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Saturday, May 29, 2004

chill

One of the things we decided to buy with our wedding gift money is a new refrigerator. The one we have now quite simply blows monkey chunks. It's the kind that only has one door, and there's a little freezer compartment on the inside. The freezer is whatever the polar opposite of frost-free is. Frost-ful? Frost-o-Plenty? You have to carve a space out of the frost in order to put something in. I'm sure it's costing us a fortune to run it.

Someday, I will have a show called Lifestyles of the Poor and Fabulous, and it will feature an entire episode about this freezer.

So, I've been fridge shopping today. The space for the fridge is only 64" high, so that limits the selection right there. I tried used appliance places, but no one had anything in stock in the right size, so then I moved on to Sears, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc.

The first thing I found out is that no one wants you to buy anything that costs less than $399. Free delivery is not an option below that price. Most short fridges are under $399, but delivery and take-away of the evil fridge would run $50-70. So at that point, you're looking at paying $350-370 for a fridge that's $300, by a company you've never heard of. Feh. So, I ended up back at Sears, and got a $450 Kenmore fridge on sale for $400, minus a coupon I found online for $30 off, with free delivery. Go me.

In case anyone is wondering why I'm doing this on my own, Dennis has given this project over to me; I have much more patience for commerce, and a competitive streak which makes me determined to get the best possible deal. Marriage is, after all, about playing to one's strengths.

This is step one in Operation: Better Kitchen. I have many, many plans and will be spending a lot of time in June in Home Depot and Ikea. There will be photos!
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004

wow. just wow.

Dennis and I pray together every night before dinner. It's casual - we hold hands and Dennis says a few words of thanks, and maybe we ask for a little help with letting go of the day so that we can enjoy our evening together.

Lately, though, about all we can do is just say Thank You Thank You Thank You Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou. I don't know how I ever got to be so loved. I don't just mean the Dennis, although he continues to amaze me daily with the small ways he finds to take care of me and delight me. The whole wedding process has been one example after another of people going out of their way to be kind to us and be generous to us and affirm our place in their lives. I am profoundly humbled.
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Monday, May 24, 2004

more photos!


I've added a thrilling play-by-play of our wedding ceremony to the page o' weddingy goodness.

I'm still waiting for my brain to come back. I'm smiling all the time, and I keep forgetting my name. I'm sure I sound like an idiot..."this is Sara...um...um...what am I calling myself again?"

People were entirely too generous to us, which has led to all sorts of entertaining storage challenges as we try to find room for everything and settle into real life. There was also a collection taken up among the parish for a wedding gift, which is amazing not only because it was an incredible outpouring of love, but also because I had no idea it was even happening. And I'm supposed to know everything that goes on around St. Ned's!

Dennis has some lovely things to say.
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Sunday, May 23, 2004

photos


There are more wedding photos here.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004

hi again!

We are back!

Soon, I will have photos to post. I have excellent coverage of the cake, but no photos of my actual bridal self until the photographer has them ready. I've started a page for wedding bits, which currently has a few random shots off my camera, as well as The Cake.

The day was deeply, deeply amazing. Nothing went wrong, and there was just so much happiness and good will and love. Dennis and I smiled like goons through the entire ceremony, except for a small amount of sniffling during the incredibly sweet homily and the bit with the rings. Did I mention that both our rings are engraved with "I choo-choo-choose you 5-15-04" inside? Because we're big dorks.

My friend who did the catering (she did tapas, and it was amazing! carnitas on a tortilla chip! chicken and cheese and horseradish bites! salmon rolls!) threw cocktail monkeys at us as we left the reception, and two lodged in my cleavage. I'm hoping this is a sign of good luck in some culture or another.

I'm working on a more full writeup, and will post that when it's ready. Thanks for all the nice wishes and comments, everyone!
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Friday, May 14, 2004

I'm getting marri-ed in the mor-ning

all the ding-dongs are gonna chime...

Oh, wait, that's wrong. Anyway.

The dress is done, the reception decorations are up and have been pronounced cool by an 11-year-old, so I think we're in business. We are rehearsed, we are packed for the honeymoon, and the boutonnieres are chillin' in the church fridge. I had a ton of help with the decorations today, which was great, and people even reminded me to eat and brought me food. My brain is so far gone at this point. I only broke down and cried once, though, which was fairly impressive given my stress level.

I was awake at 6:30 a.m. today and decided that sewing tablecloths was a good use of my energy, so I have two new pink and orange tablecloths at the reception. They're lovely if you don't look too closely. I have to say, my whole pink, yellow, and orange scheme really works - the parish hall looks so festive and fun, even before you see the monkeys.

I love what Dennis wrote about getting married.

I will have photos sometime next week - yay for digital photography. See you when we get back from the honeymoon!
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Thursday, May 13, 2004

whew!

Buddy Christ has been found, and is ready for his adventure in Disneyland. Dennis gave me BC for my 30th birthday, so I'm so glad I didn't lose him.

Ryan and I got pedicures yesterday evening. I have really ticklish feet, and couldn't stop giggling the whole time. But my toes are now painted with a color called Up The Amazon Without A Paddle, and they look pretty fabulous. I just got clear polish on my pathetic excuse for fingernails, because they're going to get trashed in the next couple of days anyway. Yes, I am a nail biter.

Today is all about getting stuff done. The rehearsal is tonight, and Dennis is making his Killer Marinara Sauce for dinner afterwards. I'm going to put my parents to work in the Program Mines, folding and tying ribbons.

I'm feeling relatively calm, with moments of Extreme Panic when I remember yet another thing that I need to do.
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Wednesday, May 12, 2004

looking for Jesus

I can't find my Buddy Christ. BC always travels with us - it's just what we do. Here is BC in Santa Cruz playing Skee-Ball, making a getaway in Tennessee, bowling in Vegas, and checking out some loaves and fishes in a field at Bonarroo.



I haven't seen him since I moved. I'm pretty sure he's someplace Safe, in the little black velvet Sephora bag he travels in. I tore the house apart tonight, because I really can't imagine the honeymoon without photos of BC.

Dennis has offered to keep looking, but he's got enough going on tomorrow, since he's cooking the rehearsal dinner. Of course, this led to me yelling, "look, I know Jesus is around here somewhere but that doesn't mean you have to find him, ok?"

Some things don't work out of context.
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Monday, May 10, 2004

update again

More bullet points:

The dress is almost finished. At any rate, it is at a stage where it could be completed with staples and duct tape if it had to be, so there is no danger of me not having a dress. Yay!

We have a marriage license. I had a dream where we got into the wrong line and ended up with a fishing license, but this did not happen. We also have a nice friendly booklet about genetic testing and not getting AIDS and not doing drugs while pregnant. Um, thanks?

We have a rental car. We ended up with a PT Cruiser, which makes me feel like a cartoon gangster. We'll be driving that to Disneyland next week. Cue the Capering Music.

I have good news about my car - I finally got it in to Russ the Wonder Mechanic (anyone who wants a great mechanic in Redwood City, email me!) and it turns out that I have a cracked fan belt and some heat shield or something came loose and was making that horrible noise that was freaking me out last week. So I will have a happy beetle again and it won't be incredibly expensive. Whew. [update: actually, the noise wasn't coming from the loose thing - it was coming from a Giant Bolt which was loose in my car. It didn't come from my car; I probably picked it up on 880 and it got kicked up and stuck and was rattling around inside the body of the car. Which is good in that nothing was actually broken, but it's just so, so random. It did get me to take the car in so that the deteriorating fan belt could be discovered before it snapped, which is a good thing. I saw the one he took out, and it was not pretty. I also finally have two working headlights.]

I seem to be holding together pretty well, although I did snap at Dennis when we went to get the marriage license, because the parking garage was confusing and he wasn't going the right way and it was just so very very stressful. And, of course, that was all about the parking garage and not at all about being sort of squirrelly because we were going to get a marriage license. Fortunately, Dennis knows me very well and let me be snippy and then encouraged me to do it more this week if it helps, right down to suggesting phrases I might enjoy using. So then I just started laughing. If I can hold on to that, I think we're going to be just fine.
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Friday, May 07, 2004

let me eat cake

Ryan has posted instructions for the Flaming Bridezilla Cake. Enjoy!

Leigh is back in town and is getting wedding cake supplies today. Should I be concerned that her list of stops included Home Depot and Radio Shack?

We've been re-forecast to 77° and partially cloudy. I am juuuust fine with this, speaking as the chick in the Hulk petticoat, which is not all that different from the 70s sauna suit craze.
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Thursday, May 06, 2004

more update

I'm back in 'ferret with a triple espresso loose in a sugar factory' mode again, so here are bullet points:

Weather.com is giving a forecast of 80° and sunny with no chance of rain for the wedding. Yay!

I stayed up and sewed last night. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm a bit punchy now. I did the tricky part involving the neckline lining, though, and it turned out well. It was tricky because it involved sewing next to the beading; somehow I managed not to break any needles, which is impressive.

I tried priceline last night to see about getting a better place for our wedding night, and ended up with a 4-star resort for what I was going to pay for a Quality Inn. Highly cool! We'll be leaving from there for Disneyland and the Tower of Terror (I might just sweep by the scary bellhop guy with, "dude, I just planned a wedding. how bad could this be?").
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Wednesday, May 05, 2004

bride update

So far, so good. We're both having weird dreams. My skin is behaving itself. The tooth bleaching kit I bought in a fit of vanity is actually working. I'm making progress on the top half of the dress. People are being wonderful and coming forward to help and bringing me cans of diet crack. Leigh will be here tomorrow, yay. My parents are on their way out and are currently in Oklahoma. We obtained a very nice suit for Dennis, although we're still working on the Tie issue - there are some scary-ass ties out there. I'm housesitting this weekend and will have a nice sewing retreat where I can make a big mess and run Mystery Science Theater videos constantly and no one will care.

Enjoying my last day of double-digit countdown. Today, it is ten days to go.
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Saturday, May 01, 2004

needles and pins, pins and needles

Oh, and I've been trying to keep all the sewing blather off here, but if you want the gritty details, you can check out the sewing journal here. [update - there are photos of my COMPLETED skirt and the Hulk Petticoat]
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pimp my ride

I'm finally noticing that the bug needs some serious work, and now I need to figure out how to make that happen given my current Utterly And Completely Freaked Out state.

My cute little green beetle needs a new windshield (thank you, big open-topped truck full of whatever smacked into my windshield on 880), a new headlight bulb so it will stop being called Winky by the other bugs, and some quantity of brake work, including replacing the fuse or switch dealie that makes the car realize that the brake is down and it's ok to shift out of Park. Apparently this was the subject of a recall at one point, before I had the car, so I'm wondering if the work was ever done. Considering the number of Hello Kitty decals I found inside the trunk and glove compartment when I bought the car, I have my doubts about the previous driver.

You know, whereas I have big daisies in the dashboard vase and a Jesus on a Spring on the dashboard and a 10" crack in the windshield in front of the passenger seat and a burned-out headlight because I'm a big grownup.
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