busy busy busy

I've been pretty MIA for the last two weeks - I had blog posts last week but they were all scheduled - and haven't been able to post anything for this week let alone be able to read all of your lovely blogs! I've also got some new readers out there which means expanding my blog reading as well, so I've missed catching up with you all the last few weeks. I've been working late every day this week plus I have wedding to shoot this weekend and I'm singing at church (so that means band tomorrow and a nap on Sunday).

Hope you're all doing well and I'm looking forward to be back next week with some fun things to share!

mid-week update

Some things I've been thinking about this week:

• Tonight I babysat my sweet niece Chloe and got to spend some time chatting with my brother-in-law, Brian. It was nice catching up with him and it's so awesome to be able to get along with my sister and her hubby so well and to call them friends - not just family.
• I'm still definitely interested in doing some sort of Bloggers-Bible something. I'm really hoping to focus this for women - specifically young/young-married and currently without children. I'm not trying to squeeze people out, but I'd like to do internet-Bible-study-type thing with like-minded females who are in the same situations as I am. I have three ladies interested so far, so if you are also interested let me know! I've been tossing ideas around in my head on how we can do this. My thoughts are to have passages to read weekly and to encourage one post a week - about the passages, what you learned, what you question, etc. Anyway - more on this when I get my head wrapped around it.
• My husband is great. He works hard to provide for us and keeps us in check. He doesn't have the benefit of two days a week off, so spending three days with him this past weekend was just so wonderful. 
• I've been really feeling like I need to get my eating and health under control recently. I have a hate-hate relationship with exercise and a love-love-love relationship with food, so it's quite a struggle. I wish I could get motivated about exercise and eating healthy, but what excites me is napping and chocolate.
• This weekend I have a baby shower for a friend of mine that I worked closely with for 2 1/2 years. I also have plans this weekend to see a friend of mine (and her new baby) that I was close with years, but probably haven't seen in almost 2 years!

So. That's what's been going on in my head this week. What's been going on with you?

nail polish winner @ Joy the Baker

OH MY GOSH. I can't even tell you how excited I am. I won 4 nail polishes courtesy of Joy the Baker from her blog post giveaway last week. Somehow, out of almost 2,000 comments...I won!! I can't even believe it. Funny too, because I just spent another hour tonight taking off my nail polish just to reapply the same color right back on.

Wow. I'm so excited, I just had to share my excitement with you all! Especially because I may be doing my own nail polish giveaway next week! (Check back early next week for details)

Yay! Winning!

weekend update: August 12-14, 2011

This weekend was relaxing and fun, just what I needed after a long run of crazy busy (and fun!) weekends.

Originally the weekend was going to start out with some time spent with my cousin, Bekah, but our moms (who are sisters) had been trying to get "the girls" together for dinner for quite some time, so it ended up being a sisters-daughters dinner instead!

We went to Ruby Tuesday, I had a mango mojito (yum!) which had this crazy sugar cane thing that you could chew on but not actually eat...

We had dessert and drinks at Starbucks.

And we spent the evening chasing Chloe around the mall!

I've been loving stove-toasted double marshmallow S'Mores for dessert lately...

Honestly Saturday and Sunday consisted of not much more than lounging around with Josh, though we did spend some time with his family on Saturday, visiting with his cousin Matthew who was home from the army for a few weeks. And I spent some time catching up on blog reading, as I was getting way behind! I've enjoyed catching up with you all this weekend!

I hope you had relaxing weekends as well!

weekend update: July 15-17, 2011

This past weekend was fun, busy, nostalgic and exhausting!! I actually was off Friday because I had worked so much earlier in the week for a bid that was due, so I took advantage of that time off by sleeping in, lounging around and doing some cleaning and grocery shopping.

My girlfriends Nicole and Carri came up from Pittsburgh Friday night, and I haven't them since (college) graduation in 2006. Nicole and I were interior design majors together and Carri was her roommate-turned-best-friend-turned-totally-inseparable. They moved to Virginia/DC area after college and just within the last year moved back up "north." We met up for dinner/drinks at Texas Roadhouse, then planned our next day festivities.

Other than visiting me, the girls had a few reliving-college-memories staples that had to be accomplished during this trip. These included: a visit/drive around Mercyhurst College, Little Caesar's Hot & Ready pizza, Valerio's pizza,  Seawolves Baseball game and The Cellblock Bar/Club.

We started the walk down memory lane Saturday with Little Caesar's at Josh and I's townhouse. Then we drove down to Romolo Chocolates for ice cream and milkshakes and a walk around Frontier Park. Originally we were going to stop at Presque Isle but it was ridiculously busy due to Roar on the Shore bike rally so we rethought our ice cream/walk plans.

Nicole + Carri swinging at Frontier Park

A walk around Mercyhurst College

So, they obviously don't need this fire extinguisher spot anymore (there was one mounted on the wall on the other side of the tree)

Old Main building. We also saw a wedding here that ended up being the one my sister was shooting. Weird!

Carri, Me + Nicole at Jerry Uht Park

Jerry Uht Park

Funnel cake at the game. <3

Cellblock - the girls used to love this place!

Classy club-bathroom-pic

We had so much fun reminiscing about old times, catching up on life since college and laughing together. I'm so glad they live closer now so road trips and visits can happen much more often!!

Josh and I didn't get much time together Friday and Saturday since the girls were in town and we were so busy off doing crazy things, so Sunday we laid low and just hung out in the comfort of our AC-house.

Hope you all had great weekends! I'm looking forward to the next three weekends also being crazy busy as well...but they should be fun!

weekend update: june 24-26, 2011

This weekend involved a trip to Pittsburgh and an old-fashioned girlie sleepover (Disney movie [Aladdin] and all) with these lovely ladies:

Staci, Katie, Nicole, me and Kristen

to celebrate this lovely lady's birthday:

We got a limo to take us out and bring us home (for $5/person each way!!) which was super fun and made us feel fancy.

We had dinner and drinks at Bettis Grille where we had salads and split a Buffalo Chicken Flatbread and a Mushroom + Goat Cheese Flatbread. Everything was deliciously amazing.

After dinner we walked down to SoHo for more drinks and hanging out, though I think most of us stuck to water at this point...

We somehow convinced Katie and Nikkie to do some PLANKING - which is supposedly the new craze according to some YouTube video Staci sent us all. It was pretty funny that other people recognized it, as none of us had heard of it before the video.

The next morning we slept in, had cinnamon rolls, fruit and mimosas for breakfast and watched Water for Elephants, which we had all just read as our 2nd book for book club. All of us loved the book (maybe Nikkie wasn't too impressed) and though we enjoyed the movie, there were a lot of variances from the book that frustrated all of us.

We stopped at Rivers Casino and Wheelhouse Bar & Grill for lunch then stopped off at Ikea before going back home.

Oh, and also? Escalators. Are. Dangerous. I managed to trip up a down escalator and slice up my toe. Yes, that was stupid of me. But I'm pretty sure the tripping was not because of the escalator, but because of my clumsiness and then just was worse because of the escalator. I was only a few steps down and I tried to get back up to grab my camera from one of the girls. So yeah. Seriously. Don't mess around on those things.

Anyway, great weekend! Sunday I was just happy to lay around with my husband. We relaxed, napped, ate Chinese and watched TV.

I'm hopeful to get some more fun posts up this week - we had Josh's parents over for dinner last week, so that deliciousness will be coming. Also, I swear next time I go to Katie's house I'm going to do a house-crashers post, because I love what she and her hubby have done with the house, and she's too busy to get pics up on her own blog!

Hope you all had an awesome weekend as well!

grilled chicken + sweet potatoes

this was our dinner the other night. sweet potatoes grilled in foil packets (my new favorite thing) with butter, cinnamon, salt, pepper and a sprinkling of sugar. chicken was grilled pretty simple with salt, pepper and some pre-made seasoning combination.

the corn on the cob was on sale - 5 for $2 - so i threw that in the meal plan when i saw that price. mmm love corn on the cob. this was pretty good stuff, sweet and tasty - boiled w/ salt and served with the staple - butter, salt and pepper.

i made this the other night and finished grilling 20-some minutes before a major downpour. that turned into the first of two nights of tornado warnings. the weather's been nuts here, but we're looking forward to better temps and clearer skies this weekend!

weekend update

i really thought i'd come to this week with some pretty pictures, recipes or design-fun, but unfortunately, not much of that happened this weekend.

we had a great night on Friday at my brother-in-law's 30th birthday party! i made buffalo chicken wing dip (yummo!) and forgot to put a card in my camera. we had tons of food and just hung out, ate and then josh, brian (brother-in-law) and dustin had a little Muse cover-band concert.

saturday was a beautiful day and i took full advantage of sleeping in, took a walk, got inspired and made a list and plan for painting the chairs and table we received from josh's Gram and we had burgers and veggies on the grill. delish! oh, we also went to the store to pick up something for those dang bees, but unfortunately they are strong and so far seem immune to our attempts at ridding them. i suppose we should try again, or our landlord should get rid of all the rotting wood fences so they are gone for serious.

sunday josh and i were desperate for a lazy day together, so we slept in again, had breakfast together and just laid around all day, then i realized how gorgeous it was outside so we took a drive and a walk at the peninsula. also, i finished a book. and by finished, i mean i had only 10 pages read in the morning and it was done by 9pm that night. water for elephants. book club. amazing. had to finish. since the movie just came out, the SKANK book club is going to see it in June for our discussion day. i can't wait! it's gonna be suuuuper fun.

anyway, so here we are. another work week. remember when you were in high school and you could look forward to summer and vacation? i want that again!! (i didn't have that luxury in college as i always worked through summer vacay, though i never worked 40 hours, so it was still fun.)

thoughts: interior design

i was out at Mercyhurst College the other night for the Interior Design senior show and every year i'm struck by how things are continually changing and improving. back when i graduated (five years ago) we only had one or two seniors doing computer rendering (that's right - i rendered my entire 10-board museum project on craft paper with chalk and oil pastels). almost every year since, 100% of the students have been using some form of computer rendering. this year, many of the students printed their renderings directly to formcore with the help of FastSigns. they looked awesome.

most of the projects start in AutoCAD. some students go from there to Sketchup (if they haven't started in Sketchup). somehow it goes through PhotoShop and Artlantis (i don't even know what that program is) and this year, they have been starting to use Revit along with the others.

i've been using AutoCAD for over 10 years, so it's definitely something i'm comfortable using. because of the nature of my job (mostly furniture space planning, layout design and coordinating fabrics and furniture finishes mostly in existing buildings), we don't have a huge need for rendering programs other than those like 20-20 Visual Impressions, or sometimes throwing things into SketchUp for a quick visual.

so, here's my first question - what do you interior designers and architects out there use? still hand sketching? have you transferred to Revit? if you're a student, what are you learning or what do you prefer?

another thing i noticed at the show is how the students' focus is really on the architecture portion of the interior (and sometimes exterior) and the finishes that go along with that (flooring, paint, wallcoverings). however, they don't really put any emphasis on furniture AT ALL - they just pull in random symbols that look cool. being a major furniture nerd (and selling it for 6 years), i don't think this is such a good thing. personally, i think that Interior Design of both commercial and residential spaces is based HEAVILY on the furniture and fabrics that are used in the space. i think they affect the design thesis equally as much as (if not more than) the walls, floor plan/layout, room placement, etc. i think it would be nice to see a focus back on that in future shows. working in healthcare a lot, we really see a focus on how the furniture affects the patients and healing (with comfort, anti-microbial finishes, functions) as well as the paint colors or layouts of the space. i think it would be good to know the rational of why for the furniture they pick.

i'm not sure about other colleges and schools and what they are teaching. interior designers (and students) out there - what's your opinion? what's your preferred platform and how do you see the industry of interior design changing today?

fabric friday: failure.

sorry guys. totally didn't even try to post this past friday for my weekly "series." i've been feeling a little uninspired lately and lacking the desire to write and take pictures and have started several posts only to leave them unfinished without a plan to ever post them.

this weekend i cleaned our stove and sink and added some things in the kitchen that i wish i would have before-and-after'ed - because seriously, our stove must not have been really cleaned in years - but i didn't take any before pics and then didn't care so much about taking after pics either.

so, i apologize. hopefully some interesting and inspiring things will happen this week. lately i've just been really "blah" and i'm sure this 50's and rainy weather is NOT helping.

hope you all had a lovely weekend! anyone do anything fun? anyone else feeling like they are in a slump because of this crazy weather?

family things

well, if you've been reading/following my blog for a while, you'll know i went through some major family events these past two years.

two years ago in March i lost my first grandparent. Gramma Grace Mason, whom i am named after, passed away. she wasn't sick but more so passed from old age. it was a sad event, even more so because my dad's family is all in England so my sister, mother and i were unable to attend the funeral.

around this same time, my mom's mom, Gramma Betty Koos, had a major decline in her health. she had been suffering from lung cancer and passed away in June of the same year. it was a major struggle because we had to deal with weeks of declining health, amazed that she kept hanging on.

about a month before Gramma Koos's passing, we found out about health issues for Papa Dick Koos. about a month after Gramma died, we found out he, too, had cancer. he passed away last February. although his battle with cancer was much shorter than my gramma's, we were happy he wasn't in pain for as long.

a month after Papa Koos's passing, my beautiful niece Chloe was born. we are sad she never was able to meet our grandparents; however my brother-in-law's grandparents have had the pleasure of meeting her, and she has brought such a joy to our lives.

several months later, as you should recall, Josh and i got married. it was sad not having any of my grandparents there, but i am blessed to have two new grandma's on Josh's side. Josh's Gramma Julie is very strong in her faith and i know my Gramma Betty would have gotten along with her so well.

here we are, 2011, and unfortunately starting off the year sad. my dad's dad - my last grandparent - passed away last Friday, the day before my dad's birthday. he was not really sick, just passed from old age and natural causes. he was almost 88, i think. he had a great, full life with wonderful, caring children. my dad will fly over to England for the funeral in a week.

i have been incredibly blessed to have two sets of God-loving grandparents, both married for 50+ years, to set amazing examples for my parents and my sister and i. although they are gone, we believe they are celebrating in heaven - cancer-free and in new bodies not affected by old age. they were all amazing, and i miss them every day. we are comforted knowing we will see them again.

2006 - last time i saw both my dad's parents

granddad + gramma mason, 2006

dad, nan + granddad, 2006

fun things

in fun news...i have my first residential "consult" tomorrow. i'm going to help a family from my small group/church in coordinating a few things at their new house. i'm excited! i'm grabbing a paint deck now so i don't forget.

also, i want this pillow from target. however, i don't think Josh is a big fan of accent pillows (also, it's sold out. also, probably too expensive for a pillow).

yellow rosettes decorative pillow

life update

life is good. i'm counting my calories (not very effectively, but i'm trying) and so far have eaten almost zero candy/chocolate/sweets for over a week (do you understand the accomplishment in this - especially with all the christmas candy still at our house?). haven't seen any progress so far, but i'm proud of how i've been doing. i'm also trying to get on the wii fit every day. not so successful on that and i know that using the wii fit will not give me the real workout needed to drop a bunch of weight, but i do enjoy the yoga and strength training and it's better than sitting on my butt just watching cartoons (yes. i watch cartoons).

other than that i've been reading a lot (all-booked up - book club with my SKANK girlfriends) and cooking a lot (Rachael Ray Look+Cook) and loving my husband a lot. work is getting busy again which is always a good thing. also, it's been really cold. i usually go to bed and end up sweating in a tank top and shorts, but i've been sleeping in sweat pants, socks, t-shirts and zip ups for the last few days. this is VERY weird for me. all this cold really makes me want to move south!

anyway, happy Tuesday. sorry i've got nothing more exciting to share as of now :)

could we go back here please?

excellence resorts: playa mujeres - our honeymoon location :)

memorable moments: 2010

2010 was probably my best year yet. awesome things happened this year.

JANUARY: Rachel's baby shower.
FEBRUARY: the only sad moment - my grandfather's passing. we are joyful though, because now he and gramma koos are in heaven, dancing together.
MARCH: birth of Chloe! we are so blessed to have her in our lives. it's amazing how quickly they grow and learn in the first year (we're at 9 months). she is now crawling all over, almost walking and babbling non-stop just like the rest of the ladies in this family. oh, and getting mad when we say "no" or take things away from her :)
APRIL: roomie bought a house! i think we failed to do the majority of the things on our "must do before kc moves out list."
MAY: some of the best bridesmaids ever: bachelorette party in ORLANDO, FLORIDA! i cannot express how amazing that weekend was and how i will always remember it! it was such a joy to be able to spend some time w/ my friend Alicia who lives in FL and was unable to attend our bridal shower. josh & i also were privileged to have our engagement photos taken by my amazing sister, Rachel this month.
JUNE: bridal. shower. amazingness. my family and friends. rock. josh and i were so blessed at the shower and we love using all of our amazing gifts!!
JULY: not much happened this month, i believe Josh had his bachelor party in NY City this month. i'm glad he was able to do that with his friends. most of my life in this month was planning for the WEDDING duh, and enjoying the summer.
AUGUST: wedding. what can i say? it was hands down the best day ever. everything was more amazing than i could have imagined. we had so much fun the day of and were again so blessed by our family and friends who came, helped, baked, were generous, danced with us...and then the honeymoon? AMAZING. can we please go back?
SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER: not much happened these last few months, and that is totally okay with me. Josh & i have been enjoying the married life and right now just enjoying the holiday and time off. we had a great time with our families for all the holidays!

<<edit>> josh reminded me: some big things DID happen in SEPT-DEC 2010:

*NOVEMBER: visited Josh's aunt & uncle in Maumee, Ohio

*DECEMBER: my poor green civic was rear-ended (with me in it) and verdict: totaled. Josh and i bought a beautiful black Subaru Impreza hatchback as our brand new car. we love it!

*DECEMBER: girls weekend @ lake house in Chautauqua. wine tasting, breweries, fun times, awesome food and good conversation!

update on life

things are busy and crazy here, which is actually a little unusual for the holiday season. business is usually slower as many customers are on vacation and many of our vendors have weeks off b/w christmas and new years. however, we are fairly busy, which is good. just helps to propel us into the holiday season and vacation time of my own!

i'm very excited for the holiday this year. josh and i decorated our tree together and i'm excited to spend vacation days and holidays with him and his family. plus we have our new baby Chloe (okay, she's almost 9 months...not really "new" anymore), but Christmas should be so fun with her! plus my sister's in-laws are joining us for the holiday, so we'll have a full table which is going to be great. isn't Chloe the cutest ever?? i mean, really, she is. photo by rachel (www.puremotif.com).

other things going on:

• i was rear-ended after leaving work last week. it turns out my car is totaled, though worth more than i thought. the prospect of getting a new car is very exciting (i've had my sweet civic Genevieve...or Guinevere...i can't remember what i named her...for almost 8 years now). josh and i plan on looking in the next few days for a new mode of transportation! we knew my car wasn't going to last too much longer, but this was definitely sooner than anticipated.
• next weekend is our SKANK girls weekend (staci, kristen, amy, nicole & katie). we are going to Staci's mother-in-law's cabin in Chautauqua and i'm very excited! we are planning on hitting up some wineries, hanging out with games and movies and making a Mexican themed dinner one of the nights.

i guess that is about it for now, there are many holiday things going on that are exciting (to me) but not really post-worthy!

fun finds for small spaces

life is fairly busy and kinda boring right now. we're finishing up some big projects at work and just waiting for some new ones to pop up and i've had a busy week with volleyball tuesday nights, yep! happy hour at the Brewerie last night with some friends and an open house for Behrend tonight (invited by former roomie KC). i'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend with josh; he's also been busy with jury duty this week (today SHOULD be his last day...) so it's been an extra-long week for him.

here are two fun finds for small spaces:

Stackable Oven-to-Table Cookware by Designer Christian Bjørn.

These are pretty neat because they can stack in the OVEN as well; the scalloped cut-outs allow air to circulate and heat food evenly. Pretty neat.

A+R store

Wire

love this. i'm always looking for a new and better place to hang my keys, purse and put the mail in our "tiny" townhouse. unfortunately weren't not "technically" supposed to attach anything to the walls, so i probably couldn't use this anyway. maybe some day! 

areaware

 

they also have some pretty freaky "on the wall" products...like hands...

would you put this in your house?

areaware

honeymoon!

for our honeymoon, we went to the hot and humid city of Playa Mujeres, near Cancun, in Mexico. we stayed at the Excellence Resort. it was pretty much amazing. all inclusive, awesome food, gorgeous rooms and interiors, friendly and helpful staff, beautiful pools...could not have asked for more!!

our flight down had no issues, though we had two layovers and our first connecting flight had already been boarding for 1/2 hour when our first flight landed in the airport. luckily we didn't have any issues making our way to and ONTO that flight. it was another quick one (both the first flights were about an hour), and then we had a relaxing 3 1/2 hour layover before the 3 hour trip to the Cacun airport. i heard a rumor that the floor in their airport was dirt...um...yeah, that's not true. it's very nice there.


by the time we got outside the sun was already going down, but the heat and humidity were ridiculous. Erie can be quite a hot and humid place, but it's never close to as bad as the humidity during the day. 

we spent the first evening getting settled in our room. we ordered room service and checked out all the fun amenities in the room (the dual-faucet shower, in-room safe, mini-bar, balcony and our awesome view). it was too hot to go outside. plus the pools were already closed, it was dark already and we were exhausted. our room had a beautiful king-sized bed, double sinks, l-shaped couch, jacuzzi and balcony with an awesome bed/couch thing and table and chairs.

on Monday we spent the morning sleeping in, ordered some yummy room service for breakfast, then changed into our swimming gear and explored the resort. we hung out in one of the larger pools adjacent to the spa and REVIVE bar. it was gorgeous. the water was so warm, and it wasn't that crowded either.








Monday night we ate at the Toscana Italian restaurant for dinner. We had a bottle of wine (they served 2 whites and 2 reds that were included in the "all-inclusive" package), bread baked with garlic and parm cheese with oil & vinegar for dipping, a bruschetta sampler, i had minestrone soup (AMAZING) and josh had caprese salad. my main course was lasagna Florentine, josh had spaghetti bolognese. for dessert: tiramisu and strawberry gelato. definitely was my favorite place, we went there again on Friday night.







we spent most of our time relaxing in this pool, which we could see from our room. it was amazing, not crowded and a little cooler temperature than the other pools we tried.









 





we only went to one other restaurant for dinner, called SPICE, this one was Asian/Japanese inspired. it was also delicious. i had coconut soup (very good, lots of chunks of chicken and not too sweet), Thai fried rice with chicken (delish) and flan (weird, but okay). josh had spring rolls, steak and noodles and some sort of ice cream type dessert.  
 

our trip was SO awesome and fun. i would definitely recommend it. Excellence Resorts have several other locations as well; i would love to try their Jamaica or Dominican Republic resorts as well.











ugh, i apologize for the horrid-ness of how this blog post looks. apparently Blogger's new picture formatting does not like me one bit!!!

sorry i've been distant...

i've been lacking in blog posting and blog reading/commenting recently. things are crazy in my life, maybe more so than usual! also, i have no internet (or tv...cable...) at home, so that puts a wrench in posting and reading. here's what's been keeping me busy...

• wedding planning. duh!! we bought our rings, finalized the flowers and put down a deposit, met with our wedding coordinator at church, had my trial run with my hair stylist, made some decisions and purchased some super fun gifts for my bridesmaids, been planning day-of schedule, thank you cards from the shower are written and sent, invites sent out & RSVP's coming in, next dress fitting is Monday, i attempted to make myself a necklace and failed, i bought shoes...again...
• roomie moved out so the place is a little empty. a centipede tried to take her spot but, with the help of my dad, i killed it (that is another story)
  
• i've started packing up a few of my own things in the town house
• Josh and i joined cell phone plans and both of us got the new iPhone 4!! totally love it, though the limited data plan sucks major and i still can't type/text on it worth crap. but the display is amazing. cameras and face-time are amazing (when face-time works, that is...)
• work is very busy, which is great, but also unusual at this time of year. things are normally a little more calm now, and they might be if it weren't for the huge project that's been consuming the majority of my time. we're hoping it's finalized and ordered next week and ready for install in Sept-Oct!
• Josh's brother's wedding is this weekend; he's in it and i'm photographing it
• Josh's bachelor party is next weekend, which means he's off for 3-4 days with 4 of his 6 guys to New York City

i'm sure MORE things have been going on than just this, but it's time to get focused. have great weekends everyone!!

update, mostly about wedding progress...

haven't updated in a while...still have a day left to finish on my Bachelorette Weekend series of posts!!! things have been insanely busy of course, as is my normal lack-of-posting excuse. work is very busy, i am completely immersed in a HUGE hospital job (which is awesome, but stressful), plus all the other work we have going on.

tonight is my 2nd Bachelorette Party with some of the girls that couldn't make it to the Florida trip.

tomorrow is my shower.

wait. what?

TOMORROW IS MY SHOWER.

i can't even believe it. we're almost at the two month mark!!!

we are 99% done with DESIGNING the wedding invitations. hopefully we'll get them printed and assembled...and dare i say it? SENT OUT? next week!??! i dread the amount of money i'm going to be spending on postage.

yesterday, josh and i picked up my ring and ordered his (mine we ordered a "sample" first because they didn't have anything like what i wanted in stock. it was PERFECT! plus, they ordered it in my size, cause it's now my ring, so i got to see EXACTLY what it would look like). i'm making josh keep it so i don't stare at it and try it on every second i can (cause i totes would).

we're slowly making the purchases for the reception decorations.

i'm changing my mind about shoes and jewelry. big surprise there.

i have my hair trial in two weeks!! so excited about that. still working on details about what to do about coloring my hair...

we got to hear the song my cousin wrote for us!! now we're just trying to make a decision on where exactly to put it!

kristen is slowly moving her stuff out into her new place! it's sad seeing our 2-years living together coming to an end, but i'm so excited for both of our new life stages! i can't wait to see her house (tomorrow)!!!

so, things are moving along. life is good.

catching up

oh. my. gosh! i have so much to blog about right now! well, mostly i just have too much from this weekend to put into one post!!!

so, stay tuned for:

• more engagement photos
• bachelorette party: the why
• bachelorette party: my trip
• wedding updates

ok. that's it. it's not that much i suppose.

anyway. back into work today after being off since Thursday. lots to catch up on today!!