Wednesday, January 18, 2012

new home

After years of being with Blogger, I've decided to make the jump to Wordpress.

If you want to keep reading about our wacky adventures (or, um, wasting valuable google reader space while you wait for me to update), please come find me at As our garden grows.

Hope to see you there - don't be afraid to leave a comment!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Lettuce marry! (A-D)

Oh, you guys.

I'm so sorry.
I never meant to make you wait so long to start wedding recaps, but my schedule is insane. When I say I have a 'day off', I actually mean I don't have to work a double shift, not that I truly have a day off. (Yeah. I know.)

That, coupled with the fact that our photographer took a full month to get our pictures to us, means that it's now December and I'm just starting on recaps now.

So, enough babbling. Let the recaps commence!!

PREFACE: I am blatantly stealing this recap format from hillarywithtwoL's.  I only wish I were this original. You can find her wedding recaps here.

Lettuce marry!
A – C

Awkward: First, you need to know that we stayed in a loft suite, with a king bed downstairs and a queen in the loft. Now, onto the story itself: While we were getting ready in the hotel the day of, the fire alarm went off. We debated for approximately five minutes what to do – I had most of my family staying in the hotel and wanted to avoid seeing them in my lovely half done state (I believe I even had a green hair clip incorporated in my hair at the time) and we were debating – is it real? Do we grab the dress? WHAT DO WE DO OH MY GOD. Finally, we all evacuated – leaving the dress – while Peggy and I went down the back stairs in an effort to avoid seeing people. Thankfully, it was a false alarm, but when we came back, my flower girl noticed someone sleeping in the loft bed. When we went to wake the poor guy up, he was so out of it he told me this was ‘Brad’s room’ and forgot his shoes. I don’t know what his deal was, but holy awkwardsauce.

Bridespeople:  Keith and I each had four people standing up for us – of both genders. I had what I affectionately called a ‘bridesman’ and Keith had two groomswomen (I also had my two best friends and my sister, along with my most favourite nine year old in the world as a flower girl/Jr. Bridesmaid, and Keith had his brother and a good friend). Based on the number of comments I received, all of our guests were so impressed that we broke with tradition – something I will never understand. It’s 2011; Keith and I both have opposite gender friends, why wouldn’t they be included in our special day because they don’t have the same parts? (Although I suspect I will never be quite fully forgiven for the number of times Shawn got called the groom during the various things I dragged him to during the planning process. Sorry dude).

Cake: We had a fairly traditional four-tier cake done by TheCakeWhisperer. The bottom and top layers were red velvet with cream cheese and the two middle tiers were chocolate with raspberry filling. Too bad I had approximately one bite of the entire thing. We also had her make two additional toppers – an Andy Moog goalie mask for Keith and a copy of HitchHiker’s Guide for me.
 
Colours: Our colours were orange, silver/dark gray, with white to balance it out. It worked out beautifully – a million thank you’s to Shawn for suggesting the combination. I was going to do the boring, traditional colour scheme associated with fall. Let’s just say it would have been quite a different wedding. 

Dance: We fought for weeks over what our first dance would be. We finally settled on “Lay me down” by Ashley MacIassac the Thursday before the wedding. When we went to dance, my brother side-whispered that he accidentally downloaded it onto the wrong computer and didn’t have it. I still don’t know what song we danced to, and I suspect I won’t ever know – and I’m okay with that. We were too busy figuring out which of our guests were tearing up watching us dance. I think my sister won. 

Dresses: I got so many compliments on my outfit – I wore a strapless lace gown with a sweetheart neckline, with lace detail and a long lace train. I LOVE lace, but in my size (bridal size 20 when I bought it) there aren’t a lot of lace dresses. I went to four stores and only tried on what I could fit into. I added a three-quarter sleeve lace shrug because it was October and we don’t live in Florida; I feel as if it really ‘made’ the dress. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to sew the shrug to the dress itself because I was fiddling with it all day. Also, my bustle broke within three seconds of putting it in, so Peggy ran around finding safety pins and pinning it up the best she could all night. But other than those two issues, my dress was absolutely perfect.


My girls dresses I found on Etsy. I knew I wanted the colour (dark gray) and the length (knee) but I also wanted to give the girls some choice and freedom of what kind of neckline they were comfortable with, so I thought the wrap infinity dress would be the perfect fit. In the end, I’m not sure it was worth the stress of trying to figure them out, but everyone did something different and looked amazing.

The groomswomen were given a few instructions, which they ignored all but one (the colour, black). Let’s just say it was a nice lesson in letting go and leave it at that, shall we? [ insert huge sigh here ]. Oh well.

Check back soon for recaps from E-H!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

aaand *thump*

At the end of September I received a letter from the student loan national centre saying because I had failed a course in the summer semester, I would be denied any further funding for a period of three years.

Let's face it; if I leave my program now, and for three years, there is a high possibility I will never go back. There's really only one option - funding the rest of my degree (and my living expenses) completely on my own dime. Cue panic. Originally I thought I had to come up with full Winter tuition - just under 2900$ - by the end of December. Thankfully, that's not the case - I have until I go to re-register in late April/early May to pay the full amount (WHEW).

Thankfully I already have a full time job, so that takes care of my living expenses. I immediately started searching for a second part-time job to cover tuition, and received an offer of employment last Friday, the day before the wedding.

This past week was my first week working two jobs, although I wasn't quite successful. It took until at least Thursday to feel even half decently rested from the craziness that was the week before and weekend. I fully understand why people take a honeymoon immediately after the wedding - its needed (it also didn't help that Keith took the week off himself, so all I wanted to do was be home with him and snuggle a lot). I should have taken this week off regardless of the financial picture; I only managed to work 19 hours at my full time job (as opposed to the 38 hours I usually work) and 18.5 at my new job. This paycheque is gonna hurt.

This week? I work double shifts three days in a row, and again on Thursday and Sunday. I predict consuming A LOT of Monster in my future.

Have you ever worked two jobs? Any tips on how to survive? How did you pay for post-secondary?

Monday, October 24, 2011

Finally! I'm a Mrs!

Hey!

I'm MARRIED, y'all!

And it was AMAZING. Everybody has been raving about how great it was and how perfectly everything looked and went.

My mom actually said I should go into wedding planning - and this is coming from someone who thinks weddings are silly, unnecessary affairs. I WIN.

For recaps I'm going to wait for the professional pictures to come back, but for now I'll leave you with what is going to be one of the best pictures of the day (I just know it):

Sunday, October 16, 2011

you & i together forever

Mine:

-6
As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Keith:


9
As a 1930s husband, I am
Very Poor (
 Failure)

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Aboot (need not apply)

Just wanted to pop in & do this accent vlog that's been going around.

(and yes, completely in denial about what's happening in 7 days. do. not. judge).

So you're supposed to say these words:

Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

And answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel? 

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

hair & makeup!







I'm so pleased with all of it. Especially my hair.