Countdown to Engagement Photos: An Essay on Self-Betterment

Ok, so there really isn't a countdown to engagement photos (though they are happening in October), but it feels that way because of my latest to-do list, which includes booking a hair cut in the next four weeks and buying Crest White Strips (come on, I tell you Priests are refusing to marry us and I'm not going to cop to trying whitening strips?  Please.).

I know I live in a thriving metropolis where I could find dozens of people willing and able to cut my hair in its preferred style: long.  Seriously, every time I got to get it cut, I just get it cut.  Two to three inches off the bottom, please.  It's not that hard.  

But the truth is, I've had my hair cut by the same man back in Florence, Alabama since I was seven.  I kid you not.  I got bangs with one lady when I was seven and that was it, we changed salons (not related to the bang incident, I don't believe) and never went back.  So for the past 18 years, it just been me and Andy.

I heart Andy.  He knows I have no idea what I want my hair to do, and he's talked me out of some baaaaad decisions, but now I'm addicted.  I'm afraid to go someplace else for fear that they'd misinterpret my pathetic instructions (keep it long, a little shorter on top, which means to trim it in layers) and instead I'd leave with a mullet.  

So, in sum, rather than find a place in Birmingham over the next month, I've opted to book an 8:15 appointment the day I'll be in Florence checking out rehearsal dinner sites.  I could say that part of me knows what I want, but the reality is that I'm pretty sure that most of me is still 7.  Either way, Andy's my mane (ha) hair man. Who knows what will happen when I move to Durham.  "Honey?  I'm flying home to Florence for the day... no reason."

Catholic Church: 3, B&A: 0

I'm glad I have thick skin because it seems that no one wants to marry us. Seriously, I feel like a guy. I ask these people "out" (to perform our ceremony) and each time the cute girl runs back to the cheerleading squad, points at me, and laughs (figuratively speaking, of course). We're even getting shot down from people we haven't asked yet! Here's the basic email exchange, paraphrased so I don't get a first-class one way ticket:

Excerpt from my email to our appointed Deacon:

B and I have just learned that Father Joe (from Durham) will be unable to perform our wedding ceremony due to an overlap with the graduation ceremonies at Duke. We're currently exploring other options including a Pastor from Birmingham and the Abbot V from Florence. However, B grew up at Holy Spirit, specifically with Monsignor D. Do you know if Monsignor D performs wedding services?

Response from the Deacon:
As a rule Msgr. D does not celebrate out of town weddings.

As a rule I don’t either.

Ouch! Seriously. Three turn downs. Ok, so it's kind of funny. Funny enough to blog about, though part of me wonders if I should give future celebrant prospects the link to my blog to shame them into saying yes ("you don't want to be featured, doooo yooooou?"), but today I'm stressed about other things in life. Yes, I have other things in my life. Really, I do!

Looks like I'll be at work late (not due to blogging, thanks, but waiting on video conversions, argh) and I've got some stuff I need to get done in the next 24 hours, plus what feels like a mounting list of things to plan out for the fall. I need to book appointments, make decisions, and somehow nab some "me time" (aka treadmill time, these days). But what I really need to do is forget that B is visiting his parents this weekend for job interviews only a few hours from here. I'm dying to drive over and see him, but I just can't do it today. He needs to work, I need to just chill. But I think I'll go clean something first...

Baby Shower Fiesta!

Last night I helped throw a shower for my coworker E who's having a baby the first week of November. So fun! She's having a little girl and wasn't really into the whole sugar-sweet type of event, so instead we threw a Mexican-themed party with quesadillas, cheese dip, sangria, beer, moonshine (yes, moonshine), and a single root beer, for the mom to be. I work with some great people.

We had a blast and it was fun to catch up with coworkers outside of work. Invariably, you end up talking about work anyway, but it's less of a "did you get those TPS reports done" and more of a "do you remember when R said that at the Christmas party? CLASSIC!" Regardless, it's a fun way to get to know your boss, coworkers, interns, and beyond a little better, which always makes work a little better.

When I first met B's extended family at his grandparent's 50th anniversary party (believe you me is that another post--we'd only been dating 4 months!), one of his uncles passed on some advice that has been useful to me time and time again. It's helpful in family situations, at after-work events, and for all the lawyer meet-and-greets we (happily!) attended this summer.

B's uncle, also B, pulled me aside right after I arrived and said:

There are three rules to surviving a family reunion...

1) It's only two days, so don't swear.

2) Don't drink too much, but definitely drink something.

3) Don't disagree with Granny about politics, or anytime after 5pm. In fact, don't disagree with Granny ever.

I think that's brilliant advice, and I really have loved how it's applied all over my life. B's Granny is a great lady, so the point of Rule 3 isn't Granny-specific, rather it's about not raining on the Guest of Honor's parade. Why on earth would I argue with Granny the weekend of her wedding anniversary? No need. Getting hammered (Rule 2, you'll remember)? Time and place, my friends. And as for Rule 1, I think "swearing" covers a myriad of ill-advised behavior, including snarkiness, pouting, impatience, and huffiness. Seriously, "it's only two days," do you really need to do that here?

It all loops back to what your mom taught you--you're in public, please behave like you deserve to be. We all get huffy sometimes, and occasionally swear (Not me of course, but I'm sure you do...), and that's ok. But do you really need to do it in front of the future boss your fiance's trying to impress, your coworkers, or your fiance's Granny?

So the baby shower was great--went off without a hitch, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to share my Rules for Dealing With Life, courtesy of B's uncle. Maybe I'll print them on the back of the Save the Dates...

Catholic Church: 1, B&A: 0

B and I had hoped that Father Joe, from Duke's Catholic Church, would be able to perform our ceremony in May, but it turns out that we're overlapping just enough with graduation events that he's an official no-go. Bummer! I never got to meet him, but have heard great things from B.

He turned us down yesterday when B went to meet with him in his office and, sadly, after I got the update I wanted him to do our ceremony even more! Apparently he and B had a great talk about what marriage was about and people's expectations.

In a nutshell (albeit a second-hand nutshell), it seems Father Joe's take was that people always try to prepare for the big change of marriage but that, in reality, your goal is to have nothing change. You should keep doing the little things that made you fall in love with each other, and the kind things that you do thoughtlessly, but that hold great meaning for the other half of your relationship.

I like that. Instead of turning our worlds upside-down, B and I should try to keep them the same. I'd heard this regarding the wedding ("Don't overwhelm him!" "Talk about things other than wedding stuff like you used to before you got engaged!"), but never about the marriage.

It'll be interesting to see how we apply that theory. We've already been cautioned by Deacon Bill to get a housework gameplan on the books ("even though you'll throw it out in six months"), so the temptation (and even advice) is to write down everything that needs to be done around the house and split it up as evenly as you can.

I'm going to come right out and say I don't like that. I like cooking, and B often keeps me company in the kitchen and helps with chopping, mixing, etc (Unless it's his spaghetti sauce, in which case I'm relegated to a bar stool with a glass of wine.). So I don't want to "have" to share cooking, because it makes me happy. Doing dishes also makes me happy, ironically enough. I find it really soothing and stress relieving, especially if I'm stressed over something I can do nothing about.

Other things I like: folding warm laundry, changing sheets, keeping the kitchen clean, wiping down the bathroom mirror, putting away groceries.

Things I like less... ok, hate: putting away clean laundry, anything to do with floors (are they ever really clean?), dusting (I don't notice until it's tooooo late), taking out the trash, unloading the dishwasher.

(Are you seeing a trend? I hate putting things away...)

Really though, I think the easiest, most logical way to split things up is by what you notice. I notice dishes in the sink, so I clean them. I notice laundry in the hamper, so I wash it. I don't notice dust, I turn a blind eye to the drying rack, and I never notice the trash or dishwasher being full until it's too late and has caused a problem.

That said, I don't know what B notices, but I think it would be hard to assign us things that didn't occur to us. Why would I sit and stew that he hadn't put the dishes in the dishwasher if I've noticed them and he hasn't? I'm just hoping that he abhors dust and, from the looks of his apartment, he just might.

I like this article, and the quote that goes with it:
George Eliot wrote, What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

Maybe I'm crazy, and I know there will be some kind of flow-chart at some point (I mean honestly, have we met?), but I think we're going to be fine. Any advice?

In the meantime, we still need a celebrant. Maybe we'll check the classifieds...

Friendly Advice

Got a fantastic email from a dearly loved college friend today with advice for living with boys. She wrote...

Here is a story of the life you have to look forward to when you start living with your boy: Yesterday A called me on his way home from work to ask if I needed anything from the grocery store. (Aw!) I asked him to please bring home some stuff to make a salad to go with dinner. He brought home spinach and three kinds of cookies. Oh.

I love it! I love everything about that story. A) How sweet is A? (And believe me, he's a sweetie.) B) How delightfully, wonderfully perfect is that story? I can see how it went down.

A's inner monologue: Stuff for salad. That's in the produce department. Hmm.. Spinach is good for you, I'll get that. What else goes on salads. Croutons. Croutons go on salads. Where would croutons be, and why aren't they right here next to the lettuce? Croutons are baked, so they're probably with the crackers. Let's see... crackers, crackers, crackers... COOKIES! Cookies, I love cookies. I'll grab a box of these, oh and these are M's favorites, so I'll get those, too. What? Those are on sale? Gotta get a box of them.

Hence a shopping basket that has one bag of spinach and three boxes of cookies.

One of my favorite hobbies is checking out other people's carts at the checkout line. You can tell third-date guy (pasta sauce, noodles, biiiiiig bottle of vino), and post-breakup girl (ice cream, Cosmo, marshmallow fluff), but it's the odd men (and women) out that make the game fun. Tortellini, Snickers Ice Cream bars, and toilet cleaner? Ricotta cheese, egg beaters, and Kool-Aid? Slim-fast, hot sausage, and cookie dough? (All things cylindrical, in the last case).

Seriously, get yourselves to the 10 items or less lane and check out the inventory in the baskets ahead of you. You can always tell who's sorry (flowers, chocolate) and who's sorrier (whipped cream, chocolate sauce). If type-purchasing were an Olympic sport, I could give Phelps a run for his money.

Wedding in a Bag

Some people plan their weddings around cakes. Others around dresses. The crazy, crazy kids out there plan their around the venue, typically a serene outdoor setting on the beach or lakeside next to a gorgeous cabin setting. So is it that much of a stretch that I'm considering planning my wedding around a comforter?

I know, I know, focal points are for living rooms, but still. I've been keeping lists of things I like--flagging pictures in magazines, saving images from websites, and, most recently, grabbing an image from a RuLaLa online sale of Anabella Fiorento's latest bedding. I was scrolling by the luxurious and super-puffy looking duvets when I stumbled onto this bad boy. Let's do the math... Green? Check. Brown? Bonus points. (I can almost hear mom sighing now.)

I don't think it'll happen, but just the fact that I liked the bedding enough to save it to my work desktop to add to the wedding file says something about me. Freud would have a heyday with this one.

Wedding Planning Moment of the Day

At the bridal fair last week, I signed up for a few different things like more information on wedding videos, honeymoon spots, or pre-registration for your registry (Whaa?). For some reason, I'm pretty sure I was blindsided by a free picture frame or something else just as shiny, I signed up at David's Bridal. Basically that meant that if I wanted to go in and look for bridesmaids dresses, etc, I wouldn't have to sit around and fill out their paperwork for 30 minutes. But now, I'm so glad I signed up, because this is what I found in my inbox today:

Your Weekly Wedding Planning Report

Dear A,

There are now 8 months , 1 week and 3 days until your wedding.

Ha! The countdown is ON! Before today, I had assumed we had more like 9.5 months, which feels like forever. I mean, I could make a human in that amount of time. Not that I would, but still. It's a good indicator of time. Now, there wouldn't be time for that. Crazy.

Other countdowns? A week from yesterday, I'll be 25. I think I said in a previous post that I'd like to work on being more selfless between then and my birthday. Then I got engaged. Technically, I could say that all I think about is B. But still pretty selfish of me. (What? He's AMAZING! Deal with it.)

In case the above wedding countdown isn't specific enough for you, here are the hard facts:

248 days

or
5980hours
or
358805 minutes
or
21528270 seconds

It is 249 days, 4 hours, 4 minutes and 44 seconds until Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 2:00:00 PM.

But who's counting...