When Did This Turn Into a Wedding Blog?

The following seems to be the story of my life (and therefore maybe I should start paying attention to it):

When I wrap my head around doing something, there's no turning back. Eventually it takes over my entire life as I research for hours on end in hopes of finding that perfect thing. For instance, when I decided it was time to get out of our *ahem* pieceofshit apartment and move. We literally spent every waking moment for weeks trying to find our next living quarters. It had to be perfect! No mistakes this time! And what if our perfect apartment was taken by somebody else in the 2 seconds that I was away from Craigslist?! Not gonna happen!

So what happened? One day, Tom and I were driving to his parents house - a route we take everyday - when we saw a For Rent sign. We followed the sign to the perfect house, for the perfect price, and now here we sit. All of that time endlessly pouring over newspapers and ads, and it ended up being so simple.

Once again, I have begun my obsessive search for all things perfect for our wedding. I started with the where. A couple dozen emails to hotels, golf clubs, botanical gardens...it was already overwhelming.

And, once again, the answer was right under my nose.

Helllllllooooo Lauren?! You're stepdad is the CFO of a spectacular hotel! With spectacular areas for weddings!

48 hours later, we have the Gazebo and reception room reserved in my name. (Now I can officially freak out about this wedding thing really happening.)

Reception room

Another shot

 

Ceremony gazebo

Bottom line? It's a nicer place than we had ever expected to have for our cheapy little wedding. All made possible because the general manager of the hotel loves me (or so I'd like to think). We have no food and beverage minimum for the reception, no rental fee for the gazebo (that's $500 right there), and all of our decorative linens will be rented to us at cost. How much more perfect does it get?

So now I continue to deliberate over the theme. I'm not exactly sure how that answer will find its way to me, but maybe if I sit back and let it happen, I won't be disappointed.

The Options are Endless

My indecisiveness has already become ever-present in this wedding planning thing.

Here's the problem:

We're trying to pick our "theme", which would also help us decide our colors and make picking out some invitations a bit easier. I'm already stuck on this, but there are so many options that I love. I've managed to narrow it down to two.

The Great Outdoors
We're having an outdoor ceremony, so naturally (ha.ha.ha.) one of the themes would play off of that setting. Everything would be very "earthy" and summery, and we would probably incorporate pheasant feathers to pay tribute to Tom's family.

Some of the inspiration:

Classic Elegance

I'm a huge fan of damask, s having a wedding themed around that would also be completely amazing to me. With accents of lime green, it would still have a summery feel, but would have a bit more of a elegant vibe than the outdoor theme. In some ways, I like that. In others, I feel it may be a bit more than we're looking for. 

Here's the imagery for this theme:

And don't even get me started on ceremony/reception venues. Eek!

Christmas Eve!

I feel like I was just freaking out at Target before Halloween had even arrived, finding the Christmas displays that were already up to be a bit, um...absurd. "But Christmas is so far away!"

Well, whadya know - Christmas Eve is among us and it hasn't felt like it's been that long.

Why does our tree look so skinny in this picture??

The roads were completely empty as I drove into work this morning. Yes, you heard me right, I had to work today. Luckily it was only a 1/2 day, and we're still in training so it required no real "work" to be done. Even better: I'm getting paid as I type this.

Aiden slept over at his Grams and Gramps last night, and we have a family event starting at 6 o'clock, so Tom and I are completely free to do whatever we want on this day-before-Christmas. First on the list? Cleaning! Much to Tom's dismay, of course, but he still pitched in (and this is why I love the man).

I think we'll spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. =)

So Put Your Hands Up!

Just as I predicted, blogging has gone WAY on the back burner now that I'm a career woman with a one year old. And, I've added something else to my plate:

TOM & I ARE GETTING MARRIED!!

Yes, everyone (especially us) already knew this was going to happen, so it's not a huge shocker to anyone involved. I think the appropriate and most common response would probably be, "Finally..."


I haven't decided if this makes us officially engaged or not, because I'm still waiting for one of these things:

We're not really in a financial position to be shelling out for a shiny rock at this particular moment, so that venture is most likely on hold until tax return time. However, we decided we wanted to get married this year (meaning 2010) and before we knew it, a date was picked. And then my big mouth was announcing it on Facebook soon after.

The meaning of an engagement is just that you have a plan to get married, correct? It's not truly about the ring. So does that mean we're engaged?

It's all just so complicated. And Tom and I almost NEVER do things the "right" way. It's just our style. =)

Nevertheless, our big date is August 28th, 2010. Let the planning begin!

In the meantime....

Workday Birthday

I promise I'm alive! Which also means,


I made it through my first week of work!

My 21st birthday was conveniently placed right in the middle of the work week. I can't say the day itself was particularily exciting. The lovely people that I'm training with joined me for some lunch, and then my dad and his English lady friend, Heather, took Tom, Aiden and I out for a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Heather came to Wisconsin specifically for my birthday, and it was by far the biggest treat I've had in a LONG time. I ordered one froofy, girly, blended drink and called it a night with the 'I'm Legal!' celebration.

For what it's worth, it was one of the better drinks I've ever had...

Tom and I came home and opened my present from him/his mom. I am now the proud owner of one of these:

Which means I can now grab a Wii Fit and hopefully look as good as this lady while playing it:

 

Unfortunately for Tom and me, we were too pooped to even open the stupid box, much less play anything. I think I was in bed shortly after 9 o'clock. On my 21st birthday. I know, I'm pretty hardcore. Too bad I wouldn't have it any other way.

Career Woman

Aiden's first birthday party was a raving success (and with the amount of toys he got, I'm sure he would agree). Our cozy little house was stuffed to the max with people ranging from friends, to family, to friends of the family. I'm so happy that everyone came out to celebrate with us!

I've been so busy with other things that I haven't had time to finish going through all of the pictures yet. When I do, they'll definitely be posted here. But I'm not planning to half-ass it.

So these other things....
I scored an interview at M&I Bank for Monday. The position was for a Call Center Representative/Personal Banker. I thought it was a pretty good sign that I even got a call for an interview, so I walked in relatively confident in myself. I interviewed with someone in HR before being sent to another building to interview with the manager of the call center. I then interviewed with a third person before finally being allowed to go home (and pee!) two hours later. I was told I would hear back within a few days, but they called and offered the job by 4pm that day. Job starts December 8th.

*Cue panic mode*

Finding childcare in the matter of a week? An impossible task, I thought. Tom and I scrambled to figure out how we could handle next week without needing daycare and I raced off to all sorts of daycare facilities to conduct my interviews. I even begged our pediatrician for some recommendations while we were at Aiden's 12 month check-up.

[Aiden's stats are officially as follows: HUGE head, average weight, relatively tall, but perfect in every way]

We picked out a brand new daycare that has video monitoring for parents to log into during the day and check on their child, but it's pretty far out of the way. If we go with an actual daycare center, the drive is the least of my worries.

BUT, as usual, I decided to second-guess myself. I looked on Craigslist and noticed an ad for a nanny in the area. I priced out what it would be to have her watch Aiden in our home, and sure enough, it's about the same as daycare. So now I'm thinking: do I go for the nanny? I'll spare you the boring pro's and con's list, but there really isn't a perfect situation in my opinion. I've been getting a lot of advice on the topic, and nobody seems to agree on one over the other. (Why can't anybody ever make this stuff easy for me?)

And so now I figure, if I'm considering two options, what's throwing one more option in there? Let's consider an in-home daycare, too.

I went from having my decision made to being back at square one.



No matter what we choose for Aiden, I can guarantee that life is about to get relatively crazy.