Where am I??

The last few days have been a blur. Kenny left for a conference yesterday and as much as I love my time, I miss him:( And so does puppy. She is moping around here waiting for him to come home. She is normally with him all day, or else with his parents if he can't take her with him, so she does get constant attention. And even in his absence, Kenny's dad came over and got her this morning so she wouldn't have to be in her crate all day while I was at work. Talk about spolied. But she is being quite naughty today, and last night too, and normally she's really good. So I think she misses her daddy. I do too:(

Anyway, Monday and Tuesday at work were fine, can't remember much of those days, so they must have been okay. Tuesday night I was helping Kenny get ready for his trip and I was up very late doing so. After midnight, he asked me to shorten some pants for him. AFTER MIDNIGHT. I told him I would do it in the morning. That was so ridiculus of me. I ended up being late for work (not okay when you have kids waiting for you at your door and you have to call and get someone to cover for you-nightmare city). So the rest of the day was shot because the kids' routine was a mess. I had a headache from the start and thought it was allergy related because the weather had just drastically changed here in Michigan again. So I took claritan instead of excedrin for the headache. BIG MISTAKE. Should have just taken the excedrin. My headache went from bad to worse, and then, after work we HAD to stay for a meeting that could not be missed, so just so I could sign my name on the sign-in sheet, I stayed, but the whole time I had my head in my hands applying as much pressure as I could to my face. I had to wait till the claritan wore off to take the excedrin because they both make me very jittery and I didn't think I could handle driving home like that (I drove alone because I was late). So once I got home, that was it, lights out. I was down for the count. Kenny called me around 10pm and I woke up to talk to him just for a minute, but that's it.

Today was a good day. No headache, thank goodness. My brother is coming over in a little while to mess with the new dishwasher (still not in yet) and I'm doing some wedding stuff, which I have been looking forward to for a couple of days.

This weekend is going to be busy and I'm just hoping for some down time because I need it!! I need a day with no committments, no alarms, and no responsibilities. Just one day!! I know, it's wishful thinking, but a girl can wish, right?

Still Laughing

Here is the conversation that took place between my fiance and I today. It's priceless. Here goes:

Note: I have wanted a small, flat-screen TV in the bedroom on the wall since last summer, but haven't gotten one yet, and I forgot to ask Kenny for one for Christmas.

ME (in my angelic I WANT SOMETHING voice): Honey?

HIM (knowing I was going to ask for something): WHAT Lindsey???

ME: I've really been thinking that we need that flat screen on the wall in the bedroom. You know, it's your fault I need to sleep with the TV on at night, you trained me to be like that. TVs are on sale right now cause the Superbowl is coming up. Please?

HIM: You know, every time your trap opens, it costs me money.

I am still laughing to myself when I think about what he said. It's true. I cost us a lot of money. But isn't that my job? He is just as bad. He just makes more money than I do:) I'll get that TV, one way or another, and it won't come from my paycheck:)

Saturday in Church

Yesterday we hid from the world. It didn't happen on purpose, it just happened. The day started out with us getting up VERY early (I was not happy about it AT ALL) and getting to church (on a Saturday) by 830am for an 8 hour marriage couseling class. You really did read that correctly, it was an 8 hour class. All 8 hours of it. Next to A.D.H.D. Kenny.

The class was okay, nothing new, they are basically telling us that marriage is not all bells and whistles (which I understand, neither is a relationship!!) and that there are good ways to deal with problems. Got it. I read through the numberous books they gave us, skimmed the handouts we had, and then glanced at the clock. I had just looked over all the information and was ready to go home, and it was 915am. I still have 6 hours and 45 minutes to go. Drat. We listened to the man who is going to marry us and his lovely wife tell stories of their marriage, how they got through rough times (which I greatly appreciate, I honestly do) and show us video clips (not so much appreciated). They even served us lunch! Church women can cook!! The afternoon was the longest part. And then the last hour was spent taking a psychological evaluation, Kenny took his, I took mine, and in a week or so we meet with the pastor and he will analyze it with us. SCARY. Now everyone will know just how nutty we are. I asked him in the event we both fail the test, will he still marry us? He said yes, so I can sleep at night. Whew.

I forgot to tell you about the parts of the class where Kenny was tickling me (during a video clip) and I couldn't make any noise and I'm very ticklish. That was tourturesome. Then he also make comments under his breath about certain things (he was naughty) making it hard for me to pay attention (I was really trying to) AND during the psycological test, he raised his hand and told the pastor's wife I was cheating off his test. I am sooooooo glad I didn't know him in high school.

We are going back to church today, not for the regular service, but for membership class so in 5 weeks we'll be members of the church. Kenny actually already thought he was, since he'd been going to this church since he was young. But he had never taken the classes when he was a kid, so we're doing it together now. Church service is at 1030 this morning, and the class is at 1130. Ordinarily, we would go to the church service first and then to the membership meeting, but if I don't get a morning to sleep in just a little bit, I don't get to recharge. I know it's an excuse but I'm sticking to it!

When we came home last night after eating dinner out, it was only 7pm, and we both put our PJs on, and spent the entire night on the couch together, watching TV. No phones, no anything except us and the TV. It was so nice!

Cutest Puppy Ever!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

She really is the cutest puppy, all 50 pounds of puppiness!!

Creative-nesssssssssssss

Because today was the observance of MLK Jr. Day, I didn't have to work!! Yay! Three day weekends are the best! It's been a very relaxing, fun weekend. Saturday I putzed around doing wedding stuff and then went to Tasha's in the afternoon for a jewelry party. That was fun!!! And tempting! Then after everyone left she and I got to chat for a while longer, which was awesome! On Sunday Kenny and I went shopping and ran errands and played with the puppy. And today my mom and I went shopping to find her mother-of-the-bride outfit for the wedding! Since my mom lives an hour and a half away, I don't get to go shopping with her much, so I always get so happy when the chance presents itself. Which it did today!! I love her outfit.....it's RED! My mom is a rather conservative woman, no bright colors, she's more of an earthy tone woman. We started looking at dresses and suits and the first one she tried on was red, and it was a hit right away!! We didn't even go to another store. Can you believe that? She did try on a couple more dresses just to see what else she could like, but always came back to the first one. And then she found red shoes to match. I'm still in shock....my mom in red!! She looks awesome! Here she is (you know I had my camera in the dressing room with me!!):

I have been one busy crafting person in the last week. I've made lots of things for the wedding!! First, the card box. Before I decided to make it myself, I checked out prices online and in stores. I spent maybe only $10 less making it myself, but it's WAAAAAY cuter (I'm biased) than the ones I've seen. I just can't do the bird cage thing! So I bought shimery red fabric and some white ribbon and paper mache boxes, and away I went. Here it is!!

The flower girls will carry those kissing balls, and I did find then in stores and online for around $12 each, but I wanted them to have pink flowers and I didn't want the kissing balls to be teeny, so I bought pink hydrangeas (on sale at Joanns because they are spring floral), styrophome balls, (4 inch ones, but I ended up cutting them back to 3 inch), beaded garland (had it left over in my classroom) and floral pins and this is how I made them:

First stab the ball with a floral pin. Then fill the holes with hot glue and push the pin in, making sure you fasten the beaded garland between the pin and the ball so it will stay (the garland is what the kissing ball is held with). Then do that with the other floral pin, let them dry for about 2 minutes.

Take the hydrangea stalks.....

.....and cut all the stalks down so there's only about 2 inches of stem left. The longer then stem, the bigger the ball, the more flowers you will have to use. And believe me, I never thought it would take THIS MANY flowers to cover a 4 inch ball, which is why I cut back to 3 inches.

Then start pushing the stems in the styrophome. The trick to that is (ask me AFTER the ceremony how well it lasts...hehehe) to push the stem in quickly and don't move it around when it's in the styrophome. Leave it!! Here's the first one:

And then about halfway done:

And then all done!!! Look how pretty it is!!

I spent $30 total on 2 kissing balls. And I love them! I hope the little ladies will too! I'm not sure if they appreciate anything besides Hannah Montana these days.

And here is a picture of what the bridesmaids will carry....I haven't added red ribbon yet. Not sure if I will. I change my mind A LOT these days. Anyway, here are their white rose bouquets:

There are a few other things I'm working on, but I'll save that for another post!!

I have to say THANK YOU to Lindsay from Splat Designs for giving me the new award the sidebar....you rock Linds!

S L E E P Y

Ahhhhhhh! I have falled behind in EVERYTHING this week. Laundry, cleaning, de-cluttering (has to be done daily or it takes over!), even blogging. I'm just so B U S Y. I'm still trying to get back into a routine after Christmas vacation and it's not working. I fight the urge to call in sick every morning and just sleep! Most of the problem this week is that I woke up to an alarm clock on both Saturday and Sunday last weekend. So sleeping in for me is like not recharging a battery. I NEED TO SLEEP IN!! Today is my last day with kids this week, we have an inservice tomorrow and I can zone out in the meetings. Then Saturday is a big day for me. I'M SLEEPING IN. No one and nothing is getting me up before my body naturally wakes up. I will force myself to stay in bed LONGER. That is what is getting me through today and tomorrow. Knowing I can sleep in. I have lots more wedding details to share, but I have to take pictures first. I'll get them on this weekend. I have made a few things this week and it was soooo relaxing. Crafting unwinds me!

Quick funny story---we were watching the news last night and I was all snuggled under a blanket on the couch, about to fall asleep, and Kenny was at the other end of the couch not about to fall asleep. He was messing with something, a contraption of some sort. He was also eating pretzels. He is a loud pretzel eater, so I looked down at him to say something about the noisy crunching and just lost it....he was sitting there with a bag of pretzels in his hands and his new "state-of-the-art-best-they-make" headlamp strapped on his head, pointing the light all over the living room. While crunching really loudly. I laughed at him for a long time. What a picture. Why did he have his leadlamp on in the fully lit livingroom? I'll never know. He is crazy. But I love him. Happy Thursday!

A visiting I will go

Ohhh ohhhhhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

What a busy weekend. And just today, I went visiting loved ones that I meant to visit on Christmas vacation and just didn't have the time. I had breakfast with a friend and went shopping at IKEA, then on to another friend's house (maid of honor) to drop off her dress and play with her baby for a few hours. Then to Grandma's house for more wedding talk/planning and finally to my aunt and uncle's house to visit and drop of the junior bridesmaid dress. I had to be home by 7pm to meet my brother and I was only a few minutes late. Whew what a day! I did a ton of wedding things this weekend too. Making, planning, making, making, starting over, planning, making.......it's E N D L E S S. But I still love it:) I want to stay home from work and just work on wedding stuff. I know I've said that before, but it's still true!! And thanks for the comments telling me you like to hear about wedding details....I'll keep them coming!! I got to talk to Tasha twice this week and she has EXCELLENT advice and ideas about planning weddings! Thanks girl!!

This will be a four day week for me. No kids on Friday, we have a professional development day. AKA-hide my Suduko and crossword puzzles in my notebook while I sit in boring meetings to keep from falling sleep. I'd rather be teaching!!!!! The kids are so much more fun than that! However, it will still be a three day weekend because we MLK day off. Yay!! One more fun thing to look forward to....the auto show is in town. We might go this year. If you go every year, it gets a little boring, but we haven't been for a couple of years. I'm ready to drool over the new concept cars that even if they are produced, I'll never own one!! Still fun to dream.

Now I'm off to bed. Probably to dream about all things white and poofy. Just kidding about the poofy by the way. Nothing poofy in my wedding!!

Red Red Red

Thanks for the comments about the candles. It really does help to hear other people's opinions on things like this!! You ladies are the best!! I'll probably go with all red, something like this:

I love the romantic-ness of it. Now I just have to go buy it! I wish I could have had this picture up yesterday when I was trying to describe things, but I found it today, so now you can get a better idea. I'll probably add some white organza ribbon around the vases, and that'll be it!

I have been CONSTANTLY shopping wedding stuff online for that last couple of days when I have not been at work. I've been home now for about 2 hours and that's all I've done!! I have a list of things that we need, it's just trying to figure out where to get it for the best price, and there isn't ONE store with the best deals. The deals are scattered, but they're there!! I received the rest of my flowers today.....I love the doorbell ring and then a thump...it means more wedding stuff delivered!! My bouquet.....is going to be BEAUTIFUL, but I'm not sure that I can make it. I'm talented, not tooting the old horn, but I do have some crafty skills. But making my own bouquet? When I hold the flowers together they are so pretty and then I think about moving this one a little, and that one a little, and before you know it I have no idea what looks good and OOOOHHHHH wedding overload. Maybe there are just some things that I wouldn't mind paying to have done. Such as my bouquet.

It finally hit me COMPLETELY this morning on the way to work that I'm getting married. I'm going to be Kenny's wife! Ahh!! I've been waiting forever it feels like. We met in July of 2000 and started dating in 2002. I know it really wasn't that long ago, but I knew I was going to marry him even then, so it feels like a long time! Anyway, I got all emotional in the carride to work this morning. It was the first time in a while when I drove solo to work, and I had a good CD playing and good coffee and had wedding on the brain and it just hit me!!! I'm so excited. I almost don't want the wedding to get here because I love this feeling, knowing that one of the happiest days ever is coming up.

I know I talk about wedding stuff EVERY DAY that I blog. I'm sorry. It's just all I think about these days! I get up and get in the shower and think about wedding stuff. When I'm getting dressed I think about wedding stuff. When I am at work and not being mauled by 3-4 feet monsters I think about wedding stuff, and of course when I'm home I am DOING wedding stuff. On the treadmill I also think about it, more so my flabby arms and poofy stomach and how I wish they would disappear, but WEDDING is always on the brain. It's normal to think like this when you are engaged, right??

Maybe tomorrow I'll post about something other than nuptials. Maybe:)

Choices

OKAY!!!

I need some help here! Centerpieces. Oh yeah, if you are sick of wedding talk, don't read this post. It's all about centerpieces at the reception.

Here are the details. The hall is providing us with white linen tableclothes, and red linen napkins, the color of the bridesmaid dresses and some of the flowers. They are also providing us a large square mirror as the centerpiece base, and 3 glass cylinders per table, ranging in sizes from 10 inches to 14 inches tall, and all of them are about 3 inches in diameter. Still with me?? So here's what I've narrowed it down to..............keep in mind there will be 3 of these, all slightly different sizes, on each table, along with small votives. Can you tell I want tons of candles?? The candlelight is my favorite.

Red rose petals & red candle:

Red rose petals and white candle:

Red ribbon & red candle:

Red ribbon & white candle:

I have also seen photos of fruit in the bottom which add lots of color, however, much more expensive. We are having 25 tables at the reception and are going to do about 15 of them with the cylinders. The other tables will have rose & hydranga arrangements in the center with votives around that. I'm open to ANY suggestions at this point. I realize it's hard to imagine this looking elegant, I did the best with the pictures that I could. Looking at them now, I didn't put in enough water. Use your imagination!

This is a picture of what the 3 of them will look like, just imagine my flowers/ribbon and colors:

Evil Machine

This past weekend was sooooo relaxing. I worked with Kenny on Saturday which was a good clearing of the mind! On Sunday we had dinner with my dad and step-mom, and then just relaxed at home, something that we are doing more of lately. The best/worst thing that Kenny bought for Christmas was that DVR machine. I hate to admit this, but I'm being honest when I say that I turned into a couch potato because of it (just on the weekends though). I watched about a zillion episodes of Rich Bride Poor Bride, A Wedding Story (remember when you did that Amy??), and Platinum Weddings. And then there's 90210 and Melrose Place, and then Kate & Allie (laugh if you want to, but when I watched reruns with my mom when I was a kid). There's more too. The list surely doesn't end there. The machine is almost evil. Thank goodness that I can multitask and do wedding stuff and clean or fold laundry or whatever else has to be done while the shows are on. Kenny is just as bad. He's watching episodes of Steve Erwin and those brothers who make the motorcycles, and then Animal Planet and some other stuff too. I love coming home to the remote control. Never thought I'd become one of those people. I know it's a phase, it'll pass. It sure is fun though!!

First Day Back....

Today wasn't so bad. It was okay. The kids were happy to talk about what they got for Christmas and I was happy to listen. It's so wierd to go back on a Thursday. Now I'm home and I'm digging out my dress down clothes for Friday and it feels funny because my mind isn't comprehending that tomorrow is Friday. I came directly home after work, went to the gym, grocery store, and now I'm just sitting here. Crazy. But it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. It was actually nice to see the kids today and get back into a routine. And I realized just how far behind I am with science and social studies this year. I spent so much time with language arts and math that science and social studies always get pushed to the back burner. I need to get myself in gear!

:(

Officially Unhappy.

That's what I am right now. I have to go back to work tomorrow. The work that never ends. It comes home with me and infiltrates my personal life. It zaps all my energy so when I'm home, I'm worthless. I have to FORCE myself to go to the gym and even psych myself out and tell my head that if I sweat it out on the treadmill my reward is swimming (laps that equal another workout). That's my treat? More energy spent? I'm just whining. Really, I'm fine, and once I'm back at work tomorrow, everything will be great. I'll have missed the kids (although I don't right now) and I'll be excited to hear all about their Christmases and all the new gym shoes and video game stuff they received from Santa. But right now I just can't comprehend being "on" all day tomorrow. And Friday too. Ugh. One day at a time. I know I shouldn't complain about getting a nice vacation, but it's just that much harder to go back to work. Really, it is. No more moments of complete silence and peace (it only happens on vacation/weekends when Kenny isn't home) and no one needing something from me. I just want to be in the comfort of my own home/neighborhood planning my wedding. And that's all. If I go to bed now, I'll get about 6 hours of sleep, which means I'll be pissy all day because I'll be tired. So I'm screwed. I might as well stay up late and wait for Kenny to be done working and deal with the tiredness because I'm not even ready to sleep yet. This must be the whiniest post I've ever written. I sound like a mix between my students and my puppy. I promise I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. Maybe if I don't sleep tonight, I won't have to go to work. Either that or we'll get another big dump of snow like on New Years. My fingers are crossed. I wonder if my students are dreading tomorrow as much as I am. I'll find out in a few hours. Goodnight.

Ringing in 2008

Happy New Year!!!

Despite the weather warnings last night, Kenny and I took the hour and 15 minute drive to our friend's house W A Y out in the sticks for the annual New Years Party. Every year we take a lot of grief because we weren't engaged or married yet, so this year, we HAD to go even though the weather was supposed to get bad because NO ONE could give us crap this year!

We left late, as usual, got there around 11pm, and the roads were completely fine the whole trip there. We left to come home around 3am. It took us over 2 hours AND the expressway was like a virgin 2-track, only instead of dirt, it was snow. No kidding!! And it was a white wash the whole way home on top of that. I have to admit that I was so nervous (even though we have a gigantic truck with 4 wheel drive AND Kenny is an awesome driver, especially in the snow) that I just went to sleep. After all, it was late. I did wake up on occasion to Kenny saying, "Holy crap Lindsey, look at that!!" and then he would point to something that of course just made me more uneasy. So I just went back to sleep. We made it home and then snuggled up on the couch and fell asleep. I woke up sometime around 11am to a F R E E Z I N G house, and discovered we had no power. Great. So I got up to find MORE blanket and got the dog to snuggle with me for more heat in the lazyboy chair. About an hour later Kenny wakes up and figures out we have no power. So in our PJs (it's after noon by this time) we load up the puppy and go to his parents house, only a few miles away. We had breakfast and then I played (yes, I played) outside in the snow with the puppy and even made a snowman!!

Then I took a nice, 3 hour nap, and when I got up I called to see if the power was back on, which it was!! We had chinese for dinner....yum! and now I'm home with power and heat! Yay!

Happy New Year!