Hair!

Dan and I have a friend from church who is really cool.  Like really.  When I first met her I was so intimidated by her and especially because she was helping out in the youth group and I had to take her through the devotional thingy to solidify her as an approved volunteer.

Her name is Jen and she is funny, edgy, super confident yet down to earth, friendly and just overall awesome.  The teens loved her and some of them still talk about when she was helping out.

Sidenote: Way back in 2011 when Dan and I took the youth group camping upstate we got rained out of the campsite and the whole youth group crashed at Jen's parents house to use their dryer and spend the night on their living room floor. Jen's mom, at the time, assumed Dan and I were married. Maybe she could see the future?

Anyways, Jen is an amazing hair stylist and professional colorist.  She works in a super expensive and swanky salon on the Lower East Side.  Celebrities go there, for real.  Way back a few months ago Jen said she would do whatever I wanted with my hair for the wedding.  It was an extremely generous offer and given the fact that I never  give two cares about my hair anymore I figured it might help my motivation issue and make me feel special for the wedding day.

I suggested a subtle ombre (this is where only the bottom part of your hair is colored as opposed to highlights which start at the root).  When I told Jessy and Mandy about this (my sisters) they were very worried that it was too risky right before the wedding.  I agreed it was risky except I wasn't getting it done by any old stranger, I knew Jen would do a great job.  And she did!

It took three hours to do the whole process and Dan was a trooper the whole time and just sat in the salon (I needed him there for moral support).
 

It all turned out great and I love it and Dan loves it!  Now if only I was able to style my hair with a blow dryer like that every day...

Five day countdown

People, we have five days.  This week is crazy town bonkers and although I am excited it just feels like we are running down a hill and going too fast and we are about to trip over our feet and wipe out.  Splat!

We have been busy busy blitzing the mega list I posted back here and there is definite progress but for the more we knock out there seem to be more added to the list. 

This is what our weekend looked like:

On Friday after work I cleaned out my little studio apartment.  I am glad to be moving on but it was still sad to say goodbye to a place that saw me through so many important milestones in my life. 

On Saturday, Dan and I spent over an hour in line at IKEA trying to get some sort of update on our partial TV stand.  Unfortunately it is out of stock and so who knows when we will get it delivered and put together.  Hopefully before the Brooklyn gathering.  We were supposed to receive a call or an email from the clerk that we spoke with as she assured us that she would get in touch, personally, by Monday.  Hmmm, Monday is nearly over. 

After IKEA I talked to our DJ on the phone to finalize details while Dan and I walked around Best Buy to get an antenna and DVD player with the gift card my big sissy, Jessy, and brudder Josh got us.  We want to get some speakers once we see what sort of space we have with the TV stand. 

We also went to Target and swam upstream in the crowded mess of back to school shopping. Never again. 

Dan went out on Saturday night with church friends for a bachelor party (hopefully he will post something about that) while I flew solo and addressed the invitations to the Brooklyn gathering.

On Sunday after church Dan and I went with a super talented friend from church to get my hair fixed-up to look and feel a little special for the wedding.  Post about that next!

Sunday night we finally forced ourselves to practice some swing dancing to look a little spiffy on the dance floor for our first dance as a married couple.  Hopefully we can pull it off!! 

We leave for Chicago in less than 48 hours and I have like 6 days worth of stuff still left to accomplish. 

Registry highlights from this weekend: 

Kissing hedgies from Grandma Wilson

Silverware from Dan's Aunts and Cousins

YAY!

To Love's Eternal Glory - The entryway

So my twin sister Mandy loves The Office.  She had seen all of the episodes at least a dozen times each and her favorites many times more.  You can give her a funny quote and she can tell you who said it and what episode it is from.  She kills at The Office trivia game.

Dan and I like watching The Office too since all the seasons are on Netflix.  Even though we haven't seen the episodes as much as Mandy, I can usually catch an Office reference and I like quizzing her knowledge via text.

So when we got Mandy's wedding gift in the mail I knew exactly what the goofy statement on her card meant:

To love's eternal glory!

It's a quote from The Office.  I can't explain it without the humor being lost so here is the dialogue:

Oh Mandy, you're a hoot and a half.

Anyways, Mandy got us the bedspread and dust ruffle and lots of other great things.  Sissies are sure spoiling Dan and me...actually everyone is thanks guys!  Mandy also took it upon herself to "design" the entryway as a swap for the fact that I wouldn't let her throw a bridal shower.  I mentioned that back here.

Well, we are about 75% done with setting-up the apartment and it will likely take months to tack off the last 25% so to please the masses and get Mandy off my back about finishing the entryway, here it is.

This is from etsy.  It is from reclaimed barn wood and hand painted.  It is supposed to be hung at different heights

Mandy found these cute prints and framed them.  Dan and I had a heck of a time hanging them but we like that the center one is higher.  It's something we have always said to each other

Little shelf nook with lots of room left to fill

Mandy picked and purchased the furniture and lamps and even got us the great wall art.   Anything adorable in our apartment that is made of felt was handcrafted by Mandy including the cute hello banner and season changing wreath.  She has an etsy shop called Hopscotch and Honey go check it out.

Thanks Mandy!!! We love it all and I am very sorry it took me so long to post the pictures.  Forgive me?

Just some thoughts

So something that I've noticed recently and have been thinking a lot about is peoples reactions to news that you are getting married.

When you hear someone is engaged or about to get married what is your first thought? 

Yay! Congratulations!

Right?  Usually this is the response that I have gotten in the last nine months since Dan proposed.  Family members and close friends are always thrilled but there are other people that have a very different reaction or a post script to their congrats.

I have probably heard about a dozen times from a handful of people some confusing reactions and it really perplexes me.  Actually, it makes me sad.

Here is what I mean...a woman at our church repeatedly comes up to me and the first thing she says is "so are you still planning on getting married?"  "Yes, of course." I reply.  "Well okay then." And she walks away.  One time I asked her why and she said something implying that marriage is really hard and men aren't helpful.

To be fair, this woman just got divorced.  Okay so I get it.  She had a bad experience and is hurt.  But why would you say that to me?
 
Also, several weeks ago I went out to dinner with a couple of people from work for a group birthday gathering.  When my wedding came up in conversation (someone else brought it up...I don't talk about it, ever, unless someone asks) the guy there said to me "well, you're not too young it could work out.  Just know, they won't be the same person in ten years."

What?!? Umm, okay.  I certainly hope I'm not the same person in ten years...what am I supposed to say to that?  And no other married people present at the conversation said anything.  

Yesterday, that same guy at work asked when the wedding date was.  I told him 12 days!  His response:  "well all I can say is good luck with that." 

Umm, thanks? 

Why would anyone, stranger or friend, say things like this? 

Dan and I have no illusions.  We know marriage is hard.  We have many friends who are married and we have seen relationships struggle and fall apart.  We know there will be dark times.  Really dark times.  Maybe we don't know what they will look like exactly but we'll have to learn together when we get there.  We know this.  Believe me I am not expecting sunny days forever.  But despite the hard parts of marriage and the fact that people change over time does that mean you don't love and you don't try? 

I don't think so and I hope other people haven't been so discouraged and confused by statements like the ones I've received that they call off their weddings.   That would be really sad.

Here's the weird part...when someone tells you they are pregnant would you ever consider saying "well good luck with those toddler years, the hellish teens, and don't forget about how expensive they are."  No.  Because having kids is a beautiful and joyful experience and you would never tell an expectant and hormonal person that the bean inside of them could be a holy terror. 


How is a bride-to-be and a mom-to-be that different?  Both are headed into something very hard and yet very beautiful.  Why would you put a rain cloud over something that hasn't even happened yet?

Those are my thoughts, thanks for listening.  

Weekending it - the moving edition

This weekend we cleared out my old place and loaded up the new place. A happy-sad occasion.

On Friday night after work we borrowed a friend's mini van and made two trips from my old studio to the new apartment.  We made a great team running back and forth about 30 times down the block since we didn't get a close parking spot. Fortunately the weather was cool and everything fit in the elevator.  It took 3 hours to move everything out and in, thanks to our time saving efforts of pre-packing and hauling things over in advance with the granny cart. 

As our reward we got Burger Bistro, our favorite local burger joint. 

On Saturday we waited for our IKEA delivery while assembling my old couch/bed in the new guest room which is looking quite full now.  Can't wait to make it crafting central.

Once the delivery arrived we started putting stuff together and then realized the delivery guy didn't give us one of our boxes.  It's my stupid fault for not double checking.  We were on hold and with customer service at IKEA for 50 minutes trying to sort things out.  Basically, we can't assemble the TV stand since only half of it arrived.  We will have an update in 3-5 business days about when to expect the re-delivery.  Grrrr.

But we assembled the sideboard which is beautiful.  It's like a real piece of furniture.  It makes a perfect home for all of the nice pretty painted pieces of "china" we got from the registry.  I love it because I wanted a way to display those pieces without them collecting huge amounts of dust.  Also, it cleared a whole lot of cabinet space in the kitchen!  Also, I love having a place that serves as a mantle top...for displaying cards on birthdays and for holiday decorations.  We are really happy with it and it assembled relatively easily.  Thanks Jess and Josh for the gift card that paid for this!

In the afternoon we went to the grocery store to stock-up.  Oh.my.goodness.  People you would not believe the freedom I feel to be able to go shopping and pick-up ingredients for more than two meals at a time.  I have SO much cabinet space now and the fridge is like a cave.  SO BIG. I am a happy girl in this kitchen.

For dinner I tried out our new Griddler with the waffle iron attachments.  Yum!  It was so nice to have ample counter space to do multiple things at a time.  We even got to use our cute little orange juice glasses.

Other things that happened during the week:

I put down all the rugs.  It was hard work especially when you order a rug pad and they send you one that is two feet larger than expected and have to cut it down with dull craft scissors.  The one in the living room (below) is 12' x 9' and took quite a bit of wrangling to get it down. 

We sanded, primed, and painted the kitchen counter table that I had at my old studio.  Man, who knows how old this thing is?  My dad gave it to me when I moved to Brooklyn five years ago and before that he had it in his office and before that his showroom.  I think it could be 20 years old but now it looks like a brand new colorful baby.  Me lub it.  AND I love the Kitchenaid that now calls the counter home.  Squee!

The final tour video is coming!! If you're annoyed about the delay take it up with IKEA and their delivery defectiveness.   

Scrambled eggs brain

People we have twelve days until the wedding. 12! [insert blurry-eyed-sweaty-pits panic mode].  We have been so busy getting things moved and put together at the new apartment and keeping up with all of our normal responsibilities that I sort of just pushed the whole wedding thing to the back of my mind.  Also we have totally neglected to keep-up with our paper-chain countdown...it says we have 18 days left...

You know that feeling you get the night before school starts and you have your outfit laid out and your backpack all ready and you feel totally set?  And then you go to bed all excited for the next day but have a dream that you go off to the first day of school and you aren't wearing any pants and you try to pretend like everything is cool but everyone else is like...umm, where are your pants? 

Yeah.  That's how I feel right now. 

I have so many running lists in my head, on paper, in my phone, in Dan's phone, all over that everything is getting mixed up liked scrambled eggs.  Yesterday I thought I was supposed to teach in the pre-k class at church and I prepared a lesson and everything and then realized that I wasn't on the schedule.  And who is in charge of the schedule?  Oh yeah, that's me. I only know it's Monday today because I'm at work.  I can't keep anything straight.  How can anyone expect me to be productive right now? 

Therefore I will blog about all of this so I can make sense of it in my head.  Bare with me and try not to get stressed out yourself.  

Things that still need to get done for the wedding
- finish getting wedding party thank you gifts
- wrap everyone's presents and pack in the "to be checked" bag
- start packing the "this is important don't let it out of your site" carry on bag
- SOLIDIFY ceremony music
- Recruit/confirm someone will "run" the music at the ceremony 
- Make sure we have all our lists done for the reception DJ
- Get the final head count to give to the caterer
- Print all the stuff needed for the hotel welcome boxes
- Check with hotel to make sure we have a way of distributing the welcome boxes
- find an outfit to wear to the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner
- create a wedding day-of itinerary
- keep-up with registry gift thank-yous

Things that still need to be done at the new apartment
- follow-up with IKEA to get our missing box for the tv stand
- assemble the tv stand
- bug proof the entire apartment (not for the actual prevention it will bring (cuz it wont) but for sanity preservation).  More on this later.
- organize the mounds of stuff accumulated on the front desk
- finish assembling the entryway
- blog the final apartment tour video

Things to get done a the old apartment
- finish transporting all the last bits of stuff
- take bags to salvation army to donate
- sweep/dust/mop/scrub walls
- clean kitchen area
- scrub down the bathroom
- figure out what to do with the old desk (leave it, disassemble it, put it outside?)
- return keys and give thank you note to landlord (triple cross my fingers that I get my deposit back)
- blog about a tearful goodbye to 2C
- cancel Verizon, ConEd, and National Grid accounts for 2C

Other stuff
- think about a menu for the Brooklyn gathering
- address and mail the invites to the Brooklyn gathering
- Drop Amazon return box at UPS
- pick-up accumulating boxes at the mail center
- do something about my jungle eye brows

There is only one thing to do about these lists...BLITZ

Dan vs. the window blinds

Dan is probably the most patient, gracious, and amiable person I know.  People at church, and everywhere really, flock to the guy.  He will listen, not judge, speak in a soft voice, never yell, rarely take offense, and hardly ever, ever get angry.

This girl?  No sir.  Patience is not my strength.  Sometimes when I'm annoyed about a situation I'll just look at Dan with my jaw dropped and wonder how in the world he's not cringing in frustration like me.  He is teaching me to try harder in this area and it is HARD.

There were times when I've wondered if anything ever irks that boy.  Then we started getting things ready at the new apartment and that is when we discovered his trigger point...installing window blinds.

Yes people, he is patient to start and goes into the task with perseverance and has always followed through but he is not a fan.

It didn't help that we have 6 windows at the new apartment.  In one weekend he installed 5 of the shades and it was an effort.  I stalled for a whole month about putting up a shade in the second bedroom but since we are moving the last of the stuff today (eek!) we decided we needed something to keep the neighbors from peeping.  He put the blinds up yesterday morning on his own.  These are the texts that I got about the process:

Don't worry, I was just kidding about making him replace the blinds.  I don't have a death wish.

Despite the frustration he got the job done and didn't lose and limbs in the process.  And he did a fantastic job.  Thanks Buddy!

You all know if I had been in charge of putting up those blinds I would have gone all mega devil Godzilla on them and karate chopped them in half out of my frustrated rage and you would find me in the corner of the room curled up in a puddle of tears. I'm just graceful like that...

Coming along

So I know you all are probably dying for another apartment video with the full reveal...so am I.  Soon I tell you!!! See the first empty apartment tour here.

Dan and I have been working so hard every weekend and most week nights after work to move my things over and arrange and fix and decorate and so on.  We want to be 95% done by the time we leave for the wedding so that we can relax during our homeymoon. 

Last week I was feeling in the doldrums because it felt like nothing was getting done and we kept running into obstacles.  On Saturday we went to IKEA with the hope of getting the last pieces of furniture but it turns out they weren't in stock so we had to special order them and they won't be delivered until this coming Saturday.  So that was a bummer.

But, Dan's mom and dad got us a bed frame for the mattress we got back on Memorial Day and it was delivered last week.  We spent Saturday, after IKEA, putting it together.  Good grief it was tough.  Even though the frame consisted of approximately 6 pieces we had a heck of a time interpreting the instructions.  But we preserved and got it done.  Shortly after we got the frame put together, the mattress was delivered!  I had bought bed bug mattress covers as a precaution but one of them wasn't the right kind so we huffed it over the Century 21 to get another one and then trekked back.  Let me tell you people, the amount of walking Dan and I have done related to the gosh darn move is astounding.  Also, hauling.  If it wasn't for our granny cart and Dan's folding dolly we would be in big trouble.  (If I make it through this move with only one shirt not destroyed by pit stains it will be a miracle.)

Loads at my place to haul over to the new place

We are also putting the kids of the mail center owner through college with the amount of boxes we've been picking up.  It's a safe place to have stuff sent but it costs $2 per box so when Amazon sends everything in an order in a separate box we end up with empty pockets and an excess of cardboard.  At least they come in handy for packing? 

Boxes piling up at my old place

Last night Dan and I met over at the new place instead of cooking at my old apartment.  I gave my old pots and pans to a guy from my undergrad that recently moved to NYC and connected-up with us.  I'm glad he'll give them another life.

Old

New

 I got to try out my new pots and cook for the first time in our new kitchen!! We are still missing a ton of essentials, like silverware, but we made it work.  Nothing like the blue box to power-up.

I promise we aren't 3 years old. We just eat like we are.

Then! We put the new sheets and duvet on the bed for the full reveal!  I am in love with the bed frame.  We thought when we picked it that it was a brass color but it is closer to black and I couldn't be more happy.  It matches perfectly with the new dressers and night tables.  We now feel like real adults with a real bed.

Twinkle lights for a cozy flare

We also finished-up the bathroom.  If you'll remember, it was a disaster. Please click that link so you can fully remember the nastiness.   So, we painted the sink stand to match the shower curtain.  Dan re-did the caulking to make things tidy.  We got a new mirror/medicine cabinet and got rid of the old rusty one.  And finally put everything in place.  Nothing is perfect but it is definitely better and that's all we can hope for and we are happy.

Video to come...stay tuned.

Serendipitous Sun

So we are well into the month of August but to me it feels like Summer has just now arrived.  We have had unseasonably cool weather the last few months, and while most people find that a pleasant fact it makes me depressed.  I love long hot scorcher days when you get sun kissed cheeks and ice cream is a must and not just a treat.

It could be that we've just been really busy and haven't had time for a lot of fun but without the hot pelting sun it just hasn't felt like much of a summer (also, I never had my Ballpark hot dog). Even when it has been warm outside it's been cloudy and rained a lot.  In fact, we've still only had a handful of days above 90 degrees. 

But this weekend we made a point to soak in the sunnies even while out and about trying to get work done.  And it felt great. 

On Saturday we scooted over to IKEA for round two and my over ambition got us there 45 minutes before it even opened.  Oops.  So we explored the docks some more (like we said we would last time) and found lounge chairs that overlooked the river.  We sat there on our thrones for a good 15 minutes and were still in the first wave of the stampede when the doors opened to the showroom. 

Sorry, I am awful at taking selfies

More on what we got and what we did later...but this post is about the sun! 

On Sunday after church we headed to Coney Island again to witness a new friend get baptized.  The beach was crowded and the sun was hot but the cool breeze made it so comfortable.  I love that Crossroads baptizes people at Coney Island. There are so many people there and it is awesome to see them watch a total stranger get baptized.  Curiosity and The Spirit all mixed together.  

After the baptism and dipping our toes in the water we headed to Nathan's for a late lunch.  Yum!  You have to try it people, it's amazing.  We found a little secluded bench and ate in peace while rocking out to the music blasting on the boardwalk.

Then we headed to the Wonder Wheel.  Overpriced tickets at $7 a ride but we were making memories and sometimes it's okay to splurge.  We got in one of the swinging cars and it was a blast.  Great views and a bit of a thrill. 

See how the colored cars swing while the white stay stationary

Another bad selfie...but a kiss bomb at the top!

We decided to go back to Bay Ridge after that and take our blanket to our hill at Owl's Head Park and soak in more sunnies there.  We played some Frisbee too.  It was a fantastic summer day and I wish it could have dragged on longer to make up for our frenzied summer so far.