and I am a material girl

Not dead yet. Been busy with school. Enjoying the gorgeous, crisp fall weather, took a fun day trip on Sunday with Husband to Be, M, and Miss A, pix to follow.

I can't wait until wedding planning is over. My brain is consumed by school and wedding and I'd really like to re-claim some of that cerebral real estate. I've realized that part of the problem is decision fatigue. As I've mentioned before, sometimes shopping decisions take me forever and wedding planning is nothing if not making one shopping decision after another.

It's really hard for me to turn off the voice in my head with its "Maybe we should have gone with the other envelopes?" and "What font should we use for our monogram?" and "What if I find a dress I like better?"

And the fact that this is all such superficial shit is what really drives me bonkers. I shouldn't care so much about this crap. Marrying my best friend and favorite person in the whole world? Important. The details? Not important. And yet I get sucked into the vortex of materialism and social comparison (Ooh, she used an embosser on her envelopes. Maybe I should get an embosser...) and ensuing dissatisfaction. It's retarded.

More later.

it had to be you

A few of the countless reasons I know why I want to marry this man:

He caters to my late night chocolate cravings, whether it’s going down the street for a malt or downtown for gelato.

When I was going crazy because of some bug bites I had an allergic reaction to, he ran to the store to get me calamine lotion and then later, Benadryl, fed me grapes, and put aloe on me in the middle of the night.

There is no one else in the world I’d rather have next to me when driving on a summer night with the windows down and “California Stars” playing.

The cat unabashedly adores him.

He uncomplainingly lets me take him shopping. I rarely do it, but there was a massive sale at Kohl’s and he made out like a sexy bandit with two dress shirts, two polos, and three ties for 90 bucks.

It sometimes takes me forever to make shopping decisions. He never, ever gets impatient even if it takes me half an hour to decide on what color towels to get, because I’m simultaneously shopping for the bathroom we have now and the bathroom we might have in the future. Likewise, he never complains about how long it takes me to get dolled up for the evening. He is endlessly patient.

When other women complain about how their men leave their dirty clothes on the floor or don’t help out around the house, I can’t chime in.

He participates in every aspect of wedding planning, even when I know he can’t possibly care about what color envelopes we get for save-the-dates.

I’ll be sitting around the house in my pjs with my hair in a sloppy ponytail and he tells me I’m hot.

He's always up for an adventure, whether it's the idea of moving to Korea or jumping in the car and getting the hell outta Dodge for a day.

All of this makes it easy to overlook the following music-related sins:

He’s the only person I’ve ever met who actually likes the song “Roxanne” and speaking of the Police, he thinks “Wrapped Around Your Finger” is a better song than “King of Pain”. I know, I know, “how can it be wrong if it’s a preference?”, but it can.

He tells me Tom Jones does a cover of “Never Tear Us Apart” and it’s not bad.

He raves about William Shatner’s latest album.

On one of our first dates he referred to Rod Stewart as a musical legend. Not that he likes Rod Stewart, but that Rod’s popularity qualifies him as a musical legend. This from the man who has referred to no fewer than a dozen movies as “Best Movie Ever.”

I’m not saying Husband To Be has bad taste in music. Not at all and we like a lot of the same stuff. He just has lower standards. But I love him still.

wasting away again in mojito-ville

Grading is made considerably more tolerable when done on the patio on a perfectly gorgeous day with mojito in hand. Yum. My mojito infatuation has only been inflamed by the mojito serving set Husband to Be's parents gave me for my b-day and by the convenience of growing our own mint.

In wedding news, we've booked our room in an adorable B&B in St. Thomas. Yay! Now we just need to figure out how we want to divvy up the honeymoon among St. Croix and St. John, with daytrips to the BVI. Can't wait!!

to hold onto these moments as they pass

It was a good weekend. Made sushi in honor of J's birthday on Friday and on Saturday I had 8 lovely ladies over to my place for a night of fantastic food and drinks and painting each other's nails while the menfolk watched football down the street. Miss A made a killer basteeya and my mojitos were a big hit.

After a lot of cursing and frustration, Husband to Be and I finished designing and ordering our save-the-date magnets and customized St. Thomas postcards. Yay, progress!

And oh yea, yesterday, I bought the Dress, (if HTB values his life, he will not click on that link nor open the garment bag in the closet), aka the most expensive piece of clothing I will ever buy.

The girls and I first hit this boutique out in the middle of nowhere that was housed in a big pink barn. Very cute and quintessentially Midwestern. Tried on several nice dresses, including this one (Bottom row, 2nd from the left), and then let the girls persuade me to swing by DB and try on the dress I'd liked the first time out. It was on sale for even more off than the last time and I loved it even more, so I handed over my credit card and took that baby home.

After enduring no small amount of frustration over the past several months, I seem to have my advisor's attention, which means I really need to put my nose to the grindstone and finish prospectus revisions, so posting may remain sporadic. But I realized that no matter how trivial or inane the details may sometimes be, I want to document all the little ups and downs of my last year of school and of Wedding Planning 2007.

nothing to say but that's okay

I've been wondering if I should take a break from blogging. For a while now I just haven't had much to say and superficial posts are just not doing it for me. School is stressful, wedding planning is both fun and stressful, rinse and repeat. Happy, sad, stressed, introspective, I've been feeling all of those things but unable to capture them on paper.

Writing has always been a release for me but when I read over scribblings from college, I am still surprised by the passion and emotion that jumps out at me from the pages and in contrast, my current writing is a lot more tepid. Drama, pain, heartbreak, they all fuel my creative fires but a combination of stress and contentment leaves me stymied and blocked.

I'll just keep on keepin' on and try to find my voice again.

What I'm really wanting
A brand new machine
One for converting
Plastic to dreams…

Come on, come on, get up
I wanna take you
Away from all of this
And what has got you
Lost and feeling down
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