Optimistic

I admit it, there is an absurd mix of a realist and an optimist fighting for ground in this body of mine.

Realist: Politicians are most often sell outs
Optimist: The "most often" part

Realist: My family is falling apart
Optimist: Perhaps we can all still make it through as a family

Realist: People are stupid
Optimist: Well, not all people

Let the battle continue, but for today the optimist portion is winning out, however, there is still a few more days until Tuesday...

Grateful

Well, I have friends e-mailing be about wedding fun, one with "wedding fever." This makes me very excited because I don't have many people in my life that are into the whole wedding thing- I am grateful to have a few people who care and are helping. Thanks

And one more thing

My handsome nephew, Bradley, was on the cover of the local newspaper here, and this is the picture, him dressed as a Knight. Oh yeah, he is a little stud.

Three Things

Three things I love:
1) Steve looking at me first thing in the morning and saying, "Good Morning Sunshine"
2) Finishing a task/list...
3) Having three day weekends

Three things I don't like (I am kind of against saying hate, because my mom used to day, "You hate the devil, you dislike that...")
1) Drinking to much
2) Lack of Confidence
3) People taking things off of my desk

Three places I would love to visit (the whole world, but these are a few first)
1) Italy
2) New Zealand
3) Boston

Three things I would like to accomplish
1) Getting my masters degree
2) Getting into political office
3) Having a "good" marriage

Three people I know who inspire me
1) Brother Justin
2) Bissie Lee
3) My sisters (I guess that makes it four)

Three things I could eat (nearly) every day for the rest of my life
1) Sushi
2) Jamba Juice
3) Mexican Food

I am sure I could come up with a bunch more three's, but I should probably get back to work now.

Wedding Hair

So, I think it is finally official. I have a wedding hair style. Let me tell you that it did not come a moment to soon either. Had I had another bad hair style from my sister-in-law we might have come to blows. Way to much drama surrounding hair.

So, this is how the hair looks from the back. My hair piece is freaking awesome, but I don't think it is going to go on the back of my head like we did it here, instead it is going to go on the side. That is the way I first saw it when I decided to get the hairpiece, and I think that is the way that I like it best. So it is going on the side of my head.

This picture does not do justice for how cool it looks. It took two hours to do it all, so it looks like there will be no escaping me getting up at 6 am on D-Day.

All for the price of beauty too...

For those who are wondering, I am not wearing a veil. This is it for the flash and flare. I am not wearing a necklace either, I am just going to wear some dangle earrings and call it good. Even though the hair style does not show it, I am in fact a simple girl.

100 Days

Well theknot.com has just informed me that there are 100 days until the wedding. This is good because there is still big chunk of this shin-dig that I need to pay for. There is a part of me that just wishes the party were here. It is nothing about being married or spending the rest of my life with Steve... all that is already going to happen. I am looking forward to a party I have been planning for the last six months and will continue to plan for the next 100 days.

Mostly though, I am just trying to enjoy being engaged. I only have 100 days left of something I will never experience again. I don't know exactly how to enjoy it though. The stress, the emotions, and the frustrations are all part of this period of life, but how do I enjoy what else is going on??? How do I even recognize the little tid-bits that only occur when one is engaged?

Apples and Elections

Well, right now we are selling apples at Ironstone Vineyards. These are the kind of apples you crave when you are reminiscent of apples you ate when growing up.

Next-quite surprised about Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama. It makes me smile (just because I want to hear my dad talk about it later...)

The quote of the week, "Them are the true playas." -by Executive Chef James Lehman (it was truly funny when he said it, and I will butcher it if I attempt to tell the story.

The Weekend

A few adventures in my weekend... My diploma finally came in the mail!!!
Steve with my dipoloma-his picture looks better than any of my pictures with my diploma. He took me out to Seven Sisters to celebrate (a very nice restaurant). BTW-he was the one who wanted to take this picture. He might have been more excited than I was.

My sister-in-law straightened my hair in pursuit of wedding hair styles... There was tons of drama surrounding this, none of which is worth boring all of you beautiful people.

And other than that, life has been very busy. Until next time...

A walk with my sister that turned into a walk down memory lane

The other day I was talking to my sister Amber. She is one of my favorite people in the world. We decided to go for a walk. In the midst of this walking we started talking about my mom. We talk about her frequently, but this time we were really talking about the end of her life instead of just how much we miss her and wish she were here.

I wish someone would have told me how much I would regret not spending more time with her. I was 17 when she was diagnosed with cancer and 19 when she finally passed away. I moved away for three months of that time and did not see her at all. When I finally did see her I moved home about two weeks later, because I did not realize how bad it was getting.

Here is the thing, my mom was a devout christian. I never thought she was going to die. I 100% believed that she was going to be healed. That is all we were aloud to talk about. We were never to talk about the possibility of death-most of the people in our lives at the time were telling us that if we talked about death it would demonstrate our doubt.

Being in a place where you are confronted with death daily, but don't believe it is going to happen is, well, odd. I think one of the reasons I did not spend more time around the house is because I never thought she was going to die.

The second reason is because I was in high school, and just getting out of high school and I was selfish. I did not want to hang out with my family, I wanted to be with my friends.

All this being said, while walking with my sister the other day she and I both really wish that someone had told us to get our heads out of our a** and spend time with our mom. Nothing else matters from those two years other than the time spent with my mom.

I know it is worse now because I am getting married soon, and I don't really get to see my sisters a whole lot lately. I just wish my mom were here now.

And the winner is...

Ok- we did not win the stomp portion of grape stomp, but we did get first place for our outfits. Some people might say that the stomp is the most important part of the competition, but those people would be wrong. This was us right before the competition. Perhaps this is why we only got sixth in the stomp with all of the other vineyards. This is us actually stomping. Oh yeah, we have skills. Hatcher was the Vineyard that won this portion, and the overall. Steve and I are part of Hatcher's wine club, so I am ok with them winning. Plus they did not look nearly as good as we did. They did get three times more juice than we got.
This is after the competition with the president of the vineyard where I work.

And this is us looking fabulous with some Ironstone wine before the stomp. Jessica is the receptionist and my partner in crime in regards to all things Ironstone. For winning we both got $50, 3 bottles of wine, and passport for passport weekend, and a blue ribbon (I know have mine hanging on the fridge at home). The real joy is being able to tell everyone we are number one.

Stomp Weekend

Well, it is the grape stomp in Murphys this weekend. There is also a concert at my work. The receptionist and I somehow ended up being the team to represent Ironstone (where I work). We have had many managers tell us how important it is that we come home with a ribbon. This is all good and great but this is our first year, and we are going up against mulit-year stomp off winners. So, we decided the best way for us to win is to win the costume part or the competition.

Our bosses are so committed to us winning I did not hear one negative comment when I was working on our costume all afternoon at my desk. Hopefully I will get pictures of our awesome costume (we are making hula skirts out of corks), until then you will just have to envision it. Put up good thoughts for the "Six Mile Stompers" tomorrow so that we can bring home a ribbon. FYI- We are the six mile stompers because the vineyard where we work is on Six Mile Road-clever, I know.

Until next time-keep on stomping, San Diego.

Registering

Well, we finally went and did it when Steve was home this last weekend. I have been looking forward to this moment for months now. I have a small joy when I go over to someones' house who has been married for ten or twenty years and they pull out something that you find out later was a wedding present. It is a fun little walk down memory lane. So, we decide to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond first.

Problem One: Steve and I have a lot of stuff already. We don't NEED new towels, or plates, or any of these things. This is fine for Steve. However, I am more of the opinion that I don't like our plates, and eventually we will NEED new towels and everything else, so we might as well register for them and get them for free instead of buying them later.

Problem Two: I am much more into entertaining than Steve is. So I want to register for things that are mainly used when there is company, and for quantities that you need when you have company. Steve does not see the point of serving dishes, fun glasses and goblets and things like this.

So, after an hour or two of walking around and compromise we were both exhausted. We get back to the front of the store and the girl is amazed that we registered so quickly, and she is pleased with the amount of items on our registry. Thank God.

I was not in the mood for any more registering after this. I have gone on line and adjusted a few items without Steve's watchful eye on me. I also set up a registry for him at Lowe's. Very exciting, and I think that is going to be it for our registry. Not very exciting, but it is done, and there is some good stuff on there.