Just need to vent...

My ceremony musician is driving me nuts!

I gave her my selections for music over a month ago and she still hasn't purchased the music! Then today she sends me an email saying that she can't afford to buy the music. So, I say of course I would reimburse her for the cost (she's going back to school, single mom = very broke). Then she sends me another message saying that she won't in town again until Tuesday (she lives an hour out of town) and that I should do and buy the music. I am leaving for the cottage tomorrow morning! Sheesh! So, I told her that she should buy the music on Tuesday since I'm gone for the weekend and she would have a much better idea of what to get.

Geepers. So I hope she actually does go to the music store on Tuesday. And I am keeping my fingers crossed that they actually have the music we need because there won't be enough time to order anything! The wedding will be only 4 days after that!!!

She has known what music I want since the end of July... why is she just looking for the music now?!?!? Now I have to spend my weekend worrying instead of relaxing!!!!

So not cool!!!

I knew that SOMETHING was bound to go wrong eventually, I just really hope this works out! And it's not like she's some stranger, she has been a friend of the family for years.

9 days!

First off, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I am super excited! The countdown is into the single digits now!!!! Sometimes I find myself literally jumping for joy or shouting with glee.

Going to the cottage this weekend will be really awesome. The entire family is going. That is the first time this summer that all of us will be there. It will make for a packed cottage! There will be 9 of us (Oma, Dad, Mom, CT, Me, brother Alex, his gf, brother Thom, his gf, and dog Koby). For any of you who have been to the cottage, you know that makes for interesting sleeping arrangements. Luckily, we have a pull out couch now, that will make it a little easier. And, when we go out there for thanksgiving, CT and I can finally share a bed! Yay!

We do have a couple of wedding tasks to do while we’re at the cottage. CT and I are going to write our speech and we need to write the questions for the trivia game (we’ve decided we’re going to do trivia questions about us for the ‘kissing’ game).

I’m getting a hair trim and highlights tonight, so I am looking forward to that. I always love getting my hair done. I still go to the same place that I worked at from 1996-1999. Some of the same people are still there, so it’s always a warm welcome when I walk in there.

For any of you who read the globe and mail

...mummy was quoted in the Life Section. Just thought I'd pass it along!

Only 2.5 days of work left! And Friday won't even be a full day since we're having a BBQ at 2pm and we're done at 3pm. I really hope I'll be able to get all my work done by then! We'll see!

94-97...

...is the number of people we’ll have at the reception. Which is a pretty decent number I think. The reason for the range is we still have 3 ‘maybe’s. One guy’s date backed out so he is not sure if he’ll be bringing someone else or coming alone and the other 2 maybes are the new parents that just had twins at the end of July. So, I need to submit our final number to the reception venue on Friday, so if I still don’t know about these 3 people, then I guess I’ll just count them in. Better to have too many meals than not enough, I guess.

I think we are looking good in terms of the wedding planning, so I think I’ll be going to the cottage for the long weekend. I wasn’t sure if I’d have to stay home to work on wedding stuff, but I think the few small tasks we have left to do can be done the week of the wedding. So, I am really glad we’ll be able to spend our last weekend before the wedding relaxing at the cottage! We’ll be there from Saturday morning until Monday afternoon. Should be a relaxing weekend! Wish it was here already!

Let’s see, what do I have going on this week… well tonight I have to stop by my mom’s house because we’re going to plan the menu for the cottage. She also says she has a wedding present at her place for me (from a family friend). So that’s exciting!

On Thursday evening, I am getting my hair done (highlights and a SMALL trim). Friday evening, CT and I are going to his parents’ house for dinner.

I’m hoping I don’t have to work too many extra hours this week. I have some work I absolutely have to get done before I leave for 3 weeks.

In other news, my aunt broke her nose on the weekend! Ouch! She had to have surgery yesterday to repair it. I hope she’s okay by the wedding. She says she’s still coming no matter what, she’s just not sure how she’ll look for the pictures, poor aunt! Seeing how clumsy I am, I am thinking I should basically be wrapped in bubble wrap between now and the wedding. I already had a tumble about a week ago and managed to scrape my shin and bruise my bum. I am really hoping that will be better by the wedding! Sheesh!

Oh, and for anyone who’s curious, it’s approximately 267 hours until the wedding. Yes, I know, I’m pathetic!!!

Successful wedding planning weekend!

Friday, I had my final dress fitting, and it fits perfectly! So happy with that. All they did was let it out a tad under the arms, so my boobs weren’t all squished like they were with my first fitting. That’s all they had to do to the dress, so I was pretty happy with that. I pick it up on September 6th.

On Saturday, I had my hair and makeup trial. It went amazing. I was so pleased with what they did. I am really glad I went for the trial because that takes a lot of the stress out of it. Now I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll like what they do with my hair and makeup on the day of the wedding. I almost cried when I had my hair all done and they put the tiara and veil on. I looked amazing! Can’t wait until the big day! Oh, and nej and lj, I am supposed to tell you to make sure you wear a button down shirt when we go to get our hair done (so you won’t have to pull a shirt over your head) and also not to wash your hair that morning (dirty hair is easier for them to style).

After that, mom and I did a bunch of wedding related errands. I bought CT’s wedding present, and a couple of other wedding-related items including a lovely cake serving set engraved with our names and wedding date.

CT had a great time at his stag. Such a good time in fact that he said he got a total of 30 minutes of sleep the entire night. My brothers and dad went as well and they said they had a great time. I’m glad the men had a good time. Since our men were gone, I spent the evening with my mom as well. I did her highlights for her. On Saturday, I was out of the house from 9:30am until 10pm! Busy day!

So, here I am at my last week of work before the wedding. I hope it goes quickly! And that I am able to get all the work done that I need to!

So are you totally sick of wedding talk yet?

Well no worries, in 15 days, the wedding planning talk will all be over!

This afternoon, I have my final dress fitting at 4pm (I’m done work at 3pm thanks to summer hours!). I’m sure it will go well. The alterations were VERY minor, so I’m sure this is just a check to make sure it fits perfectly now and that nothing else needs to be done before the big day. Then I think it’s just a matter of them steaming and pressing it, then I can pick it up a couple of days before the wedding. I’ll have to take it to my parents house because I certainly don’t want CT to see it!

Tomorrow, I have my hair and make-up trial run in the morning, then mom and I are going all over the place to do wedding errands. We have to: get some supplies at Michaels, check out possible items to fill favor boxes with at the bulk barn (I’m thinking mints like Mrs. JB did), get stuff for the bathroom baskets, check into getting a cake server and having it engraved for us, talk to the cake baker to confirm last details, etc. Lots to do! And that’s not even everything!

And the hair and make-up trial is on a good day since CT is leaving before I get back. Tomorrow is his stag party and he’ll be gone until sometime on Sunday, so he won’t see me with my hair and make-up done. That was purely coincidental since I had my appointments booked before I knew the date of his stag.

We also want to get the seating plan finalized. We thought we had it all done and then a bunch (at least 4) people backed out yesterday and we still have 4 “maybes” on our list. Very frustrating. Having those 4 people back out and still having maybes totally throws off our whole seating plan. So, I’m hoping by the end of the weekend, we’ll have the maybes confirmed one way or another and then we can finalize the seating plan (again). Because next week, I have to call the wedding co-ordinator with the FINAL number along with how many vegetarian meals we’ll need.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Happy 1st anniversary to you Burger (on Sunday)!!!

Update on Dad's tumour

I just wanted to provide an update on my Dad’s medical condition since I’m sure some of you know at least some of what has transpired in the last several years. He went to see the specialist again last week.

Back in 2000, my dad was diagnosed with a benign tumour in his pituitary gland and had it removed. His pituitary gland was destroyed, so now he has to take all his hormones by pill. They could not remove all of the tumour since some was pushed right up against the brain and they thought it would be too risky to remove that. Now, 7 years later, the remaining tumour has grown to a size where something needs to be done. This time, instead of operating right away, they are going to try to stop the growth by radiation treatment. It’s going to be low-dose done once a day for 5 weeks. Which means my dad needs to go to Princess Margaret hospital every day for treatment starting October 22nd. Which means, he’ll be off work for 5 weeks. Good thing my mom has a job now! Yikes! He may be eligible for EI, we’ll see. I’m really hoping this radiation works because my dad says there is no way he’s having surgery again. He almost died the first time since he had a pulmonary embolism (i.e. blood clot) that traveled through his heart. If it had lodged in his heart, he would have been dead in seconds. So, he says there’s no way he’s going through that again. Anyways, there’s the update on what’s going on with him.

Back to wedding talk ;)

The meeting with the Pastor went well last night, I think we have our program looking the way we want, so we can finalize it sometime in the next few days and then I can start printing them off. I would like to have them all done and printed by the end of the weekend.

...still sad

So the funeral for my Opa was this morning. And the disappointing part is, my mom got home from the cottage yesterday around 5pm and there was a message for her from some relatives saying the funeral was at 9am (Austrian time) today and that we are welcome to stay with them. Given the short notice, even if we had wanted to go, there would have been not enough time to fly to Austria. Which is too bad. Turns out Opa passed away on Saturday morning, but we didn’t find out until Sunday night since we were at the cottage. I mean, we probably all wouldn’t have been able to go, but we could have all chipped in to send my dad. But, there just wasn’t enough time to sort it out. Which is too bad. I just feel really sad about the whole situation.

The dinner party last night went really well. The food was awesome (a group effort on the cooking) and I think everyone had a good time. That was the first time I’d had that many people over for dinner though, there were 10 of us in total for dinner, and then an additional 2 for dessert. It gave us some motivation to clean the house though, so it looks really good right now!

This evening, the Pastor is coming over so we can finalize the wedding program and any other details. It will be nice to get the programs done so we can print them out, one more thing to check off the list!

Received some sad news

Yesterday when I got home from the cottage, I received the sad news that my grandfather in Austria (my Dad's dad) had passed away. I knew this day was coming because he had not been well for the last few years (he’d been in an old age home and was unable to speak or recognize anyone anymore). After I found out, I went to see my dad (since he was home by himself since my mom was still at the cottage, Dad and I came home yesterday since we both had to work today). My dad seems to be doing okay. It’s hard when family members pass away, even if you knew that it may be coming since they were sick, it doesn’t really make it any easier.

Other than receiving this news, the rest of the weekend was pretty good. CT and I met with the wedding co-ordinator and I think we’re all set. She drew me a floor plan, so we are in the midst of finalizing who will sit at what table. It was a bit of a puzzle to figure out, but I think we have it the best way possible.

We then headed to the cottage and the weather was nice, although it was a little chilly. CT stayed until after supper, and then he had to head back since he went to Toronto for the day on Sunday to hang out with his groomsmen for the day. I stayed at the cottage until Sunday early evening when I went back to town with my dad. I had a really nice time at the cottage, I love it out there.

Tonight, I am having the visiting relatives from Germany over to my place for dinner (they are leaving on Wednesday). My mom’s cousin, her boyfriend, and her daughter have been visiting for the last 2 weeks.

So here we are at 19 days until the wedding! WOW! This weekend, I have my final dress fitting on Friday, and then Saturday will be a total wedding planning day with my mom (CT will be gone all day Saturday and some of Sunday since it’s his stag weekend). I have my hair and make-up trial on Saturday and then mom and I have a bunch of little tasks to complete. Should be a productive weekend! Now, I just have to get through this week at work first. I’ve been finding it hard to concentrate lately since I’m too excited about the wedding and always thinking about the tasks I still have to do. Good thing I only have 9 days of work left after today! My last day is August 31st and then I don’t come back until Tuesday, September 25th! Yay!

Why must you tempt me?

So, I went to the kitchen to fill up on my normal bottle of water from the water cooler and there on the table sits several doughnuts. They are the jelly-filled kind, so I can easily resist those since I’m not fond of them. However, there was also a paper bag that caught my eye. So, I went over to investigate and inside was a chocolate éclair! Oh my! My favorite! The combination of white doughnut with chocolate icing and whipped crème I find impossible to resist. So, I grabbed it without much thought and have been slowly eating it for the last several minutes.

Miranda from Sex and the City said it best “I’m sorry, but this is just worth being fat for. It just is.” Now, I by no means consider myself “fat”, although I am heavier than I wanted to be for my wedding. But I think I am the ideal weight for my body because no matter what I do, I cannot seem to lose an ounce. So, I have come to terms with the fact that maybe I’m just where my body wants to be and I’m “trying” to be happy with that. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to still try to lose that seemingly impossible 10 pounds. I certainly will keep trying, but I am content with where I am.

And I’m also telling myself that I will need the extra tummy fat for when I am housing a baby, which will hopefully be sometime in the next couple of years ;)

Looking forward to the weekend!

This coming weekend, CT and I meet with our reception site wedding co-ordinator on Saturday morning to go over the final details for the big day. That is likely the last time I’ll need to meet with her before the wedding, we’ll see. Since the reception site is sort of close to the cottage, I think I’ll head to the cottage for the rest of the weekend. CT is going to a Jays game on Sunday, so I’ll have the day to myself to hang out at the cottage, which will be a perfect opportunity for me to get my bridal shower thank-you notes written! My other goal for the weekend is to get the pictures of the bridal shower uploaded to Facebook.

Weekend full of wedding stuff

I had a most excellent weekend. On Friday, I was super tired, so I went to bed early and just relaxed. On Saturday, CT, mom, and I bought the rest of the items we needed for making the favours and then got to work. We worked pretty much non-stop and got the favours done in around 6 hours. I didn’t think it would take so long to make 100 favours, but I guess it is quite time consuming! It feels great to have those all done though. And CT also started working on the programs. I’m hoping we will have a draft done by the end of this week so we can send it to the Pastor for his review of the order of service.

Oh, nej and lj, is it okay with you if you are listed as “bride’s attendants”? I thought that sounds better than bridesmaids or co-maids of honour. For comparison, Nuno and Josh are both being listed as “groomsmen” on the programs since there are only the 2 of them. Thought that was better than one being “best man” and then having only 1 “groomsmen”.

My bridal shower yesterday was fabulous. I don’t think it could have possibly been any better. A lot of people showed up and I had a great time. Thanks for all your hard work ladies!!! It was so nice to see all of my family and friends in one place and I think everyone had a wonderful time. The pictures are on my mom’s camera, so I will get them from her as soon as I can and then I’ll post them on Facebook. I was a little overwhelmed with everyone’s generosity, wow! We received a lot of wonderful presents and tons of gift cards, which will definitely come in handy! I will have to set aside some time this coming weekend to write thank-you notes since I want to make sure I do that sooner rather than later, especially with the wedding only 26 days away!

Woohoo! Very short week!

This was a 3 day workweek for me and the supervisor ‘in charge’ today (my boss is on holidays) just send around an email ‘encouraging’ everyone to leave early since it’s such a nice day outside. So, I am flirting with the idea of leaving early today. With the summer hours, I was planning on working until 3pm, but I may leave sometime between 1pm and at 2pm instead. Very exciting!

My mom and I are going to take Koby on a 10km walk this afternoon, so the earlier I leave work, the earlier we can head out on the trail.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Mine will be filled with wedding stuff and I’m sure it will feel good to get some more tasks completed since I haven’t really done much in the last couple of weeks.

30 days!

I love how my ticker has started counting in days now instead of months! Very exciting!!!! Only 30 days left now! I still have a lot to do, so I have decided to concentrate on a few tasks each weekend until the wedding, and that should be good. I also have the week before the wedding off work, but I don’t want to leave too much to cram into those days since things usually take longer than I think they will and I don’t want to be pressed for time.

Saturday afternoon, I’m going to concentrate on making the favors. Mom is going to help. And depending on what time you get here on Saturday nej, I would love your help to! The favors are going to be decorated favor boxes and we’ll put chocolates or mints in them closer to the wedding. Mints will likely be better incase it’s a warm day, don’t want my favours to melt! They are plain white boxes and we’re going to make stickers to put on them (one sticker will say “Carlos and Christine, September 8, 2007” and the other side will say something along the lines of “Thank you for sharing in our special day”. We are going to print these on vellum paper and then run them through my mom’s sticker maker to make them into stickers to put on the boxes. We’re then going to make a nice ribbon to go around the boxes too. It’s going to be a 1” wide black ribbon with a thinner blue ribbon centered on top of the black ribbon. It looks really nice with the 2 colours. We’re going to attach the ribbon with Velcro so people can open and close their boxes easily.

The following 2 weekends I’m going to concentrate on making the programs, pew decorations, and finalizing the seating plan. So much to do! But I think it’s doable.

Sunday afternoon is my bridal shower which I am really excited about! It’s not a surprise since I guess they had to make sure I kept the day free, but I don’t really know much about it. I think lj has done/is doing most of the planning for it (since nej thought she was going to miss it because of work, but turns out she can come now – yay!), so I’m sure it will be a great time! I’m really looking forward to it!

3 hot ladies in the big city

I had a great time in NYC. It is such a large city, we couldn’t see it all. We only went to Manhattan, none of the other 4 boroughs were explored during this trip since there is just so much to see. We did pack a lot into 3 days though.

Nej and I arrived to Newark, NJ around 11am. By the time we got our bags, found a cab, and got to the hotel, it was noonish (our cab driver had issues, so we ended up taking a route out of our way through a very sketchy area of New Jersey). But, we made it to our hotel and were able to check in early. Then we headed to Manhattan. We walked around and explored and had lunch in a neat little Cuban restaurant. I love how Manhattan is so big, you can just get off the subway and just start walking in one direction and you’re bound to find some neat things. We then went up the Empire State building. What a gorgeous view from up there! (I will post pics on Facebook this weekend). You can see most of Manhattan from up there, it was really amazing.

Then we headed to Macy’s. What a HUGE store! Like 9 floors and it takes up an entire city block. It was quite an experience. After walking around for a few hours, we found a little pub to have dinner in and then went back to the hotel to meet up with lj. Then we found a liquor store to buy some wine, and it was very shady looking. The wine was good though ;)

Saturday was a really fun day because we went on 2 tours: Sex and the City tour and a tour of NBC studios. The Sex and the City tour was around 3 hours long and we got to see many of the locations used on the show and we even got to have our picture taken sitting on the stoop of Carrie’s apartment. We also had cosmos in the bar that Steve and Aiden owned on the show. After the tour, we went to this restaurant called “Mars 2112” where before you get seated for your meal, you have to go in this little space shuttle for your trip to Mars. Then when you get to Mars, the waiters are all dressed up like space Captains and there are aliens walking around (with very tight tights on, I might add… that left nothing to the imagination, yikes). It was a really fun restaurant. Then we went to Central Park for a little walk before our NBC Studios tour. On the NBC tour, we got to see the set for Conan (it is really small!) and SNL. We then went back to the hotel to get showered and changed for dinner and then we had some drinks at a neat little bar in Greenwich Village. It was a lot of fun, and I definably got a little drunk from a cosmo followed by a very strong martini ;)

Sunday, we went down to the World Trade Centre site, which is now just a massive construction site. It was very surreal to actually be there. I got goosebumps. We then went to Battery Park and got to see the Statue of Liberty (we didn’t go to Ellis Island, but we saw it from across the river). We then walked around the financial district for a bit and then went to Chinatown and shopped around for the afternoon. We also scored some half price tickets to see Spamalot that evening. What an amazing show! I was laughing the whole time. I highly recommend it; very entertaining. We then had dinner in a neat place that was a 50’s diner with signing wait staff (they are probably broadway wanna-bes). We then walked around time square and then headed back to the hotel.

Monday we went back to Chinatown and then to Macy’s again and I got the cutest shoes. Leopard print open-toed flats. They are awesome! Just before heading back, we went to Saks Fifth Avenue just to check it out. Outrageous prices, but we were expecting that. Like $520 for a scarf kind of prices.

Then we headed back to the airport only to find out our flight was delayed. I guess there was poor visibility in Newark. They initially delayed us around 2.5 hours, but in the end, we ended up getting to Toronto only an hour after we were originally supposed to land, so that’s not bad at all. Poor lj though, her flight was cancelled altogether, so she had to fly to Montreal and then to Toronto instead of flying direct. What time did you end up getting back, lj????

All in all, I absolutely LOVED NYC. Never once did I feel unsafe. I wouldn’t want to walk around by myself at night, but with the 3 of us, it was totally fine. The subway system is great, quite easy to navigate. I don’t think I have a single complaint about the city. Except for maybe the sweltering heat in the subway tunnels, but I don’t think there’s anything they can do about that. It was a very warm weekend. The only time it really rained was when nej and I were inside the Empire State building waiting to go up. The rain had stopped by the time we got to the top.

I am really glad I had yesterday off work, I needed a day to recover and rest. I did some laundry, went grocery shopping for the week, and went with my mom to her dress fitting (she’s having her dress for the wedding designed). It looks amazing!

Oh, and here’s what I missed while I was gone: Alex quit his job to go back to school fulltime in September (he’s going to get his highschool equivalency first and then do a college program) and Thom bought a car (he bought a Camry). Which means my mom is trading her van in, so she won’t have a vehicle anymore. I guess she’ll have the truck to use. Good thing she walks and rides her bike to work!

So now it’s back to work for me. 3 day work week this week, yay! And it’s exactly 1 month to the wedding! Wow!

Off to the Big Apple!

Tonight after work, I’m having dinner with my mom to hear all about her trip. I’m hoping CT can come too (he’s not sure if he’ll be done work in time). Then after dinner, it’s off to nej’s place for me! Tomorrow morning, we’ll be on a plane to New York! The good thing about flying out in the morning is we’ll be in the Big City by lunchtime. Sweet! Can’t wait! We’re going to have such an amazing time!