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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Next Month of My Life

As most of you know, I am getting married in less than a month (which is a lot in itself), but I am also leaving my current place of employment and moving to Norfolk, Virginia to start married life! My fiancé and I leave San Diego in less than two weeks to begin our travels across the United States! And I still have all my packing, cleaning, organizing, and purging to do on top of working fulltime up until the day before we leave and finalizing wedding plans. The key to me successfully completing all these tasks is a good attitude and great music!

So far we are planning on hauling my Scion tC behind the awesome and powerful F150 packed with clothing and key items for the wedding, honeymoon and the necessary items to live with for a month or so. (The military is moving all of the large items and we will receive them in mid April) We are driving over Hoover Dam and stopping at the Grand Canyon the first day!! I am so excited!! Other than that, we plan on stopping when we see something out of the ordinary and enjoying the views! We should arrive at my parent's house 4-6 days after we leave depending on traffic, how many stops we make, etc.

Once we get to my parent's house, it will be WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING - dress fittings, hair appointments, nail appointments, finishing touches on favors, printing and compiling programs, meeting with vendors, making centerpieces, seating charts, name cards, etc. etc. I keep telling everyone that I am doing great and don't have much left to do, but in reality I have a ton to do, I just can't accomplish it in San Diego or until the week before our wedding. All in all, I cannot wait to be married to the man of my dreams!

I will make sure I take pictures of the vehicles after they are packed and then each day of travels because I am sure they will get messier and messier as the days go on.  Please pray for our safe travels! 

Thursday, January 14, 2010

New Years Resolutions...

My number one New Year's resolution is to make God more present in my daily life and the daily life of my family without being overbearing. I want to make it a lifestyle change as opposed to a fad/obsession. As most of you know, I am a fairly religious person who attends Mass every Sunday, prays regularly, and attended Catholic school from K through college, but I still feel a void in my life and want that to change. In my efforts to be more proactive and make it a family effort, we make sure we pray before dinner and Jared is reading from his Children's Bible for 20 minutes a day. So far, it has been a complete success! Jared is showing a lot of interest in Jesus and Moses in particular and keeping me and Ryan on our toes! It has been a little while since I studied the bible, but I am amazed at how much I have retained!
What amazes me most is that Jared is magically better behaved and there is an overriding feeling of peace in the house.
Our next step is to rent The Ten Commandments to make everything much more visible for Jared. While he has not had any religious schooling to date, he is attentive during Mass and asks questions about statues, things the priest says and stories he reads in his Children's Bible. It has been amazing to see a little mind who didn't know about Jesus want to learn and retain information about God, Jesus, Mary, Moses, the Ten Commandments, sin, etc. Being raised in a strict Catholic family and attending Catholic school from kindergarten on, I do not remember a time when I wasn't aware of God, going to Church every Sunday and praying every night before getting tucked in for the best bedtime stories told by my loving and insanely imaginative father!
I see the moon
And the moon sees me
God bless the moon
And God bless me

When I think back to my childhood and the influence my parents had on my life, I think of daddy's bedtime stories, mommy's lullabies that she made extra special by changing the words to "Sarah" "Sweet Little Angel" etc. and my mom doing the sign of the cross on my forehead while saying "God Bless You, Sweet Dreams, I love you!" It is memories like these that I want my children to cherish for their lifetime and strive to give to their children. Thank you Mom and Dad!

New Year’s resolution number two goes hand in hand with number one…to worry less and to trust in God. I know everything will be ok, but I tend to want to resolve everything myself. I am a perfectionist and I am working on taking the back seat and letting life run its course. All I can say is that I am working on it and it is a challenge, but I think in the end I will succeed!
My third and final New Year’s resolution is to be thrifty! While I am generally pretty thrifty, I still enjoy shopping and I really need to only purchase the items that my family or I need. When it comes to decorating, I am going to try to be extremely crafty – refinish furniture, make headboards, find things at thrift shops and go for the country/homey feel where you can leave your shoes on and not worry about a little dirt. I think that feel is easier to achieve when you are working on a budget and will most likely have mismatched furniture for a while, plus, I love it!

Happy New Years to everyone! I wish you all the joy, love and peace the world has to offer!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

My Wedding Creations!

The Flower Girl Basket!  White Satin (scrap from JoAnn, Purple Ribbon that matches the bridesmaids dresses and the bow on the flower girls dress and a silver flower (JoAnn $2) that matches the maids trim.  My 9 year old sister is the flower girl, so it is a larger basket and not too frilly.  She wanted to match the bridesmaids as much as possible!

The Ring Bearer Pillow!  Better known as the Ring Bare Pillow!!  He's a cutie!  Ryan's 7 year old son is the ring bearer and helped me design this!  He gave me permission to put purple on it because his daddy said "Real men can wear pink and purple!"  I have not put the ribbon for the rings yet because I am still debating on how to attach them exactly.


Wedding invitation from Affordable Wedding Invitations!  It was so easy to order exactly what I needed without any extra fluff!

I wish I had more photos to put up, but since I am 3,000 miles from the wedding location, I have order most of the items to my parents house and them flown home to arrange them.  After the wedding I will put pictures of up the centerpieces, cake I designed, favors, programs, etc.!  Oh and photos of my dress, veil, etc. will come later; it's a surprise!!

Also, some really helpful websites were:
for my wedding website
for bulk white roses, orchids and greens
for votiv candle holders and candles (extremely affordable!)
(also extremely affordable and came out beautifully!)
Target
for my centerpiece vases
Michaels 40% OFF COUPONS
for wedding accessories/save the dates/etc.


Bye Bye GT Mustang...Hello Ford F150!! & some Wedding planning updates!

The weekend finally arrived!  This past week was a long one because Ryan and I were looking for a 4x4 pickup truck in San Diego.  On the East Coast, 4x4 trucks are the norm, but NOT in San Diego.  We searched several dealers, used car sites, etc. and after having a horrible inspection report on one we loved, we were a little discouraged, but thankfully on Friday we found our new baby!  Ryan and I (well really Ryan) traded his Convertible, Mustang GT in for a Ford F-150 (the first of three steps to a minivan according to his buddies)!  It is a great truck and will get a lot of love!




Wedding Progress...The flowers are ordered!  I am a bargain shopper and I have not strayed from my roots while planning my wedding!  I double, triple check prices, search for online coupons, verify everything that is included with the price, etc.  While this may take up hours, days, possibly weeks of my life, I enjoy it and I am proud of my purchases and not breaking the bank!  Ordering the flowers from 3,000 miles away was a challenge for me.  My father has always beautifully landscaped my home property, so I was picky about the kinds and the exact colors of the flowers that my girls would carry.  I want them to stand out and look fabulous!  Hopefully all the emails, phone calls and recommendations have paid off!  I will find out on February 20th!  No matter what, I will be the happiest bride because I am marrying the man of my dreams and my best friend!!
My next task is to create the perfect playlist for the reception!

Friday, January 8, 2010

My First Blog

I was inspired to blog because my life is changing quickly and I have not been able to keep in touch with everyone as I had hoped. I have a few friends that blog and I thoroughly enjoy reading about their lives whether it be travels in Africa or being a mother of two.


In the past year, I have moved from my hometown in Pennsylvania to Los Angeles for 3 months and then to San Diego to be with the love of my life, my fiancé, Ryan! I work for a surety bonding company as an underwriter and I am planning my wedding in February! The date is rapidly approaching and I am feeling the stresses of being an out-of-town bride who is a perfectionist. Thankfully Ryan knows how to keep me calm or at least mitigate my panic moments.

I have been striving to be a DIY bride and I think for the most part that I have been successful! I made hte flower girl basket, ring bearer pillow, designed the wedding cake, designed the centerpieces and will be putting them together, made the save the dates and decorated my favors! I am sure that I will be doing much more in the coming weeks!