A Whole New World

This is getting WEIRD. It's a strange transition, from "what are our plans on Saturday night?" and "what did your mom make for dinner tonight?" to "how do we change out the old light fixture to install this new chandelier?"and "shit, we don't have an oven mitt to get that pan of pizza bites out of the oven" or "how did we just spend $80 at Target on toilet paper and light bulbs and kitchen cleaner?". "Welcome to adulthood," people keep telling me :) It really is pretty funny. We went trash can shopping this weekend. And I don't mean we ran in to Target and picked up a trash can, I mean we SHOPPED, in multiple stores, for a trash can. And, as I alluded to before, we bought a new chandelier from Lowes to replace the boring one that's currently hanging over our dining room. Of course, given the fact that the current fixture in hanging from about an 18-foot ceiling in the middle of a room, we have no idea how we'll install this new one, or if it's even possible without an enormous ladder. Maybe manitenance will switch it out for us :) I'm sure they have gigantic ladders. Anyway, we also bought loads of paper towels, some snack food to have around while we work in the apartment, a $12.99 floor lamp, trash bags... all manner of things we've never had to buy together before. They're the simplest things, but it's so crazy when all of a sudden you have to go buy these things together. Once again, it's another giant step toward "realness"... another "holy crap, this is getting REAL" moment.

We also bought tons of painting supplies! I'm sure I don't have to tell you that between the "stocking the apartment" shopping trips and the painting supply shopping trips, it seems like we probably spent the equivalent of the GDP of a small COUNTRY this weekend. Dear GOD. But that's neither here nor there. What's important is, we started painting our bedroom yesterday :) We did the two light walls and primed the two dark walls, which will get painted today. I have to see some doctors today (GI doctor about my recurrent gall bladder pains... stay tuned on that one... and my PCP to ask about an inhaler, while I await "new patient" appt with the pulmonologist... first available being APRIL 29TH!!!), so I'm not going to work. The only appt I could get with the GI doc was at 11am today (unless I wanted to wait 2 more weeks), which means going in this morning would've been a waste (I'd have an hour and a half commute to work, and then a 2 hour commute from work to the doctor at GMBC), and going in this afternoon would be a waste too unless I wanted to stay late, which I quite obviously DO NOT. So I got Ben to work a half-day so we could meet at the apt after my GI doctor appt and paint some more. It's not even really a half day since he gets up at 3:30 and is at work by 5 - leaving at noon is still a 7-hour day! But he has to use 2 precious hours of the vacation time that he so psychotically hoards (he's really hyper about his vacation time and keeping it stock-piled for the wedding and such - though he has enough for us to get married and go on two honeymoons). So anyway, we'll certainly be posting pics as things get painted. It's gonna look so bad ass! I can't wait!

As you may have noticed, I'm up incredibly early given that it's a day off for me. I couldn't go back to sleep after Ben left (at 4am) so I've been doing random crap on the computer all morning and now the sun is coming up. Ew. AND I have a heinous headache, probably from sitting here in front of the computer without my reading glasses because I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get them. I think I might just get up and go to the gym, although I'm finally starting to feel tired so that might not work out so well. We'll see. For now, I have to get this computer out of my face!!!

Our "Other" BIG Day :)

First things first - I'd like to thank Kat for her excellent suggestion, and direct you all to scroll down and check out my new wedding countdown :) I have countdowns everywhere else in my life (Facebook... MySpace... my bathroom sink... seriously - I have a countdown clock on my bathroom sink) so I'm not sure why this hadn't occurred to me yet. But thanks to some quick thinking from upstate NY, I've remedied the situation! Thanks Kat!

So, TOMORROW is our next BIG day... we're signing our lease and picking up our keys and walking into our very first apartment, which will be officially OURS! SOOOO excited! Unfortunately we won't have much time to spend staring in awe at our white walls, but we'll be going back over the course of the weekend. We might even go to Home Depot and get some paint and painters tape, so we can at least start taping this weekend. Ben wants to paint before we start moving anything in, and I'm anxious to move some things out of my poor dad's increasingly over-crowded house (we've basically got two rooms full of stuff... plus my bedroom of course). So I'm hoping we can tape this weekend and paint next weekend, and probably the following weekend too. I won't fool myself into thinking it's only going to take one weekend.

This weekend will be a little busy though. For starters, it's my mom's first wedding anniversary, so she and my stepdad are going to Ocean City (where they spent their honeymoon - it was just a long weekend and they're basically just doing the same thing again). Which means I get to watch the dog. She's not difficult or anything, it just means that I have to plan my weekend around that responsibility. We're essentially supposed to be house-sitting too. We might go out with college friends on Friday - my friend (also my bridesmaid's boyfriend) Matt is coming up from NC (he's in a chemistry PhD program at UNC) so we're trying to get together while he's here. And Saturday evening is "secret meeting night" - our once-monthly tradition with Ben's sisters - and we're meeting at Em's for a cookout (depending on the weather). It's really not THAT busy, but when you throw in trying to spend some time in White Marsh, it starts to seem a little hectic to me. Anyway, you probably didn't need the play-by-play of my weekend. I'll move on.

Wedding stuff is starting to seem a little more urgent to me these days. Invitations are assembled, sealed, stamped and sitting in a box waiting to go out this weekend. Felt good to get that all taken care of, and it was actually quite enjoyable - Ben and I just sat at the dining room table in my empty house on Sunday and chatted while we put them all together. My next project is programs. It's already pissing me off. I had grand ideas, and they just aren't looking as grand as I thought. They're looking homemade, which makes me angry. I don't want them to look homemade. Of course they ARE, in fact, homemade, which makes avoiding the whole "homemade look" quite difficult. I don't know yet what the solution is, but I'm working on it. It'll probably keep me up half the night... wonderful. We've scheduled a walk-through with our photographer, and our final DJ meeting (I can't even begin to tell you how FABULOUS our DJ is... there are no words), and our final meeting with the Pastor... I know I keep saying this, but things are really starting to feel REAL! Every time I think "Holy crap, this shit is REAL!" it just gets real-er the next day. Oh, anyone know of a website where I can get cute return address labels that aren't ridiculously priced? I got a bug up my ass the other day about ordering return address labels for us in our new apartment with my new last name, knowing we'll need them for all those thank-you notes when we get back from the honeymoon. I guess writing all the thank-yous for my shower gifts got me thinking about that. Totally random. But anyway, most of what I found in my brief search was either lame or pricey. Although me blogging about return address labels might actually be the lame part of this scenario...

I'm also taking suggestions for mother/son and father/daughter dance songs, as well as a song to play when our parents are introduced into the reception. We're planning on doing our mother/son and father/daughter dance at the same time, so it can't be "Butterfly Kisses" or "Mama" or anything gender-specific. Right now we're thinking "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion. Doesn't quite fit into the rest of our musical scheme, but it's a pretty song with the right sentiment. Does anyone know of anything Jack Johnson-ish that would work? You know, just a one-guy-and-a-guitar kind of song? And we want to play something upbeat, but kind of a throw-back, for when our parents are introduced. But there's a bit of a generation gap between his parents (mid-60's) and mine (early 50's), not to mention vast differences in musical taste (Johhny Cash versus Led Zeppelin). It's a challenge. A small detail, but a challenge. These are the kinds of things that can really stump you.

Speaking of being stumped, the whole seating chart thing is KILLING me. First of all, let me just say that I am fully aware of how ridiculous it is that I'm even working on a seating chart. As you may have noticed from earlier in this post, I haven't even sent invitations yet, much less gotten responses - I don't even know who's coming. But that little organizational bug that lives in the pit of my stomach gets an idea in its head from time to time and just won't let me rest until I work on it. Ugh. But hey, if that's my biggest wedding-related problem (that and the damn cheezy programs), I'm doing alright. It seems like EVERYONE has a horror story about how their families acted during their wedding planning process (or even their WEDDING itself), and I've been incredibly blessed with two families that couldn't care less what I do with my wedding as long as I'm happy :) Not that they aren't interested - they're always interested in how things are going and excited for the big day - but they haven't really asked for anything (apart from a modest list of friends they'd like to have there, which I asked them for), much less made any demands.

Alright it's late and this is far longer than I intended, as usual. I really just wanted to share my excitement about TOMORROW but I guess I got carried away :) YAY FOR TOMORROW!

And now for something completely different

Just thought I'd share with you all that I am currently WINNING my lab's NCAA pool :) I am very proud of this accomplishment, because it clearly demonstrates that I have yet to lose my capacity for bull-shitting, despite having been graduated from college for nearly a year. This is good news for my future, as I am about to enter into what promises to be the most grueling and challenging phase of my educational career, and I've still got it baby!

Sombreros and mojitos and limos, OH MY!

Me & my soon-to-be sisters: Amberly, Emily, (me) and Annie

Most of you who follow my blog were probably there, but I'm blogging about it anyway - Saturday was my long-awaited bridal shower and bachelorette party! The shower was mexican-themed, in honor of our (also long-awaited... still awaiting...) honeymoon in Cancun. The decorations were kick-ass... there were chili peppers on the walls, incredibly bright streamers and table cloths and daisies, adorable little mexican candles that Janelle's doll of a mother sent with her (a cactus wearing a sombrero, for example), and a cake so bright and festive you could probably see it from space!

See what I mean?!?! It was pretty intense. And the food... oh the food. Taco dip, quesadillas, delectable little roll-up things (the contents of which I am unsure of, but they were awesome), fresh guacamole, salsa con queso... it was a mexican extravaganza. And to top it all off, my favorite drink, mojitos :) I had several. As you can see in the first photo I posted, they made me wear a sombrero. They think I kept it on because of the mojitos, which is a lie. I kept it on because I didn't want anyone to hurt me for taking it off :) We had a nice-size crowd - not too overwhelming. I think it turned out to be just under 30 people, which was about all I could handle anyway - I still feel like there were a few people that I barely got to visit with :'( Ben was there in the beginning - he got home from work around noon and showered and was there to say hi for a bit and then went to Em's to hang out with her husband for the day/evening. He said if he hadn't already made plans with Josh he would've stayed because it was suck a kick-ass party :)
Part of what made it so kick-ass was the awesome PEOPLE there. Left to right, back row first: Dana (bridesmaid and college roommate, living in Cali), Tara (friend from college, works with me at NIH), Me in my crazy sombrero, Janelle (maid of honor and college roommate), Sam (bridesmaid and friend from high school, also getting married in Nov), Alecia (bridesmaid and best friend since middle school). Front row: Kristy (bridesmaid and college roommate, also shortest person I know), and Annie (Ben's step-brother's wife... or just my new sister).

So anyway, after about an hour and a half of mingling, we started with the gift-opening. THAT was fun! I got tons of wonderful stuff from my registries (and various other items), including my coffee maker with grinder, our giant toaster oven (you can cook a 12-inch pizza in that sucker), nearly everything bathroom-related (towels, shower curtain, hamper, scale, accessories...), my 6-quart crock pot AND mini dip-size crock pot, electric fondue set... I could go on but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that we're off to a GREAT start filling our new apartment with goodies :) I also got a few gifts just for ME (a bracelet, some cash, a pedicure gift certificate...) which was lovely. However, for some mysterious reason, I lost my voice near the beginning of the gift-opening. I really don't think I was yelling, but like I said, I did have several mojitos so who knows. It started to come back before we left to go out, but of course by the end of the night I sounded like a man again. Speaking of going out, there was a bit of an issue with our original limo running late, so they sent a Hummer...


Pretty sweet! It was HUGE and we had plenty of room. We enjoyed champagne with peach schnapps and grenadine (also referred to as a "blushing bride" - how appropriate!)... of which I had about 3 glasses :) Dana had stickers made for us that said "Jenna's Final Fling before the Ring" and had the date on them - so cute! So we stuck those all over ourselves on the way downtown also. We went straight to Power Plant and into Howl at the Moon, an awesome dueling piano bar that those of us from the area all LOVE. It wasn't crowded when we got there, but it was crowded enough that we had to snag a standing-room table in the back. I got a few glasses of water to start - my group was very nice to me :)
Lovely ladies from Gettysburg, Dana, Leanne and Janelle
The obligatory jello-shot-in-a-syringe. We made Em do one at her Bachelorette party, so I guess it was my turn. It was actually quite delicious!
We mostly stuck to the giant buckets-of-booze with lots of straws to go around. Kept costs down for everyone, and we didn't have to spend half the night ordering drinks.
Sam, Dana, Amberly, Em, Tara, me and Kristy huddled around our table. I have such beautiful friends :)

So, of course, lots of people go to Howl at the Moon for birthdays and bachelorette parties and such, so they have a tradition of embarassing the hell out of people with incredibly raunchy songs on stage. Given that I made Em get up there for her Bachelorette, I knew I wasn't getting out of it. Nor did I really want to get out of it - it's all about the memories! I'd post the video, but it's incredibly inappropriate ;) They sang me a song about my boyfriend "Dick" and all the things I like to do to him. And toward the end, I even got to act it all out with a prop (an extra microphone - "big, black, and full of batteries, just like the one you have at home!" LOL).
This photo about sums up my expression for most of it... half bent-over laughing, usually looking AWAY from the big crowd staring at me and toward my friends over there to my right. Oh, do you like my fuzzy tiara? It has flashing lights, too :)

When the piano bar started filling up, we decided to go somewhere we could dance (which never really happened, mostly because I started crapping out early, having been up since 7:30am), so we called the limo and headed over the Federal Hill. We went to Pub Dog and got pizza and beer, where I was also forced to take what amounted to a large SIP of a shot of grand marnier. It's gross, I don't recommend it. Our waitress brought two over on the house - Sam took one, and Dana and I split the other. I could've puked - I won't lie. I had to wash it down with LOTS of water!!! But anyway, I suppose that's all part of the fun. And really, everyone was very nice to me, and very forgiving. I really didn't want to get smashed, and no one tried to force me to. I've essentially moved past that stage of my life I think... the stage where I thought the heinous hang-over was worth it. I don't think it's worth it anymore. So I basically kept a good buzz going for most of the night and enjoyed my friends - it was exactly what I wanted it to be :) After our DELICIOUS Pub Dog pizza, we walked over to Mother's where we were planning to dance, but we just found a few tables and hung out for about 45 minutes, just winding down and laughing. We didn't get anymore drinks, and I was about ready to pass out anyway (from sleepiness, not from the alcohol!). Dana and Kristy spent one more night with me and had to head home the next morning, but it was SO wonderful to see both of them - they live the farthest away (CA and upstate NY). It was just so wonderful to have everyone together... all my best friends in one place, all mine :)

So, all in all, my parties were WONDERFUL and I can't thank everyone enough for all they did to make them so special for me. A special thank-you goes out to Ben's lovely sisters - MY lovely sisters - who took on the brunt of the responsibility for planning and executing all this. I love you both more than words can say, and I can't wait for all the memories we'll make as we build our families together :)

Thank you SO MUCH to EVERYONE who made trips, cooked food, spent money, brought gifts, and sacrificed time and energy to be with me this weekend. I had SO much fun, and I'll never forget all that you did. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

'Bush to pen memoir on decisions'

...read the headline on the metro Express paper this morning... LOL! As if on cue, in direct response to yesterday's blog, I've been issued a challenge. So next year (it's slated to come out in 2010) I'll be curling up by my gas fireplace to read "Decision Points", as it is tentatively titled. I almost couldn't believe it when I saw that in the paper today! Not because I only said what I said because I didn't think this would happen - I figured it would happen eventually - it's just hilarious that the announcement came out THE DAY AFTER I posted that! "The book reportedly will focus on about a dozen of Bush's choices over the course of his life and presidency, including his decision to stop drinking and his choice of Dick Cheney as Vice President. He'll also discuss his relationship with his father, plus his decision to send troops to Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina, and his religious beliefs" says the Associated Press. I'm looking forward to it! Especially the part about Dick Cheney...

The Audacity of Hope

I may be a little "partisan" on this one, but I really think that every fair-minded American should give our new President's book, The Audacity of Hope, a read. I don't say that because I think it'll turn all the conservatives liberal and we'll all get along and live happily ever after, but it provides important insights into the inner workings of modern politics, as well as an honest glimpse into what makes Barack Obama who he is as a man and as a politician. The only reason there's so much animosity swirling around these days when it comes to political figures is that the media LOVES to create outrageous caricatures of them to feed to the masses. The impressions we have of politicians come directly from the media - they're in complete control - apart from any attempt that an individual might make at offering a glimpse into who he or she REALLY is, as Barack Obama has done with this book. It's the only fighting chance that any politician has of ever getting his or her story out to the masses, because politicians can only personally meet and shake hands with so many people. It's incredibly unfortunate and unfair, how the media chooses to polarize and exaggerate - it happened to the previous administration and now Fox is doing it to the current administration. It's to be expected, of course, because it's what the public craves, so it's what the news outlets provide. Being charitable doesn't hike ratings, and like any television station, the 24-hour news stations have advertising slots to sell. I hate the media for that - I really do. ALL of them.

Anyway, the book also serves as an incredibly interesting primer on the workings of the senate, and of political campaigns. For someone interested in politics at all, it's an easy-to-understand version of what goes on underneath it all, and how things get so convoluted. Since the average citizen can't stand to watch C-SPAN for more than about an hour, much less the days or weeks it often takes to hash out the details and underpinnings of a particular bill, we get our news about legislation in quick, summary sound-bites on the evening news. This makes it INCREDIBLY easy to take a bill that, in it's details, is darn-near morally reprehensible, and make it sound like a bill that any sane senator couldn't help but vote for. Busy Americans don't have time for details, and it's easier to accept the media's spin than to probe the question yourself - we're all guilty of it. There's just TOO MUCH information out there to comb through it all ourselves, so we accept what the media feeds us, out of necessity. And with the advent of 24-hour news, even the "journalists" we're trusting don't have time to comb through all the details! Anyway, it's when people refuse to accept the existence of "spin" and decide that some particular media outlet is the only trustworthy news source out there that this animosity starts to spike, and unfortunately there are FAR too many Americans who insist on operating this way. Rather than accepting that the truth lies somewhere between CNN and Fox News, we cling to the station that's "on our side", throw up the blinders and let it all wash over us... the fear-mongering, the spin, the shameless exaggeration, the personal attacks, and the out-right ridiculous commentary that both sides stream 24 hours a day. I mean, come on - we live in a country where news personalities like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly have their OWN SHOWS. Only in the realm of politics could people who act that nutty actually get ratings. But if their "on our side", like I said, we put the blinders on and cheer them on and ignore the fact that to any visiting outsider, they look like complete nut cases. Ugh. I hate it. That's not at all what the book is about... I went off on a tangent about two sentences into this paragraph... sorry :)

Moving on, my impression of this book so far is that it's a genuine attempt on the part of the author to invite America in, and to relay a personal account of where he comes from, what he believes, and where his values lie. It's like an opportunity to get to know the guy a little bit. It makes me want to read books like this written by all kinds of politicians - not only because they're interesting people, but because I hate media spin so much and I'd love the opportunity to sorta get to know some of these controversial political figures on both sides of the aisle. Of course, since he's writing about HIMSELF, he's surely presenting the best of himself - recognizing that is part of recognizing that the truth usually lies somewhere between two extreme perspectives. But he certainly doesn't paint some kind of perfect picture either. He just writes so well and so genuinely that it feels like a conversation in your living room.

I have to say, I wouldn't mind reading an autobiographical account from President Bush on his time in the White House. I'd really love to find out that he truly believed what he said and wasn't intentionally deceiving the country in so many ways and for so many years - the reason that I so vehemently opposed that administration. I do suspect that the President himself was mislead by his own higher administration and I don't place full blame on his head - I think Cheney was largely responsible for many of the things that bothered me most - but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, unfortunately and through no fault of his own, the man simply isn't incredibly articulate. It's no big secret. I expect that anything he "writes" in the coming years will be ghost-written and heavily edited and will lose some of the personal, sincere flavor that I enjoy so much about President Obama's book. And that's not a slap to the previous President, it's just my realistic expectation. If you read a book "written" by President Bush and it was very well-written and free from errors and grammatically sound, it wouldn't feel personal because that's not the way he spoke as President - it just isn't. It wouldn't feel like it was him talking to you, ya know? His way with words, or lack there of, was part of his charm with his supporters, and I think you'd lose that if he tried to produce a publishable memoir. Like I said, I'm really not trying to be mean, just realistic. I just don't think it would accomplish what it was meant to accomplish. But if he puts one out, mark my words, I'll read it. You can take that to the bank.

Our Ideas...

This weekend, we went to Home Depot and picked up paint chips :) I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to pick out paint chips with him! LOL! But seriously, it was more exciting than it probably should be. We're going to be in this apartment for at least 4 years, probably more like 5 or 6, so we're going to make it our own. We're both into dark, bold paint. It's a good thing, because someone who isn't wild about dark paint wouldn't be too keen on my idea of a modern, chic space. Having done a lot of wedding planning recently, I've discovered a creative side of myself that I wasn't entirely aware of before now - and boy, have I created a monster! It's a little out of control. So I'm VERY excited for this giant creative outlet - bare canvasses everywhere!

So it's awesome that we agree on a paint scheme - we can check off that first hurdle. We could have completely disagreed, and we're both quite passionate about how our apartment is going to look, so the ensuing battle would've been ugly. We both like blues and reds and browns, neither of us are into greens or yellows or pinks or oranges, and certainly not white. It didn't take us long to decide what we wanted to do. He was actually quite shocked that I kept picking up things he loved! I was picking out things that I liked obviously, but I was also going out of my way to find things in that category that I thought he'd tolerate. He cares more about these things than the average guy ;) He would never just hand over the reins and let me decorate to my heart's content - it's always going to be a joint effort with him. That's fine with me - I love that he cares about it too and we can do it together, and that he wants to help! And since we tend to agree (so long as I don't get TOO creative!), it works out well for us. Maybe when he's older and has bigger fish to fry he won't care as much, but for now, he's into it. So anyway, here's what we're thinking...


I tried to re-create the colors we picked out as best I could on the computer screen, but it isn't perfect. And everyone's screen looks different, so who knows if there's even any point in trying to do this. And yes, I did this in PowerPoint at work :) The living room and kitchen color is actually a little more purple-y than this. I was shocked that the purple tinge was OK with him - he actually picked it out! I didn't bother mentioning it because I figured he'd hate that - he's very anti-purple. I'm obviously on purple-red kick (hence, my entire wedding scheme). So we'll do two adjacent accent walls in this color, and the rest in the cream. Our couches are medium blue with subtle dark red threads throughout, so I think the walls will pick up the red in the couches. They aren't what I would have picked out myself, but I like them just fine, and they're free! They were my mom's, and she got new furniture last year, and since Em and Josh needed furniture and Ben and I didn't have a place to store my mom's old stuff, they've been using it for us in the meantime :) Anyway, moving on, our bed linens are taupes, creams and chocolates, so I thought dark accent walls would go nicely in there too, with taupe on the other walls. The blue we'll actually use will probably be less "royal" than this and more "navy", but you get the idea. A deep, dark blue. The bathroom linens are chocolate, cream and ocean blue, so we're thinking dark chocolate brown in the bathroom, on all the walls. And in the interest of keeping it from looking too much like a circus when you walk in, we're going to make most of the space you see from the front door match - the kitchen will match the accent walls in the living room, and we'll probably continue the cream color from the living room through the dining area. I think, all in all, it'll flow together pretty nicely. The dark red will be eye-catching and pretty out in the common space, and then with the bathroom and bedroom, each has hints of the other in it in terms of color (brown sheets in the bedroom, brown walls in the bathroom... blue walls in the bedroom, blue accents in the bathroom... you get it). I don't know whether we'll paint up in the loft or not, but in any case it won't be a big priority right now.

Now we just have to decide whether or not we're willing to tackle the walls that run all the way up to the cathedral ceiling. We could just try to stick to only painting the short walls, but I think that would look a little ridiculous, and we'd be leaving a LOT of white space (especially since those are the most dominating walls in the space because they run so high). Ben is all for painting one of the big walls in the living room with an accent color. Being the tall one and the man he'll probably do most of the ladder work anyway, so I guess if he wants to do it, who am I to argue? It would look pretty bad ass, I won't lie. But we do have to paint everything back at the end of our stay (to white), so this will require priming and several coats to paint initially, followed by more priming and several coats before we move out. Ugh. We'll see. As for the rest of the decor, I think I'd like to go for gold accents, and we're only buying dark dark brown/black furniture. And most importantly, I'm going for clean and simple, so we're going to REALLY try to limit the amount of "stuff" out on display in the common spaces. I know this will be tough though - everyone thinks they're going to do it and no one really does. We'll see. So that's a summary of the ideas I've been playing with lately. Things could change, but since we seem to agree on all of this, we probably won't be deviating a whole lot!

Hardly containing myself!

I am SO SO SO excited for this weekend! My bridal shower and bachelorette party are on Saturday :) I've been to many showers, and I've always been so jealous of the bride-to-be. I've always wondered what it would feel like to have so much excitement and celebration surrounding me, and on so many different occasions! It always seemed to me like being engaged was just a non-stop party - engagement parties, bridesmaid gatherings, dress shopping, showers, more parties, rehearsal dinners, the BIG party, the honeymoon... and in many ways, it IS a non-stop party. It has its moments that don't feel so festive, but those are few and far between (in my experience, anyway), and there's enough GREAT stuff that you forget the uncomfortable moments rather quickly. I'm gonna be honest with you though, and this may come as a shock... it's WAAAAY more fun when you're the bride :) It's even more fun than I ever imagined it would be! You see the superficially fun aspects of it when you're on the outside looking in at the beaming bride sitting atop her mountain of gifts. But when you ARE the bride, you get to experience it on another level. You start to understand the significance of it all - that there are this many people who love you enough to buy you gifts and make tons of food and pour their extra efforts (even when they don't have much spare time to give) into making the entire experience special for you. You remember the excitement you felt for the brides before you, and you realize that all these people are feeling that for you. I haven't even gotten there yet, and already I'm overwhelmed by it.

My sisters-in-law are doing most of the planning. Amberly spends her days trying to corral a 4-year-old wild man and a 15-month-old monkey who has recently learned how to climb, while still trying to devote some time to her 9-year-old daughter who has school and homework and special medications and therapies to do at home, AND works a few days a week as a nurse, with a husband who works shift work. Emily is in her first year of teaching a new curriculum for two different high school classes, and as a result is stuck planning EVERY lesson for EVERY class this entire year - an ongoing process that takes up most of her evenings, in addition to the grading. Then throw two grad school classes on top of that, which take up over half of her weeknights, never mind spending time with her new husband of just over a year. As if these two didn't have enough to do with their spare time - what little they may have on occasion - throw my shower and bachelorette party on top of it. What overwhelms me is the excitement with which they just threw themselves into it - both of them. They didn't grudgingly accept the burden because they felt like it was their responsibility, they got excited and jumped right in. Not only do they accept me as Ben's future wife, they're excited to make the whole thing memorable and special for me, because they love me. These aren't MY sisters, in technical terms anyway, but you wouldn't know that from looking at the situation. I know it's not an ENORMOUS deal in the grand scheme of things - it's just one day - but it means a lot to me. It makes me feel incredibly loved and special :) So, to everyone who's participating in all this, THANK YOU so much. And a special thanks to my sisters, who are going above and beyond the standard bridesmaid "obligation" to make this a special day for me. I love you guys :)

Welcome Home!

My future husband and I have our first address! After a whirlwind apartment shopping spree, we've found our first home :) We couldn't be more thrilled with it! Beautiful community, perfect floorplan, all the amenities we wanted and then some, and most importantly, an extremely convenient and SAFE area. We ended up taking the apartment that I was describing in yesterday's post at Cambridge Court. We did go to visit the last place we were interested in (Silver Spring Station), but it didn't take much convincing for us to drive straight over to Cambridge to fill out our application...

Ben left work early to get to Silver Spring at 4:15, after being told that while the office closes at 5, they take their last tour at 4:30, and getting there around 4:30 wasn't good enough, he needed to try to get there sooner. Of course, I had every intention of getting there on time especially since I didn't go to work today, but I had spent the day nursing a migraine and was scrambling to get out the door. I didn't start my shower early enough, I forgot I needed to get a copy of my pay history from my admin lady at work for applications, I had to stop for gas... and then there was an accident on 695 (of course) that held me up significantly. Ben and I were texting and calling back and forth the whole time I was driving, and I'm stressing and weaving in and out of traffic trying to get there in time. At 4:30 I told Ben I was about 15 minutes out, but this girl would only wait 5 minutes before starting the tour for Ben. So, knowing that I'd never make it in 5 minutes, Ben went ahead and started the "tour" (which consisted of them showing him one unit with the floorplan we were interested in, so it obviously didn't take long). When I was less than 5 minutes out I sent him a text - they were already back from the tour, and he asked if she could stick around a few more minutes to just show me the apartment so that I could at least take a quick look (it's 4:47 now), to which she replies "Ummm, it's 10 of 5..." and gives some lame ass excuse about how they "don't leave anyone behind" in their office so if she stays everyone has to stay. He gave her one last "come on, just a few more minutes" and her response was "sorry". So no more than a minute after he got into his car, I pulled up - it's now 4:50. The damn office is still open for 10 more minutes, but apparently they might as well close at 4:30 because you can't get them to do anything past then. So he told me what they said, told me there was nothing special about the apartment he saw (about the same size, same amenities, just crappy people in the front office - and only $10 a month cheaper). So it wasn't difficult to make that decision! We went straight over to Cambridge and applied.

She approved us within 5 minutes (it was a tense 5 minutes though!). While she was running the app through, she let us know that the other leasing agent she works with had a couple come in today who was very interested in our apartment and had asked her to put a hold on it for them tomorrow if we didn't take it today (our hold was good til 6pm today). So apparently we did the right thing by hurrying up and getting our other visits taken care of so we could make a decision. So anyway, once we were approved, she let us take the keys and go visit our new home for a few minutes before closing time...

Our Building

Our community, complete with nice new playground and pool so we can be the cool aunt and uncle with the pool (sorry Em & Josh... LOL). The "pool", while it's large, is 3'6" deep the whole way around! Pretty comical. Moving on...

When you first walk in, you see the kitchen. Complete with it's GAS STOVE (this makes me INCREDIBLY happy), dishwasher, garbage disposal... and that door opens to a full size washer and dryer :)

Looking into the kitchen from the corner of the dining area - we'll definitely be putting some bar stools there at the overhang to make our own little breakfast bar

Looking from the kitchen out into the dining area - the black square over there in the upper right is our gas fireplace :) And it's a small thing, but I love the extra-tall 6-foot windows. They just open it up and give it a slightly more modern look. And if you turn left at the window, the staircase up to the loft is on the other side of that wall.

Ben showing his excitement in our new living room with cathedral ceiling. That door over there opens to our little deck - it's about 6 or 7 feet square and will definitely fit a little table and chairs :) Or maybe just two chaise lounges for relaxing outside in the evenings when it's warm... (I may be GROSSLY overestimating the amount of "relaxation" time I'll have over the next 4 years...)

An aerial shot from the loft looking down into the living room and dining room

The loft - also known as my study room and the snake's bedroom and the guest room... but at least it's 15x8 feet and has its own cable jack :)

Our bedroom - I spared you the closet pic, but it's a nice-size walk-in

The bathroom - very exciting I know. This is looking through the doorway by the living room. Obviously there's a shower in there on the other side of the toilet ;)

This is a shot of the bathroom from our bedroom (we may not have a master bath, but we do have our own door to the one bath we have!)

So that's our humble abode, which we'll be calling home for at least the next 4 years! The rooms could be a little bigger and the price could be a little lower, but for the perks we're getting and the wonderful, safe neighborhood, those are worthwhile sacrifices. It's only the two of us - we don't need an oversized floor plan. It's a NICE place for our first, so we're not going to complain about not getting every last little thing we would've liked to have. We're just feeling incredibly blessed to have found this at an affordable price! We "move in" March 26th (which basically means we get keys and start paying - neither of us is living there til we get back from the honeymoon), so we'll have from then until the end of May to paint and slowly move things in and get it all set up for our new life together :) There were LOTS of smiles and "woo hoo"s and fist-pumping and kisses and hugs today! I'd love to ramble on (and I know you wish I would... haha!) but it's WAAAAAAAAAAY past this girl's bed time. I'm off to dream about paint schemes...

I think "fun" is supposed to be the word...

"Round two" is going well so far, it's just a stressful process. It's a big decision, and you can't always have EVERYTHING you want in one package, so there's a lot of hemming and hawing involved. For an indecisive person like myself, this is a gourmet recipe for headaches, upset stomachs, sleep deprivation, and just general, unending discomfort, 24 hours a day.

So, "round two" of apartment hunting again began online. I searched 3 different apartment search sites, most of which had all the same stuff anyway. We upped our price limit a tad, and I generally stayed away from anything close to the beltway. I didn't completely discount them - if they looked half-way decent I'd check them out (crime report and previous tenant reviews), but more often than not, they didn't check out very well. Over the past few days, we narrowed it down to 3 complexes. All right around White Marsh Mall and The Avenue, with in-unit washers & dryers, with average ratings of 3.5 stars or higher on apartmentratings.com, and no major crime issues. Apparently these are IT. And I've looked, quite compulsively, non-stop, for days. Ben called them and got my long list of questions answered for each, and made appointments to see two of the three today.

So, for the second time this week, I rushed out of work and drove from Rockville to White Marsh (guess I'd better get used to it!) to meet him. Our first stop was Cambridge Court. I immediately texted him (I beat him there) and told him it was BEAUTIFUL and he'd never want to leave - when he arrived, he concurred. It's a gorgeous community, the staff were extremely warm and friendly, the apartments themselves were very nice (a LITTLE on the small side compared to what we'd seen previously, but comparable to the other two that we're now considering)... and of course, they're running a ridiculous special on a particular floorplan - they had like 3 of them that they were trying to move so they became "featured units" and went fron $1340 to $1065 a month - and there's one left, and WE WANT IT. 1BR/1BA with den. Full-size washer and dryer. Walk-in closet in the bedroom. About a 6x6 deck, easily big enough for a table and chairs. Gas stove. Gas FIREPLACE (which we'll never run if BGE keeps hiking their prices, but it's a nice bonus!). Vaulted ceiling. Lofted "den" space for me to study. Garbage disposal. 3rd Floor (no worries about noisy upstairs neighbors). YEAH. AND on top of all this, I have a friend who lives in this complex and has been there for almost a year and loves it - first-hand good review. The only problem is that we'd have to take it almost immediately - she could give us about a 2-week extension on move-in but then we'd have to start paying. It's also more than we had originally wanted to spend, but we've already come to terms with the fact that we're going to have to pay more to feel safe in the area where we want to live. And after re-evaluating Ben's tool bills (which I didn't NOT know were as low as they are! Score!), we're feeling like we'll be OK to tack on a little extra to the rent budget anyway. And he is in line for a raise - it's basically waiting for budgetary approval, from what I understand, and given the administration change I think they've just been waiting to make sure that there aren't going to be any big cuts in defense spending (like that's even an option at this point...). Now that the President's budget is out, I'm hoping that the proving grounds will come out of it's breath-holding freak-out phase and move ahead with business. Anyway, that'll help too whenever it comes. Probably just in time, because that's just God's way. So the lovely girl at Cambridge has a 24-hour hold on this apartment for us. We wanted to give the other two complexes a shot, obviously.

The second stop was Southfield Apartments. I had high hopes for this one, but it didn't pan out very well. It's just much much older - funky smells, icky exterior, extremely outdated kitchens (reminded me very much of my college apartment kitchen - not cool), stackable washer/dryer... the floor plans were slightly larger, but over all it wasn't worth the $20 or $30 savings per month to take that big of a downgrade, we decided.

Tomorrow, I'll make the trek AGAIN from work to White Marsh to check out the last complex we're considering, Silver Spring Station. The girl at Cambridge admitted it's their biggest competition. It's a little older, but the floor plans are a little larger, and they include water and trash pick-up in their rent (not included at Cambridge). The unit we're interested in would rent for $1080 a month, and would be available in late April which is a much better time frame for us. It's also a third floor 1BR/1BA with den, and has a full-size washer and dryer and a walk-in closet. So it seems like it'll be comparable - it's just going to come down to what we like better. At the end of the day, we'll spend less if we go with Silver Spring - though the rent is a bit higher, it includes more and we wouldn't have to pay for the entire month of April. But we just kinda fell in love today at Cambridge. So we'll see. The neighborhood at Silver Spring seems really nice - we went over and drove by today (the leasing office was already closed but we figured we'd at least check it out), and we saw lots of young couples with strollers, women out walking their dogs or jogging alone (a good sign), and it's a little further off the main drag in a quieter area and it backs up to a single-family home community. Definitely in the running - it seems like a very nice place!

I'll be posting an update soon. We should have a decision by tomorrow evening - we have to tell Cambridge yes or no by 6pm when our 24-hour hold is up. YIKES! It's a little rushed, but I'm starting to realize that this is just part of the nature of apartment rentals. When you find a community and a unit you really like at a good price, you kinda have to jump or someone else will take it. Then you're stuck just hoping for something similar to pop open, and you're likely to have to settle for losing a few amenities or paying more. Maybe we should've just waited til April to look. At least we wouldn't have known what we missed...

A Lesson Learned... the sad but true tale of "round one" gone bad

You guessed it... it WAS too good to be true. It's ok if you're thinking "told you so" because you did "tell me so" in your mind as you read my last blog post ;)

Ben and I met up at the leasing office yesterday (he carpools to work so he had his friend drop him off and I left work early to go up there and meet him). When we went there to check the place out for the first time on Sunday, we came in from the White Marsh Mall area - we took some back roads (GPS's are handy!) past some farmland and cows and popped out right there at the apartment complex. Yesterday, I saw things from a different angle. I came in off the beltway on route 7, to be greeted by a homeless person at the end of the exit ramp at the stoplight (grrrrreat). The area itself just looked like the outskirts of the city, which I suppose it is - nothing drastically wrong with it, just generally run-down. Less than a mile, I turn onto a side road and there's the apartment complex. I guess I didn't realize how close we were to the beltway on Sunday. I mean, I've seen it on a map, but I guess it didn't quite register realistically. As I turn into the complex, I pass a group of 6 or 7 rather unsavory-looking older teenage boys (you know the type - jeans around the knees, hats on backwards, bandanas, trying to look bad-ass...). I turn into the complex and park outside the office, waiting for Ben, and these guys slowly mosey on down into the complex, just walking very slowly along the side of the road. One walks up a hill toward one of the apartment buildings (I'm thinking, I can only hope he knows someone in there and isn't just checking things out for himself...). They all set up shop on a corner of two intersecting streets in the middle of the complex and proceed to just hang out there. This isn't exactly something I want to come home to every day, I'm thinking.

Ben showed up just a few minutes after I got there, and I pointed them out to him, and he was equally weirded-out. We still wanted to believe things were ok, so we went in and got started on the application. The leasing lady was waiving our app fee anyway, so it didn't cost us anything. Ben of course asks her "Be honest with me, is this is safe area?" to which she of course responds (in her thick Essex accent) "Oh yeah. Believe me, I've been here 3 months (whoop de doo) and I've never seen the cops called or anything." Oh, you mean during the 9-5 shift that you spend here in the middle of the day? Well then, there must not be any crime here! Then Ben asks, "So there aren't any random strange people hanging around or anything?" "Oh no, not at all" she replies. To which I want to reply, "oh really, what about these kids out there RIGHT NOW?!?!" They were up a bit of a hill from where we were so I knew she couldn't see them from her desk.

So anyway, we finished filling out our applications and asked her for the keys to the model so we could take a few photos of our own. We tried to hug and smile and be excited as we walked around snapping pictures - this was supposed to be our first place - but we were both quite obviously feeling uneasy at this point. We were both very quiet on the way home, except for commenting that we didn't feel nearly as excited as we thought we would. So this morning, all the way to work I continued to feel uneasy. It had put me in an incredibly rotten mood - I was feeling so tense and stressed and upset that I took a detour past my metro stop down into Bethesda to go to Caribou Coffee. I got a turtle mocha and sat in peace enjoying it while I tried to gather myself mentally. When I finally got to work, things just went downhill. I stumbled upon apartmentratings.com. Go there and search "town & country ridgeview" if you need a good laugh, because it was almost comical how stereotypically TERRIBLE the reviews were. Of course I didn't find it funny at the time... it just made me feel incredibly disappointed and STUPID. Multiple complaints of rodent problems, mouse droppings on the floor, bees getting into the apartments, roaches, homeless people in the hallways and stairwells, waking up to no hot water fairly frequently, waking up to no water at all in some cases, vehicle vandalism, muggings... YOU NAME IT, someone had written to complain about it. DEAR GOD. My next step was to check crimereports.com, a site that my mom the cop sent me. And shall I say it again? DEAR GOD. TWO ARMED ROBBERIES, not just within miles or blocks, but WITHIN the complex, in the past month.

SO, since we're not living THERE, the search continues. I feel very stupid, but very fortunate to have found this out AHEAD of time. All we gave them in the way of money was a $100 check to hold an apartment, which isn't supposed to be deposited (just held) until we move in. We were told that it was no problem to get that back if we decided not to go through with it, and worst-case scenario, I can call the bank and stop payment on the check. So that's no problem. Learned an important lesson though. Several, actually. Be careful about trusting the leasing agent when it comes to questions about what it's like to actually live there, check crimereports.com and apartmentratings.com before bothering with applications (or even visiting, for that matter), and if it looks too good to be true, IT PROBABLY IS. We've changed our search a bit - we're not looking anywhere near the stinking beltway, and we've increased our spending threshold a TINY bit. If we want to be in a decent area, we're gonna have to pony up the dough. That's the bottom line. So, we shall see. More to come on that...

The Great Apartment Hunt

This weekend was quite productive, and a DARN good time too :) It was so crazy to walk into these places and seriously talk about renting our first home together! It still didn't "hit" me, I don't think, that we would be living there together, just the two of us. I found myself imagining visiting the apartments we were looking at, not living in them - like we were looking for someone else or something. Very strange!

We went to four places. We had originally picked out 7 in the area that we could afford, and that had washers/dryers in each unit (a high priority for us, as I think I've mentioned previously). I've searched many sites, and these were really the only 7 that we could afford that were in the area we want to live in. Three of them got weeded out because of price (not as advertised!) or other reasons (one turned out to be "low-income housing" that you had to qualify for - as in, your income has to be BELOW a certain level - and while I don't mean to generalize about lower-income people, we're thinking maybe that's not the greatest environment for our first place together). So anyway, of the four that we visited, it turned out that two of them didn't have washers and dryers in EVERY unit (just the ones we can't afford). So that was disappointing. We already knew this going in, because Ben called around and got the info, but we wanted to at least give them a chance and look around. We could get an apartment right next to the laundry room at both places, but we'd still be competing with people for the machines, not to mention spending at least $3 a load and having to pay to dry our clothes multiple times (you know how those dryers can be)... we just really don't want to feel like we're still in college. And with Ben's laundry habits (realizing at midnight that he has no clean boxers for work the next day), I think it'll be worth it to have our own! Anyway, those two places were both quite affordable. We could have a 2BR apartment at either place, relatively comfortably. The first place we visited - Canterbury - even had apartments opening up around the time we'd be ready to move (so we wouldn't have to pay to hold anything til then). And the apartments themselves seemed roomy enough - comparable to others that I've seen visiting friends or whatever. The second no-washer-dryer place (Eagles Walk) was also nice, and had been renovated more recently, but the layouts just didn't make sense. The 1BR had a decent-sized bedroom, OK closet space and a decent-sized living room, while the 2BR had a HUGE living room but tiny bedrooms and NO closet space. And those 2BR's were SUPER affordable, but I couldn't get over the tiny bedroom and lack of closet space, PLUS not having our own washer/dryer. Nice neighborhood too - very quiet.

So on to the more exciting stuff - the two that we DID like were, of course, more expensive. We visited The Crossings at White Marsh first, literally across the street from White Marsh Mall and The Avenue - very convenient and in the middle of things. The apartments were nice, but a little on the small side. And the kitchens and bathrooms weren't super old, but hadn't been renovated recently. OH, but wait, they're running a special where you can upgrade both the kitchen AND bath before moving in - if you want to spend an extra $150 a month for the entire duration of your lease! Nice. Just their way of getting new tenents to pay for the renovations they'd have to do eventually anyway. That was a little annoying to me, and they were expensive enough as it was that there was no way we could afford the upgrades. They were running a great special on 1BR's - if we could move in, like, yesterday. And we really would like the extra space of a second bedroom, especially if the 1BR is a small 1BR. I know I'm going to need study space, unless I want to study in front of the TV in the living room, or on my bed in the bedroom (either option is VERY BAD news). And it'll give us space for friends to stay over, and a bedroom for snakey-poo (who I really don't want sleeping with me in my bedroom, nor do I want to subject my dinner guests to him, sitting out there in the living room peering at them while they eat or play Wii or whatever it is we're doing). People who stay overnight will just have to deal with him though. That's gonna be his bedroom. ANYWAY, moving on...

The place we LOVED is called Ridge View. It's about 3 miles from White Marsh Mall, so it's a quieter area but it's still convenient to everything (and by everything, I mean Ikea). The zip code is actually Rosedale (apparently "white marsh" is actually north of 43 and east of 95 - not quite what you imagine it is), which is fine, although Rosedale also extends inside the beltway and I'm sure that it becomes a less-than-desirable area as you head south. But as for where we are, it's great. It's a little close to the straight-up Essex crowd than I'd like to be, ideally, but what are you gonna do. There's probably one of those historical site plaques within 5 miles commemorating the birth of the phrase "wur goin downee oshin, hon". Yeah. As long as I have my buffer zone of a few miles, I'll be alright :) We'll probably do most of our shopping and stuff up closer to the mall anyway, in the Perry Hall and White Marsh areas. I don't want to make it seem like a bad area - it really isn't - I've just seen the map and I know how close it is to Essex. And I have a thing about Essex. And it's only a mile or so outside the beltway, so it isn't far from the city. But visiting yesterday, you definitely wouldn't know it. So anyway, this place had everything we wanted. Big old bedroom with big old walk-in closet, very nice-sized living room, BEAUTIFUL kitchen with dark granite counter tops, tall wood cabinets and new black appliances, washer & dryer, kitchen and bath are both newly renovated... just perfect. And the second bedroom in the 2BR isn't big, but it's perfect for a desk and a futon and a reptile, and could certainly serve as a nursery one day ;) One day in the very distant future... hopefully we'll have moved up in the world by then, but you never know what could happen so the second bedroom will be a nice insurance policy for that scenario as well! Here are some pictures of the model. I forgot to take my own photos, so these are the ones that are posted online...

The Bedroom - this actually doesn't do much justice to the size of it because whoever is taking the photo is standing a few feet into the room, and there's a few more feet past the end of the bed that you can't see before you hit the wall.
Looking from the living room into the dining area. There's more space to the left of the table behind that wall (goes all the way back to the wall that the front door is on). The kitchen is through the little opening next to that fake tree.
Looking back at the living room. It looks like they distorted the photo a bit to give it more depth, but it makes it look really small in the foreground. And again, the person taking the photo is standing several feet into the room. But anyway, it's a decent size.
Ahhh, my beautiful kitchen. I just love it. That's the fridge in the back right corner, and they put a tall cafe table along the wall on the left - I'd probably put a kitchen cart there for a little more surface space, since it's quite wide and there's nothing along that wall.
The bathroom. Nothing special, same counter tops and cabinets as in the kitchen, just a normal-sized bathroom. The space between the sink and the toilet is actually pretty wide, so I think I'll get a little cart to put there to add some surface space too.

So isn't it cute? Good, I'm glad you like it, because Ben JUST texted me and told me we're in!!! AAAAAAAH! This is CRAZY! We were having issues with the pricing, which I haven't gotten into yet, so I'll give you that story now. The 2BR's at the places without washers and dryers were 842 and 920 respectively - both within our price range (our absolute MAX is $995 a month), but we were having a hard time getting over the washer/dryer thing. The 1BRs at the place with washers and dryers were $750 and $787 - VERY affordable, but only had 1 bedroom. The 2BR's with washers and dryers were $994 and $999. Yikes. REALLY pushing it. We've been going back and forth about it ever since we left the last place yesterday, trying to decide what was more important, whether or not we could swing it maxing ourselves out like that, when and if we'd have more money coming in... so I told Ben to give the lady at Ridge View a call and tell her that the only thing keeping us from signing a lease was the price of the 2BR. They were running a special a few weeks ago on 2BR's for $911 a month, but they were going so quickly that the management company decided they didn't need to be on special and ended it. So I figured it wouldn't hurt to try, and if they knew we were REALLY interested, maybe they'd cave. And apparently they did! Ben just texted me to tell me that they came down to $911 for us! That gives us a pretty decent cushion, and with some of the other expected upcoming events in our financial lives, I think we'll be just fine :)

Are we rushing? Are we crazy? They'll hold an apartment for us for 3 months, so we're not moving in early or spending extra money or anything to do this. And while we only looked at a few places in person, we did a lot of hunting online - there just weren't many places that had a washer/dryer in-unit that were anywhere near our price range in that area. We didn't have much to go see in person. I'm such an indecisive person - I have a hard time making a decision this quickly! It's freaking me out a little! But there are only two 2BR's left, and this place really does have everything we want, and now it's within our price range. I guess it's really a no-brainer at this point...

The best worst summer of my life

So I've made a decision about this summer - I'm going to renew my fellowship at NIH and stay until the end of July. It's going to be a hellatious commute, and I'm really not looking forward to it! Actually, it's not the commute that I'm dreading... it's how early I'm going to have to leave to make my commute manageable. The shortest route from White Marsh to Bethesda is 95 to 495 to 355 - three truly horrendous roads during rush hour. I mapped out a "back roads" way to cut over from 95 to Bethesda without touching 495 (the DC beltway for those of you who don't live around here... as in the beltway surrounding the city with the 2nd worst traffic in the United States). You just don't mess with 495 anytime between about 6:30 and 10am, or between 2 and 7pm. Without traffic, the commute on my back roads route will take an hour and 20 minutes - not too bad, since it takes me an hour and a half to get from my driveway to my desk as it is. And I won't be riding the metro, I'll just be driving straight to campus. It'll suck to be driving myself all that way though (I currently ride about an hour with my mom and 15 mins on the metro and 15 mins walking/waiting on either end of the metro). But I'm relatively certain that I WILL hit traffic even on this route (I'm not the only one who knows how to use Google Maps), so I'll need to go in pretty early to keep from losing my mind on the road. My supervisor suggested that I could work four 10-hour days to cut out one day of commuting, but I'd have to work like 6am til 4pm (leaving home at like 4:30!) and I'd hit evening rush hour every day. Of course, I could probably get away with leaving early most days ;) If I work a regular schedule, I can work like 6:30 til 2:30 - I think I could avoid the worst of it on both ends with that schedule. And Ben will be leaving for work around 4:30 too, so we might as well get on the same schedule so we can maximize the amount of time we're spending together.

That's why I say "the best worst summer of my life" - it's gonna suck commuting that far all summer, but it's going to be our first summer as a married couple! I'm hoping that all the newness and excitement will overshadow the inconvenience of the commute and the lack of sleep :) Actually we've already decided that we're going up to bed at like 8:00 every night, turning on the TV or a movie or something and cuddling til we fall asleep, in hopes that we'll actually get a reasonable amount of sleep! And there are other benefits to staying where I am, even if I could get another job (which I'm beginning to think is a hopeless pursuit in this economy anyway). For one thing, I'll get a raise for those two months. I'd almost certainly take a pay cut to go anywhere else. I'll also have a TON more flexibility with time off and my schedule. If I started a new job right after my honeymoon, I'd have like 9 weeks to work. Anyone crazy enough to give me a job for that amount of time wouldn't be too keen on giving me much time off, and I'd have to work from the day after the honeymoon right up to the day before I started school. If I keep my current job, I could probably take extra time off after the honeymoon to unpack and settle in and put away all our presents :) and I can take a few days off for our 4th of July trip with no problems, and I can choose to stop working a few weeks before school starts to give myself a little break. I'm planning on working through the end of July - that'll give me about 2 weeks off before school starts, to rest my brain! All very good things - very worthwhile. Most importantly though, I'll be making several hundred dollars more per month for those two months than our post-wedding budget requires, and Ben will still be pulling in lots of overtime over the summer, so we'll be able to put away some extra money quickly. Very nice :)

So, it's probably gonna suck, and I'm probably gonna hate it, but it'll all be SO worth it. And it's so much easier than hunting for a new job! I should just feel incredibly blessed to have the option of staying and to have a very nice-paying job (nice-paying for this stage of life, anyway) in this economy. The important thing is that I'll be coming home to my HUSBAND at the end of the day, and that'll be my light at the end of the long, long tunnel that is my commute.

OH, one more exciting thing... we're going to check out a few apartment complexes in White Marsh on Sunday! I'm so excited! We decided to start looking around over the next few weekends so that we get a good idea of which apartment complex(es) we'd actually consider living in, so when the time comes to sign a lease (late April) we'll know where to call to check availability and get the ball rolling. It's going to be painful though, seeing available apartments that we'd love to take but have to walk away from for now. And so many complexes are having great move-in specials right now - first month's rent free, reduced monthly rent... and we can't capitalize on them because we can't start a lease til May 1st! Oh well, they'll probably have some specials when we're moving too. They just put a time limit on them to encourage people to hurry up and move in, thinking that this deal will be gone soon. Anyway, I'll be sure to update you all on that next week (hopefully with pictures).

Getting in shape the hard way

Just FYI, I want you all to know that I'm writing this as I listen to my dad's girlfriend giggling from behind closed doors at the other end of the hallway. OH joy. I need to turn on a fan or something...

Anyway, I'm thrilled to report that, after much hard work and self-deprivation, I have dropped 7 pounds :) I'm not exactly sure of the time frame, I just know that sometime within the past 4-5 months I got on the scale and just about dropped my teeth to find that I weighed more than I've ever weighed in my life. Borderline "heavy" for my height, according to the charts in the doctor's office - 132. I realize that for you tall people that seems like nothing, but remember, I'm 5'2". All through college I struggled to keep it below 130, usually averaging somewhere between 128 and 130. But luckily, it didn't seem to matter if I fell of the exercise wagon and ate like shit - I never passed 130. It also didn't seem to matter how much I worked out - I couldn't seem to break 127. I was stuck in this 3 pound rut. It's strange though - three pounds becomes pretty obvious when you slap it all into one spot on a small frame (namely, "the belly"). I won't say all one spot - I could usually see it in my face too. But I could tell when I was reaching the upper limits of my set point - I knew just from looking in the mirror that if I weighed myself, I'd be 130 on the nose. At which point, of course, I'd buckle down and start hitting the gym, and after 2 or 3 weeks I'd feel like I was getting back to my plateau of 127ish, and in my satisfaction, I'd fall off the wagon again, or get sick or something, and the cycle would begin again.

At least I was never yo-yoing by 10 and 15 pounds, but it's always been SO frustrating to me that so little weight made such a difference in the mirror on my small frame. I always wished for extra height simply for the sake of having more space to stretch a few doughnuts over! I mean seriously, when a girl who's 5'8" gains 3 pounds, you don't see it. Grrr to you tall people. But it's been a constant battle, no matter how piddly some of you may think it is. It has driven me nuts. Over the course of college, I went from a size 2 to a size 10 or 11, with a total weight gain of probably 10 pounds or so. 10 pounds isn't so bad over 4 years given the particular time of life I was in, not to mention the extra obstacles you battle in college (beer, crappy sleep patterns, late night snack food, lattes, eating on the run, being too busy to work out sometimes...). But 10 pounds meant FIVE sizes for me. FIVE. I think part of the size issue is my hips. They definitely expanded in college - make no mistake, I have child-bearing hips. And that's ok with me. I'm fine with having a woman's body, though I won't lie, I get a little jealous of the 17 year olds at the gym who haven't quite gotten into the full swing of "womanhood" yet, and still have hips that match their waists. Makes it easier to shop for jeans. So, ok, I won't harp on the jeans size too much. My holy grail has always been the elusive flat stomach. I can get over the hips if I can just have a flat stomach. I could do without the thigh-rubbing also, but I'd take the flat stomach over anything else. It always eluded me in college, even though at times I really felt like I was working my ass off. But I never truly did anything about my eating habits. I'd "watch what I ate", but I don't think I had much concept of just how many calories I took in in a day.

So, here I am today, BELOW my college average and having lost about 7 pounds since I started getting serious (whenever that was), at 125 (with wet hair I might add). And I have to say, the stomach is getting there. I have this strange "rib fat" as I call it - like over my upper abdominals - that won't go away and leaves a little bulge, but the lower part is really starting to look awesome :) I can't tell you how good it makes me feel! I feel confident enough to wear tight shirts again, and to work out in tank tops... it's wonderful!!! And I don't get as hot :)

What's my secret, you might ask? Haha. Well, I hate to tell you, I definitely don't have one. I just have to kick my own ass and deprive myself. I've done south beach, I've done calorie restriction, and none of it does enough good to keep me motivated. I HAD to get to the gym. I think part of the magic of working out is just the positive attitude it gives you. You can't help but feel good about yourself when you're finished, and the more you go, the more you want to go. It really is addicting - something to do with the endorphins I think. I started out running about a mile and a half (alright, we'll call it a jog) and have worked my way up to running 3 miles of intervals (30 seconds of sprinting that gets harder each time, and 1:30 of recovery - still jogging - in between). Sometimes I do a similar program but on the elliptical just to switch it up. That takes about 31-34 minutes depending on how I'm feeling. I also spend about 45 mins to an hour lifting - shoulders biceps and lower back one day, triceps chest and back the next, and legs the third. Trying to firm up the arms in particular for my strapless dress :) I try to work in abs whenever I have the time, at least once or twice a week. For those, I do four different exercises right in a row (as many reps as I can do with about 10 seconds rest in between different exercises), in three sets. It takes about an hour and a half total. That's a long time - it does suck, giving up that much of my evenings. It helps that Ben and I are there together. We've worked our way up to going about 4 times a week - when we started we were lucky to get there twice :) It's been a process, but it's become a habit. You get to the point where you really don't WANT to miss a day - you feel crappy if you don't go and you can't wait til the next day to go make up for it! It just takes time to get into the habit.

As for the food part... I haven't been on a diet, per se. For the past month (which is when I've started noticing the most difference), I've been drinking a meal replacement shake twice a day. That's not to say that I'm giving up two meals. Before that, I basically only ate a granola bar and a travel mug of coffee (with creamer) for breakfast. I've replaced that with the shake (GNC's Lean Shake), and I usually have a shake when I get home from work before the gym, to keep myself from grazing, since I'm always starving when I get home and I know I can't work out feeling that empty. It's actually quite filling, because it's loaded with protein and fiber. I won't say loaded - it's a healthy amount. Not an amount that's going to cause you to gain weight if you're not working out liek a banchee (like body builders drink). I read on WebMD that the only proven weight loss supplements are calcium, fiber, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), green tea extract, meal replacements, and orlistat (aka Alli, the OTC weight loss pill/program). One Lean Shake has 50% of your daily calcium requirement, 32% of your fiber (WAY more than most people get in a day actually), and it's a meal replacement - 3 of the 6. I also replaced my morning coffee with green tea (Arizona Tea's pomegranate acai green tea - DELISH!), although I haven't been as religious with that - I have an hour an a half commute, and if I drink the shake (I make it in about 12 oz of water) AND a travel mug of tea, I have to pee so bad it hurts half-way there. I thought about taking a CLA supplement too, but I've read that it can lead to gall bladder issues and since I already have those I decided against it. I didn't want to make anything worse, especially right before the wedding. For lunch, I've been eating Healthy Choice's cafe steamers - they're in the frozen foods section and they're awesome! They're 250-350 calories generally, and they taste awesome, and they're easy to grab on the way to work and to make once I'm there. TRY THEM. I don't know how much they cost though - my dad buys them for me :) Ahhh, the joys of living at home... for now... Anyway, I usually have an apple with peanut butter or an orange or something like that too, and I might have a light 50-cal yogurt as a snack if I'm dying between lunch and breakfast. Breyers light yogurt is awesome - much creamier than the dannon light n' fit stuff I'd been eating, and tastes less like artificial sweetener. So, at the end of the day, if I stick with a relatively low calorie dinner (around 400-500 calories), I'm usually well below 1500 calories. Ideally I'd like to be around 12-13oo in a day, but it's hard. Especially when people bring in doughnuts or something... ugh. I also invested in a calorie counter - it was $70 on Amazon. It really helps me to keep track and to undersand exactly what I'm putting in my body. I knows the calorie content of most common foods, and even has a lot of fast food restaurants and stuff in it (did you know that a lot of Panera's sandwiches have as many as 300 MORE calories than a Big Mac? NO JOKE.). Anyway, that has been a help too, though I haven't been using it as much lately. Using it even for a few weeks just helped me to become more aware of calorie contents in general and to make better choices even when I wasn't using the counter religiously. But I don't completely deprive myself. I usually allow myself something sweet or generally crappy for me in some way, about once every day or two. A snack size bag of UTZ bbq chips... a cookie... And I probably get at least one source of chocolate a day, whether it's a few M&M's on my way out the door, or a little mini-size milky way or something like that, that's just calling out my name... Anyway, I just didn't want anyone to think that you have to completely turn off your inner desires to control what you eat. You just don't make it a habit, and you don't eat a giant piece of whatever it is you're "cheating" with - you take a sliver of the doughnut, or ONE cookie when you might otherwise take 3. And seriously, working out also keeps you from going nuts with that kind of stuff - you feel like, "why did I just do all that hard work just to ruin it?" It makes you really question what's worth it and what isn't. And you start thinking things like "if I'm going to waste the calories, I'm going to make it GOOD..." so you'll save up for something you REALLY love later in the day, rather than grabbing whatever it is that's looking pretty good at the moment but that you could live without.

Holy CRAP, I had NO intention of making this so long. I guess I had more to say than I thought! Well, now it's bedtime - I've officially eaten up my entire hour surplus that I had to kill before bed (and I NEVER have an hour to kill before bed). The main take-home message is, if you really want to get motivated to get into the shape you've always wanted to be in, my best advice is GET ENGAGED! It worked for me! All the swimsuit seasons, all the special occasions, all the standing in the mirror and hating myself... none of it was enough to whip me into shape. It took the idea of a photographer following me around for a day snapping a thousand pictures that I'll want to treasure for the rest of my life to get me motivated :)

And, as a side-note, I apologize if I sound like I just wanted to brag or something. I just wanted to share my little success, however small it may be, because I've been feeling really great about it. I've struggled for a long time to get myself onto the path I'm on now. Talking about it and recounting my hard work makes me feel even better about staying on that path - it's more for my own benefit than anything else!

Wedding Website

TheKnot re-vamped their wedding website stuff, so I did a lot of work on mine today! If you're bored, you should check it out - it's pretty, in my opinion ;) The url didn't change, but in case you lost it (God forbid...), here it is again:

www.theknot.com/ourwedding/JennaKeyser&BenBonner

The content didn't change all that much, but there are pictures now :)

The wedding update I promised

Well, shopping today was a bit of a bust. The ladies formalwear market is pretty pitiful these days. There's plenty of stuff for 20-somethings, and then there's twenty five iterations of the same sequined nightmare dress for anyone over 40. Poor ladies. They did so much walking and looking and rooting and digging today, and for nothing! Oh well, at least we had a nice time chatting and complaining and gawking at the ugly dresses together :)

So.... the tasting at Turf Valley was great :) We didn't get to taste one of the seafood dishes we wanted to offer, but when we spoke with the chef about it he REALLY advised against serving it anyway. It was a buffet option that we thought we could adapt to a plated meal, and apparently the sauce is runny and it just would've looked kinda gross on a plate. They prepared three full plates for us, and we tried sicilian chicken (lightly breaded chicken breast in a delightfully sweet marinara sauce with red, green and yellow peppers and mushrooms served with pasta), chicken and salmon teriyaki, and chicken marsala. It was all DELICIOUS of course. It was a tough decision, but I think we're going to offer the choice of sicilian chicken or a petite filet mignon with chicken marsala. The teriyaki was AWESOME, but we decided that people would go for filet mignon before they'd go for teriyaki, and some people are wary of fish, and we're going to be serving some seafood in the hors d'ouevres anyway. We're not actually MADE of money, and we can't afford to serve the kind of seafood we'd like to serve (stuffed shrimp or crab imperial or something) so we might as well go for the filet mignon option - at least that lends a bit of sophistication without adding any cost. The sicilian chicken was AWESOME too - the chef said it's very popular and he always gets compliments on it from weddings and banquets. It's a good option for anyone who likes the good old italian classics and doesn't want to have to be brave in their menu choices. We'll decide on the sides later, but for now at least I can order my response cards and start assembling my invitations!

We also booked our rehearsal dinner at the Crab Shanty. It's our favorite restaurant, and it happens to be in Ellicott City about 5 minutes from Turf Valley where we'll be rehearsing! We had a bit of a scare, because their prices had gone up since we first spoke with them casually in August, and they added a fee that we thought was going to put us over budget but it turns out that it doesn't really apply to us anyway. Luckily, my loving future in-laws were fine with the price increase in the food itself, so we're still able to go forward as planned. I was really upset when I first found all this out (when I called to book it and found out that their policies and prices on banquets had changed!). It's more than just a restaurant that we picked out, there's history there for us - it's kinda special to us. We've eaten there for proms and homecoming dances, we ate there the night that he proposed, and it's always been our favorite place to just go on a whim when we've had a bad day. And they have the BEST crab dip on the planet. We try it everywhere we go, and I'm telling you, we haven't found anything better. So anyway, that's all very good and we're very excited about that :) We get three meal options for that, which will be garlic shrimp with a petite crab cake, sage stuffed chicken, or pan seared pork tenderloin. Yummm :) I'm checking into how much it'll cost to serve the crab dip...

The bridesmaids' dresses came in also, and they're GORGEOUS!!! I'm SOOOOOOO happy with them! I looked long and hard for the perfect dress, and I really think I did a good job :) The color is just beautiful - it's a dark, rich red in a nice satin fabric. And the chiffon hanging from the back just lends such elegance to it... I just love them! So far I've gotten VERY positive feedback from the girls who have picked them up from me. Not that I think anyone would tell me if they didn't like them, but I don't think they'd be quite so enthusiastic if the dress was just "ok". At least I'm going to let myself continue thinking that :)

I'm starting to order the last few details, like the paper for the program covers and a few little decorations for the place card table - things like that. We're definitely coming down the home stretch. We're meeting with our pastor to go over the ceremony details in two weeks, and we'll be meeting with my lady at Turf Valley to go over the day-of details soon, and then it'll be time to walk the grounds with the photographer and have our last meeting with the DJ to go over our specific requests and the timing for the evening... it's so exciting to be getting down to these last final details! We're 89 days out as of today, but it's starting to feel like it's coming up REALLY fast, which is a great feeling :) We'll be going out to look at apartments within the next few weekends also - a whole other aspect to all of this! YAY! But for now, I think I'll go snuggle :) Go ahead, gag.

Can't think of a good title, sorry :)

First of all, Congratulations to Andrew & Laura Cooke on the arrival of their new baby girl, Molly Rose :) I can't wait for pictures!

All these babies lately really have me thinking. I know I've said this before, but there are times when all I want to do with my life is be a mom. Sometimes I seriously wonder if God places those thoughts in my head because I should really be taking them seriously. Or maybe they're satan's attempt to de-rail me from God's plan for my life. Lately I feel like I'm making an extra EFFORT to be tuned-in to what God is trying to say to me, but I don't feel like I'm making any progress. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that, while I'm trying harder in my personal life at home, I haven't been in church a whole lot. Worshipping in a big group really is the best way to feel connected, both to the family of God and to God Himself. Right now, obviously, it's church-time and I'm blogging. Ben was REALLY tired this morning when we first woke up so we decided to sleep in. He worked 5-10am yesterday, which made it 6 days in a row that he had gotten up at 4am (or earlier), and we were up til after midnight last night. He does work so hard, and I know he's really tired. And since I'm not exactly a huge fan of the church that we go to here at home, for a variety of personal reasons, I don't get too upset when he doesn't want to go. I'm a serious enabler in that regard.

It is a highly conservative church, and VERY openly so, with a my-way-or-the-highway sort of pastor who doesn't seem to get that there are good Christians all across the political spectrum. I don't need my political beliefs to be validated at my church - I really don't - but it makes it hard to feel at home and comfortable and like I really belong when my beliefs are openly mocked, often in hurtful ways. I just don't think that the pulpit should be a political soapbox. It's so hard to worship authentically and serve God willingly through a church that makes you feel like you're not even a "real" christian, much less a "real" member who is valued at all. When I e-mailed my pastor about my concerns (in a very respectful manner of course), and got no response (it's been at least 3 months), I sorta gave up hope of ever feeling good about the place again. My mom left that church a long time ago, and I love the church she goes to now, but it's 40 minutes away, and Ben always wants to go where HIS mom goes. And I understand that, but it would be nice if we could go where MY mom goes sometimes too. The pastor who is marrying us is from the church my mom goes to - it would be nice if we'd show our faces there every once in a while! I've been meaning to ask him if we could switch off every other week, but since we haven't even been going to church at all lately, it just hasn't come up. I think he'll be amenable to that.

Anyway, I'll just go ahead and move on. If I tried to talk about my future and children, I'd just be rambling because I really don't even know what's going on in my own mind when it comes to all that. I just know that waiting until my career is under control is a LONG wait, and that the unknown effects of an intense career on my relationship with my kids really scares me. Being a stay at home mom would make it FAR easier to have a close, involved relationship with my kids. I'm not saying that being a stay at home mom is easy by any stretch of the imagination, just that it makes spending time with the kids much easier, because it's what you do. And there's no reason why I can't have a great relationship with my kids and still work. There's also no reason why I have to let my career take over my life just because other doctors do. You can let your career tatke over your life in ANY field if you want it to. This makes me think that it's quite possible that satan is just using something seemingly innocent and virtuous (wanting to stay home and take care of my kids) to tempt me away from what God wants me to do with my life. I have a hard time believing that He brought me this far just to have me walk away from medical school. But then again, what do I know. I'm not God, and I haven't even been going to church! Ugh. Alright so I rambled anyway.

Ben's dad is doing much better. We're starting to think that he's going to be OK with just a few visits per week (rather than every day), which is very good news. It was a lot of work there for a little while, and a lot of stress and worry, but things seem to be smoothing out just the way we had hoped. He may still get upset when he finds out that he won't be getting daily visits forever, but he'll adjust just like he's been doing. He likes his independence anyway. He's been getting in-home physical and occupational therapy also, which I know he resents (strangers snooping around his house, you know), but I think it's helping him with keeping some semblance of a routine - he has a calendar with appointments that he needs to be ready for. It's something small, but I think it helps. Ben and his sisters went to Glen Burnie on Friday and gave his old apartment a thorough cleaning - I don't even want to think about the kinds of things they found - but thank God that's over with. He's completely moved out and we never have to go back to that apartment! There's more to be unpacked at his new apartment now that they cleaned out what was left at the old one, but I think they're going to try to take care of that today.

In the meantime, weather permitting, I'm going shopping with Ben's mom and my Grandmother for dresses for the wedding today :) Should be a good time. I'm just afraid they'll get scared because it's supposed to snow later. We've been trying to do this for weeks now and it just keeps getting pushed back, and I'd REALLY like to go today!!! I'll post again later with wedding-related updates. For now, I need to get in the shower in the hopes that we'll be going shopping in an hour. But just to give you a preview... Turf Valley tasting... bridesmaids' dresses came in... booking the rehearsal dinner... lots going on!!!