Ch-Ch-Changes

Yesterday I finally made a firm decision on something that I have been thinking about for a long while.

I'm starting my own business where I sell my own handmade items and artwork. It has become my new year's resolution. I've been telling myself that I should open an Etsy shop or something for a long while now, but today I decided to really put things into motion.

There were a couple of reasons for finally deciding, but I'm not going to list them all here. One of them being the fact that I'm more mobile this way. With Taylor and I getting married in a few months, and both of us still living 2 hours away from each other, I figure that by having this little business going I could move around more depending on where we move. (Don't worry, I'm not quitting my day job.)

I've been doing some sketches and brainstorming ideas for my little shop. I've even made a couple of things. I'm going to get back into my fiber arts and work on some ideas there. It will be nice to see how this little idea evolves.

Another thing that's going to be changing: this blog. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've only been blogging here about once or twice a year lately. I want to write more, but not here. When I start this new shop project, I feel like I want to start a new blog where I can connect the two. So, I'm shutting this guy down (I'll probably just stop posting and keep it so I can go back and read past things later) and opening something new. The name and all that is still to be determined. I've got a couple of ideas, but I'm always open to suggestions.

To sum up: this little first blog of mine is going bye-bye and I'm FINALLY starting my own business. Look forward to that around the first of the year. I'll let you all know what happens.

Cheers!!

Wedding Countdown: 9 Months

We are now less than 9 months away from the wedding! Keeping with my usual procrastination habits, we are slowly getting things rounded up.

I'm going to just start picking things up as I find them in stores. We found the perfect basket for our flower girl to carry when I was out shopping with Mom a few weeks ago. The pattern on it matches the lace on my dress awesomely. (Ahh! Gave away a dress hint there..)

Pinterest has been exceptionally helpful in coming up with ideas. Seriously, how did people get and share ideas before?! I'm not going to lie, right now my wedding board is mainly filled with cakes. But the cake has to look good too, right?!! Plus, I like to find awesome decorating ideas, and see how we can mix them up to add our own personal touch.

Last, but certainly not least, we took engagement pictures! This past weekend, when I was home for Taylor's cousin's wedding, my cousin took some pictures for us. We had a really fun time, and she took some great pictures. I've been eying some pretty frames at work here recently, and now I finally have a reason to snag some!

 Next up on my list:
-Bridesmaids dresses!!
-Caterer
-Photographer


Stay tuned for the next update!

Sometimes.

Sometimes Luna wakes me up in the middle of the night by pawing at my head. And then she swipes my pillow.

Sometimes I make plans to clean all day, and instead I sleep until noon and spend the rest of the day reading.

Sometimes I can't remember if I turned the Scentsy off before I left the house, and then I mentally freak out throughout church wondering if the apartment is going to burn down.

Sometimes I make plans to hang out at Barnes and Noble and read. And then they are ruined by the threat of a storm and I stay home with Luna instead. She's scared of storms.

Sometimes I get really into my books. And I squee out loud at the amazingness of Peeta Mellark.



Sometimes Sundays are just meant to be lazy days.

Wedding Update: 1 year.

Well folks, Friday (April 27) was the one year mark until the wedding. I figured I would start updating on the planning business. I feel like I'm doing pretty good so far, seeing as I'm the biggest procrastinator in all the land. Thankfully, I've got my mom here to keep me on track.

1. Date and Place. Done and done. When I called the priest to offically set the date with him, he was surprised we were going ahead and scheduling this far in advance. Trust me Father, so am I.

2. Colors. Let's face it. All girls think about wedding ideas way before they actually get engaged. So when we became official, I kinda already had some things in mind. Like the color scheme. The bridesmaids are all wearing navy. And flowers and accents and such will be yellow. Flower girl may be wearing yellow as well, I haven't decided yet. She's about the only one who could pull off wearing yellow. Plus I'm thinking of throwing in some other blues in for variety.


3. People in the wedding. When we got engaged, Mom gave me a list of all the things we needed to come up with. It's in my wedding notebook. (Yes, I have a wedding notebook. I actually have a wedding bag.) Most of the list was of who we wanted to do things in the wedding. So Taylor and I sat down one night and filled it out. I think we've basically figured out who is doing something in the wedding and what they are doing. We haven't told all of them yet, but we'll get to that eventually.

4. My shoes! Yes, I have my shoes. I got them before I even got my dress. I knew I wanted red and no heels. I don't wear heels and much prefer the comfort of flats. So I was either going to go with some converse or Toms. And then my friend found these awesome sparkle Toms and I KNEW right then that I had to have them. You see, The Wizard of Oz has been my favorite movie for forever, that's why I knew I wanted red shoes. And there was no way I was going to pass up wearing my form of ruby slippers in my wedding. And let me tell you, I am in LOOOOOOOOVE.


5. The dress. Yup. I have my dress. Or, I've picked out and ordered my dress. I have to pick it up this week. And no, you can't see it. I'm keeping it a secret. The only people who have seen it are work people, Mom and Abby, and I sent a picture to my dad. I have been showing people pictures of all the dresses I tried on and having them guess which one it is. (Except Taylor. He still gets to wait.) I had an awful lot of fun dress shopping with Mom and Abby. And Mom didn't even cry. She choked up a bit when I came out in the first dress, but no tears. I am very very excited about it. I think it looks fab.

Stay tuned for more updates!!

Why Spiderman is the coolest.

A few months ago, I started sporting a Spiderman watch to work. It started out as kind of a joke. I had left my regular watch behind at my mom's, so I just ran to WalMart and picked up the cheapest watch they had to offer. It was either Hello Kitty, Barbie, Spiderman, or WWE wrestling. Obviously, Spiderman wins this battle.
Since then, I've gotten a lot of comments at work on my watch. Ranging from the small children who think it is cool that I have a Spiderman watch (one little boy and I compared watches...he had one too) to the adults who ask if it belongs to my son (true story). My boss even likes to get it on it and give me crap. We were selling a Spiderman Easter basket at work, and he told me I should buy it. It's gone now though. Apparently some small child felt like they needed to have it.

So, here lately I've been trying to compile a list of reasons why Spiderman is the coolest superhero. Here's the top 3.

1. He's a little nerdy. Let's face it, Peter Parker is the nerd of the superhero group. Bruce Wayne is the rich, popular dude. Clark Kent is the smart, handsome guy. And Peter Parker is the nerd. Awesome.

2. He doesn't require anything fancy to use his powers. Batman has his fancy tool belt and Batmobile. Spiderman just has his spandex suit (makes his keester* look awfully nice) and his web-flinging wrists and sticky climbing fingers. Awesome times 2.

3. His photography. I think this is what I like about Peter Parker the most. He has a job as a photographer. Taking pictures of Spiderman. Which boils down to taking pictures of himself. Triple awesome.

Taylor's nephew and I share the same birthday. My goal is to eventually get him into Spiderman and Harry Potter so we can have fun themed birthday parties (last year we had a Cars themed party and the year before that it was Spongebob). I figure right now it will be easier to get him into Spiderman and then work up to Harry. Taylor told me he tried to get him to watch Spiderman on tv once and he called it "stupid". But then he got a Spiderman motorcycle toy thing for Easter, so it's all up in the air right now.


*Have you seen the interview Andrew Garfield did on Ellen?! If not, you should check it out. He talks about his "keester" in his Spidey suit.

Weird Dream Files: Take 2

I had this dream a few nights ago. When I woke up, I immediately texted Taylor and told him the story. You'll see why.


In my dream, Taylor was in a fraternity. Which is weird for two reasons. A) The college Taylor went to didn't even have fraternities. And 2) I've never looked at him and thought, "hey, I bet you'd make a good frat guy."

But I digress. Back to the story.

So, Taylor was in this frat. And he was going back to the college for some reunion thing. Anyways, he kept texting me about how he was so glad to be back and how he forgot how much he liked his "brothers" and he was having the greatest time ever. And then he told me he was moving to the town his college was in. And he didn't care what anyone thought. And in my dream mind, I thought he was being a big d-bag. I'm pretty sure I said that out loud in the dream. I might have even texted him in the dream telling him he was being a d-bag.

Luna then wakes me up so she could go outside. She has an old lady-doggy bladder. So I let her outside and she does her business and comes back in and I go back to sleep.

And then I have another dream.

In this second dream, I was telling Taylor about how I just had a dream about him being a d-bag. And he's wearing overalls. And has hair quite similar to Darren Criss when he was in A Very Potter Musical. And he's wearing overalls. Did I mention that? Because I think it needs mentioned again. He was wearing overalls!

When I texted Taylor the shortened version of those dreams after I really did wake up, his response was:

"Did you drink before bed?"

And then when I told him I had Baby by The Biebs stuck in my head, he thought I wrote that I was having a baby by The Biebs. Silly dude.

Anyways, maybe I should lay off the wine before bed....

Funk.

Here lately I feel like I've been in quite the creative funk. Which, when your job requires you to be creative, really sucks a big one.  I haven't been doing anything artsy at home. I haven't been working on any fun projects. I just go home from work and veg out on the couch with Luna.

At work, I've been noticing that it's become harder for me to come up with good designs lately. For those who don't know, I work in a framing shop. I used to be pretty good about coming up with decent stuff. And then the other day I was just stumped when a lady brought in her cross-stitch to be framed. We ended up changing the mats after we ordered them because other colors looked better.

So at work today, I decided on a remedy that will hopefully get me out of this. I'm going to start doing like I did in college and put on the most random movie I own that I've seen a billion gillion times, and start creating things. I'm going to actually clear off my desk so I can set my easel up and start painting on this stack of canvases I own. I'm going to hang up the other stack of pictures that have been waiting to be hung on the wall. Most importantly, I'm going to create.

I started tonight when I came home from work. I've had an idea in my head for another one of my fabric weavings that I did for my senior art show. I still have a crapton of fabric left from that adventure (I slightly overestimated how much fabric I would need and bought about 50 yards of it. Barely ended up making a dent.) so I cut some off and started dying it today. It is hanging out in dye as I type this, actually. Hopefully I can get the other piece that I need dyed in the coming days and start working on that some more.

With any luck, this will do the trick. I need to get my creative juices flowing again. When I get a day off (who knows when that will be) I hope to make it down to the art museum and just sit and be surrounded by art. Become really inspired to create my own things.

And get out of this funk!

Weird Dream Files

Sometimes I have really strange dreams. I thought I should start recording some of them before they were lost from my brain. Here's volume 1.


Mom, Abby, and I were at some shop that held all kinda of nerd things. Like, toys and crap from nerdy shows and movies and such. Basically, my heaven. The shop had a section devoted to The Wizard of Oz, so we spent a lot of time there. Mom bought me a pair of real ruby slippers. Ones I could actually, for realsies wear. And I was way overjoyed about it.

Before we left the shop, I snuck over to the new Doctor Who area they were just setting up. Since it was a new part of the store, there wasn't a lot there. But they did have little toy daleks, and a toy TARDIS, and some weird phone thing that I'm pretty sure I've never even seen in the show. And also, the dude working that section of the store was dressed like an Ood.

3rd Annual Super Bowl Prediction

Current record: 2-0


It's that time of year again! The time where I predict who will win the Super Bowl.

Little recap of how I do this thing: I look at the quarterback for each team and choose based on whichever quarterback I like better. Now, I don't go too deep into this. Basically, I do a google image search and go from there. Or if they have a cool name. You get the picture.

This year's candidates: Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and Eli Manning of the New York Giants.

First up: Tom Brady

Tom Brady is hot. That's all that really needs to be said. I know a lot of people don't like him, but his hotness is already winning this thing. Plus, he doesn't have his Bieber haircut anymore.

And by the looks of this picture here, he has PeeWee Herman tattooed on his arm...


Next: Eli Manning

I wanted to give little Eli a chance, but he looks like he's about 14. I did the google search thinking maybe a fun picture would put him back in the game, but, sadly, no such luck. His wife is really pretty though.


The Winner:

Tom Brady and the New England Patriots

Do me proud, Tommy. Do me proud.


(I should mention that the Patriots are Taylor's favorite team. I did not take that into consideration when making my pick. I make my own decisions.)

(Also, I'm fully aware that Tom Brady does not, in fact, have PeeWee Herman tattooed on his arm. Or does he......)

He liked it so he put a ring on it.

Here's the story about how I got this ring on ma finger:




Let's start by rewinding back to Christmas. We're all at his parents' house opening presents and he tells me that I still have one more from him. I just say "ok" and move on, not worrying about it much.

Then on December 30th, he makes a trip down to my apartment in the city. I kinda thought this was weird, seeing as I had to work until 7 that day and then had to be at work at 11 in the morning. And he was needing to go back on the 31st. But I didn't ask questions.

I could tell something was up. He just seemed different. Probably nervous.

Anyways, we went out to eat and when we got back to my apartment he hides my gifts while I'm in the bathroom. Then I get sent on a little treasure hunt. If you ask him, he'd tell you I complained about it the whole time. But that's not the point...

After I found my first gift (A Christmas Story cup he got the day after Christmas), he sent me on the hunt to find my other one. He ended up putting it in a little decorative Santa bag I had hanging on my doorknob. When I pulled the box out I knew what it was. And the rest is history!

Later we ended up calling each other's mothers. His mom knew, mine didn't. He didn't go the traditional route and ask the parents. My mom's reaction was really funny. It went something like this:

Taylor: Hey, would it be ok if I was your son-in-law?
Mom: Well, yeah. I guess that would be ok.
.............long pause..................
Mom: Wait...when did this happen?!

But, yeah. Mom's pretty excited. We can't wait to go dress shopping! I already stopped by David's Bridal and picked up some catalogs. And marked the one's I like with post-its.





:)

Oh hey!

Remember how I have a blog? Yeah, I kinda forgot too.

But not anymore! I have some stories to share in the coming days/weeks that have happened since I last shared a story in October.

-I've done more of my 25 things.
-Luna "turned 1".
-Christmas time happened.
-I got engaged!

Those stories and more are soon to come!

Promise.