Grease

You know, if I'm going to waste calories on crap food, I'd really like the crap food to be worth it. At one of my jobs I am at the intersection of nothing and the Mass Turnpike, wherein we are extremely limited in our choices for dining establishments. I thought I had found a good little lunch spot that made a decent grilled chicken salad, until I noticed the last time I went there that even though the food prep lady was wearing a rubber glove (ONE rubber glove), she used the gloved hand not only to prepare the food, but also to take your money and count out change. Then she would go back to food prep and NOT CHANGE THE GLOVE. I give her props for only using one hand to prep the food and for only touching the food with that one, gloved hand, but I think she kind of missed the health department's point.

So today I ventured into the little corner market, which has a surprising array of Asian grocery items at extravagant prices. I wanted to buy some red bean mochi, but it was $4.99 for a little package. They have a lunch selection of hot Chinese food and I decieded to throw caution to the wind and have General Tso's chicken since I've only had salads and sandwiches on whole wheat with no mayo for lunch this whole week. I got the chicken, some fried rice, and 2 little crab rangoons for $6.

And I just threw most of it away.

I don't know if I'm just getting hypersensitive to unhealthy stuff, or if this was especially bad, but the amount of grease in my little package was unreal. I kind of want to wipe my mouth out with a napkin to remove the grease layer. Even the rice was greasy. I mean, I know it's fried rice, but come on. It's like they fried it, and then stuck it in a big bowl of oil, and then served it up. The chicken was absolutely tasteless. I probably managed to consume a few hundred calories despite tossing it and that just kind of makes me mad. Such a waste.

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I really liked the Autumn template I had up last night, but the colors Blogger offers are very limited and the only darker color than the red for the text print was black, which sort of loses the point of the pretty Autumn template. I wish I could leave the orange in the background, but lighten the area in a block right around the text. I suppose I could just bold all of my entries from now on. Anyway, still futzing - in my spare time.

And, holy crap, I'm getting married 3 weeks from tomorrow. One thing I have to say about work being so busy is it keeps me from obsessing too much about the wedding, but on the other hand I keep remembering these little things and then realizing another week has passed.

Shocker

Take the Quiz here!

New Template

Before I add all the links on my sidebar and everything, what do you think?

Made-Up

A couple of weeks ago I ventured to MAC with my friend Andrea, aka MAC's best customer, to buy wedding make-up. I wanted some quality stuff that would work for the wedding and that I could also wear every day because despite faithfully putting on a bit of make-up every morning, a couple of people recently have mentioned how I don't wear any make-up at all. Hmph.

So you can imagine when the MAC girl got done with me I felt like I was just about ready to start swinging around a pole, if you know what I mean. I did buy the foundation (very sheer, very nice) and the moisturizing concealer and the eyeshadow. I have been gradually adding more to my make-up repertoire in the morning, in an effort to look more professional and grown-up. I have started wearing mascara even, which is a big step, but honestly it really does make my eyes look nice.

The one thing MAC couldn't help me with was lipstick. I am looking for a long-wearing all-day type lipstick and MAC didn't have anything like that in a color I liked. I popped into Sephora and the saleslady put a lip stain on me which promptly sank into every little crevice on my slightly chapped lips and made me look like a corpse. A corpse with bleeding lips. Pretty!

Tonight on my way home I stopped at Macy's and got conned into an Estee Lauder lipstick. No, actually the lady was very nice and helpful and patient and we found a great color, but I discovered shortly after buying it that the phrase "All-Day Lipstick" doesn't mean the same thing to me and Estee Lauder. So that's going back to the store.

In the end, I may just go with Cover Girl. Last summer I bought this long lasting lipcolor that really does stick on my lips and not let go. The color I have is too pink for the wedding day, so I'm hoping they have a good color for an Autumn afternoon/evening wedding. Unfortunately, unlike the department stores, you can't try Cover Girl on, so I may waste a little money in my search, but hopefully not too much. You would think the fancy make-up people would want to cash in on that long lasting lipcolor thing.

On another note, yes, yes, I know I need to fix my template. But, let's see, last night I was working until 10:30. I wasn't actually AT work. I left work around 8, carrying a large sheaf of papers to go through once I got home and had a little food and sanity. Today I had an all-day continuing legal education class, which is fascinating, but means that tonight is catch up on work time. Same goes for tomorrow after part 2 of the CLE class. So, template is kind of low on my list.

My sister* Beckie referred me to this template site. I lurve this girl's templates, only... Well, when I did a test run with my blog on one of the pretty, pretty templates, I realized that the text colors blend too much into the background colors and that the text is very very tiny. I don't really have the patience to figure out the html and change these things, which is really too bad because I like the templates a lot. Maybe I should email the designer and make suggestions.


*Not my real sister, but everyone always asks if we are sisters because we look so much alike. There is this picture from her bridal shower that we both had to look at for a few seconds before figuring out who was who. When I used to hang out with her and her two little sisters it was like insta-siblings.

Target* is Not My Best Friend Anymore

You know what a bride one month out from her wedding doesn't need? A discount department store emailing her last minute wedding weight loss and fitness tips. Yes, I KNOW everyone is going to be staring at me all day and I should be subsisting on water and fruit and maybe some ex-lax because I'm THE BRIDE and it's ALL ABOUT ME**, but seriously, shut up.


*One of the places we registered.
**You would not believe how the websites and the bridal people push the Bridezilla mentality.

Hyperventilating

A friend just casually mentioned that my wedding is the same weekend as Head of the Charles.

My wedding is in Cambridge.

Holy crap.

Sticking my head between my knees now.

More Wedding Stuff Because I'm Getting Really Boring Like That

Well, I finally sucked it up and went to the tailor yesterday to get my dress altered. It needs to be let out of course. Sigh. The shop is on a semi-busy street and I was standing on the little stool facing the mirror for about a half hour, my back to the windows, my zipper not quite up all the way, as if to say, "Hello, world! Check out my bra!"

The tailor was recommended to me by a couple of girls who live in an apartment right above him. Personal recommendations are always good. Plus, his name is Coco, and I couldn't resist that. While he was pinning me up, my friend Christy walked by outside and came in to say hi. And thus I was able to prove that I do indeed know the girls upstairs.

The best part is the alterations are going to cost around $100. That's to let it out, hem it and bustle it. Considering David's Bridal was talking $250-$300 for the same items, I think I came out pretty good overall.

And that's really the last big thing. I just still need to order the flowers and the pies.

Oh, yes, the pies. After pricing a few bakeries and really dragging my feet on the whole cake issue, Jason and I made an executive decision to have pie instead. A cake would have been $200 minimum, but probably more like $250 or $300. Cake isn't my favorite dessert really and Jason hates frosting*, so after salivating over all of the pies at the Big E this weekend, we decided pie would be the way to go. Nice fall pies like pumpkin and apple and maybe I can get some pecan thrown in for the Southern side of my family (aka 3/4 of my family). And a big vat of vanilla ice cream for a la mode. Just thinking about it is making me want some in a way that wedding cake never did.

Oh, and apparently my template is permanently gone, which is a shame since I really liked it. I guess it's an excuse to look for a nice Fall/Winter look. You know, in my spare time.


* I know this is a common dislike, but, really? You hate frosting? I don't understand. Sugar, butter, vanilla, sometimes chocolate. What is there to hate exactly?

Technical Difficulties

I have no idea what's up with my blog template and neither does Blogger apparently. I'm going to wait it out a couple of days and then look into redoing my template.

Accessorizing

Taking a poll. So I thought I was going to wear my Nana's opal necklace on my wedding day, however, I wore it to church last week and realized the pendant kind of swings around a bit and I would probably need to be resettling it properly on my chest periodically and I'm going to be wearing way too much clothing* to be worrying about that too.


So here's the thing. I have a lovely strand of pearls that my parents gave me when I graduated from law school. They are slightly off-white (as pearls are), but my dress is white white. Too clashing?


I bought these yesterday:
I tried them on and was shocked that they didn't make my feet look like giant white boats like every other white shoe I have tried. They're actually pretty cute and the shoe store owner had the brilliant idea of dyeing them black or something after the wedding so that I could wear them because honestly, when am I ever going to wear white shoes again.



I tried on my dress with my shoes and my veil yesterday and, holy cow, I look like a bride!


* One of my panicky thoughts last night as I lay in bed running through my list of what's left to do was, "What happens if I have to pee?!" Seriously. I have no answer.

Weather

I’m going to ask for a little intercessory prayer to the weather gods on my behalf.

1. The whole idea behind getting married in October was so that my family could all revel in the charming Autumn in New England scene. However, the leaves have started to change and while I find myself oohing and aahing over some particularly lovely bright red explosions of color, it is TOO EARLY. I want foliage in the pictures! Slow it down, New England!
   
2. October can be kind of fickle weather-wise and just Sunday I heard of a wedding in October a couple of years ago where it just poured. Eeek! No rain on October 20th! It can be cloudy all it wants. In fact, cloudy would be great for picture time since then we wouldn’t be all squinty and have weird shadow patterns on us. But, please, no rain!

Thank You For Being A Friend*

You know what's awesome? Friends, that's what. Or, maybe it's that's who. My Masters in English is serving me well, apparently.

Anyway, ever since we started planning the wedding, friends have been generously offering to help in any way they can, even saying two or three times that if we need them, they're ready and willing. I feel so loved and supported. Since I am trying to keep this as simple as possible (and on the small side) there hasn't been too much we've needed help with yet. But it's wonderful to know that our friends want to be there for us.


* And now you have that song going through your head for the rest of the day. You're welcome.

Checklist

Today I:

1) Finished buying everything for my centerpieces.

2) Decided that we will be doing the flowers ourselves, even though I may regret it the night before the wedding, but I know I can count on at least 3 good friends helping out, one of whom I just found out today used to work in a nursery making corsages and boutonnières. Score!

3) Bought gifts for 3 babies because, oh my gosh, everyone is popping out the babies lately. There are still 2 that I need to buy presents for. Sure, I enjoy trotting around the baby department at Target, but I just have to say there are a LOT of babies in my life lately.


I still need to:

1) Order a cake. I have to go into the bakery at 8 AM on a Saturday morning because I need to get in there before the crowds descend, and seeing as how it's a super popular bakery in the North End, the crowds, they do descend. I was going to do it a couple of weeks ago, but wow, do I need to get up early to make it to the North End by 8 AM. On a Saturday.

2) Get my dress altered. It's official that the dress will need to be let out. My amazing adventures in weight loss hit a snag in about June when I started working real jobs and Jason got in an accident and I bought a new car and I started spending more time down in Providence and the wedding planning kind of took over my spare time and thoughts processes. So I believe I've gained back a few pounds. Boo! However, I gave Jason a reality check a couple of weeks ago when I made him stand on my scale and I have a feeling that once the wedding is done and I am moved and we're living in the same place and not doing this driving an hour to see each other thing and I am doing the shopping and the cooking, we can get the weights under control.

3) Buy a guest book. Why are all guest books tacky tacky tacky? I can put together a classy and simple wedding, but heaven forbid someone make a classy and simple guest book. They are usually padded with lots of bows and glitz and sometimes feathers.


Jason and I spent Saturday night printing out invitations and they look great, if I do say so myself. The invitation itself has a pretty gold leaf at the top, to go with the whole Autumn in New England feeling of the wedding, and Jason put a watermark of the church we're getting married in behind the print. However, due to some issues with the envelope printing that were partly my fault and partly Word's fault, we only got half of them printed. So if there are any family members who hear about, say, the Escos or the Blooms getting their invitations, while say, the Szabos did not, rest assured that you will. This weekend we only made it through the R's.

I Was Run-ning

Jason has a friend who is doing this.

Mostly, we figure, because he's insane.