Moving...

is already a pain in the ass.

In less than three months, we'll be in Washington!!! While I'm super excited about this, I'm also already getting slightly stressed out about the packing part, on top of the whole planning a wedding thing. My parents brought me some boxes today so I can start packing little things that I won't need in the next three months. I started with my books. I found a Babysitter's Club book (!!!!) that unfortunately isn't worthy of being moved to Washington. Yeah, they were sweet books in the 90's, but I've moved on to different kinds of books. I also found old paperwork from my apartment with my first roommate. Paperwork that said rent money hadn't been received for multiple months in a row and the electric payment hadn't been made in many months in a row. Yep, quality roommate she was. I shredded that paperwork, just like I shredded her right out of my life a while ago. She tried to friend me on MySpace (back when that was all the rage) and I couldn't decline her friend request fast enough.

Anyways, back to moving. I'm also starting to think of things I buy and if I can use them up by the time we move. I have three shampoo/conditioners in my bathroom right now. I use them all on a regular basis. Plus, I have an extra spare in the hall closet. I'm prettttty sure this will last me the next three months. Loose translation: I won't need to buy shampoo or conditioner until I'm in Washington. That's crazy to think about!!

I got a fair amount of wedding stuff done today. All of the groomsman's suits have been purchased. The best man's suit is being custom made in Germany and he should have it in a few weeks. Invitations will be here on Monday and will be in the mail by the end of the week. We're doing our own food and bought catering type supplies for that today. I have my first dress fitting next Saturday. The day before, one of my bridesmaids, Bekah, is spending the night and we're going to figure out how many flowers we're going to need and she's going to place the order (the place I'm ordering from requires a membership and she is a member). We're also going to get her dress. I'm going to paint signs to put along the route to the location. We got the wood today. Tomorrow I'm going to work on distressing it and in the next few weeks, I'll paint our names with arrows pointing which direction to go.

I got my oh so gorgeous wedding shoes in the mail the other day! I'm in love with them. The night I got them, I may have put them on a chair next to my bed when I went to bed. And when I woke up in the morning, I may have talked to them and said, "oh, good morning beautiful shoes. Nice of you to greet me this morning." And if I'm really being honest, I may have even put them in my bed next to me, laid them on my pillow and put my head next to them. And then I realized my shoes really shouldn't sleep in my bed with me, because I might roll over and poke an eye out with the heel. So that's when they went onto the chair to greet me in the morning.

It's past 1 AM now and I'm rambling. That's all the updates I have for now!

I'll leave you a beautiful picture :)

Embarassing

Today I went to to the mall on a hunt for a gray suit to match Seth's for the wedding. I saw this guy who appeared to be rearranging ties on a display rack like a store employee. I go up to him and start talking to him, telling him my story and what I'm looking for. "I'm getting married in July and I'm looking for a light gray suit and I'm not having any luck..." The guy was getting a small smile on his face as I kept talking and I was thinking in my head he must have had the prefect suit in mind and was getting excited to show it to me.

Nope.

When I finally paused for a second, he said, "I'd love to help you find a nice gray suit, but I don't even work here!"

Luckily he found it hilarious, while I felt like a major nerd. I told him he threw me off because he was rearranging ties on the display rack and he said he was just putting one back. I couldn't get out of that department fast enough.

Oh humility, you got me today.

P.S. I'm back in Michigan and home and all that good crap. It sucks being home, not gonna lie.

Thanksgiving and Other Random Updates

Happy way belated Thanksgiving! I had a pretty good Thanksgiving. I went to my parents house and we had quite a few people over. I talked to Seth too. He said he had some good food for dinner and it was an a-ok day. Just another day closer to being home, I guess. He said that there was a turkey outside the chow hall, just chilling in a wire mesh cage thing. They never killed the turkey to eat it; Seth said that the turkey was literally standing there in on one foot and pooping. He wasn't sure of the point of the turkey being there if they weren't going to kill it. haha I asked if they imported the turkey from the US or if it was a local turkey and he didn't know. (Side note: I learned on Thanksgiving eve that Israel consumes the most turkeys per year). Also, we purchased a new TV on Thanksgiving day!! I found a Black Friday ad the week before, with Best Buy advertisements and we found a new TV that we really liked. Ok, he liked it much more than I did...I really don't think we need a 55 inch TV, but that's me. In all fairness, we compromised he agreed on the smaller couch (instead of the home theater sized couch he wanted) a few weeks ago so he wasn't budging on this item. I was going to get up on Black Friday and drag my dad to Best Buy to get the TV, but Seth sent me a text on Thanksgiving morning saying that Best Buy had the TV we wanted for the sale price that we wanted. It's free delivery, too!! So I purchased it online and it'll be delivered this week. Part of the agreement was that Seth gets to set up the TV when he's home on leave. So I have to go for about a month with a big brand new flat screen TV behind my couch, waiting for Daddy (that's Seth...this new TV is going to be our child apparently) to come home. We also have to purchase a new TV stand, because my current one won't hold this new TV. (Another side note: my current TV in my living room is 20 whopping inches!! Or 27 inches if you count the speakers on the side of the TV. But the actual screen is 20 inches. Geez louise, 55 inches is going to be just a tad bigger than what I'm used to!!) All the more reason for leave to hurry up and get here....

And now for some random updates:

• Speaking of R&R, beginning December 1, I can officially say, "he'll be home NEXT MONTH!!!!" Ahhhhhhh!!!!
• I've got quite a bit of my Christmas shopping done. I am seriously addicted to shopping. I love hate that every time I go into a store to do Christmas shopping, I cannot help but to buy myself something too. I am definitely a giver in the gift department, and I just can't help treating myself too.
  
• I'm all done shopping for Seth and that's the important one. I'm going to mail it all out this weekend and I'm sure he'll get it in time.
• I decorated my apartment balcony today. Each year, the apartment complex has a Christmas decoration contest and I've entered for 3 years now...this might be my 4th, I can't remember...and I HAVE NEVER WON. I'm not typically a competitive person, but I am so hellbent on winning this contest!! Everyone else has lights that are all flashing and they give me seizures each time I look at them and I have cute and classy white lights and it's just so pretty. If I don't win this year, I'm seriously moving out to move to wherever Seth is after we get married.
• I'm listening to Delilah. I actually LOVE listening to her. All year round. I've always wanted to call in and share a sob story (real or made up) and give her a fake name. She is so lame and cheesy and ridiculous, I can't help but listen to her. Seth hates her.
• Our wedding Save The Dates are officially in the mail!! I've gotten a few messages from people saying they've received them and I've gotten a few compliments on them. It seems so official now :) 230 days!!!
  
• I was going to do our Christmas cards today (it's still early, I've got plenty of time!!), but my mom called and asked if wanted to meet her at Kohl's for some Christmas shopping. I couldn't say no. She bought me a few Christmas gifts and I'm superduper excited for them. I found some of those cute wall quote things and was browsing through the different ones with my dad, and I found one that said, "all because two people fell in love." I actually put this quote on our save the date card and I got all excited. Then he took the little canister from me and walked off. I went to find him and he was showing it to my mom and then it was dropped into the cart! Haha, so secretive, Dad! It's this one right HERE. We got to the register and saw that it was $29.99, which seemed a litttttle on the expensive side for just one of them, so I said it wasn't worth it. But then the sales lady said that it was buy one get one free, so my dad and I Super Market Sweeped it through Kohls, back to where they were and found another one. We were running through the store like crazy banchees, pushing each other out of the way back to go find another one. So then I found this one, and I grabbed the canister. Then my dad grabbed it out of my hand and took off running, back to the cashier! Haha oh man, I'm sure we looked totally ridiculous. At the end, when the cash register was in sight, my dad started running really fast and took off from me. Did you ever watch Supermarket Sweep?!?! I used to love that show!! My sister and I would watch it and we were sooo good at it!! I always wanted to be a contestant on it, but I was in late middle/early high school when it was on.
• I shaved my legs today. Like, full shaving, with real shaving cream and my whole leg. I'll usually do just from my knees down, but today I did the fulllll leg. No more reverse leg hair mohawk for me. I need to get back into the habit of shaving because SETH WILL BE HOME IN JUST A FEW WEEKS!!
• I've had an extremely productive weekend. I had a very long to-do list and I'm glad I got it all done (well, except the Christmas cards, but I still have plenty of time). I even managed to watch a few lameashell Lifetime movies yesterday. I'll never get the time I wasted back, but that is just fine with me.
  

I'll leave you with this. On my way to Khol's this evening, I was listening to a country station and started listening to this song, not knowing what it was exactly, but it sounded familiar. Then I heard the chorus and remembered it from last year and I started to cry and I couldn't stop. I don't think it had hit me yet that Seth won't be home for Christmas this year, but this song definitely did.



Sorry for such a long post!

I got Halloween flowers!!

This is the second time Seth has randomly sent me flowers this deployment. They're always sent to my work and they make my coworkers jealous!! Not going to lie, I do love that part (he knows that I love it, and I'm sure he loves the attention just as much!). And I love when people come down from different parts of the building to check them out. I love that word travels fast for when I get flowers!! This was a happy Halloween bouquet (who gets those!?) and had red roses and orange lillies. It is a very pretty Halloween bouquet! He's so good to me :)



On a different related yet not note, I went out to dinner with Molli the other night and it was like 67 degrees in my apartment when I got home. ABSOLUTELY FREEZING! When Seth was in Iraq, before we met, I convinced him to wear a t-shirt for a few days and then send it to me. He did this (then I got a wicked sty in my eyes - totally gross, I know - and I totally blamed him for it. I thought it was pink eye, and I was thinking, "what a jerk, he's giving me pink eye and we haven't even met?!" I think I used to get sties in like elementary or middle school...I haven't had one in forever, so of course it was his fault since I had just gotten his shirt and suddenly got one). Anyways, he sent me the shirt, I lived through the sty and I've worn it to bed since I've gotten it. So after I got home from dinner, I had the bright idea to put the shirt in the dryer to warm it up. When I put it on, it seriously felt like a big amazing warm hug from Seth. It felt sooo amazing for a good few seconds. But I was so cold and my coldness sucked the heat out of it, and then it just felt like a t-shirt, but for those few seconds, it was as close to a hug from him that I've felt in 7 1/4 months. And it made me even more excited for R&R. 2monthish2monthish2monthish.....

I'm off to the gym, going shoe shopping (DSW sent me a $20 off $49 coupon because they "miss me!!" How can I resist that?! I can't. That's how), going to my future in-laws house to finalize the guest list and do some wedding talk (I'm contemplating taking over my whole wedding binder, or will that freak them out?!), going to my parents to carve my pumpkin (and bake Seth pumpkin seeds) and then I'm going out with Molli later tonight. Should be a fun weekend and I'm super stoked for it.

I'm participating in blog around the world again!! Thanks to Amanda

Hope you all have a great weekend, too!

I can't stop shopping

A week or so ago, Seth was looking online for some running socks. He sent me the link to some he liked that he was looking at on Amazon.com and I asked if he wanted me to buy him some. He said sure, and I got the specifics on what kind he wanted and was allowed for PT. I went to MC Sports, which is a chain and figured I'd have some luck getting running socks. I did find a few pairs that were "no show" which he requested. There were only 3 pairs in the Nike so I got another brand because I knew he'd want more than just 3 pairs. Long story short....turns out they weren't what he wanted, so I said I'd return them and go to another store to look for some. I went to 3 different stores tonight at the mall...Finish Line, Champs and Foot locker...which are all sports/shoe stores that I thought would for sure have some running socks. None of them had "RUNNING SOCKS" which I was instructed to get. So I'm a little annoyed that I can't find any socks that he wants. Who would have thought it was this hard? I think I'm giving up looking in stores and I'll just order him the ones he linked me to on Amazon.com. Then I'll know for sure I'm getting the right thing. Jeez louise!!

On a positive note, I did stop at The Limited and bought a work top. (On another positive note, they were running a 15% off deal for teachers and students, so I saved 15%!) Not that I really needed it but holy crap I have been a shopaholic lately. I don't know why, but I can walk into a store and think I need to purchase 203984029 things. I found like 10 tops/sweaters in the latest Victoria Secret catalog that I want. I added them up and it was $256. I'm going to have to figure that one out...no way in hell am I spending that much. I may or may not have spent that much last weekend anyways. Whooops. Shopping has been really therapeutic lately. I do buy things for Seth though, so it's not all about me.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I feel like I've been slacking on my blogging lately. I've had a pretty busy last 2 weeks, and it's not going to slow down for another 12 weeks at least. With that said, here's a lameass re-cap of the last 2 weeks, in bullet form, so as not to get too wordy.

• I'm done house-sitting and I made $100. Not too shabby (especially considering my dad let the dogs out half the time!!!) and that's $100 towards my wedding shoes, that I'll be buying in the next few weeks!!! I might consider it again, I don't know. And I only do it for families that I babysit for...no one else.
  
• My vanilla extract is coming along nicely! It's been brewin' since August 2nd, and I'd say it's ready! But I'm not going to use it just yet, I'm letting it sit for a few more weeks. I'll post the starting and middle and end pictures one of these days. Here's the recipe I'm following if anyone is interested.
  
• The other day when I went to the wedding location, D and Nana were asking me what kind of wedding gift I wanted. Honestly, the only gift I really really really really wanted was a Kitchen Aid mixer. It's $299 (or more, depending on the size) and I wanted someone to buy me one instead of spending that money myself. That sounds extremely greedy, I know. So I registered for one and decided I could wait a little bit longer for one. I told D and Nana that this was what I wanted and they said right then and there that they would buy it for me!! D texted me earlier this week and asked what color we wanted, so after I emailed Seth, we settled on "Bayleaf" or "Caviar." D had a 40% off coupon at Kohl's and she was going to buy it on Thursday!! She said she'd probably have to special order it because of the color, but I am 99.9% sure she won't keep it for 10.5 months until our actual wedding. I told her I would bake lots of stuff for her and Nana as soon as I got it!! I CANNOT wait to get it!
• I think Seth and I are going to try Skyping tomorrow. I have not seen his face (in person or on webcam) since we said bye at the airport in Germany on March 9. That's over 5 months in case you're wondering. I cannot wait to see him!! I am also excited to get a little glimpse of his tent. I'm sure he thinks I'm lame for wanting to see it, but I really am curious.
  
• I ordered a tote bag from Land's End earlier this week and after consulting with Seth on the color, size, zipper or no zipper, monogram or no monogram, I finally got it in the mail on Friday! It's "seaport" blue and I got it embroidered with a B, which is the letter my new last name will start with in a few months! Until I become a B____, the B is for Bitch. haha
• Last night my mom and I canned some blueberries! I can't wait to try them. We made 11 jars, and I'm taking 3 of them. I'm sending one to Seth (he loveeeeees blueberries), I'll bake a pie for the girls at work and my parents, and I'll save a jar for when Seth is home so he can bake a pie. My mom also canned some of her tomatoes earlier this week and she gave me a jar of that, which I'll also save for when Seth is home so we can make some chili....he will totally be into this.
  
• I went shopping today and got a lot of new stuff. I got Seth some new socks, and a t-shirt, and for me, I got some new tennis shoes, 3 pairs of jeans, some bras and panties, a really cute sweater/cardigan with ruffles for work, another comfy sweater for weekends, and some more sweaters for work. One of the pairs of jeans has little fancy things on them...I keep thinking rhinestones, but they aren't. They aren't shiny, and I can't think of the name of them, but when I put the jeans on, I felt I really needed a pair of cowgirl boots. Soooo, I got me some cowgirl boots too!!! I haven't had cowgirl boots since I was about 6 years old when my grandpa bought me a pink pair with sparkles and pink fringe from Mervyns. Oh man those were cute boots. These are just brown boots, but they are super cute and I can't wait to wear them!! I'm ready for fall!!!
  

I guess that's it for right now. Happy Saturday night -- I'm going to clean out my closet a little bit so I can make room for my new stuff!! :)

Alcohol laws

Today I went grocery shopping. I went in the morning instead of the afternoon and it's Sunday and I forgot about the stupid Michigan law that says alcohol cannot be purchased before noon on Sundays. I was buying a bottle of vodka so I can start brewing (I don't know if that's the right term, but I'm using it anyways) my own vanilla extract...as a little trial run for our wedding favors. The lines were long as hell and I of course do not like waiting so I hopped between 3 lanes so I didn't have to stand in long lines. On the 3rd lane, it was about 11:53 and the cashier was taking his sweet time, which was rather annoying to me. I had my license out so he could check it, but he wasn't ringing up the bottle. Towards the end of him scanning the groceries, it was 11:57 and he picked up the bottle and he looked at his watch and said, "I'm just going to draw the rest of the scanning out because I can't run the alcohol through the scanner until after noon." Ahhhhh SHIT. There was a girl behind me and I told her sorry that she'd have to wait a few more minutes. Luckily it was only a few minutes, and we got to talking (me, the girl behind me and the cashier) and I told them I was going to make vanilla extract with it. We were literally counting down the seconds until 12:00:01 and it still wouldn't let him scan it. He had to wait until 12:01 for it to let him scan it. He said the scanners literally will not let alcohol be scanned before noon, he said it is a restricted item, and it starts beeping, and doesn't allow the cashier to override it.

We had to wait about 3 minutes total, and if i would have just been patient in the long lines, I wouldn't have had to make the girl behind me wait also. At least she was cool about it.

I have the alcohol but no vanilla beans so really it didn't matter how long I waited. However, my goal this week is to find some vanilla beans so I can start brewing this stuff.