Allergies are for losers

I think the allergies are sucking the intelligence out of my brain. I feel so...cloudy and confused. Must...sleep....now....

Almost Here

It's 2:51 am. Approximately half of Alex's house is clean. Lana will be in Indianapolis at 11:20 am. I need some sleep. And possibly a massage.

I doubt there will be any posting this weekend...like how I wrote that as if that's different from normal? Anyways, Lana and I will be wreaking havoc on the midwest and we won't have time to do silly things like post on the internet.

Unless we have pictures of said havoc, in which case, we'll make time. We always do.

Sipping on some hatorade

I hate cleaning. I hate chapped lips. I hate allergies. I hate dog fur. ALL OVER THE PLACE. I hate hormones. I hate the lingering smell of Clorox on my hands. I hate being cranky.

I love my blog for letting me vent. God bless ya, internet.

Done!

I finished it around 6:15 this morning. It was fantastic in pretty much every way. And yes, I am very sad it's all over. I wish we had more HP goodness to look forward to.

Spoiled Potter

I love spoilers. I'm a spoiler-whore, if you will. I always want to know what is happenning on any tv show or movie before I see it. I scour the internet for information on shows and movies I will never watch. I am so bad, I will even tivo episodes of my favorites shows, read about it online, and then watch it. Just because I can't stand not knowing what is going to happen.

I am the same way with books. I always read the last few pages of the book first. I'll start any novel in good faith, but somehwere around page 30, I find my eyes wandering to the final pages and greedily reading the end. I've done this since I was a child. I always knew the end of every single Nancy Drew mystery before I was even halfway through the book. It's a compulsion. A disease.

But I am trying to curb my usual habits, so that I can savor every single drop of ink during the final Harry Potter book. I am so very sad that this series is ending and I really want to enjoy every twist and turn of the plot as I read it...and not with a sense of dread or expectation because I know how it will all turn out. The reason why I am choosing to do so, is because I read the last four Harry Potter books unspoiled and have found it to be so much more satisfying. J.K. Rowling is an amazing author and I enjoy going on the journey she has crafted.

But my problem is that the internet is trying to screw with me! Which brings me to the point of this post: BACK OFF INTERNET! Stop throwing spoilers/faux-spoilers my way! Stop posting early reviews, NEW YORK TIMES. Geezy petes people. Y'all are killing me here. Do you know how difficult it is for me to NOT click on those links? Do you know how easily a google search could find all sorts of Potter-y goodness? Agh. Hopefully I will make it until tomorrow night. At that point, I am afraid that someone near me will flip open the book, read the last few pages, and then announce the results to the world. Maybe I should bring ear plugs with me? Perhaps. I am glad I'll have Alex with me to wrench the book away from the second I start to flip to the last page myself. Whew. Thank god I've got a fiance who puts up with my obsessive-compulsiveness. Now, if only the internet would put up with it too!

Progress

I am over half way through. Take THAT craft gods! Bows cannot keep me down!

That's not to say that I don't have PLENTY more to go:

I'm also pleased to report that after hours (and I do mean HOURS) of work last night (an exciting Saturday, eh?), Alex finally got the reply cards to print properly. He has never been so attractive to me as he when he victoriously held up that white sheet of paper and yelled, "FINALLY!" We printed them all immediately, lest something would happen and we'd lose all his hard work.


Did I mention that we also had to get out a completely different printer for them to work? Because we did. I kind of hate Kodak and their new fancy pants printer right now. What good is it if it can't print on whatever size paper I want? We purchased this printer almost immediately after it came out with visions of easily printed invitations dancing in our heads. Plus, the ink is so inexpensive, we figured we'd be saving money in the long run.

I'm beginning to question this, because, not only would it not print the reply cards, but it has also decided to eat the reply envelopes. Witness exhibit A.

It has eaten a total of four reply card envelopes now. I hope Kodak knows we can now only send out 121 invitations and it's all their fault.

My Craft

Confession time: I am not crafty. I may be crafty in the sense that I am reasonably intelligent and posses the ability to outwit someone else. But I am not crafty in the sense of being able to produce crafts. Specifically girly crafts. Specifically wedding invitations.

Here's the deal with the invites: I got them on sale at Hobby Lobby. If Lana is reading this, she just yelled an obscenity and then threw something at her computer screen. Yes, I went to the Hob Lob and gave them some of my hard earned money. I apologize, my friend.

Anyway, I bought these do-it-yourself invitations because they were fairly cute, and more importantly, they were half off. And as much as I mock my mother and Alex for being cheapskates, I am one as well. And when I saw the opportunity to save a huge hunk of money in the wedding budget, I dove at it.

But the problem is that I changed my mind about the invitations. I bought them the day after Alex and I got engaged. (Yes, the day after. My mom had me at the store at 9 am, the morning after. She is committed, folks.) And that was two months ago. As those two months wore on, I saw other invitations that were cuter and more "me" and I began to resent my already purchased invitations.

So I decided to modify them to my liking. Which is where the problem comes in. I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. I went back to the store-that-shall-not-be-named and purchased some totally gorgeous brown ribbon and decided to use those to tie on the invitations. The problem is that I didn't know how tie a ribbon. I mean, I know how to tie my shoes, so I figured that was all there was to it. WRONG. My bows were all wonky and lopsided and decidedly very un-wedding-invitation looking. So I had to look up ONLINE how to tie a bow. That's how non-crafty I am. I had to ask the internet to help me. Tie a bow. That's just embarassing.

So now I have 125 invitations to make. That's 125 cuts of ribbon. And 125 bows to tie. And 125 times for me to curse myself, Hobby Lobby, and the western tradition of marriage. I always told myself (and others) that I would just purchase plain, simple, non-bow-related invitations when I got married. I should have stuck to my guns.

And don't even get me started on how the stupid printer will not print the reply cards correctly. I can feel blood boiling just thinking about it.

Not sure yet

The engagement photos were an initial success as of last night. I say this because Alex and I had a lot of fun. I'm not sure if they were a complete success because I haven't seen them yet. I must admit I'm a bit anxious about them, but I suppose I will just have to wait (im)patiently and hope for the best until the verdict comes in.

In other news, Alex and I are planning on doing some boating tomorrow and potentially this weekend. He mentioned briefly today that we may bring Parsnip along. As a result, I high tailed it to the closest snooty pet shop at the closest snooty mall and bought her this:

She's not excited. But I am! She was so miserable, and I didn't even make her pose for a bazillion pictures. I took three quick ones and then felt guilty and took the vest off and gave her a treat. She's now sleeping at my feet, because that event was so traumatic. Hopefully I will get less crappy pictures of her looking adorable in her faux Louis Vuitton vest soon.

(Notice the sundry tennis shoes and mail in the background. We are a neat couple, destined to have the cleanest house on the block.)

So yeah, Happy 4th of July everyone. I'm beginning this middle-of-the-week holiday by watching robots in disguise tonight. We'll see how that goes. Alex is not excited in the least. His (older) brother is excited beyond belief. This should be good.

Faux Engagement Photos

If you woke up this morning thinking, "Gosh, I'd really like to see 20 pictures of Alex and Cora," then today is your lucky day!

Tomorrow, we are taking our official, professional engagement pictures, so I decided we should scout out some good places to take pictures at the local arboretum. But before we left, I also decided that I needed to take practice pictures in Alex's backyard in order figure out what outfit I wanted to wear. As you can tell, it went really, really well:


Yes, the dogs were driving me crazy.

We asked (and by "asked," I mean, "told") Alex's little brother to come to the arboretum with us and take pictures, so we could get an idea of where exactly we wanted our pictures taken.

This was all my idea, by the way. I am the picture nazi in this relationship. Alex loathes getting his picture taken and avoids it at all cost. However, he has learned that he has to at least pretend to humor me, because I am obsessed with taking random pictures.

Here are a few outtakes:


The look of true love! I'm not even sure why I was looking so angry, but there you go.


Happiness personified!! Alex was goofing off and his brother captured my exasperated look at just the right moment.

If you'd like to see more pictures, some in which we look silly, and others in which we look (somewhat) normal, click here. And you can marvel at how well we are dressed for this occasion as well.

Many thanks to Alex's little brother (my future brother-in-law!) for wandering around and taking photos of us when he could have been doing something fun instead. :)

Edited to add: Alex told me I should be funneling you kids to the wedding website. Consider yourself funneled.