a wedding & our mini vacay

Well, February is over and I spent the first weekend of March laying around the apartment and then cleaning (have I mentioned I hate cleaning??). We kicked the weekend off with a bang and watched two new (to us) movies. We watched Bridesmaids- LOVED it...and loved Chris O'Dowd. Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph are also two of my faves right now. Next, we watched "Take Me Home Tonight" (with Topher Grace) on netflix. The movie was a little lackluster as far as a storyline goes, but I enjoyed the whole 80's theme. Demetri Martin also made a few very brief appearances, but he was hilarious in the small role he played.

Onto the wedding... it was fabulous. Everything went smoothly, and I think everyone loved the small/laid back vibe.

 at the reception

in front of Barley's - if you look close enough, you can see my sister and her husband dancing/making funny faces at the camera :)

The reception was held at Barley's in Spindale, NC. They have amazing pizza, seriously. and good beer. That's a recipe for a great wedding reception...who knew? I know I promised a picture of my $35 dress, but of course I neglected to get a full length shot. Guess I'll have to wait until my sister gets her pictures.

Our trip to Myrtle Beach (immediately following the wedding) with Ross's family was a much-needed winter break. We spent most our time hanging out, shopping and eating. Ross's brother, who recently moved to New Mexico, was also able to go with us, so it was just a good time all around with the whole fam!

Sadly, I didn't get around to any reading while we were there. At this point, I'm trying to decide what to take up next (even thought I am STILL reading Wuthering Heights). The Hunger Games or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?? Or something else?

I am counting to down to whenever/wherever it is we go on vacation this summer...

February.

Honestly, that's as creative of a title I could think of. It's been a while, and this month has mostly been comprised of work and me being tired (my life story, basically). But I'm happy to say it's all downhill from here. My sister is getting married this weekend - YAY! - and then my husband and I are off to the beach for a little four day vacation. Cannot. wait.

Hope everyone's Valentine's Day was fabulous. Ours was pretty low key. To avoid the crowds, we went to our favorite local Mexican restaurant, which we probably would have done on Tuesday night anyway. I bought myself a purse (Thirty-One's 5th Avenue, it has a gazillion pockets and is awesome) and told Ross "thanks for my Valentine's Day present!!!" For the record, I bought it used for a significantly cheaper price than what it retails for...so...go me! And then he sent me beautiful flowers at work even though we agreed not to do anything special for each other. :)

I feel like I need to share this with other iPhone (or smartphone in general) users. Maybe I'm behind the times, but I just recently started using the app Songza. Love it so far, and it's serving as a very good replacement for the SiriusXM music stations I loved so dearly but no longer want to pay for.

Speaking of music...I recently went through a week long-ish period of complete White Stripes obsession. Also just recently heard Jack White's new single, "Love Interruption"...thoughts? I like the female vocal, but could do without whoever is singing it. I also finally realized who Jack White reminds me of:

The child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks that, since I found this picture on google from someone's tumblr (tumblog? I don't know). I then stumbled upon the fact that Roald Dahl was the screenwriter for that film...who knew?!

I've moved on from my incessant White Stripes listening to other things now, and here are a few songs currently on my playlist:
1. Change of Heart - El Perro Del Mar (original version and Robyn's Rakamonie Remix...I think I actually prefer the remix, but I like both)
2. Someone Like You - Adele...I could listen to this song a million times a day and probably not get tired of it.
3. Are You Satisfied? - Marina & the Diamonds
4. As Ugly As I Seem -The White Stripes (a current WS favorite of mine)
5. Come Back Down - Greg Laswell featuring Sara Bareilles

Post sister's-wedding-and-beach update to come soon! I plan on at least getting a good pic of me in my bridesmaid dress I found at a thrift store for $35...AWESOME.

the married life!

There's definitely a whole lot of "new" in my life right now. New husband (well, first and only husband), new town, new apartment, new hour-long drive to and from work every day. Other than the last item on that list (which sucks as bad as it sounds), I am loving it all! The past couple months have been a whirlwind, and it's finally settling down a bit.

Post-wedding thoughts:

The first three months or so after being engaged, I was seriously considering eloping. I still think it is a great idea, and I don't think I would have regretted going that route. With that being said, having so many people I love and care about in the same place was so wonderful - all the planning, time, money and stress was worth it ten times over. So I guess where I'm going with this is do whatever you feel like doing. We would have come out just as happy and as married as we are now if we had eloped, but we chose the big wedding. I say do whatever makes you happiest. Not sure our wedding day could have gone more smoothly, and I am definitely thankful for that!

On another topic, cooking has been a fun new adventure for us. And when I say "new," I really mean it. Living at home with busy families meant that Ross and I spent most our time eating out before we were married...and I'm gonna be honest, cooking has never really been my forte, although I haven't tried much. I am really excited about trying new things though, especially with all the new cooking gadgets and makers and cookers etc that were given to us. I'm very proud of the first thing we made, Mushroom Turnovers. I know, definitely not anything to brag about as they are really simple...but trust me, it was a big step for someone who hasn't really done much more than heat up frozen pizza before. They turned out really great, and I'm sure we'll eat them again! And when I refer to "we" as in "we cooked them," my husband and I have cooked everything together so far. It's fun, but is also probably a good move on his part to ensure the safety of ourselves and everyone in our apartment complex. Saturday morning consisted of a not-so-successful attempt at making breakfast. Our mistakes were cooking the eggs first (which meant they were cold when we ate them, of course), and also burning the bacon, and subsequently setting off the fire alarm. If you ever thought breakfast was too easy to screw up, you thought wrong.

Luckily, since we are now living right outside of Charlotte, there are plenty of restaurants around in case the whole cooking thing doesn't work out. :) I haven't really been able to enjoy living in a new town since ten hours of my day are spent at work and driving there and back. Ready to get out of that situation asap.

I plan on posting a few pictures of our wedding and honeymoon (spent in Nassau - we had a blast) soon, and maybe even reporting on a few more newly found/newly attempted recipes!

slowing down...and the madness ahead

This time next week, I will be married. CRAZINESS. I'm happy to report there have been no meltdowns...yet. I have come very close, but luckily avoided them thus far. Tonight, it kind of clicked in my head why I've gotten close several times. With the exception of late night moments like this, my schedule seems to have been planned down to the minute every day. It's a constant feeling that I was unsuccessful at getting everything done for that day that I should have done. And really, by all accounts, it still doesn't add up. I still can't figure out exactly what it is about weddings that takes up so much damn time. I guess it's just the thinking and the planning, which is a very broad description of what I've been doing since January. There are a lot of things that have to be done at just the right time. For example, you can't tally up your response cards til you've sent out invitations. You can't write thank you cards until you get gifts. So I had much more free time from January to April because I couldn't do those things yet. That goes for a lot of other tasks also.

This brings me to my other point. Tonight I realized that I am a slow moving person. I like to enjoy life, and I am admittedly a homebody. I'm not a go-getter by any stretch of the imagination, which probably relates to the fact that I'm not a planner. I feel like all this planning and organizing has been quite difficult for me, and I have a mother AND a sister who I'm pretty sure have done 70% of the work compared to the 30% I put in.

The bottom line is that I want to eventually find the perfect balance. The perfect balance between being myself, but still being an organized and put-together person who gets things done. Completely random, but I caught an interview on the radio the other night with Demetri Martin (who I love). He talked about how he had devised this points system every week where he gave himself points for getting things done and for spending time working on things he wanted to accomplish. It sounded like a good idea, but the guy graduated with straight A's from Yale, and I didn't understand anything he said about it other than that points were involved. Either way, I hope that after everything settles down post-wedding, I'll be able to find the balance I'm looking for. I'm open to suggestions on how you keep yourself organized and motivated.