Time is continuing to fly by and I hate it. Where is the pause button for life?

It's been almost a month since I returned to work, and things haven't been very easy in that month. Most days I'm lucky if I'm home by 6, we scramble to eat dinner, clean up a bit, and take care of the boys, and then it's bedtime. There have been days when I've had about 30 minutes total to be with Wes, and I feel my heart aching at the thought. These days of him being little are quickly passing, and I'm really not able to enjoy them.

He has grown so much in the past month, yet at some level he hasn't changed much. His chubby little cheeks and thighs make me smile every time I look at them, especially because Aiden has always been ridiculously skinny and never had that baby pudge. He's getting into somewhat of a routine finally. By that I mean he's typically down for the night at about 8pm, might wake up once around 4:30am for about 3 oz of a bottle (depending on how much he slept during the day), wakes up around 7am for a little more bottle, and generally falls back asleep for another hour or so. He still seems to be all over the board during the day, and a lot of the times doesn't sleep much. I think if he could be held and snuggled 24/7, he would be in complete heaven and would sleep a lot more during the day. Unfortunately, though, we do need to get things done.
Tom and his mom have been splitting the duties of watching him on the two days a week that we both (should) work. They each take him for 1/2 of those two days. I'm still not at a point where I feel comfortable putting him in a daycare facility. In fact, I'm barely even comfortable leaving him with Tom's mom. I didn't realize how difficult of a time I would have with this whole thing.
The sucky part is that I would actually bring home more money if I worked part-time due to the fact that we wouldn't need to pay for daycare. Not only could I spend more time with my boys, but I would never have to leave them in the hands of strangers. The fact that I'm the only one who's able to carry health insurance for our family is the only thing holding me back.

The difficulties don't stop there.

Our finances got the best of us, and our debt just continues to grow, so we made the decision to move in with my parents for awhile. While I feel that the benefits are definitely worth the sacrifices we'll be making during that time, it hasn't made the reality of leaving our home any easier to deal with. I truly adore this house, the community, and the life we have here. I feel horribly guilty about taking Aiden from his home - he loved this place the moment we got here and seems to feel so comfortable here. I know that it will be slightly easier because of the fact that we'll be living with his Grams and Opa, but it's still going to be very different and we're still creating chaos in his life. He isn't even 3 years old and we've moved four times.
We're hoping to get our feet back on the ground enough to buy a house at the end of all of this. I have no idea if that's an attainable goal, but it's still the goal. We'd like to take advantage of the USDA loan program, and with the interest rate subsidy I think it would be much more financially achievable, but there's still a lot that needs to fall into place to make that happen. Regardless of whether we buy a house, we're going to be working hard on getting our debt reduced and our credit raised so that we're able to live on our own again.
So, next weekend (Labor Day Weekend) is our moving weekend. The first task is going to be getting all of the stuff we need over to my parents house, the second task will be getting everything else into storage at the farm. We just started packing tonight, and with my lack of available time, I think things are going to be rather crazy. We've barely even started this process and I'm SO ready for it to be over.

In general, I'm ready for the chaos to end.

Funk

I'm in a funk tonight.

I think this happens every two months or so. For some reason I just go through a day, or a few days, of just purely focusing on my past. The feelings that I felt become real again, and I almost feel like I'm suffocating in the sadness. It all just consumes me...haunts me.

Tom and I had our first night out together since Wes was born. It was so nice to go out and just be me. Not mom...just me.  We had originally planned on going to a movie, but after that plan backfired a few times we decided to eat dinner on the patio at The Cheesecake Factory. I spent most of the time stuck in my thoughts, which I feel slightly bad about. Everything was bringing me back to those years of misery and I just couldn't escape from it. For instance, staring at the Barnes and Noble across the street, I was flooded with memories of the countless days I spent in the psychology section of the store instead of going to school. I could remember how good it felt to drown myself in the words between all those covers, like the more I read the further away from my thoughts and feelings I could get. I could feel the emptiness again, the loneliness, the desire to be whisked away from the world. All just memories, but still so raw. 


I'm not sure how long this funk will last. With any luck I'll wake up tomorrow and be back to "normal". It's a constant reminder that I'll never be completely free from it all. I would love to be able to forget, but I guess then I wouldn't be able to appreciate the place I'm in as much as I do.

Aiden is up north with my parents for the weekend, so I have another opportunity to relax and enjoy my Wesley. I love the time I get to spend with him, when I can just stare at him and be fascinated by him. He's back to being an insanely mellow little man, only crying when he's hungry or cold. He sleeps the majority of the time that he's not eating, but when he is awake he's perfectly content to lay there and look around at his world. His eyes get so big when he scans his surroundings, and it's so fun to watch. His laid back nature has definitely been a huge blessing.

Time to get myself out of my head.

Farewell, House

Our financing got approved!

We sat down with the listing agent, all the papers in front of us, and began going through everything. What's included in the house, what's not, closing date, etc. In the midst of it all, our mortgage broker called to tell us that YES, we're pre-approved. With a loan amount of x the payments will be about $1500.

Woooahhhh there. Back that train up.

Tom and I looked at each other with intense shock and fear. $1500 a month was not the number we had come up with. We were struggling to accept a $1300 payment, but adding that additional $200 pretty much blew things out of the water.

With both of us panicking, but not really knowing what to do, we continued going over all the paperwork for the offer. Finally the listing agent stopped, looked at Tom, and said, "You don't look like you're comfortable with all of this." I think he took a huge sigh of relief when we were able to put the brakes on and talk about everything. We sat in the conference room alone for a bit, then we called Gary and told him where things stood, and then we called the listing agent back in.

So after all of that, we had to walk away.

It's weird to feel such a huge mixture of extreme disappointment and extreme relief all at the same time. That house would have been wonderful for us, and I'm sure that when and if we continue to look at homes, it's going to be beyond difficult to find one that will compare. At the same time, I think Tom and I would both prefer to be in a better financial position before we purchase a house. We knew what a good deal that house was, and our parents were willing to do whatever they could to help us take advantage of that deal. The problem is that we have quite a bit of debt to clear up, and we would be completely unable to furnish and decorate this awesome new house that we had.

We haven't quite figured out what our next step is in this whole process. Our ideal plan would be to tell our landlords that we're having financial difficulties (which isn't really a lie), pack our stuff into storage, and camp out at my parents house for a few months. With the money that we wouldn't be paying towards rent, electric, cable, etc., we would be able to pay off a lot of our debt and get my credit back to a decent spot. We would be able to save for a down payment, and put some away to buy things for a future house. I think we would both be able to take huge sigh of relief that we're finally back on track.
Obviously this plan requires my parents participation, and that's where the hang up is. I can't blame them for not wanting their two adult children and two grandchildren to be in their faces constantly, so I'm completely aware of what a tall request this is. I'm hoping, though, that they'll see how much it would benefit us.

Who knows when this house buying saga will continue. Someday, though, we will own a house.

Yes or No, Dammit

It's been a crazy week, and finally here I sit, waiting to hear back from our mortgage broker on whether or not we'll be able to get the financing for a home. I've honestly been driving myself crazy trying to get everything figured out, so at this point I'm just ready to hear an answer either way and move on. Hanging out in limbo land and not having answers is the hardest part of it all.

If we get the green light, we're headed out to Johnson Creek tonight to make an offer on the house we visited last week. We've been moving in fast forward trying to get the financing secured because there was a ton of interest in the house, and sure enough an offer came in yesterday. I hate the idea of competing with another buyer, and it's just one more hurdle we have to get over after running quite a race already. If we don't get an answer tonight on whether our financing will work, I think we'll be able to bid the house farewell and mourn our loss.

I haven't figured out what will happen if we secure financing but get our offer rejected. There's another house that we looked at on Monday that I would be equally as happy with, I think. It's brand new, but it's in Ixonia vs. Johnson Creek. So do we put in an offer on that one? Or do we take our rejected offer as a sign that this isn't our time to buy a house?

I could probably spend all day going over the various scenarios in my head. I need to remind myself to take things as they come.

Meanwhile, I sit. And wait. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, even though I don't think those expectations will save me from being devastated should this all not work out.

My mom always tells me that if it's meant to be, it will be. I'm trying so hard to believe in that...

This Crazy Life

It's been an eventful week, to say the least.

Despite my day going relatively well on Sunday, it ended on a sour note. When I finally checked my phone at 9 o'clock that evening, I had several missed calls and a voicemail from my parents. I spoke with Gary and found out that a very loved family friend (and MC at our wedding) had suffered a massive stroke earlier in the day. They had drilled a hole in her skull to relieve pressure, and she was comatose. Her husband was at the hospital with her, but they didn't have any other family or close friends that lived in the area. My parents decided that the husband, Ron, could use some support, so off to the hospital they went. Monday was the 4th of July, and despite wanting to visit the various parades and activities going on, I decided to join my parents at the hospital. The outlook was extremely poor for Joyce - there was no brain activity - so I felt the need to say my goodbyes and support Ron. Their family finally started arriving later that night, so we were relieved of our "duties". Joyce was taken off life support and subsequently passed on Thursday afternoon.
It's so scary to think that things can change so drastically in a matter of seconds. One minute you're getting chicken out of the freezer for dinner, the next minute you're gone. I came home and hugged my boys a little tighter.

We're also looking at the possibility of buying a house. We've been dreaming of making this happen for the last year, with a pretty extensive house hunt early last summer. It's always been just barely out of our reach financially, and that is beyond frustrating. Recently, a house down the street from my parents entered foreclosure, and at $181,000 it was quite a steal. With my parents push, we decided to look at our financing options to see if buying the house would be possible for us. We had a few options lined up, so Gary called the agent who held the listing, and was of course told that they had accepted an offer a few days ago. Of course. 
We took a look at the other listings in Johnson Creek and had a very select few homes that seemed appealing. One of them is in a slightly older subdivision next to my parents subdivision, and with 4 bedrooms and a list price of $185,000, is another awesome deal. I wasn't too optimistic about it because the layout didn't look all that great based on the pictures, but we went to see it last night anyway. It's actually a beautiful home that I can honestly see being wonderful for our boys to grow up in, and offers way more than I ever thought we would get in our first home.
So, we forge on with figuring out our financing and see if this home could indeed be our home in the future. There's a lot that needs to get squared away still, so for that reason I'm not getting too excited yet. But a few things have already come up that make the possibility slightly larger.

We had to take Wes to the doctor yesterday because of his recent desire to projectile vomit several times throughout the week. He hadn't been acting right for a few days, but the spit-up was getting especially ridiculous. The physicians assistant simply said that we're feeding him too much, which I'm sure is partly (maybe even mostly) true. His feeding schedule had gotten so out of whack because he was constantly acting hungry, so we were actually at a point where he seemed to literally be eating all day. We've eased up on the bottle a bit and bought all sorts of different pacifiers to try. He seems to like the sucking, so now we're just working on being able to tell when he's truly hungry vs. when he just wants to suck. I'm seeing progress already today so at least I know we're on the right track.

Aiden is at my parents this weekend. We took him over there last night and he's staying tonight, too. Tom and I can definitely use the break from his constant tantrums, and he deserves the fun of staying with his Grams and Opa. I think he's still adjusting to Wesley's arrival and trying to figure out his place in the whole situation, so a weekend away with his grandparents is a good opportunity to forget about it all and just be...Aiden. I'm taking the time to relax and snuggle with Wes a bit more, and I'm hoping that Tom and I can enjoy some quiet time tonight, too. Even a dinner where we don't have to struggle with Aiden will be nice.

I think it's time to lay on the couch and snuggle my little boy. It won't be long before the snuggle phase is over and I have another active, mobile baby on my hands, so I'm trying to soak it in as best as I can.

Getting There

The day isn't completely over, so I may be jumping the gun a bit, but I'm feeling rather proud of how well it went.

Adjusting to life with two kids has been less than easy on me, and that has been with constant support and help from my husband and parents. I have yet to learn how to cope well with irreversible change, and it sends me flying into a huge pit of depression and despair. I wasn't able to escape it with Wes's arrival like I had hoped. Getting through the past three weeks has undoubtedly been a team effort, and because of those efforts I haven't had to care for both boys on my own up until this weekend.

Today I finally feel like we're on the right track. I'm getting to the point where I feel like I can actually handle this whole two children thing. I'm okay with the fact that it's not going to be easy, and I know there's going to be days when I question why I ever thought I was ready for such a crazy adventure. But at least I'm finding the faith that I'm strong enough to do this.

After a good nights sleep (Wes and I fell asleep around 11:30pm and he only woke up at 4am) and a few cups of morning coffee (which I now realize how much I missed) I felt pretty prepared for the day. Between playdoh and some time spent outside, we had a good morning with hardly any meltdowns from Aiden. He ate his lunch, went pee-pee in the potty and had NO accidents in his Thomas undies, and fell asleep for a nap. Simple things that I never thought would excite me so much, but which have made this day quite a success.

I'm happy that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that we're going the right direction to reach that light. I wouldn't say that I'm 100% comfortable in my new life, but I'm certainly getting there.

Nightmare Child

I'm going insane. 


My sweet, happy, easy-going (for the most part) 2.5 year old has turned into...well...a monster. Harsh maybe, but disgustingly true.

If we go more than 20 minutes without a major meltdown, I consider myself lucky. Everything is the end of the world lately, and "No!" is his new favorite answer. Meal times are a battle (anything besides mac n cheese is rejected), sleeping is a battle (crying hysterically because he threw his burp rag off the bed, or he's cold, or there's an imaginary booger in his nose), and being out in public is the ultimate battle.

Today was an especially rough day because I was home alone with both kids. Wesley needs about an hour of my time every four-ish hours, and the rest of his time is spent sleeping or staring into space. He's insanely low-key. Of course, though, during that hour, Aiden decides he neeeeds everything under the sun and suddenly has lost all ability to do anything himself. Leave it to my toddler to make me feel insanely guilty when I have to say "I'm sorry but I'm feeding Wes right now. You'll have to wait a minute."
- Cue meltdown from Aiden. -

I thought it was a brilliant idea when I cooked Aiden his lunch, sat him down to eat, and then proceeded to feed Wes. Multi-tasking is what good moms are made of, after all. It wasn't very long into the meal when I heard sounds of food hitting the floor behind me. I promptly put Wes down (in the middle of his bottle) and walked over to find pieces of corndog lying everywhere. When I told Aiden that he was getting his plate taken away, he decided to send his entire plate flying in retaliation.

Seriously, I wanted to cry.

I'm at a loss here. I don't know if this is because of Wes's arrival, or if it's just him being a toddler. I don't know if I need to give him more love and understanding, or more discipline. I don't know what to do when we're in the middle of Target and he's screaming his head off and I need to finish what I came there to do. This is the part of parenting that I clearly suck at.

In other news...

Ants have infested our house and we're struggling to find where and why they're getting in. What's most bothersome is that they're the worst in Aiden's room. We bought ant poison to set out and sprayed around the windows, so hopefully that works. I'm thoroughly disgusted, though, and Tom isn't exactly being pro-active about the situation because "it's not like they're killer ants or something."



I have another long day of taking care of Aiden and Wes ahead of me tomorrow. I hate that I'm dreading it, but I am. On broken sleep, I just seem to be completely lacking the ability to deal with the situation effectively, and I honestly feel like such a failure because of it. I really hope he gives me a break tomorrow.

Back At It

An email from Dr. A asking me to write another piece for yet another book has me in a frenzy. Looking back at old journals, reading old thoughts....cherishing them. Maybe they weren't the most pleasant of thoughts, and they certainly document the lowest points of my life, but I realize now that they're all I have. For some reason my memory fails me, and my journaling is the only thing that sparks my brain to recollect my past. So it's for that reason that I start this back up again. I want to be able to remember the small details of my days - I don't ever want to lose the memories.

We had an insanely gorgeous summer day today, and I'm sad that I didn't take advantage of it more. Wes and I took an early afternoon nap together, and by the time I woke up it was time to get ready and head over to Tom's parents house. Grandma Pat flew in today, so we had dinner over there with her. Aiden was an extremely happy little boy when I got there. He was "galloping" around the house and yelling "HEE-HAW!", with an occasional one of his giggles that I adore. He played outside in the sandbox while Grandma Pat snuggled Wes, and then we took a golf cart ride around the farm. Wes's first ride, and he fell asleep (of course).

After everybody had eaten dinner was probably the most special part of the night. I was holding a sleeping Wes, Aiden and Tom were playing outside with Bailey, and pretty soon Chester and Signe, and Marty and Riley all joined us. I felt like I was in a dream world while I watched Aiden play, Bailey catch her ball, and Tom's family laugh and joke. It was one of those moments that I just wanted to freeze - I couldn't get enough of it. Everything was okay in that moment, and it felt nice to just enjoy life. Tom was exhausted from a long work day, so at 9 o'clock we decided to finally call it a night.

I had been struggling with myself and my thoughts for the majority of the day, so I'm extremely thankful for such a wonderful night. Watching Aiden run around in the grass with his bare feet, not a care in the world - those are the moments that I live for.

Forward Progress

I made decisions today! Hallelujah! Our wedding is slowly coming together...

First: the dress.

Tom and I hopped in the car yesterday and took a little road trip to McHenry, IL. It was a quaint little town with every store imaginable - including Kathryn's Bridal, home of the amazing dress from my previous post. (Yes folks, that's right, I found a store that actually had a sample for me to try on. Wahoo!) Tom dropped me off so I could finally meet the dress of my dreams, and let me tell you, it certainly lived up to every expectation that I had of it. I had absolutely no intention of purchasing the gown from that store, but my curiosity did persuade me to inquire about the price. Are you ready for this? $2,200.00 EEK! That's more than the price of our reception! Luckily for me, there are at least eight of my dress being sold online by ex-brides for less than half of that price. In fact, I'm paying less for the dress of my dreams than I would have paid for any other gown that I had considered buying. Score!

Second: the colors.
I decided that attempting to visualize the black and white damask theme in our reception room just wasn't cutting it, so I took matters into my own hands:

The "runner" actually looks more like a black and white cheetah print, but let's just ignore my lack of patience with photoshopping last night.

We decided to forego the damask idea. As much as we both love it, it just doesn't suit the room. So, we sat down and looked at my massive folder of wedding inspiration and came up with this:

Apple-green tablecloths, brown napkins

With tall white and green flower centerpieces

And a tiny hint of pink

So I think the hardest parts of this wedding planning are over with!

As Visions of Dresses Danced in Her Head

I don't know who I was kidding when I thought I could somehow plan a wedding in a mere 8 months. I am your royal highness of indeciseveness, and I will be lucky if I'm able to make one decision within that time frame.

Currently, the sticking point is with the dress. I've been to three stores and have tried on at least 40 different dresses, and I'm still unable to hunker down and settle on just one. I love the ball gown look, with the bustles in the skirt and the big dramatic train. It's the only day in my life where I would be able to get away with wearing such a dress, so why not go for it? But then I try on these lovely lace ones that are very me. Always a tiny bit of vintage love mixed in with this modern girl. The trouble? Finding a dress that incorporates both elements. Plus, I can't figure out if I like the very fitted bodice, or an A-line that would cover up my baby belly.

This is what happens when I'm given too many choices.

This is the only dress I've found that marries (ha.ha. get it?) my love of lace with my love of the ball gown:

I've been eyeing it up since the day I found it online, but that's about all I'm able to do because nobody in a 100 mile radius of Wisconsin has a sample for me to try on. How irritating is that?!

So now I'm left here to decide...

Do I buy the (expensive) dress that I know I like, or take the plunge and buy my dream dress without ever seeing it in person? OR. Do I continue shopping?

The invitation, centerpiece, music, food, etc dilemnas are sure to follow....

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

During my (seemingly) never-ending struggle with depression, self-injury, and Borderline Personality Disorder, I saw a psychologist with whom I will forever be in debt to. The darkest times of my life were walked through with him by my side, always assuring me that there was hope. He did everything within his power to help me out of the hole I was in, and never let me feel like I was in it alone. Admittedly, I wanted so bad for him to "rescue" me from the prison that was myself, that I probably forced him to cross the line a time or two. He didn't want to let me down - he couldn't let me down, out of the fear of losing me in response. I understand this extremely shitty position I put him in, and I understand that maybe he should have put his foot down at certain times. But even in thinking that, I'm always left to wonder; would I still be alive if he had? What if he hadn't been there?

This is the trouble with Borderline patients. We are so needy, and crave for someone to come save us. We'll threaten, become violent, or even attempt suicide to prove how much we need that person. And that person, feeling responsible and desperate to help, often feeds into it.

After awhile, my wonderful therapist had to throw the towel in. Even after being completely burnt out from trying everything in his power to bring me back from the edge, he still stuck with me until I was able to find a program that might suit my needs. Shortly after Christmas, I was on my way to Boston, MA to get treatment at the "famous" McLean Hospital.

Unfortunately, the guy who deserves nothing less than to see me alive, well, and happy can't even come close to me. It's been a long and drawn out battle, but my parents decided that they didn't want to pay for the time he devoted to my care. My belief is that the situation escalated into an ethics battle (however I don't know for sure because nobody will tell me anything), and for the last 6 months I have been awaiting an end to this horrific story.

A Google search provided me with the answer I didn't want to know, but needed to know:

http://psychcrimereporter.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/wisconsin-places-limitations-on-license-of-psychologist-paul-r-hamilton/

I am the 16 year old girl, and I am the monster that has created a nightmare in the life of a man that deserves nothing but praise for actually giving two shits about his patient.

It's a lot to bite off and chew. Much in the same way that he wished he could "fix" me, I wish I could fix what has happened. I'm completely and utterly powerless to do anything, and I think that's one of the worst pieces for me to try to digest. This man has done so much to help me, but there is nothing I can do to help him. Even worse? I'm the root of the problem.

Exxxxxhhausted

It's been quite a week in our household, thanks to Senor Shmaiden.

We started off last Sunday with the beginning of his misery. There was no sleep to be had on Sunday night, and Tom promptly whisked Aiden off to the pediatrician on Monday. A positive strep test and some antibiotics later, we thought we were on the road to recovery.

The antibiotics refused to take any quick action on Aiden's throat, so Tuesday and Wednesday we spent the days snuggling in front of the TV, watching every episode of Wonderpets on the DVR. It was the only thing keeping him happy, and I didn't mind getting to hold my baby. The nights were still rough, with Aiden waking up to scream and cry every few hours. I had to hold back tears myself - I hate feeling so powerless to help my child.

Thursday showed some signs of hope! The toys were back out, and I could actually put Aiden down without him getting upset. He went to daycare and did fine. Surely he was better, I thought.

Yesterday we took a trip downhill again. He was screaming so hard and so much, and for no obvious reason. Nothing made him happy. Plus, his entire face and torso was covered in a spotty rash. By 7 o'clock at night we packed up and made the journey to the Children's Hospital urgent care. After a long wait with an exhausted baby, we were told he's probably allergic to the antibiotic he was given. They gave him some Benadryl and I reluctantly walked away with a (still) screaming child.

Not content with the answer I was given, we went back to the pediatrician this morning. Why am I not content? Because a simple allergy would not make my normally perfect, happy son turn into a screaming, crying, incosolable little boy. Something is wrong and I want an answer - stat!
The doctors answer today was that it's most likely teething. Okay, yeah, I'll buy that...slightly. I don't think it's the cause of the rash, and I still have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that we're missing something. He has 6 teeth now, and he has NEVER been this bad when he's been getting one in. Why would it be any different with these new ones? Sure he's been crabby, but a little Tylenol has always done the trick, and he was never screaming at the top of his lungs for hours upon hours.

It's all been pretty stressful for me, and I'm purely exhausted from the lack of the sleep, the worry, the pacing around the house holding Aiden, and the constant effort to remain patient and calm while my son cries relentlessly. I'm so thankful for Tom, who is always willing to take him while I gather my sanity, and who is WAY more patient than I will ever be. I would be going absolutely crazy if I didn't have him.

Whatever's going on, I hope we get back to some normalcy soon.

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.

To Hell and Back

If you ever tell someone "Go to hell" in the future, just know that you're sending them to Chicago, IL.

My plans for a fun-filled evening driving to the city, grabbing some dinner at a fun restaurant, and just enjoying our time, well - they went to complete shit.

Our drive started off fine. We listened to my CD of Nsync Christmas songs, made fun of the guy who was driving on the highway with a seatbelt hanging out of his car door, and planned our evening of fun. Once we neared Chicago-land, though, the fun officially stopped when we sat like this...:

...for at least an hour. We were at Exit 33 and needed to get to Exit 41. No big deal, right? Wrong.  We actually got off early because, using my handy dandy GPS system on my iPhone, I found that we could take a different route that didn't involve an interstate. Unfortunately for us, my genius plan backfired because that road was just as busy and had stop lights.

Luckily for us, just as we were nearing Jenna's house, we saw this awesome sign:

If you can't quite make that out, it says SENIOR CITIZENS. Whhhaaa????!!?! They get their own signs??? I was rolling with laughter.

We broke into Jenna's house We got Jenna's neighborly friend to let us into the house and rescue our cake, and then asked for some good eating advice. "No, don't go to downtown Chicago, there's awesome places like TWO blocks up! Everything you could want!"

So we head two blocks up, and actually manage to find our way to this magical location. Great, right? Well, I have no idea where all these amazing restaurants are that he was talking about (probably the opposite direction than we turned), because we didn't find any. In attempt to turn around, we actually just went far out of the way, and gave up on the whole "two blocks away" idea. Then we spotted a cute little diner place that we decided to try. Problem? They claimed parking was on a certain street but I would have died before I found that street, and been re-incarnated before I was able to GET to the street.

We were both officially fed up with being lost, one way streets, and the traffic, so we decided to ditch the eating in Chicago thing and head for home.

I'll spare the story, but it took longer to get to the freeway than it took to get from the freeway. Then, we passed the entrance ramp to get on, turned around, and found that there was no way to get on from that direction. So we waited in ANOTHER traffic line once we turned around a mile away.

::sigh::

We ended up eating from a drive-thru once we got close to home.

The good news? The cake is here, in one piece, and it looks awesome.

Tom and I will be avoiding Chicago at all costs until we've recovered from our horrible experience.

A La Carte

I've finally figured out (and even purchased) our munchies for Aiden's party on Saturday. Huge relief!

Here's what I'm serving up (keep in mind that I'm a complete newbie to this whole entertaining/throwin a party scene):

Mini-weenies - they may not look appetizing but they're spectacular

Pretty plentiful menu considering I originally started with absolutely no ideas.

Now, on to the millions of other things that need to be accomplished before Saturday.