First Wedding Gift

I came home Saturday to a BB and Beyond box sitting on my doorstep.


I paced around it a few times, called Chris and told him I thought we had gotten our very first wedding gift.

He came over and we continued to stare at the box.

"Do we open it?"

"I don't know...call your mom and ask her..."

Curiosity and excitement got the best of us so we threw any potential etiquette aside and dove in.

Our very first wedding gift!



Thanks so much Liz. We'll always think of you when we drink white.



We can't wait to see you in June.

There Will Be Blood

Yesterday I went for my first dress fitting with the seamstress.

 

Her name is Karen and she's about 60.

 

Midway through pinning my dress Karen reeled back and told me not to panic.

 

"It's just a little blood, and it's my blood, so don't worry.  I'll be right back."

 

I'm sorry?...What did you just say?  Blood?  Blood on my house payment priced never-before-worn wedding gown?

 

Oh, but it's not my blood so that's good news.

 

NOT!

 

I don't care who's blood it is get it off!!!!

 

Karen came back with a little wet paper towel and began to scrub at the stain.

I stayed focused on my happy place and tried to imagine plan B.

 

Walking down the aisle in a wetsuit?  That would be funny. 

Maybe I could borrow my mom's old gown.  No - the cat had kittens on it a few years ago.  It's already been ruined by cat blood. 

Poor cat just wanted something that smelled like her favorite person.

Now my mom has no wedding dress to try to pass on.

 

As I was trying to figure out how not to be on the 5 o'clock news ("Tonight at 5, bride-to-be chokes seamstress at local bridal shop..."), Karen finished her scrubbing and told me "all gone!"

 

Sure enough, I looked back and saw nothing but a small wet spot on the satin.

 

"Did you know that if you get your own blood on something, your own saliva can always get it out?" she asked me.

 

No, Karen.  No I did not know that. 

 

If only the cat had known too.

Skillful Crafts With Sarah and Chris

This weekend Chris and I tried our hands at some painting, gluing, assembling and stamping.

We've yet to do anything by hand for this wedding and we figured, how hard can it be?

The first project was fabric boards for photos during the cocktail hour.

My mom and I started by scouting out fabric at a store down on Harry Hines. With so many great fabrics, it was hard to choose.


Then it was on to gluing the fabric to the boards - seemingly an easy task, but alas, canvasing ain't easy.

Then we moved on to painting and assembling easels for the boards to rest on.




Also not easy.

But we did it!





And then, just when most normal people would take a break, we started stamping things.

You guessed it...not easy.

It's really a good thing we've contracted out the rest of the wedding details to professionals.

Today We Visit Emily

My sister recently completed her first month of employment at the corporate headquarters of JCPenney.
She is in the pricing division and no she does not have a pricing gun.

She has her own window-facing cubicle, her own inbox, her own meager supply of 10 vacation days and her own early commute to work.

On Wednesday we got the formal tour of her new office. It's niiiiccceeee...

We also got to meet her boss who said we should be very proud of her. (We being her mom, dad and sister...all who were present, it was like bring your family to work day!)

So proud of you little one!

Through Sickness

Yesterday Chris got sick.

No.

Yesterday Chris got really sick.

I brought him supplies around 10am, but after checking back at noon he'd only gotten worse.

I made an emergency doctor's appointment with my doctor. The doc tested Chris up one side and down the other then treated the boy to a stinging shot in his butt.

When we got home I washed his dishes, disinfected the apartment, did his laundry, gave him his meds, held the trashcan whilst he got sick in it, kept a cool towel on his head, then unrolled a sleeping bag and tried to get some sleep on the floor beside his bed.

He asked me today how I felt seeing him that way. The smell, the look, the weakness and delirium...how did I feel having to handle all that?

I had to admit...

I didn't even notice it.

It's like my conscious mind looked right past all the potentially yicky stuff and just took care of business.

Love is blind; maybe to reason, but definitely to the stench of sick.

I remember being grossed out when my mom would reach her hand into the disposal in the kitchen sink and pull out food and junk and throw it in the trash. I would groan "Grrrooossss mooommm...how can you dooooo that?!"

She told me that one day when I was mature enough to reach my hand in there myself, I would be mature enough to have my own children.

I think collecting and throwing out my fiance's "used" sick bag without feeling the least big squimish qualifies me to enter into the "through sickness" part of the marriage gig.

Yep.

Through sickness and in health.

Tasting Wedding Grub

Today we loaded into our boats and floated to Grand Prairie to try the food for the wedding. Here's Chris and my mom dining together.



Yummm...snails and octopus.



Mom and I happy to be eating.



If Julie Smith would let me put her picture on here I would. But I think she'll kill me if I do so I'll refrain.
But thanks Julie. Thanks for feeding us and making sure we have awesome food to chow down on the day Chris and I first dine as husband and wife.

Dilly-Dash Down Greenville

Yesterday started as a very chilly, windy day, but ended full of sunshine, smiles and pancakes.

Chris and I finished (note the lack of the verb ran) our first 5K.

We had the great honor of experiencing the race with both our parents. They are quite the troopers!

Early morning, bus riding, volunteers handing out beer instead of water along the race route, one of the "volunteers" proudly sporting the shirt "I'm STD free", the parents smiled and laughed and we were so happy to have them there.

As Chris notes, we only forgot a couple of things...

Here's our best 5K ever.

7am Dart:


The men-folk:


The Speedo-folk:


Team Wehkamp:


Team Mathis:


Team Mathis/Wehkamp:


Success!!!:

99 Days of Engagment on the Wall, 99 Days of Engagement...Take One Down, Things Start to Mound, 98 Days of Engagment on the Wall

Well, we're at 99 days now until our wedding day.

Into the double digits, and into the nitty gritty.

Photographer, Videographer, Music, Location, Food...check, check, check, check, check.

Now we're down to dealing with 1/8cm letter stamps.

Here is Chris the other night trying to carefully remove the letters necessary to make my name and address so that we might stamp that name and address onto 100+ reply card envelopes.



Steady hands.





It's hard work, but no one's got to do it.

Moving Day

After bartering with an Israeli, serving cinnamon buns to three Mexicans and yelling at a few innocent Verizon service reps in India, my parents have successfully moved to a new home.

It truly takes a village.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out and helped.

Ros, Jay, Stewart, April, Emily, myself...

You really know how to make a house start to feel like a home.

Congratulations Mom and Dad!!



















More pics after the Mr. and Mrs. have had time to settle in.

Where's My Ice Scraper?

Oh that's right, I don't have one.

Because I live in Texas.

Where it's hot.

This morning it was an empty Lean Cuisine Box.

Hope everyone enjoyed the snow. It really was quite beautiful.

Caucus-ing Ain't Easy

Last night Chris and I decided to go caucus.

Everything you heard or saw about last night's caucusing is true.
The lines, the confusion, the parking problems, the yelling, the cold, the disappointment...

On our way to caucusing (<----click there, I'm going to start embedding the videos in the sentences) , we learned that neither of us really had any idea what caucusing is, was, or ever will be. We arrived at the library where we voted early, only to find that was not in fact where we needed to be to caucus.

So we traveled onwards.

After getting out of the car and making our way up to the Castle Hills Community Center we searched for anyone or anything that knew what the heck was going on.

We met a woman holding up a precinct sign in one hand and an Obama sign in the other. This woman appeared to be involved on the ground floor of the complicated pyramid scheme unfolding all around us.

She jubilantly informed us in her heavily-accented English that I must locate my precinct and stay with them so that I could fill out the necessary paperwork and be included in the tallying. She told us that we shouldn't trust the middle-aged lady who was barking instructions at us from the front of the throng since she was a 'Hillary supporter.'

The barking Hillary woman was some kind of Captain and was fielding all kinds of questions from the mass of people:
"What are we waiting on?, Where do we nominate secretaries?, Where's the guy selling hot dogs?!" (That last one was my fiance)

The woman became so overwhelmed that she proclaimed, and I quote, "Don't worry about the rules."

Our new heavily-accented friend further informed us that she was very excited to participate in this event since she had officially gained her citizenship five days ago.

Much later in the evening Chris recoiled in shock from the horrifying truth; that an immigrant woman only five days into her citizenship had educated two thirty-year American natives in their own political process.

How ignorant are the white folks? Muy.

We left and went to Chris' caucus location in Lewisville. Even more people, even more chaos, even more cold even more waiting, and still no hot dogs.

I called my folks to see if they were caucusing - nope.

But my sister April was. She was in Austin enduring the caucus there. We told her of our woes. "Caucusing ain't easy," she said.

At 10pm we went home. Completely exhausted and complete caucus failures.
We didn't get our names on any pieces of paper. We didn't get to vote for anything. We didn't get tallied. We never did find a hot dog.

Caucusing isn't for the faint of heart.

Panic at Purchase

I had to stop by a bridal shop today to get a fabric swatch. While I was there I witnessed a young girl start hyperventilating upon buying her bridal gown.

The sales lady had to sit her down in a chair and fan her with a bridesmaid dress brochure.
"It's okay honey...it happens with your first one. After the fourth, it's all way too easy!"

The first thing that occurred to me was "Why is a three time divorcee selling wedding dresses?"
And then I realized, "because she know A LOT about them!"
This isn't a "Marriage store", it's a dress store. And this lady has had four. She's a dress expert.

Genius.

Then I thought, "Buying your dress should not equal hyperventilating."
Probably not a good sign that these nuptials are being done of sound mind.

The thought that came to me later was, "maybe she was fainting due to sticker shock."
But I immediately dismissed this due to the fact that she would have seen the price before she decided to buy it, therefore eliminating any panic at the counter.

Nope, buying the dress just made things all too real for this bride. And not a happy real.

I will probably have my gut-check moment, but I don't think having it come at the dress purchase is a good thing.

Also not a good thing - waking up and having to use an empty Grape Nuts cereal box to wipe the 2 inches of snow off your car.

I tried to take a picture, but my hands were frozen and I was running late so you'll just have to use your imagination.

High Fashion In Vista Ridge Mall

Fabric swatches for the bridesmaids sashes, outer envelopes, inner envelopes, paper samples, food samples, favors, stamps, honeymoon hotels...

Thank God I voted early.

Now instead of politics and weddingtics competing for space in my brain, I can surrender to letting wedding fill all of my brain.

So yeah, Chris and I are still getting married.

You were wondering since you haven't heard much about it right?

Well, that's because we haven't been doing much about it.

I think I am the most un-stressed bride in the history of the world.

Everyone keeps saying I'll be stressed, but it has yet to happen.

Sure, I'm spending more time now thinking about table cards and bridal hairstyles, but it's easy. It's like deciding which of your digital photos you want to print; look at some options, then choose something.

April made big headway when she found the bridesmaid dress at this shop.

It's a very exclusive shop that you probably have never heard of. I think there's only two in the world.

Very high fashion Chinese lady runs the store. She knows how to say "U please be looking rery pwetty yes?"



Here's a mock-up of what the bridesmaids will look like.



Well, their dresses anyways.