Thanks Honey

At a recent softball game (I sat out since I was sick), this is the conversation that took place between Ian and I. Ian had just come off the field and was waiting to kick.

Me: Honey, you're having a really good game.

Ian (as he is standing behind me, he leans down and whispers): You have a lot of gray hairs back here.


Thanks honey. I guess law school is taking its toll in the form of aging my hair. I'm only 26 yet have quite a bit of gray hair all over (thanks to my Dad for those stinking genes - he was 30 and almost all gray). My brother is 31, and he is already all salt and pepper. But damnit, he still looks handsome with it. I hate that about guys! Gray hair, no big deal - guys are just hoping for gray instead of balding. My mom, on the other hand, didn't start graying until late 40's. She starting coloring her hair in her 50's. Clearly I didn't inherit her hair genes.

I think the worst part is, my gray hairs are wire-y - like REALLY wire-y. I've thought about going back to coloring my hair since the grays seem to be growing at a very rapid rate. But my hair is deceiving - it's actually super fine and color fades very quickly - so I absolutely have to get it colored every 8 weeks if I do that route. And hello - with the economy the way it is, and school loans, that route is just not possible at this time. So the gray hair must stay for now. I'm just hoping some time in the sun will make them a little less visible. Anyone know any tricks for getting the wiry-ness to go away, or become less, um, wire-y? Considering most of my readers probably don't have premature aging like I do, I don't expect many responses to this (you lucky bastards).

Rain Rain Go Away

No - it's not raining today (finally!). But, I looked at the Farmer's Almanac and here's what I found:

June 2008
1st-3rd Clearing skies in Maine, pleasant rest of region. 4th-7th Wet weather for much of Northeast. Big thunderstorms for Mid-Atlantic states. Rainy skies for the Belmont Stakes. 8th-11th Mostly fair. 12th-15th Showers for much of the Northeast, then fair. 16th-19th A spell of pleasant weather. 20th-23rd Heavy rains, then turning fair. 24th-27th Hot and dry, followed by thunderstorms, especially Maryland, Pennsylvania. 28th-30th Mostly fair and hot.

We're meeting with the priest tonight and I think he needs to work some magic to make sure the above does not happen! Ahhh - the things I wish we could control. I'm hoping the prediction is wrong! And yeah yeah, I've heard that rain is supposed to be good luck. I don't care - I don't want the rain!

Anyways - I didn't post yesterday after leaving work yesterday around lunch time with my stomach making odd gurgling noises and feeling quite ill - that's always a lot of fun!

Weekend recap:

• Got a headpiece and some hair jewelry. I had been looking and looking...tried on tiaras (looked like poo on me), tried on combs with some sparkle (looked like poo on me), or the ones I did find that didn't look like poo on me were too much money to be spending on jewelry for my hair that I will never be wearing again. So, we went to I Do, I Do and found a headpiece that actually adds just a touch, but isn't overwhelming and looks quite tasteful. I found some clips to match and the whole things was less than $200 which I think is a good deal considering that most of the headpieces I tried on were about $250 alone without the 3 clips to match.
• Finalized our music selections.
• Bought materials to wrap the bridesmaids gifts.
• Wrote out all of our ceremony selections for our priest.
• Had a quick trial run to change the lipstick color with the makeup artist.
• Took both Moms out to a restaurant in Fulton for Mother's Day brunch.
• Cleaned our 2nd bedroom to get rid of stuff since the wedding items are starting to accumulate - and by accumulate, I mean that if you're staying at our house anytime in the next several weeks, you might have to use one of the boxes full of stuff as your pillow.

It was quite a successful weekend. I had a mini breakdown and Ian insisted I take a break from everything, curl up on the couch and read some of my book. I did that and drank a glass of wine long enough to get over my stress and regroup to get more completed.

Tonight, we meet with our priest to finalize everything for the ceremony.

1 week until we get to start working with Erin, our coordinator - can't wait! It seems like everything is falling into place...now, about that weather forecast??

Picture Post

Two months from today!! Holy Crapola we have a lot to get done!!

Since it's a rainy Monday, I decided lots of pictures are in order for today's post.

Friday evening, I had a makeup trial with Sairra Lax at her home. She was super nice and sat with me for about 10 minutes prior to even touching my face to chat and ask questions so that she could get an idea of what I am looking for on the wedding day. My skin tone looked very natural and she added some "oomph" where I wanted some - the eyes. I think she did a pretty good job and with a couple adjustments, think I will be very happy on the day of. Here's the picture:

Later that night, we met Stacy and Jon for dinner in Laurel at Pasta Plus. The food was great and the company even greater. Here's a group shot:

We played a little bit of emotives: You're getting married tomorrow:

Saturday, I woke up and headed to my hair salon (Perez Salon and Day Spa) to meet with Michael. After getting a cut, highlights, deep conditioning treatment, he did a trial run for the big day. This was just to get an idea of what we're doing - so obviously on the day of, it will be much more clean and not as sloppy.

Picture of the front: the poofiness at the top will be higher and even:

We then headed to dinner at Mia's Pizza in Bethesda with Sarah and Carlton. Here is a picture of the four of us:

Yesterday was a super rainy day, but I met up with Emily in Tyson's for brunch. I haven't seen her in ages and I was excited to hear all about her trip to Kenya!

Afterwards, Ian and I ran errands and worked on wedding stuff at home. Here's a list of the progress we made:

• Bought Guest Book
• Wrapped Bridesmaid Gifts
• Designed and Printed Table Numbers

Things I hope/plan to accomplish this week:

• Meeting with our priest Tuesday evening
• Finish designing menu cards
• Begin printing menu cards
• Purchase postage for invitations
• If invitations arrive, assemble them and send them out
• Design favor cards
• Sign makeup contract
• Buy (cheap) frames for Table Numbers

It's a long list - but I'm feeling motivated and optimistic!

Feeling Sicky

I have been in bed with a fever since Saturday morning. I went to the doctor this morning and have a sinus infection and bronchitis. Yuck! Hopefully in 48 hours I'll be feeling a lot better. Because of being sick, it was a movie weekend!


Movie Review:

• Happy Feet: I LOVED this movie. It made me happy. Part of it may be because I tapped all the way through college. But I just loved this movie:)
  
• An Affair to Remember: You hear about this movie in other movies (Sleepless in Seattle), and my Mom's generation seems to talk about it all the time. So, I made the boy watch it with me. I think it's probably to my mom's generation what The Notebook is to our generation. It was quite good but cheesy of course. But if you're a hopeless romantic, you'll love it!
  
• Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle: One of my friends from work told me I have to watch this movie. It was one of those stupid, funny movies.
  
• Ratatouille: Loved this movie as well! It was slightly disturbing that you end up falling in love with this character - a rat. But otherwise - loved it!

I got out of bed yesterday to go to my first makeup trial. This was at the Andre Chreky Salon and the unique thing was that it was airbrush makeup. What I loved: it looks extremely natural and doesn't feel like I'm wearing any makeup. I also took a nap when I came home and when I woke up, the makeup was still flawless, and none was found on my pillowcase. This confirms that people had told me that airbrush makeup stays put until you wash it off. Love it! Here is a horrible picture of my (I didn't do anything with my hair, and you can see that my cheeks and eyes are a bit swollen because of my sinuses - hopefully I won't have a sinus infection at the time of the wedding!):

The only thing I would change is adding a little more blush and a bit more upper lid makeup. What do you think? Honestly this picture makes me a little ill - my hair is pulled back so tightly and the left side of my neck is swollen. Gross!

The Winner is: Greece!

We're going to Greece, we're going to Greece!! We got information from our travel agent for Croatia, Hawaii and a few other places (in addition to already receiving info on Greece). We ruled out Croatia because of the cost for flights. So we narrowed down to Hawaii and Greece. Greece is the winner!! We figured we don't get to go overseas very often so we want to take advantage of it. We're now working out the detailed flight info and will most likely have a direct flight from Philadelphia to Athens. Then, the exciting part is figuring out our hotels and activites in each city (Athens, Crete and Santorini). SO excited!!


I'm ready for the STDs to go out - but every time I think they're ready we manage to get one more address. So I keep waiting until we have every person accounted for. Our guest list also keeps changing. Is this normal? We decided to cut a few people just to make our party a bit more intimate. My mom is worried about hurting some of her friends feelings. I grew up in a large neighborhood, Flower Valley, and my mom is friends with a lot of people there. She regularly meets them for dinner, drinks, whatever. The big dilemma is that we're inviting some of these neighborhood friends, but leaving some of them off the list. Reason: I am not close with them or haven't seen some of them since like high school or something. I think it makes sense - and if I offend them, oh well - they should understand! And Mom - if they ever ask you about it you can blame me - it's not like I see them anyways!


My mom took care of booking the two buses - one for all of our attendants (13 all together), Ian's parents and the other for all guests staying at the hotel. I'm asking guests to let me know if they're planning on taking the bus because we'll need to upgrade to a different bus depending on how many peeps are taking it.


Lewis is taking care of calling different makeup artists and getting pricing on that. I've been in contact with a couple and have not been completely satisfied with pictures of some brides they've worked with. So Lewis is taking care of the research to find some more!! Yay!


My mom contacted a lighting guy to possibly do lighting for our reception. I had heard from everyone about how cheap it is to do this but holy moly, it's not cheap at all! It would come out to be about 5% of our budget - that's a lot for just a little lighting! We might end up scratching this idea because it's money that could be used elsewhere (or saved). What do you think? Will the lighting really make that much of a difference? Here are some pictures of what it would look like with lighting: The Westin Grand Photo Gallery. Also, here is a fellow Westin Grand bride who used the lighting company we talked with:


It looks so pretty with the lighting! Ahhh I can't decide!

Back to Work

Thank you for reassuring me that I'm not super behind! It's still stressing me out a bit though.

Yesterday, I went to the doctors where the rest of my staples were removed and I was given the OK to go back to work. So today, I was back to work for the most part (unless my foot starts bothering me or I get too tired). I am TIRED after being there for about 6 hours. I had to leave and come home to put my foot up.

We watched The Nanny Diaries last night. I read the book and was not as happy with the movie as I was with the book. It was okay. Some parts were very strange but other parts were quite humorous - like this part:

"Why aren't you shaking your booty" (to the little boy)
Little Boy's response "Because I have to make a doodie."

Ian laughed for 10 minutes about that one.

Sarah and Carlton are coming over for dinner tonight and bringing us takeout dinner and then watching Grey's. They are also bringing little Chaz (their adorable little pup) since we are dogless and going through withdrawal!

Any recommendations for makeup artists in DC for wedding makeup??