself back into writing and also a good way to reflect on 2010. I may not get to it every day, but I would like to make it a goal to do each of the prompts, even if that means 2 posts in one day.

It's already December 7th so I am a week behind. Guess that means I will be back tonight!

you lifted me higher than my doubts and fears

Music has always been an incredibly important part of my life. I grew up always having music around me - my mom is a huge fan and always had the radio on or a CD playing. When I was in 8th grade I fell head-over-heels in love with Lifehouse. They saved my life in high school with their album No Name Face. The lyrics spoke to me and I felt like every single song was written specifically for me. As I grew older, they grew with me. The albums that followed could not compete with the amazing-ness of No Name Face but I loved them anyways. Now, nearly ten years later, the band has gone through record label changes, stylistic changes, lyrical changes - you name it -but still I feel as though I owe a part of myself to them. Their music is different now. More commercialized, more mareketable. Even though they do not write lyrics as deep and meaningful as they did before their rise to stardom I still get butterflies if I hear them come on the radio.

With all of that said, I have always felt that I wanted a Lifehouse song for the first dance at my wedding. I felt this way before I met John - but now, after being together for three years and going to many Lifehouse concerts together, he suggested on his own that we use 'Everything.' I was surprised; I never thought he would genuinely want to use a Lifehouse song for our first dance. I do not really want to use that specific song because a lot of people use it - I wanted something that fit our relationship and would be unique to our wedding. I thought about using Jason Wade's cover of You Belong To Me, or acoustic versions of Take Me Away or Breathing. As I searched through my Lifehouse library I came across a song that was never released on an album or on the radio. A song that speaks to true love. A song that gives me goosebumps. A song that reminds me of John, that I can actually see us dancing to at our wedding next year.

The song I am leaning towards is You Can Shake The Mountains. What do you think?

Nala

Yesterday John and I celebrated our third anniversary together. It's hard to believe that three years have gone by since we started dating. Life seemed so carefree three years ago - he had just returned from his deployment to Afghanistan and was not working, I was still working for Disney and in school, we both lived at home and had virtually no bills.

One year later he was working as an independent contractor for Fed Ex and I was just starting my new job with a construction company and we had a nice little routine of spending our weekends together. Our first year also brought us Milo who quickly stole our hearts and became our gentle giant.


Our second year started off with an engagement ring and our first apartment. I was finishing up school and John was working as hard as ever with his route. It was an adjustment to live together but it was an exciting time to be thinking about our future together and booking our wedding. This year also brought us our spunky little Marley who continues to melt our hearts everyday.


This year did not bring any major milestones. Not much has changed in our lives; we still work at the same jobs and we still have too many bills to pay each month. John likes to spend his free time with his new X Box while I like to experiment in my new (and bigger!) kitchen. We don't have a lot of extra money since we are planning our wedding that is less than ten months away (!!!) so John decided we should spend our anniversary wisely. Instead of fancy gifts and an expensive dinner, we paid a little donation to the Connecticut Humane Society and brought home this beautiful little girl:


I swear it wasn't even my idea to get another cat - John was slow at work one day and stopped into a humane society and saw how many little kitties were without homes and being the softie that he is, he came home and told me that we should get another one for our anniversary. We were both a little hesitant at first. We didn't want to disrupt Milo and Marley who got along so well - Milo was John's baby and Marley was mine. What would a third cat bring to the table? We went to one shelter and no one really stood out to us. (Of course, in a perfect world I would just love to give all of the homless kitties homes). We didn't want just anyone, we wanted someone who would complement our boys (and I secretly wanted someone who would cuddle with me). We left the first shelter convinced that getting another cat just wasn't for us. As we continued on with our day I remembered that there is another shelter near the curtain store where we were headed. We stopped in there not expecting to find anything as it is much smaller than the other shelter. We got to the last row of kitties and John spotted her. She was in a separate room because she had a cold and she was also recovering from hernia surgery. We instantly fell in love and asked one of the workers how we would go about adopting her. Less than an hour later and we were in the car heading home. Needless to say, we did not get curtains that day!

She is such a love. She sleeps in between us every night and she loves to curl up on my chest if I'm laying on the couch. She has a ferocious appetite - we think her previous owner failed to feed her enough everyday because she is VERY small. She wants her brothers to play with her but they are taking their sweet time getting used to her. I think with time they are coming around - Marley already plays with her once in a while and today I even caught him sleeping near her on our bed. Milo is his laid back self as always, observing from a distance and keeping an eye on things.

I can't think of a better anniversary gift.

home, sweet home

Nothing compares to walking up the sidewalk and onto our front porch, opening the front door, and walking into the house. It sure beats parking in a parking lot, walking into the lobby, up the stairs, into the wide, dark hallway, and opening the heavy industrial door into our old apartment. It's one of many reasons why I am so much happier here.

When you walk up the stairs, you are greeted by a fabulous whiteboard that calls to you - what silly phrase can you write today?



At the top of the stairs, you'll see our proud little shelf that displays the pride we feel for our country.



Our adorable dining room can fit more than two people like the last one, so we were able to put the leaf into the table to make it bigger. I can also fit some of my nicer things into the built in hutch that I LOVE.



Past the dining room is the kitchen, complete with it's old cabinets and porcelain sink. I love all the character that it has, even if the cabinets are so old that the doors don't always shut.





Next comes the Man Cave, decorated with all of John's Army memorabilia and awards. We bought a futon so people have a place to sleep if they stay overnight, and John covered it with a blanket that he got while he was deployed in Afghanistan.



Finally, we have the living room. The bay window is what sold me on this apartment - not to mention how spacious and bright it is compared to our last living room. Two big closets add a lot of much needed storage.



I know of a couple boys who really love the windows...




There are no pictures of the bedroom because it's so boring. I have nothing on the walls yet (there is a LOT of wall space) except for this:



I think that is going to hold very true here.

busy, busy, busy

We've been living in our new place for a little over a week now and I think it's safe to say WE LOVE IT. I haven't gotten around to taking photos of it yet but I'm going to try to do that this week. We've been really busy since the move because John's best friend is home from Afghanistan on his two week leave so of course we have been spending all of our free time entertaining him and a couple other friends. Oh, and watching Milo and Marley learn how to navigate those big, scary things called stairs.

We had a great 4th of July filled with bonfires, pool volleyball games, s'mores, jello shots, and of course, fireworks. The weather was perfect - in the 80's and sunny all weekend long. Today is another story - it's going to be 102 degrees with humidity. In Connecticut. We haven't had temps this high in four years. So of course, I am all worried about John being out working in this heat - mostly because he got SO sunburned during our volleyball game yesterday.

I have also been assigned my wedding planner - yay! I'm excited to finally start planning out some details of our day, but it will probably have to wait at least a couple weeks so we can get settled here. Oh, and we scored AWESOME prices on our flights to Florida and back - we got both of our round trip, non stop tickets for a total of $378.00! How amazing is that?! We were shocked and so excited to get that out of the way.