A very profound question...

Last night while enjoying a very lovely happy hour with Amelia and Erin I was asked a very profound question by Amelia. After a minute or two of me expressing concern that I may not ever "grow" in my current position Amelia asked me what I would want to do if money was no object and I could do anything I wanted. My initial response was to say I would want to work at the White House in PR and campaigning of course! But then I realized that is what I would want to do if money and prestige was the object.

So after a few beers and some major deep thoughts I got to thinking. What would I want to do if money was no object and I could just do what I loved? I came to the conclusion that I would want to own my own bakery. I absolutely love baking and would love to have a little specialty shop here in Austin where I could sell cookies and cakes. I feel like the only people coming into a bakery are happy people, how often do you need cookies and cakes for a sad occasion? So it would be a happy, fun and creative place to work. I would want to take some baking and design courses of course, but I honestly think that would be my ideal situation. I truly believe you can not build real wealth unless you become your own boss. I would get to make money and do something I love.

If I had to have a real world job and money was not an object still I would want to be a teacher. I love the idea of helping children learn and grow and I would hope I could make kids passionate about a subject like my teachers did for me. I also LOVE the idea of being home with my family in the summers and having the same days off as them. My mom did this for us for years and I truly believe it helped mold me into the woman I am today.

So there you have it. I had a great happy hour with a new friend and an old friend. Had some beer and other bar food, and had a very enlightening conversation with myself while buzzed and laying in bed drinking tea. I would say my thirsty Thursday was a success!

Invatations: Ordered!

I have officially ordered my wedding invitations from WeddingPaperDivas.com. They are probably the exact opposite of what I wanted to get but I think that might be a reoccurring theme for my wedding. First I wanted a country garden spring time wedding, now I am planning a fall historic city wedding. So why change things up with the invites?

Here is what they will look like:

They are pretty traditional but with a little twist. I loved the sentiment and I loved the idea of using that scrolling detail on other elements of the wedding, like the table numbers, place cards and so on. I ordered a matching response card and will my mother will be doing the addressing. She was super duper excited to have a project and I think this is going to the a great way to have her get involved in the wedding. I have been feeling a little bad that she is so far away and feels like she has no way to help me. Although I will now have to mail some stuff up to her to get the finished invite look sent out I think it will be worth it. She was so happy when I asked her for help. 

In other wedding news we have gotten a few other things checked off our list. We ordered my wedding band, ordered the guest book, picked WF's band, and picked his look for the wedding. I have decided I am borrowing Amelia's hair flower for the day of, and I have picked a wedding hair look. I have picked my bridesmaids gift and planned a little something for them.

Next on the list is finalizing flower colors because I am now wavering on my choices. I am going to be ordering place card holders, researching deals on other decor items and trying to work on our ceremony itself and picking out our menu for the tasting we have at the hotel at the end of the month. Things are slowly coming together, but honestly the more I get done the more little crap I remember I have to do. 

Blogger Happy Hour: Happening!

With good response we are going to go forward with the blogger HH, please bring any friends you would like though, we are not exclusive!  I am going to say the meeting place will be the Flying Saucer as we can get our "beer benefits" and we can get yummy food. Here is the site: 

http://www.beerknurd.com/stores/austin/

If any of you absolutely HATE that place let me know and we can change locations. There are lots of great locations around there. Let's plan on meeting around 545 or 6? Will that work? I am looking forward to seeing you all in "real life"!

Blogger Happy Hour????

Is anyone still planning on going to this happy hour? It is planned for Thursday night of this week. We have been talking about doing a happy hour at the Flying Saucer around 6. Are you all going to be there? If not no problem we can hold off for another time. Just have not gotten a huge response!

Hope you all can make it. I am always down for a drink and catching up with my friends!

Weekend Recap

This weekend we had a whole bunch of errands to run. We got a lot of them done while still finding time to relax a bit. 

Friday after work I headed to Ann Taylor Loft, where I proceeded to give my credit card a hard core workout. I ended up returning several items on Sunday but I feel I did really well. I had 30% off for friends and family and then an additional 40% off of all already marked down items. I purchased several honeymoon dresses, a few work shirts and hostess gifts for my bridal shower in two weeks. Here are a few of my new items: 

(I got this for $8 bucks! That is awesome!)

(I bought several versions of these for $8 and they will be hostess gifts!)

The rest of the night we had our usual Pei Wei and movie night. We watched Casino Royal and I have decided I love Daniel Craig and would like WF to look just like James Bond on our wedding day! 

Saturday I got up early and judged the Liberty Hill BBQ cookoff with Kelly . Not only did we eat a ton of amazing food we were able to find a place the had crown on tap. Lets just say the afternoon got a bit fuzzy! Then I ran home for a quick turnaround and headed to Amelia's for dinner. She made us AMAZING chicken and fish tacos. I want to go over there again for dinner soon. She always has a great spread. We then headed to Amy's for ice cream and then to go see Date Night with a whole group of people. The movie was super cute and really funny. I would say it is a must see. Lots of fun! 

Sunday WF and I got up and ordered our guest book, after some thoughts from Amelia. We then headed out to return about half of the stuff I bought at Loft. We had lunch outside and enjoyed the weather and then headed to the Domain. I ordered my wedding band and we think we have found his wedding band. Turns out he is not going to go with tungsten. We have been doing some research and apparently they can shatter. He hits his hands a lot and tends to be hard on his watch so we thought we should go with another material. We discovered a new material called Cobalt, and we think we have found a good style! We will be ordering that ring very soon! 

Sunday afternoon I took a nice long walk with Kelly at Town Lake and got to vent a lot about some of my wedding planning stresses (thank you Kelly). We then headed home and I "cooked" some leftovers and caught up on out DVR. It was a great weekend really! 

Tonight I am grocery shopping, always fun. Then heading to the gym. I am ordering a bunch of swimming items so I am start getting full body workouts in while keeping pressure off my foot. The rest of the week is more wedding projects, organizing and trying to get ready for this weekend. 

 

Wedding Projects

I am currently working a few wedding projects and I thought I would get your thoughts and ideas.

First I am working on a guest book featuring our engagement pictures. I totally stole this idea from Amelia, who had put this idea together for her wedding. I loved that it was a chance for people to write messages to us in a format that we would actually use again. I absolutely did not want a traditional guest book, because really how many times would I look at a list of names from my wedding? I am still working on the layouts of some of the pages. But I think you get the idea. What do you think?

http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/projectshareewelcome/l=6673276014/p=887231272058929972/g=118149649/cobrandOid=1000/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/otsc=SYE/otsi=SPBKlink/

Next I am working on place card holders. I am going to be ordering them from Etsy.com because I am lazy and don't want to try to make these myself. I am using wine corks like this for the base:

Source

I am then ordering business cards from vista print that have "Eat, Drink, and Be Married" on them and then having my MIL write the names and tables on them. Thoughts?

Next I am going to order the rose petals for my isle from Petalgarden.com, I am going to be ordering about 3,000! They will be red, orange and light blue mixed together. I am then going to place floating candles in tall vases along the isle. OOHHH romantic! I just hope it will look OK. We got a free isle runner from our florist so that will be there as well.

I am also working on ordering our invitations, but I will do a full post on this later.

This weekend we are picking WF's tux and ordering wedding bands. Lots of good stuff in the works!

Getting my butt moving!

WF and I joined Golds Gym last night. We got a great deal on our membership and I am really looking forward to getting started. The gym is freaking really nice and I know I will put it to good use. I have not mentioned this in my blog really but I have been having a lot of knee and foot problems. A week or so ago I bought new running shoes to help with some of this pain. It has made is better temporarily but I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow morning. I got fitted at RunTex and bought these shoes:

Apparently these have the highest arch you can get without having a custom insole made. So I will try it out. I have liked Mizuno running shoes in the past. We will see if these babies help. They freaking better for how much they were!

I am hoping I can get to the root of my problem at the doctor and they will give me some exercises to focus on. I have had horrible knees since I was in high school. I am thinking I might have been walking funning to compensate for this pain over the last year or so and now the pain in my foot has developed. We will see what the doctor says. In the mean time I am going to get together a work out plan and start hitting the gym 3 to 4 times a week. My main focus will be toning, mainly in my arms and back. I must look hot in my wedding dress!

Kelly has told me a lot about swimming and I think I want to try that out as well. I am a big believer in working around an injury, I just don't want to make it worse. I am hoping that swimming will be the key to this! In the mean time I now have a great reason to go buy a new Speedo and swim cap!

Weekend Recap

This weekend we headed to Houston for a visit with my sister and her wonderful (and really adorable) family. "D" is six months and "A" is two and a half years old and I can't imagine being able to handle everything that my sister does. She never stops moving. Here are a few pictures of the family:

I think the second one is funny because my niece never sits still. She is adorable! Got to love the bluebonnet shots! 

It was my sister's birthday so I of course had to bake something. I attempted very fancy cupcakes. I thought they were a fail but my sister seemed to like them enough! We spent the weekend playing outside with the kids and chasing after them. I at one point could not believe how fast the day goes by when you are in kid land! Before I knew it Saturday was gone and I could not feel my legs.

Sunday I had about 10 people over for bunch to celebrate my sisters birthday. We had fruit, French toast, pancakes, casseroles, quiches and I even made binges, oh boy! After many mimosas and playing on her new Wii Fit we headed home.

Another very successful weekend I think. Tonight WF and I go to join a gym! I will let you know how that goes, I am really nervous.

Blogger Happy Hour: Update

Hey All! After getting your thoughts on the blogger Happy Hour I think Thursday the 29th is going be THE day! So now we have to pick a location.

Tobin Tales reminded me that she has access to some seriously wonderful benefits for us picking a location with beer. It was inferred that  there could potentially be some (I said SOME not the whole bar) free drinks involved ladies! Since most of the places I would normally pick are very wine driven I thought I would get some suggestions. I was thinking somewhere north/north central this time. What about Triangle? Maybe the Flying Saucer? My original pick was somewhere in the Domain, any other ideas? Let's try for somewhere that would have options for those of us that are not huge beer drinkers.

I am looking forward to seeing you all in two weeks!

Weight Watchers Wednesday

So I have decided I need to make some diet adjustments in order to get to my goal weight. I have already be hovering at my official Wight Watchers goal weight for about 8 months. I have yet to weigh in at this weight and that is really annoying but I digress... I want too loose another 5 lbs on top of this. Then I need to tone up my arms and rest of my body for the wedding and honeymoon. Phase one (due to injury) will be focused on diet.

Other than weekends, where I save all my splurge points to use, I never go over my points. I usually have about the same meal for breakfast and lunch with the same snack everyday. Very little verity. Then for dinner I have a weight watchers friendly meal and a few cookies for desert with tea. I drink gallons of water throughout the day. I have heard eating the same thing everyday is not good for you as your body gets "used" to this. Is this true? I have read that in order to really loose weight I have to first cut carbs a bit (and that blows) and then stop having my big meal late night. I should instead make lunch my bigger meal. Many of you are in great shape and I thought you would have some information about this.

What is the best way to really kick my diet in gear to get these last few pounds off?

This is the cutest proposal!

Just found this and it made me tear up. Maybe it is wedding in general or maybe it is this proposal. But I just got so excited to get married all over again!

Weekend Recap - I only drank a little bit!

Friday - Movie night with WF. We watched a few shows and then Lethal Weapon 3. Don't ask. 

Saturday - We got up and took our puppy for a hike out by Emma Long Park. It was amazing and a great work out. We even took Harry off his leash for most of the hike and he did not run away! It was amazing and a big test of my trust and faith in both Harry and WF. He ran away from me as a puppy and I still have not gotten over it. Anyway we then headed over to the "Dog Day Afternoon" event at the Triangle. Saw lots of doggies and had lunch outside. We then got cleaned up did some wedding errands and headed for a huge meal at Canoli Joe's. 

Sunday - I got up and cheered on many friends but specifically Kelly who was a total rock star! We had a great time checking out costumes and cheering on people. We then headed to Sagra for brunch. I love that place now and I am obsessed with having some sort of wedding event there. I then passed out for a few hours after having one too many mimosas. Hung out at the house and did more wedding research. 

I am looking forward to this week and getting lots done in preparation for my trip to Houston to see my family! 

Just one shout out to my FABULOUS friend Kate who is turning 27 today. She is amazing and I wanted her to know I was thinking of her on her big day! :) 

Lovely Lunch

Sometimes I am so lucky to have my future husband comes meet me for lunch. Today lunch at the Texas capitol grounds!

It was really bright out. But what a nice lunch date! 

Funny things my future husband says...

My future husband is funny and I don't think he knows it. This morning we were talking about the "good looking dude bracket" they are doing on the radio. Anywho I said something like of course Brad Pitt is going to win, I mean he is freaking Brad Pitt. He turns to me and says the following:

"Brad Pitt is a fucking god. I would give my left nut to be Brad Pitt. It would not matter because once I am Brad Pitt I could make my own ball grow back. Because I am a god of course."

I proceeded to choke on my tooth paste and tell him I loved him...

"We need to tape ourselves in bed"

This is what I said last night to WF while laughing hysterically about the stupid things we say to each other while falling asleep. We defiantly do not need to tape ourselves "in bed" at all! We had about a 20 minute laugh fest about his fear of the dentist and that I should go first and tell him if the dentist hurt me or not. REALLY. Anyway moving on to the real topic.

Do any of you watch the TV show "Cougar Town"? The show is really entertaining. This week on "Cougar Town" the married couple on the show had a conversation the WF have almost every other week. It started off with the husband kissing on the neck while the wife is doing dishes. She turns and just says, "No way." He, shocked, says, "Can't I love on you?", she then says, "I know what those kisses mean and they do not mean 'I love you'"

Have you ever been folding laundry or doing dishes and the man in your life does the "romance" thing then? REALLY? Right now? Me folding laundry is getting you all hot? No, not going to happen. I was comforted by the fact that it must be a pretty common occurrence because it was on a TV show. I hope I am not alone in thinking this was a funny exchange. Maybe you had to see it?

Weekend Recap

Source

Believe it or not I did not get that drunk this weekend. You are so proud I know. I instead ate my weight in crawfish at our friend's crawsifh boil on Saturday. I, until very recently had never had a crawfish. Then my friends Kelly and her husband "D" introduced me to the wonderful little things. I love 'em! Their brother in law does a boil every year around Easter time and this year was no exception. The boiled over 132 pounds of crawfish for about 100 people. In addition to this they had crabs, potatoes, artichokes, asparagus, garlic, cornbread and all sorts of deserts. It was magical.

Best part of it my future mother in law had a blast. She does not drink beer but she tried beer. She does not really eat spicy food but she ate all the creole seasoning we threw at her. I was really proud of her for trying something new.

Easter Sunday we went to brunch at Z-Tejas and then headed home to have a fun egg hunt and eat lost of candy. All in all a pretty simple but totally fun weekend.

Happy belated Easter to you all!

First Dress Fitting

I had my first dress fitting today and I wanted to give you all an update.

Some background first. I got my dress last August when my mom was in town for only one weekend. I really wanted her to be there and I was glad that she and my sister were able to help me pick out my dress. But I made my choice very quickly. I really think mom and sister helped pick out a dress that was just right for me. The dress came in just after Christmas and I went to try it on with Janet. Well, it was HUGE and did not feel like it was the same dress at all. I started to get a bit nervous that I had chosen the wrong dress for me. The whole shape of the dress was different.

Today I had the dress all pinned in. I added the corset to make my boobs be in the right place. I had my shoes on to make me look taller. I feel much better about it but I am not going to lie I am still feeling apprehensive about the whole thing. I still wonder if the fit of the dress is throwing me off.

I love the dress don't get me wrong but I am always going to wonder if it is just right. I feel like when I have it on I get very out of body with my thoughts. My dress does not feel like my dress anymore but just another object I am analyzing and critiquing. I look at it and I think wow so pretty and I feel like I am playing dress up in someone else's big girl wedding dress. Kind of like I am not "grown up" enough for this yet. Did anyone else feel this way? I have heard many brides question their dress at some point during the planning process. I am sure it is the right dress just still feels funny to be dressed up like a bride.

I am sure this feeling is just me being weird.