And so the planning begins…

So far I have been engaged for 4 days and I have a tentative venue, a tentative caterer, and a tentative photographer.

Our site visit at the venue is on the 6^th and then things should start to firm up. As of right now we are looking at a wedding date of November 13^th, 2010 which equals 288 days to plan.

Budget: I am trying my best to whittle down the budget but my family keeps insisting on inviting family members I barely know. The guest list is currently a little under 200.

Invitations: Russ and I think that we want to do an Evite instead of invitations for most people and a formal invitation to the older relatives who will expect them, my mom did not seem to like this idea. I found a set at Michael’s that I like. I’m going to go sometime this weekend to take a look.

Reception: Also I do not plan to have a formal sit down dinner or a separate ceremony. As of right now I think we will ask everyone to sit down at the tables while we get married and then party can begin. Since both Russ and my dad hate the traditional flow of a wedding with scheduled dances, cake cutting, and bouquet tosses, I need to keep this stuff to a minimum.

The Dress: The style of dress I want is hard to find. I really want a dress with ¾ length sleeves,(it’s going to be November and I like the way they look on me) I also think I want to wear silver instead of true white, and I want it simple with very little frill. All that, makes my ideal dress a bit hard to find.

I started dieting a few weeks ago and so far I have had no luck, this week I started back up at the gym, and I have begun taking Alli, if none of this works and I am the same size I am today when I get married I will not be a very skinny bride which is ok but I am very well endowed and a strapless gown (which seems to be the norm these days) is not an option and I’m not a huge fan of my arms either.

I wish I could just borrow someone else’s gown because for a free gown I would forgo being picky about the design for the most part. But I’m not sure how many people would be willing to lend out their wedding dresses especially if alterations need to be made. I think most women have this idea that their daughters will wear their dress and that’s usually not the case, but it makes it hard for many women to part with their dresses. It kills me that some women spend upwards of $2000 on a dress they will wear for 5 hours.

So I will probably go try stuff on at a bridal consignment shop in MD sometime soon and if that does not work I have a friend who is willing to make it.

More to come…

Drum Roll Please....I'm ENGAGED!

On Monday night I went to dinner with a friend of mine who recently got engaged.

At dinner she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids and I accepted. We spent some time talking about wedding plans and I went home and started discussing these plans with Russ. I turned on my laptop and started to look at the menus for the hotel she was thinking of using.

I turned to Russ and sais something like ”you know sweetie, I think when you decided it’s time to get me a ring I would like to come and help you pick it out” he started laughing so I started laughing and said “unless you already have it” he went up stairs and came down with a little box. He asked me to remove the laptop from my lap and then got on one knee and asked me to marry him. HOLY CRAP! I cried hysterically for about 15 minutes all the while hugging and kissing him, and somewhere in there I said “YES!”

(let me just say I LOVE MY RING! i told him i wanted a band instead of a solitaire and i think he did an excellent job. you should see it sparkle. i will most likely not buy another ring and just wear this one.)

A few minutes later my mom called “hello?” “Are you ok? You sound upset” “oh I’m ok; Russ and I just got engaged!” “OMG I have to tell your father!” Russ is hearing this and says “he already knows, I asked him yesterday.”

I tried to take a picture of my ring with my phone but I would not work so I asked if we could go to my parents house for a bit so I could show my mom my ring. Luckily they live 1.3 miles away.

When we got there my youngest brother said he felt like the room was spinning and my mom was super excited and my dad, who informed me he had already seen my ring, was ready to start planning.

We had champagne, I called everyone, and then we went home. I did not sleep at all and my stomach was in knots from all the excitement.

Yesterday I hardly ate, I could not really function at work, I went to the gym, and then got a pedicure with the Domestic Empress who is one of my maid’s of honor. Last night I finally slept.

Let the planning begin!

It's that time of year again?

The last two years in a row I have had terrible birthdays. I spent my 2008 birthday crying and yelling at my dad and my 2009 birthday I was so stressed out by my terrible job that I was depressed and angry that entire week.

So this year I am turning the big 25 and i am not freaking out about work (because I love my job) and I have dinner reservations at Acadiana for the day after my birthday with my family and Russ. I have been wanting to go to Acadiana since 2008 so I’m excited to finally go.

So far 3 of my close girl friends have asked me what I am doing for my birthday. And other than going to dinner with the fam I seriously have no plans. One suggested we have a party, but it was more like “why don’t you throw a party?” if someone wants to throw me a party that is cool, but I am not going to spend my week stressing out about the house being clean and stocking up on party decorations and food and drinks. It’s my birthday and forgive me but I don’t want to clean house. So I’m not exactly sure what to tell people when they ask what my plans are. As of right now I’m going to work all day, go home, and chill. But that could change I guess.

I wonder what Feb 5th will bring this year?

Dallas, DC, NYC, and stuff

Last week I was out of town for 4 days attending the PCMA (professional convention management association) annual meeting in Dallas. It was a great conference and I have plenty of experiences I will share with you later.

But just to give you a taste of how nerdy meeting planners can be please watch the Face to Face Meetings song. Cracks me up.

After Dallas I was home for two days before driving to NYC for the weekend. We got detoured off the turnpike to 295 after an hour in traffic and finally made it to NYC after 1am on sat morning.

We pretty much ate our way through NYC. We had pizza, bagels, Mac and cheese at Pinch and S’mac and had Ethiopian for dinner at Queen of Sheba.

Since Monday was a holiday I slept in and then caught up on my blog reading.

Let’s Entertain had posted about a chicken tortilla soup (she got it from Food Network) that looked great, so I decided I would make it that night. I spent the rest of the day reading at Barns & Noble (definitely my favorite way to spend a day off) and that evening I went to the store and got everything I needed to make the soup. The recipe was super easy and tasted great. I highly recommend it. I paired it with a side salad; I added fresh cilantro and avocado to it. What a great dinner.

Foot Candy

Did I run all my readers off with yesterdays post? I guess we will see.

In other news, last weekend I bought these…

YAY for foot candy!

Absolute Power, Corrupts Absolutely - Lord Acton

So I was at lunch with my Mom and we were talking about politics. I generally stay away from the topic but we were discussing the above quote and it’s correlation to career politicians.

I would like to live in a world where politicians only hold office for 5 years or so and then they have to go back to their original career path. This way you always have new ideas and fresh blood. I’m tired of 80 year old congress men who can barely speak, their ideas are old and quite often they can be bought. The world is moving quickly and we need new ideas to survive as a nation.

Also, while on the subject I also want to point out that socialized medicine actually sucks and for those of you who think it might be a good idea I urge you to educate yourself on the tragedies that have occurred in other countries participating in socialized medicine.

Below I have listed actual newspaper headlines from Britain…

• Kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drugs by NHS rationing body NICE
  - April 29, 2009 [Daily Mail (UK)]
• Girl, 3, has heart operation cancelled three times because of bed shortage
  - David Rose, April 23, 2009 [Times Online]
• NHS 'failings' over elderly falls
  - March 25, 2009 [BBC]
• Our cancer shame: Survival rates still lag behind EU despite spending billions
  - Jenny Hope, March 20, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]
• Failing hospital 'caused deaths'
  - March 17, 2009 [BBC]
• Chocolate should be taxed to control obesity epidemic, doctors are told
  - Simon Johnson, March 13, 2009 [Telegraph UK]
• 1,000 villagers wait for a dentist after just one NHS practice opens
  - March 10, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]
• Disabled children wait up to two years for wheelchairs
  - March 4, 2009 [Guardian Unlimited]
• NHS under fire over waiting times
  - February 25, 2009 [The Scotsman]
• Government procrastination blamed for HIV-contaminated blood tragedy
  - February 23, 2009 [Guardian Unlimited]
• Specialist nurses 'vastly overworked'
  - February 20, 2009 [Harwich & Manningtree Standard]
• Hundreds of operations cancelled at Lothian hospitals
  - Adam Morris, February 19, 2009 [The Scotsman]
• Stop asking for antibiotics to cure coughs and colds, Government tells patients
  - Daniel Martin, February 17, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]
• Only five out of 51 hospital trusts pass hygiene test, say inspectors
  - Sarah Boseley, November 24, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
• Heart patients dying due to poor hospital care, says report
  - Sarah Boseley, June 8, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
• Private healthcare managers could be sent to turn round failing NHS hospitals
  - Philip Webster, Political Editor, and David Rose, June 4, 2008 [The Times]
• Pensioner, 76, forced to pull out own teeth after 12 NHS dentists refuse to treat her
  - Olinka Koster, March 26, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]
• Dental patients face care lottery
  - March 26, 2008 [Metro(UK)]
• Lung patients 'condemned to death as NHS withdraws their too expensive drugs'
  - Jenny Hope, March 24, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]
• Women in labour turned away by maternity units
  - John Carvel, March 21, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
• Health inequality has got worse under Labour, says government report
  - Andrew Sparrow, March 13, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
• NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery
  - Chris Brooke, February 28, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]
• NHS patients told to treat themselves
  - James Kirkup, January 4, 2008 [Telegraph UK]
• The World's Worst HMO
  - Stephen D. Moore, November 24, 1999 [Random Thoughts]

And those are only a fraction of the crazy headlines that can be read HERE.

And while I’m on my soap box I just came from a four day conference where I attended several sessions on Green Meetings. For the record I knew global warming was crap, climate change is a farce, and this whole going green trend is retarded.

The only thing I like about green initiatives when it comes to meetings is that you support the local community where your meeting is being held by using local produce. Also please note that we are currently going into a small ice age which has naturally occurred throughout history and is no cause for alarm. The planet has been through thousands of climate changes and has adapted very well, it’s us humans who have problems with change.

That is all, carry on.

Petpev

I was watching a movie with my mother the other day and it showed this bridge...

I can't remember the name of the movie but the characters called it London Bridge.

That is a picture of TOWER BRIDGE!

The following is a picture of London Bridge...

As you can see they are VERY different.

Please educate yourselves so you don't sound stupid.

Thank you, that is all.

Diet: Day 2

Yesterday I started off the day at work with another bagel and cream cheese.

Then I had two rounds of 4 pizza bagel bites for my next two meals

And after that I have no idea what happened, I forgot to eat.

When I realized that I had forgotten, it was too late. I had to go to the store and get food for Russ and stuff for me to take to dinner at The Domestic Empress’s house.

So by the time I got there I was pretty hungry.

I made a salad with all free foods, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, red pepper, and purple onion.

I also made a no calorie salad dressing using apple cider vinegar, water, spicy mustard, Splenda, and Melting Pot garlic and wine seasoning.

The Domestic Empress made some awesome low calorie chicken and due to my missed meals I was able to have about 300 calories worth of chicken and a ton of salad. Yum

When I got home I ate some Kix like popcorn while watching TV. Kix are pretty awesome and you get 1 ¼ cups for only 110 calories which is pretty awesome.

because of my missed meals i only ate about 1025 calories which explains why i felt like crap today and stayed home from work. After sleeping in till 10, i spent the rest of the day working from home. Today i have not forgotten to eat and i still have 400 calories to go before i go to bed, which is kinda awesome. only two more days till i get my weekend diet break. I've been dreaming about an Italian Store Milano for 5 months and Friday night i plan to eat one, actually half of one, but it's just as awesome.

This year’s goals…

Spend less, lose weight, read more.

I started my diet today, and I have to admit I’m hungry. I’m not starving I just miss my large portions and frankly I normally spend a lot of time on preparing and eating food and now I find myself with nothing to do.

Today I ate the following: a mini bagel with cream cheese, a Greek yogurt with honey, 4 pizza bagel bites, diced peaches & half a mini bagel w/ cream cheese, half a croissant, 3 meatballs with tomato sauce and 10 spears of asparagus.

I have 2 meals to go. I’m thinking another plate of meatballs and asparagus and perhaps a bag of popcorn. I really need something to just munch on.

Because I’m trying to stick to this diet I think we will eat out much less, which should save me money. And because I need something to fill the time that I’m not eating or cooking I’m hoping to get through the gigantic pile of books next to my bed.

So if all goes well I will be skinnier, wealthier, and maybe even a bit smarter by the end of the year.

Now i'm off to my next "meal".

the year so far...

For only having had 10 people over on New Years Eve we had a really good time.

We drank a lot. I mostly stuck to Pama & Sprite with lime, and Patron shots but I did have some champagne with blackberries.

We had all kinds of snacks including cheese fondue, pizza bagels, egg rolls, and buffalo chicken dip. Great drunk food for sure.

We mostly just sat around and talked. The girls naturally migrated to the kitchen where we ended up spending half the night sitting on the floor and the guys naturally hung out around the food.

We were in bed by 3am. I miss the days where I would drink with friends till the sun came up and then go to Ihop, I hope those days are not over, but it has been quite some time since I’ve been truly drunk.

The next morning we cleaned house and hung out until Russ’s mom and sister arrived. We took them to The Container Store and to dinner at Gordon Biersh. Both were amazing as usual.

Saturday we took Russ's sister to The Smithsonian to see the American History Museum and the Museum of Natural History it was fun as always. The best part by far was the Written in Bone Exhibit. I'm a sucker for Anthropology, i fell in love with it in college, but realized it was not a good career move.

when we came home i made seared scallops in tomato basil orzo with mushrooms. i cooked it all in white wine and seafood stock. it was very yummy.

Sunday was a day to clean and go shopping, we had several gift cards we wanted to use and found nothing we wanted at Pottery Barn or William Sonoma. Actually i found several things i wanted but we could not agree on any of it. I really want THIS pan, but i can't really justify an $180.00 roasting pan. maybe one day.