Tagged

I was tagged for a fun little survey by one of favoritest people Kristen. My brain is still mush from the amount of work I've had that past week so this is perfect...I don't need to try to think of something fun and creative on my own.

WHAT'S YOUR CURRENT OBSESSION?

Well I guess the main thing would be wedding planning and it's not just because I'm currently planning my own wedding, I've pretty much always been obsessed with weddings and pretty things in general. What's not to like? Two people who are madly in love, dressed to perfection, professing their love in front of their nearest and dearest...I can't help but tear up whenever I see a wedding...and I'm sure I will be an absolute mess at my own.

WHAT IS YOUR HOROSCOPE AND HOW DO YOU RELATE?

Taurus, the second Sign of the Zodiac, is all about reward. Unlike the Aries love of the game, Taurus loves the rewards of the game. Think physical pleasures and material goods, for those born under this Sign revel in delicious excess. They are also a tactile lot, enjoying a tender, even sensual, touch. Taureans adore comfort and like being surrounded by pleasing, soothing things. Along these lines, they also favor a good meal and a fine wine. The good life in all its guises, whether it's the arts or art of their own making (yes, these folks are artistic as well), is heaven on Earth to the Taurean-born.

It's the Bull that serves as the Taurean's mascot, and along with that comes the expectation that these folks are bull-headed and stubborn. Yes, they are. Hey, this Sign has a Fixed Quality attached to it after all, so expect that things will occasionally grind to a halt. That said, Taureans don't start out with the intention of getting stuck. They simply want to get things done, and it's that steady, dogged persistence that winds up being viewed as stubbornness. Bulls are actually among the most practical and reliable members of the Zodiac, and they are happy to plod along, as it were, in pursuit of their goals. The good news for Bulls is that once they get to the finish line, they'll swaddle themselves in material goods. A self-indulgent beast? Perhaps, but if you toiled as laboriously as these folks do, you'd need some goodies, too.

Yep that sounds about right.

WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TODAY?

Well at the moment I'm wearing capri yoga pants and a white and blue baby tee b/c I still haven't changed since I got home from the gym. However to work I work dark blue jeans, a beige short sleeve sweater, a brown coudory blazer and some flats.

WHAT IS THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT?

Yesterday-Gatorade and a doughtnut for Kristian to help him get over his hangover and a Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha for me. Oh and personalized stamps from Zazzle.com for our Save the Dates.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE PERSON THAT TAGGED YOU?

As I mentioned she's one of my favoritest people. She's been there for me for the past 10 years through all my ups and downs and I'm forever grateful. Oh and she's not bad looking either :)

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

You'd have to ask the future hubs since he's the chef in this little family

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DECADE FASHION WISE?

Well realistically I would say now simply because we have SOOO many options and more freedom than women did in the past. HOWEVER if we're talking about the clothing style I lurve well then I would say the late 50's and early 60's. I've been watching Mad Men lately and I'm kinda obsessed with the fashions. The women all look so put together with their hair, heels and pearls and the men always in suits...Yes please. However I would never have the patience or motivation in the morning to make myself look like that.

WHAT ARE YOUR MUST HAVES FOR SUMMER?

Let's see, flip flops, maxi dresses, tank tops, pedicures, sunscreen and ponytails.

WHAT WOULD YOU LOVE TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD?

Umm my wedding...yes trying to figure out how to pay for this fabulous shin dig keeps me up at night. I can only keep my fingers crossed that we hit that Mega Millions one of these days.

WHAT IS YOUR DREAM JOB?

John Krasinski personal assistant and love slave. Though his new fiance and my fiance probably wouldn't like that. *sigh*

DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL STYLE?

Well I'm definitely not the most stylish person in the world, hence why I love reading so many fashion blogs, however I'm also not topping the worst dress lists. I would say I'm pretty casual but also like to look saucy from time to time. Favorite stores include, H&M, Forever 21, Charlotte Russe and of course Tar-Jay.

WHAT ARE YOU PROUD OF?

I have a lot to be proud of actually...I'm proud that I graduated from ECU in 4 years (which is a pretty big accomplishment if you are familiar with ECU). I'm proud that I have a good job that pays me well. I'm proud that I've been able to keep my cat alive for a year (considering the way I have a tendency to kill plants who knew what was gonna happen) and of course I'm a proud, daughter, fiance and friend.

Blah Blah Blah

That's how I'm feeling right now...very blah. Last week work basically kicked the shit out of me and God was obviously punishing for daring to take a two day vacation because when I returned to work on Wednesday all hell broke loose on my jobs and even though none of the problems were my fault I still had to do serious damage control with my clients. Needless to say when 5pm on Friday came I RAN out of the door like the Devil was chasing me.

On my way home I stopped by the Handy Dandy Mart (yes that's the real name) to pick up a 6 pack of beer...sidenote...I'm not a big drinker and even when I do drink Beer is VERY rarely my beverage of choice but I needed something and didn't feel like hitting up the liquor store. I also purchased 4 Mega Millions tickets hoping against hope that I would win the over $300 million jackpot and not have to return to my place of torment...err...I mean job on Monday. Alas I only got 2 matching numbers out of all 4 tickets hence my being at work today *sigh* I did however chug some beer, eat some pizza, catch up on my celebrity gossip sites and went to bed in a better mood.

Saturday I went to have lunch with the mother and drop off my STD's since she so graciously agreed to handwrite all the addresses. Came home then K and I headed out for Sushi and Saki with his buddy. I did not partake in the sushi or the saki but instead watched as K and his friend got smashed and ring up a pretty large tab. Came home and slept unsuccessfully next to my oh so drunk fiance that was snoring LOUDLY all night.

Yesterday I got up and tried to be the loving wife to be by running out and picking up Gatorade for K and Starbucks for myself. Came back and made two omelets then spent the afternoon cleaning the house. Kristian made an amazing dinner that he was inspired by after watching Rachel Ray that morning...Bacon wrapped chicken stuffed with blue cheese. Yum.

Anyway I'm back at work today cringing everytime the phone rings in fear that it will be another disaster. Hopefully whatever Hex was put on my office last week has been lifted and my mood will turn back around because right now I'm a very Bitter Betty and not much fun to be around.

Let the Mourning begin

Friends, it's official... my heart is broken, all my dreams are dashed all because my OTHER true love is now officially off the market! That's right John Krasinski aka the actor that plays my ficitional tv boyfriend and the namesake of my cat is getting married to some British whore! Okay whore is probably a strong word, I'm sure she is lovely but I loved him first! Now I know how Kristen feels about the whole Ryan Reynolds being married to that girl that shall not be named.

I guess John finally got word about my impending nuptials and figured he may as well settle for second best. At least now Kristian doesn't have to worry about me moving forward with my plan of stalking...err...I mean meeting John and running off with him.

Congratulations John and Emily...I wish you a lifetime of happiness...or in Hollywood standards about 3-5 years!

Survey Time

So I saw this survey on Christin's blog. Not only is Christin also planning a wedding but she's a fellow AOII--Holla! Anyway since work has been kicking my ass the last two days and my brain is close to mush I decided to steal this survey and fill it out myself...sidenote...I tried to copy and paste and just change the answers but the first time I did it I accidentally hit publish post before I could change the answers so if you originally saw her survey my apologies. I suck.

Anyhoooo, onto my oh-so-fascinating answers:

-What are your middle names? Elizabeth and Edward
-How long have you been together? 1 year and 3 days
-How long did you know each other before you started dating? We started dating as soon as we met...we couldn't resist each other.
-Who asked whom out? He asked me out on our first date
-How old are each of you? Me 29, Him 31
-Whose siblings do/did you see the most? It’s pretty even since both are local though lately it’s been mine
-Do you have any children together? Only our fur children, Halpert and Wendal
-What about pets? See above, we have the two most awesome, funny cats ever
-Did you go to the same school? Nope, I went to ECU (Go Pirates!), he went to Virginia Tech… it will be a rough night in our house when they play each other this year
-Who is the smartest? When it comes to celebrity gossip I am, when it comes to fishing/hunting and random facts he is
-Who is more sensitive? Probably him, though he would deny it
-Where do you eat out most as a couple? Lately because of our budget Taco Bell…we usually cook at home.
-Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? Jamaica…Yeah Mon!
-Who has the craziest exes? We haven’t met each other’s exes but let’s just say that his exes are the craziest and mine are the biggest douchebags...there we're even.
-Who has the worst temper? Probably him….he doesn’t show it often but when he gets really pissed the F-Bombs will be droppd like no other
-Who does the cooking? He does, thank God! And he’s damn good at it.
-Who is more social? Totally him. He’ll talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. I however don’t talk to strangers
-Who is the neat-freak? I’m the neat freak but he’s the clean freak. I hate clutter and stuff laying around but when he cleans he goes all out
-Who is more stubborn? Me. No contest…I’m a Taurus after all.
-Who wakes up earlier? We usually wake up within about 20 minutes of each other during the week
-Where was your first date? Bonefish Grille in Centreville, VA…he even splurged for dessert!
-Who has the bigger family? He does, which is making our guest list larger than we initially hoped
-Do you get flowers often? When we were first dating and living apart he would bring them all the time….now not so much…he needs to get on that!
-How do you spend the holidays? Because both of our families are local we’re able to see them both during the holidays. Last year we spent Thanksgiving day with his and Christmas morning with mine then Christmas night with his
-Who is more jealous? Him…though I can’t blame him since I’m super cute and have to beat men off with a stick :)
-How long did it take to get serious? Well he knew on our first date he wanted to marry me, I knew after about 2 months
-Who eats more? He does though considering our size difference I actually keep up with him quite well...tonight I had 4 tacos to his 5 tacos
-Who does/did the laundry? I do
-Who’s better with the computer? Me…I had to setup his email and Facebook account. I want him to start a fishing blog but that might just make his brain explode.
-Who drives when you are together? Depends on where we’re going. But usually he does. I think my driving scares him a little bit

Amazing weekend

I'm back from my wonderful long weekend! I'm in the process of catching up on the 100's of blog posts I've missed, celebrity gossip and DVR'd shows. Thanks to K's Crackberry I wasn't completely cut off from the internets. I made it all the way to Sunday night before I started to get the shakes and had to get my Facebook fix. However now I'm convinced that a Blackberry is on my MUST have list...I'm still rocking my silver flip phone from 2007. I'm sooo deprived...sympathy please.

Anyway the weekend started out with our trip down to Raleigh, we arrived at Krista and Todd's house at 8:30pm and stayed up til midnight drinking and playing Taboo. Taboo is such a fun game, basically you're given a word that your partner needs to guess and you have a list of about 6 other words you can't say in order for them to guess the main word. It's so fun to play especially when you are paired with someone you know really well. For instance I had the word "Pirate" my clue to Kristian was "ECU!" and of course he got it immediately. I love him :)

Saturday Krista and I went to get pedicures then she took K and I around the housing development where they live to look at some of the model homes. It's amazing for the same price K paid for his condo in Northern VA we could buy a brand new detached house with 3 bedrooms and a garage down there. We've now begun to seriously consider a move down to Raleigh as soon as we can unload our place and find jobs.

Later that afternoon my friend Spanky aka Ashley and her husband Morgan arrived as well as my friend Melissa (her nickname is too inappropriate to type) and her husband Dustin. I hadn't seen either couple since Spanky and Morgan's wedding last November and it was great to catch up! After putting on our fancy clothes we headed out to the 101 Lounge in Downtown Raleigh for the party.

(me and the boy...told you he was hot)

(Spanky, Krista, Me and Melissa)

We had a great evening drinking and catching up with a bunch of my other sorority sisters that came to the party. It was the first time that a lot of them got to meet Kristian and everyone seemed to get along fabulously. We finally made it to bed around 2am after lots of drinks and even more laughs.

Sunday morning Kristian and I got up around 7am (yes after 5 hours of sleep) and got on the road. We made it to his parents house by noon and after running down the checklist of everything we needed to do to close up the house when we left his parents were out the door and we were blissfully alone.

(view from the deck of the private pier)

Kristian spent the afternoon fishing while I watched and read my Cosmo. He even let me reel in a pretty large Croaker.

(yep he's hot)

The adventure of the weekend came Sunday night. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and he was on the floor tying knots in his fishing line and playing with his hooks. Next thing I know I look up and he's hooked himself. There was a very large hook (the type you use to catch sharks with) lodged deep into his middle finger and because of the bearing on the hook he couldn't just pull it back out without doing serious damage to his finger. So we went to the kitchen let his finger soak for about 30 minutes in freezing cold water to numb it, he took about 3 shots of Jack Daniels to numb the rest of him then .... well the video speaks for itself...

(warning, this is kind of gross and there's a bit of cussing)

After that adventure the rest of the time was smooth sailing, we woke up Monday and just relaxed outside and then K made an amazing steak dinner which we ate on the deck to celebrate our anniversary.

(sooooo good)

We woke up this morning went for a walk on the beach and then headed home to our very lonely kitties. Overall it was a fabulous weekend and I couldn't think of a better way to have spent our anniversary weekend.

365 Days of Happiness

This Monday marks the one year anniversary of mine and Kristian's first date and since I won't have computer access I wanted to dedicate today's post to my future husband! It's truly amazing, on the one hand I can't believe it's already been year, it's gone by sooo fast. On the other hand I feel like I've known him forever. Honestly my life before him (mainly my love life prior to him) seems so long ago and the memories of that time fade more everyday. We've been through so much together over the past year including us both being laid off and having to get new jobs, his surgery that left him housebound for 3 weeks, getting engaged and planning a wedding, moving in together, traveling to another country together and so much more. He really is my best friend and I thank God for him everyday.

The night Kristian proposed he cut 22 hearts out of red construction paper and on each heart he wrote a reason why he loves me (reason for the 22 is because when you make the 2's face each other it creates a heart). So in honor of that I've made my own list of the 22 reasons why I love him.

In no particular order-

1. He does that most dead on impressions and accents of people which make me laugh until I cry

2. He’s an amazing cook who has the ability to just make up his own recipes

3. The way he treats my cat...who also loves him

4. He always puts my needs/feelings ahead of his own

5. He make me breakfast in bed

6. He gives the best massages

7. He’s incredibly outgoing and can get along with all types of people

8. He’s hot

9. He knows a lot about random topics

10. He puts up with me and my bad reality tv shows

11. He loves to cuddle

12. He gets along really well with my family

13. He’ll do the chores I don’t want to do like clean the litter boxes

14. He has an amazing family

15. He has amazing taste in jewelry

16. He treats me better than anyone ever has

17. He tells me he loves me everyday, multiple times a day

18. He makes me feel safe

19. He tells me I’m beautiful even at the moments when I know I’m not

20. He’s very handy and creative

21. He’s incredibly manly but also one of the most romantic men I know.

22. He's Hot (I felt that deserved to be mentioned twice!)

Celebrations ahead

Tomorrow afternoon Kristian and I are cutting out of work early to head down to Raleigh NC for my MOH's graduation party Saturday night. After taking classes online for YEARS Krista finally earned her Master's degree and rented out a lounge for all her friends to come and celebrate with her. I can't wait since this will be the first time in close to a year that I will get to see some of my friends from college as well as the first time that a few of them will get to meet my super cute fiance. I'm also hoping that we'll be able to meet up with another one of my non-sorority college friends for lunch on Saturday whom I haven't seen in years! She's only about 5 hours away but it's amazing how life just creeps up on you and time flies by. I'm sure the trip will be full of drinking and inappropriate jokes/stories. I can't wait!

On Sunday the plan is to leave Raleigh as early as our hangovers will allow and head back up to VA to stay at his parents beach house...ALONE...for two days. This is a big deal since they've never let K stay there alone in the past. I guess since we housesat all last week without burning the place down or killing the dogs they figure they can trust us with the beach house for two days :) We are taking off work Monday and Tuesday so that we can stay there and celebrate our anniversary which is Monday! The initial plan was to go to the Outerbanks for those two days but after looking at our pathetic bank balances we decided to save the money and take advantage of the free place to stay.

We plan to spend those two days being completely lazy and just enjoying each other's company. I'm sure there will be fishing involved, drinking to be done and some other activities that shall remain private ;-) I'm so excited to spend this weekend with some of my most favorite people! And a special shout-out to Kristen who unfortunately can't make it to the festivities but I'm sure will be drinking in spirit with us as she finishes painting/unpacking her new house.

Wedding Party Wednesday

Today's installment of Wedding Party Wednesday is dedicated to my bridesmaid and future sister in law Michelle! Of all my bridesmaids I've known Michelle for the shortest length of time but in that time I've become very fond of her. Michelle is 9 years older than Kristian and his only sibling, however despite the age difference they are pretty close and get along really well.

The first time I met Michelle was last Thanksgiving when I went to their parents house for dinner. I will admit I was a bit intimidated by her at first, not only because she's the protective big sister but also because, she's tall, thin and gorgeous. You would never know that she's the mother of a 13 year old and 10 year old twins! She's very fashionable and I'm a big fan of her shoe collection. She's the stylish big sister I always wished for! Unfortunately she's about 9 inches taller than me which makes sharing clothes impossible :(

From the moment I met her she was very welcoming towards me and always included me in their family gatherings. Like her brother she's incredibly outgoing and the life of the party. Being around their family is always entertaining.

When I first mentioned to Kristian the idea of asking her to be a bridesmaid I could tell he was very touched. He never asked me to include her, he wanted me to feel free to choose whomever I wanted and vice versa, but I knew it would mean a lot to him and his parents. Plus I expect that as time goes on Michelle and I will continue to become even closer and I would hate to look back on our wedding pictures and not see her included in the wedding party.

Being that I grew up with two older brothers and always wanted a big sister I'm so excited to have Michelle as my sister in law.

Family Ties

One of the things that makes me the happiest when it comes to my relationship with Kristian is not only how wonderful his family is and how well I get along with them, but how well he gets along with my family. I was reminded of this while at my cousin's engagement party this past weekend. He's already met most of my family but he had the opportunity to meet even more of my extended family that I rarely even see. And as expected he did wonderfully. He's so incredibly friendly and outgoing, he can pretty much blend into any setting or group of people he's around.

More importantly he has a great relationship with my mom and my oldest brother Michael, who has been more like a dad to me over the years. He has the protective older brother job down like a champ. My brother has never been a big fan of any of the guy's I've dated in the past (with good reason) but he liked Kristian immediately. They get along great and it's so cute watching them bond over things like sports and cars and even watching K give my brother some dating advice and offer to be his wingman. Since there has been tension with my other brother it's nice that Michael now has Kristian to do brotherly activities with.

Kristian relationship with my mom is very sweet. She absolutely adores him. I knew that he was considered one of the family when I saw that my mom was including him on the family emails that she sends out to me and my brothers updating us on other relatives or asking us our opinion on upcoming family vacations. Even this past Christmas prior to us getting engaged I think my mom bought Kristian more presents then she bought for me and she even bought some gifts for his cat! This past weekend at the engagement party she was saying how she knew the first time she met Kristian (unexpectedly at my house warming party that she wasn't planning on coming to) that he was the one. She said she could tell by the way I introduced them and the way I looked at him. She told her girlfriend in the car on the way home that he was the guy I would end up with. Funny she knew before I did. But I guess that's why she's my mother.

After seeing some of the family drama that has taken place in other families as well as my own it makes me so grateful that my closest family members all love my future husband almost as much as I do :)

Weekend = Food

Looking back on this past weekend I just now realized how much food I ate. Friday night we stayed at K's parents house for the last time and my darling fiance cooked me the most AH-MAZ-ING dinner of steak, shrimp, baked potato and squash...and I discovered I actually like squash, who knew?! I felt bad for not realizing until Saturday that Friday was our 6 month engagiversary...we've been engaged 6 months! Holy crap! Damn the time is flying by. The ironic thing is that even though neither of us realized that it was the 6 month anniversary K cooked me an almost identical dinner to the one he made the night he proposed. Maybe it's not so ironic considering I eat baked potatoes almost weekly and I'm a big fan of red meat.

Saturday we went up to MD for my cousin's engagement party. She is getting married in Oct. 2010. It was outside at a park right next to a manmade pond so the boys were able to fish while the girls gossiped. Thanks to K's help my brother even caught a fish. I think it may have been his first. We're not the most outdoorsy family. We not only filled up on great picnic style food (hamburgers, pasta salad, cole slaw etc) we came home and went to McDonald's. What can I say? I had a killer craving for a Big Mac...which I typically end up regretting later.

Sunday we went to Potomac Point Winery in Stafford VA for an open house tasting that our caterer was hosting. It was our first opportunity to taste some of their food and needless to say I was psyched...I think I may have even jumped up and down a little while we were waiting in the buffet line. They had a basic selection consisting of two salads, a few of their sides, a beef, chicken, fish and pasta dish to sample. We decided that we both really liked the Pecan Crusted Chicken and will probably include that. Neither of us liked the salmon...I don't really like salmon anyway and K is an admitted fish snob. Overall I really enjoyed the food and I'm excited to do a private tasting where we can pick out the options we want to try. Also, the winery we were at was beautiful and would be stunning for an outdoor wedding.

After all the food I ate this weekend I attempted to do the Shred again and this time I'm not in quite as much pain as I was Friday so that's a plus...maybe I'll be moving onto Level 2 sooner than I thought.

My ass has officially been kicked

After reading all the buzz online I finally decided to make my own purchase of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred, which I found for a great price on Amazon.

I'm sure most everyone is familiar with her for being on The Biggest Loser. I'm not a fan of the show but I have seen a few episodes so I totally expected 20 minutes of her yelling at and berating me through the television screen. I actually found her to be fairly pleasant, however I don't think I want to listen to the same spiel over and over again so I may be muting her in the future.

When I first got the DVD on Tuesday I decided to pop it in and just watch it since I had absolutely no motivation to actually get off the couch but I was curious about what I was in store for. I very naively thought "this doesn't look too hard, what's all the fuss about, I can do this shit"...cut to last night and I'm panting heavily, arms are shaking and my body feels like jello...and that was after only doing LEVEL 1.Dear Jesus help me.

Granted I'm not the most in shape, active person. While I've been blessed with a high metabolism and therefore don't need to actually lose weight I consider myself to be "skinny-fat" i.e. I have absolutely no muscle tone and there are areas of me that are a bit flabbier than I prefer. I'm really hoping to get nice toned arms/shoulders/back before I have to rock my strapless wedding dress in May.

I can definitely see how doing this workout for 30 days would whip you into shape and God bless anyone that is able to actually do Level 2 or 3, I bow down to you! Today I am definitely feeling it in my calves and arms especially...I guess doing an entire minute of non stop squats and arm curls will do that to you. I'm sure you're thinking "a minute? Pfft a minute isn't that long" well my friends I assure you when you feel yourself looking death in the eye a minute is a damn long time!

I'll keep you posted on my progress, assuming this DVD doesn't go the way of my Yoga and Pilates DVD which are gathering dust in the guest room.

Also, for those interested in seeing pics of my STD's, I promise to post them after I mail these bad boys out.

Happy Weekend!

They're Here! They're Here!

My Save the Dates arrived yesterday and I couldn't be more thrilled. They look awesome and I spent most of my afternoon stealing quick peeks at them while at work. In fact about 10 minutes after they arrived at my office Kristian stopped by to get his phone charger which I had in my purse (actually he didn't really need it he just wanted an excuse to see me...aww), so I was able to give him one. He loved them! In fact when I got in his car last night to go watch the minor league baseball game I saw that he had it displayed on his center console so that he could look at it anytime. He's so sweet it makes you a little sick right? :-)

So here are my questions for the peanut gallery:

1. When should I sent out these bad boys? We're just about 9 months out from the wedding and I was thinking of sending them next month. Is that too soon?

2. The magnets came with small, silver lined envelopes that they fit into quite well, however I feel like I need to add something rather than just putting the magnets in the envelopes alone. Kristian agrees so now I'm trying to figure out how to display these. I was thinking of somehow affixing them to a nice piece of cardstock. I'm not the most crafty or creative so any suggestions are welcomed.

On another note I once again had to set the alarm at the in-laws house this morning and I was able to do it without setting it off and having to run out of the house Mission Impossible style. Yay for me!

Wedding Party Wednesday

Today's edition of Wedding Party Wednesday is dedicated to one of my favorite people/bridesmaids Colleen who as of yesterday is now a member of the Dirty Thirty club (or in her case the Flirty Thirty club)--Happy Birthday!!!

As with my MOH, I met Colleen when I joined AOII. She was a year ahead of me in a school and had just joined AOII the spring before. Because of this she ended up spending a lot of time and becoming good friends with my pledge class. After I moved into the sorority house spring semester I shared a room with her, Kristen and 3 other girls. That's right there were 6 of us in one room, sharing 2 closets and one bathroom. How we survived that is beyond me. Colleen and I didn't become really close until my junior/her senior year when we got an apartment together. We got along really well and only had one fight the whole year which involved her drunkenly locking me out of our apartment. However she apologized with ice cream so I couldn't stay mad for long.

After college Colleen moved back to PA and I moved back to MD and eventually down to VA. We would visit each other every few months and after YEARS of begging, pleading and bribing I convinced her to make her way back down below the Mason Dixon line and live with me in VA. We moved into our apartment last summer but due to our relationships at the time we didn't actually see each other very much. However on the nights when we were both at the apartment we had a great time hanging out, trying to keep the kitty out of trouble and watching bad reality t.v. I was even able to get Colleen, who doesn't watch much t.v., into Project Runway and The Office.

Colleen is hands down the sweetest person I know. Regardless of what's happening in her own life she's always upbeat and optimistic and rarely has a bad word to say about anyone (even if they deserve it). She's also one of the most unintentionally funny people I know and she has donated hours of her life to listening to all my boy troubles over the years. I really believe that it was Colleen's positive energy around me that helped bring Kristian into my life since I met him about two months after her and I moved in together.

I have no doubt that Colleen and I will continue to be friends long into the future and I'm so excited that she will be with me on my wedding day.

Housesitters

Kristian and I are house sitting this week for his parents who live about 20 minutes away. They had to drive down to GA for K's cousin's funeral. Since it's so far away we weren't able to attend unfortunately. So instead we're here taking care of his parents two dogs. Initially he told me we would just need to stay over Monday and Tuesday night, come to find out last night that his parents won't be back until Friday which means we need to stay every night this week (or at least he does).

Last night was our first night staying over. His parents were thoughtful and fully stocked the house with food and beer including some killer filet mignons which K cooked on the grill. It was nice hanging out on their comfy leather couches watching tv on their big screen and playing with the Daschounds. The issues came this morning.

First off, I didn't sleep well last night. Granted I haven't slept well in a week but I never sleep well when I'm in someone else's house. It was weird sleeping in the bedroom that K grew up in. He said I was the first girl that ever got to spend the whole night in that room with him. Score! I guess being the fiance grants me the privileges of not having to sneak out in the middle of the night :)

Anyway he had to leave before me this morning but he left me instructions on how to set the alarm and leave through the garage. So I grab my things punch in the code and all I hear is this annoyingly loud BEEP BEEP BEEP etc. AND cue the dogs barking. I start freaking out, punching buttons trying to turn the damn thing off, all the while expecting cop cars to show up with guns blazing. I immediately called K and he gave me the code to turn the alarm off (this would have been handy to have already). So with him still on the phone I again punch in the code and AGAIN hear the BEEP BEEP BEEP and the dogs losing their mind. I turned off the F-ing alarm and we decided something was obviously wrong with it and it would be better to just not turn it on for fear it would suddenly go off in the middle of the day.

Since I don't have a key to the house I had to leave through the garage which meant I had to hit the garage door and run (in my 3 1/2" heels) through the garage door....of course it couldn't be THAT simple, he warned me that there is an invisible laser that I had to step over otherwise the door would go back up and not shut behind me. So again I'm running in my heels carrying two bags, cell phone to my ear trying to hop over some invisible laser beam a la Mission Impossible.

I think tonight I may sleep at our place and let him handle the house sitting alone.

$230

That's how much we made at our yard sale on Saturday! Now I must admit that $130 of that came from selling one item of Kristian's. However I'm still pretty pumped that we made $100 on the rest of the stuff we sold, especially since nothing went for more than $5 and most items sold for more like $1. Even though we were hoping to make money we were also mainly interested in just getting rid of everything so we were slashing prices every hour.

Since we live in a condo and therefore have no yard we had to go to his buddies house down the street to set up shop. We got out there around 6:15am to start setting up since there are a lot of early bird shoppers. Fortunately the neighborhood we were in already had a bunch of signs up advertising other yard sales so we just put up a few signs leading people to the court we were on. I was really surprised by the number of people that showed up. At times we were 6 cars deep. It also surprised me the way that people would haggle over the prices. There were some people who would see the $2 sticker and then want it for $1.25...REALLY?? You really are trying to save 75 whole cents on an item that we probably paid $30 for in the first place. Sigh. Oh well, we made a good amount to help fund our OBX trip this month and we now have a cleaned out guest room that we can see the floor of again. All the items we didn't sell we dropped off at Goodwill.

Yesterday I had lunch with one of my old roommates Lauren. It was great catching up with her and hearing the latest drama in her life. I've noticed that living with a boy has really made me appreciate my girl time even more. It's nice to have the extra estrogen around every now and then. Oh and I got to bring home a monster piece of chocolate cake from The Cheesecake Factory that was basically an orgasm for my mouth. Bonus!

Bulletpoint Friday

• Tomorrow is National Yard Sale day which is great considering that we decided last night to finally have our yard sale tomorrow and hopefully get rid of all the crap occupying the guest room and help fund our trip to OBX later this month.
• I can't wait to get my custom "Beef and Brocorri" shirt that the awesome Kym designed
  
  
• I'm SOOO happy Jeanine won So You Think You Can Dance. She really pulled it out at the end. I'm also SOOO happy that I don't have to wait a WHOLE year before the new season starts.
• I got the first disc of Season 1 of Mad Men on Netflix and I can't wait to watch it this weekend. I've heard so many good things about this show...not that I really have time to become addicted to anything else.
• I finally finished reading all 500 and some odd pages of The Time Traveler's Wife. It was great, a bit difficult to follow at times, but overall I really enjoyed it and can't wait to see the movie.

• Work has been so slow for the past two weeks, I know I shouldn't complain because I was just bitching about how overwhelmingly busy I was but this isn't any better. A happy medium would be nice.
• I get to see some of my favorite people in two weeks down in NC for my MOH's grad school graduation party and I. CANNOT. WAIT.
• Have I mentioned how happy I am that it's Friday? No. Well I'm SOOOOOO Happy it's Friday! Happy Weekend all!

Wedding Party Wednesday

This week's post is dedicated to my bridesmaid and oldest friend Kelli. Kelli and I met WAY back in 7th grade at the ripe old age of 12 during our "awkward" years. We had science class together and Kelli sat behind me. We were on friendly terms but didn't really become friends until high school when we were both on our high school dance team. I remember us both trying out for the Poms in the spring of 8th grade and holding hands while we waited to hear if our numbers were called on the last day.

We both spent all 4 years on Poms and shared so many memories of Pom camp, early morning summer practices, competitions, becoming State Champs our Junior year and of course all the football and basketball games. Kelli still remembers several of our old routines to this day which amazes me. We each had our own closer circle of friends but we ran in the same overall social group and sat in the same hallway at lunchtime (where you sat at lunch defined your social standing).

If it weren't for Kelli I may not have ended up at ECU. I remember us once again having science (Chemistry to be exact) together our Senior year and discussing where we wanted to go to college. I had no clue what I wanted to do. It was Kelli that first told me about ECU and that she was applying. After doing some research (which consisted of glancing through their catalog) I decided I wanted to go there too. Not only did we both get in but we ended up in the same dorm (though not as roommates).

I decided to join a sorority my freshman year but Kelli wanted to stay on her own and make friends through the dorm and her classes her first year. However, after seeing all the fun I was having she decided to Rush our sophomore year and thanks to A LOT of persuasion on my end she also ended up in AOII.

Kelli is the only friend I have that knows both the High School and College Shannon and of course all the people that we went to school with since we were 12 years old. She is also the owner of MANY embarrasing photos and stories of me during my youth which is only one of the reasons I stay on her good side :) The great thing about our friendship is that no matter how much time may pass between our conversations whether it's a day or a month we are always able to pick up right where we left off.

I had the honor of being one of Kelli's bridesmaids two years ago and I'm so glad that she will now be part of my special day.

The only kind of STD I want...

Last night I finally ordered our Save the Dates courtesy of Magnet Street . While K was busy watching Shark Week I decided to get online and play around with some of the templates they offer and include our information and pictures to see what they would really look like. I think this is what also finally helped convince K to go with the photo magnets which he had initially been against...or maybe he just gave in so that I would leave him alone and he could back to watching shark attacks. Regardless we ended up with what I think are really cute photo magnets using pictures from our engagement party. We used this sample (obviously not our pictures, however the sample date is my birthday!!)



The magnets also come with silver lined envelopes. I may go on to Zazzle.com and order personalized stamps to go with them but I haven't decided yet. The best part was that I did a search for magnet street coupons prior to ordering and found a code that saved us $15! So that money can go towards the postage for these bad boys. Once I receive these and mail them out I may post a pic of our actual STD.

In other news the weekend was good. Saturday we went down to K's parents house for the day so that he could fish and I could lay on the deck and read more of my book. One of his parents neighbors came over to show us pictures of his daughter's wedding from the weekend before and turns out she had the same exact dress that I ALMOST bought. It was the one that I loved but was a bit too expensive. After seeing it on her, while I still really liked it, it confirmed that the dress I ordered is the perfect dress for me.

Sunday we went up to MD to have lunch with my brother, sister-in-law and two nieces and see their new house. It was the first time I had seen my nieces in a while due to some family drama (long story) but it was great. They are still as cute as ever and SO entertaining, especially the 5 year old who has endless amounts of energy. As much as we want kids one day this visit proved that we're perfectly fine with just our cats for now!