Now That is Love...

Yesterday I had the joy of going in for a minor medical test and Zach got to be my "designated driver". Suffice to say that the procedure involved me not being able to eat for basically 1 1/2 days and required the consumption of some less then fun liquids to help clean things out. It hasn't been the most enjoyable few days of my life, but it made me realize how my Zach loves me.

As we were driving the the hospital he said he had a tough time sleeping the night before because he was so worried about me. In fact he was still a bit of a nervous wreck on the way there... he was more nervous than I was! Then, as I was waking up post-procedure, as soon as my eyes were open he said, "I'm not letting you close your eyes in here again!" On the way home he confessed that it was pretty scary seeing me all passed out and hooked up to tubes and such. "Not exactly an easy way to see you," he said.

Then, if those first few pieces of adorableness weren't enough, he cleaned up my mess when I managed to get sick all over the living room floor after my first attempt to eat solid food failed. No questions asked, no gross faces, no comments, nothing, he just quickly cleaned up the situation and went on about his business.

Now that is love.

I love you Zach! Thank you for being there for me, it means the world. :)

Wedding Things I'm excited about.... Installment #1

Ok, after my rant I thought it might be good to start thinking about what wedding related items I might actually be excited about, since there are a few.

#1 - Paper Goodies - I love paper and I love paper products. What I REALLY love is letterpress, but my wallet does not agree with my love affair. When I bought my Gocco I was convinced that would be how I would create my invitations (or whatever it is we end up doing). After a few minutes and a goggle search for "Gocco wedding invitations" I'm quickly reminded of the wonders of the Gocco and how much fun it would be too produce something wonderful for the wedding with it. Now if I could just remember to actually purchase some more supplies before they run out....

#2 - Dress Shopping - Although I am a little terrified at the idea of shopping for a dress in a BRIDAL store (where they all cost too much and look beautiful). I am not at all scared of shopping for a dress. I'm thinking shopping for a off-white dress in a non-bridal store, might be best for me. That way I can avoid all the pushy sales people and just shop at my own pace. Now if only Anthropologie would start making wedding dresses...

#3 - The Honeymoon! - I love me a good vacation, so I'll take any excuse in the book to go on one. Zach and I have already been on 3 lengthy vacations (Dominican Republic for a friend's wedding, Vegas/California and our recent trip to New Orleans/Mexican Cruise) so this is by no means our first trip away together. We know each others quirks and limits and we know what we like. Each vacation we've taken we've learned a lot about ourselves and I think they've always brought us closer. I am sure that this vacation will be no different! I am just trying to fight the urge to make this "the" vacation and spending a boat load on it. We'll have other vacations!

Wow, I'm happy to report 3 things I'm actually excited about for the wedding. I know that 3 things isn't exactly a ton, but it is something right?

I'm a Deadbeat Bride

I’ve been thinking a lot about my pending nuptials. It has been almost a month already, and I’m starting to get the distinct feeling that my time for not having a wedding plan is running out. In all my thinking, a certain Sex and the City episode keeps running through my head. In it, Carrie gets engaged to Aden, and she is trying to get in the bridal mode. She even goes so far as to try on gowns and ends up getting a rash. In her little “inner monologue typing” she says,

“As progressive as our society claims to be, there are still certain life targets we’re all supposed to hit: marriage, babies and a home to call your own. But what if instead of breaking out into a smile, you break out into a rash? Is it something wrong with the system or is it you? And do we really want these things, or are we just programmed?"

I keep going back and forth between wanting a wedding and not wanting anything to do with it. In the days following my engagement I spent a few hours looking at possible locations and possible ideas and I just couldn’t even stomach the thought. A location that costs $3,000 just to rent? Then I have to pay even more for food and booze? I’m getting a little nauseous just at the thought of it. Of course you can go cheaper, but not for a place with any personality or pizzazz.

I know I already posted my idea of a tiny wedding at the Chicago Cultural Center and then a party at Ravinia. I’m still not 100% sold, but I’m getting closer every day. The Ravinia idea has its perks (and its costs) depending on how we did it, but I still think that would be a wonderful idea that would keep the pressure off of doing the typical “wedding” things. No cake cutting, no need for flowers or any of those other trappings. Unfortunately though, lawn seats for Ravina are at least $25 per person, and then if I actually catered food beyond that (yes, Ravinia does that), the price gets up there quickly. The idea of trying to cart in food and booze for even 50 people is a little daunting… although it could definitely be done if necessary.

I’m not going to lie and say there isn’t a little tiny part of me that worries I’m missing out on something by not doing a big production of a wedding. That some day I might regret not having a million formal pictures of me in a big white dress with the family. More often that not, those are pretty fleeting thoughts, and a pretty big “what if someday”. But right now, I’m not a big white dress girl. Zach and I don’t have any type of familial obligations that a lot of other people do. No one is pressuring us to have a big wedding, in fact a few of them have actually nudged us in other directions.

I guess I just have other priorities in my life than a wedding. What I really want is to be married and start living the “rest of my life” part. I dream of making my little craft business something worthwhile and Zach finding a job he loves, is happy in and provides us with enough (between the two of us) for financial stability. I dream of wonderful vacations and making our next house a real home before we have kids. I dream of having kids and being a loving, wonderful, supportive mom. What I don’t dream about is a wedding.

I was getting teary-eyed just writing that, but it is the truth. I dream of bigger and better things than a wedding. I dream of a wonderful, full and amazing life. I know that for a lot of people the wedding party at the beginning of that is a great kick-off, but for us it just isn’t right and I guess what I have to realize is that it is OK to want something other than what I’m “supposed” to want from a wedding.

Zach and I were talking about honeymoons (it’s the one area that he is really interested in!) and I mentioned something about wanting to do a helicopter tour if we went to Hawaii, “since it would probably be the only time we got to go there”. His response was, “Why would you say this is the only time we would go? Who’s to say we won’t be back?” It makes me happy to think that I have a partner who wants to go to Hawaii twice and more importantly provided me with the perspective that I want in this whole process. Who’s to say we can’t do any of this again? Plenty of people have vow-renewal ceremonies, hold big parties for anniversaries and the whole thing. This doesn’t have to be “the” wedding, party, dress, honeymoon etc. If I “regret” whatever choices we make now, we can just do them over in a decade or two.

Wow… this post is really lacking focus. Sorry about that. I tend to think things out through writing, which is exactly what I did here. I feel much better about doing our own thing now, whatever that might be.

I've Got A New Piece of Jewelry...

I am happy to announce that Zach and I are officially engaged! He popped the question last weekend on a lazy Saturday afternoon around the house. He had initially planned to make a big deal out of it, but realized I would probably see that coming from a mile away. The true surprise was a much better plan. :)

Here's a picture of my lovely new bling:

Ok, now ever since I've gotten this thing (and I mean that with all the affection in the world) on my finger I haven't really been sure how to deal with it. I know that most girls want to scream from rooftops and stop strangers on the street to share the good news, but I'm not that type of girl. I love Zach and I couldn't be more thrilled that we are going to spend the rest of our lives together, but broadcasting that to the world from every outlet available just seems like bragging. Is that bad? I feel a little sheepish telling people on my own, so I am thankful that I am surrounded by people who are more than willing the share the news for me. Don't get me wrong I am THRILLED, I just don't know how to tell people about something that really feels pretty personal.

I guess I better get over it though, since the "Did you set a date yet?" questions have started, and I'm sure will not stop until we get around to that date setting stuff. Maybe that is where my hesitiation really lies... Zach and I have already discussed that we will not be having a big traditional wedding. There will be not traditional ceremony, no church, no cake cutting, no big rubber-chicken reception. I guess knowing that makes me hesistant to share our potential plans because I know that there are a lot expectations about weddings and what they should and shouldn't be. I'm pretty sure that our plan will likely fall into the "shouldn't" category!

With that being said, here are our thoughts (or I should probably say really MY thoughts, with at least a nod of semi-approval from Z):

1) Wedding - I had initially thought Courthouse, but that just didn't seem right. A great happy medium? The Chicago Cultural Center does civil ceremonies for $10 (in addition to the usual marriage license fees) on Saturday mornings from 9 - noon. You have to register in advance, but you get to get married in what looks to be a gorgeous old building downtown! You can bring family and friends, but you might have to wait a little to get in the room with the judge. I must say I am pretty smitten with the idea... and it wouldn't be totally strange to have a friend of ours photograph the event so we have something to look back on. And, as Zach pointed out, we could have everyone go to our favorite restaurant, Marge's Still, for lunch afterwords.

2) A Wedding PARTY! - I refuse to refer to whatever we decide to do as a "reception" since it won't involve the usual trappings of that type of affair. An initial thought was a bar with bar food type party, but that isn't really as "us" as I would like and renting out a bar (even just a room) is EXPENSIVE! My second, and current, thought was Ravinia! Zach and I have some of our fondest memories at Ravinia (we even celebrated our first dating anniversary there!) and there is nothing better than hanging out on that lawn, listing to great music, drinking wine and enjoying yourself. There are a variety of options open to make a ravinia evening easier to manage for a decent sized group, including full tent parties down to just catering. If we were really ambitious, we could even just bring all the food ourselves! We're still trying to work out some of the details on this one (it could get pretty expensive too) but so far, I'm really like this idea!

3) HONEYMOON! - I'll be honest, this is the part we're really the most excited about. In fact, I think if it were up to Zach alone, it would be pretty much the only part :) We're still batting around a lot of ideas, must of which (at least for me) center around a cruise ship. I loved our cruise vacation back in February, and I can't wait to get back on another ship and set sail for multiple destinations in such a short period of time! My biggest problem is the "hell, it's our hoenymoon" why not!

Goal Work: Worrying Less and Being More Financially Savy

I'm not going to lie, I haven't come up with some great solution to my ever present state of worry or the end to my financial woes.

I have however begun to let some of the little "worries" in my life go. Be prepared for a fairly un-interesting story to unfold :)

I love shopping, and even more than shopping I love a good deal. And as any good shopper does, I've signed up for about a million and one e-mail lists from my favorite places. Somewhere along the line I must have given them all my birthday too, so I was getting birthday cards and birthday sales all over the place last month. At the end of June, when a lot of those "birthday month" specials were expiring, I got very sad. I hadn't used a single one of my "birthday" specials! I seriously considered skipped my golf lesson (something I've already paid good money for!) to go visit Anthropologie to use a 15% of birthday coupon I got from them on the last day it was valid. Oh, should I also mention I don't really have any money to spend there anyways?

This isn't the first time I've had these types of thoughts. I frequently stop into stores because I have a coupon. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm 100% being douped. Those darn advertisers are just praying that my poor ass thinks that I have to get to the store to use my coupon. Like I somehow need more clothing, even though I don't have a clue what I'm actually going to purchase.

I don't like the idea that I'm not going to get these deals (let's be honest, in this economy, deals are piling up faster than a squirrel's winter nut pile) so I came up with an alternate solution. I've set my gmail filters to automatically archive, mark as read and label with "Shopping Deals!" anything that comes in from my shopping deal frequent flyers (At the moment that is Banana Republic, Gap and Crate and Barrel, I'll add others as they come in). That way, when I decide that I need something new I can go check out the folder and find some great deal.

I like simple ideas that work towards multiple goals of mine! I can 1) Stop worrying about NOT using good deals just because they are out there (since I won't even really see them!) and 2) I can save some money by not running out to use great deals on things I don't need but still have the deals for the times when I need them.

Consider yourselves douped evil coupon marketers...

Facebook... you've crossed the line.

So I’m just minding my own business, checking my Facebook and what do I suddenly see to the right of my screen? The name of a less then friendly ex staring back at me from the “Suggestions” for friends column. Now I know how these things go, I know that in the past people who attended my high school or college, or know my friends might pop up on here and I honestly thought that was creepy enough. But this ex, I have no connections to this person whatsoever, we have not mutual friends, no mutual school attendance and no mutual interests. Hell, we don’t even live in the same state. So how, creepy lords at Facebook, did you make this crazy 5 year old “connection”?

One quick Google search later and I have my answer.

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/06/12/facebook-now-suggesting-friends-found-in-imported-contact-lists/#comments

Evidently, at some point I allowed Facebook to look through my address book for friends who might also be on Facebook. I assume this was when I just started out, although I don’t honestly remember it.

It seems that ever since that time, Facebook has been harboring that information, just waiting around for these people from my past to join Facebook and then suggest that I be friends with them. Although I appreciate the sentiment Facebook, I find you keeping my address book handy for all these years a little unsettling. It’s like a creepy stalker keeping a list of all the people I’ve ever talked to or something.

And even creepier? I think the stalker parallel is very appropriate since clearly you have been keeping an eye on my e-mail list all along, not just the list you saw when I first entered that information. I know for a fact that I didn’t start e-mailing my Pilates studio (who also showed up in my “Suggestions” this week) until WELL after I signed up for Facebook. So that is a new e-mail address, and evidence that although you mentioned in that nice page when I signed up that you wouldn’t be saving my e-mail password, you evidently did.

I like facebook, I like learning about what everyone else is up to, but I don't know if I appreciate Facebook pushing everyone in my e-mail address book on me. Just because I e-mailed you once doesn't really make you my "Friend" does it? I guess in Facebook land, it should.

Sometimes I can't help myself...

I find all the discussion of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer to be incredibly disheartening. Although I’m in full support of people questioning her credentials, questioning her past judgments and even questioning (to some extent) her religious convictions (since they often have an effect on one’s moral compass, which is an important tool as a judge.). What I do have problems with is the discussion of the efforts to “court” the future votes of Latin Americans here in the US.

Even Rush Limbaugh went so far today as to say that he doesn’t think that many Republicans will give this nomination the thorough screening that it needs because Republicans are so busy trying to get Hispanics to vote for them and they fear that holding up the nomination would hurt that.

Are we so dull in this country to think that people actually wouldn’t vote for someone because they questioned the credentials of a Supreme Court nominee? I’m not going to say that I have the utmost faith in the power of our country as a whole to pick the correct leaders all of the time. In fact, I’d probably saw we’re batting about 60% on leaders that should actually have the power to do what they do. That being said, I don’t really believe that the majority of the people would have ANY idea what their local reps and senators did on a particular issue, especially a Supreme Court nomination process. Please raise your hand if you know (without looking it up) what your senator or rep had to say about any previous nominee. No hands? That’s what I thought.

That being said, even if in some miracle universe where people pay very close attention to their elected officials actions, I don’t think the majority of them would vote one way or the other based solely on this issue.

As a woman, I was still adamantly opposed to George W. Bush’s ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Using the current pundit thinking, I must just hate woman and I should probably somehow be disowned by all other woman for not support our cause. I also should hate every Representative or Senator who dared to speak against her. Yet, I don’t. In fact I would applaud them for taking the confirmation of this extremely important position as seriously as they should. I wouldn’t dare support a nominee based on such a random qualification as gender (or in this case race) without anything to back it up. If there is a woman on the bench, representing me and my interests, I want her to be the best damn Justice out there, not just a token woman to say they have one.

It is the job of our representatives to evaluate the candidates for this job with all of the scrutiny that they feel is necessary to make sure she is fit for this job. And I hope that they do scrutinize her and that she still passes through with (which I’m pretty sure she will). But don’t try and claim it is all just to pander to the Hispanic vote, that is an insult to Hispanics everywhere.