Monday, November 29, 2010

Dresses, obelisks and cake

I bought my dress!! I took a couple of mirror pictures with a sleeve option semi-attached (I need to decide by the March fitting whether I’m having them add sleeves or making my own shrug), but I will resist temptation to post them here. It’s a great dress, though, and now I just need cute but comfortable (and ideally blue) shoes to go with it. (I should also get these arms in shape. Yikes.)

I went to DC! The Boy and I spent Thanksgiving with his family in northern Virginia (also joined by my mom, so the families have finally officially met), and since my mom had never been to DC before we did some sightseeing. No captions on these photos yet, but here’s an idea of what we saw:

I made a cake! This has nothing to do with anything except that I baked and iced a cake for Thanksgiving dessert and thoroughly enjoyed it. The Boy and I tend to get our birthday cakes from the local Chinese bakery, and they’re beautiful and light and delicious but I’m thinking of trying to recreate them at home for the next occasion. Just what I need seven months before a wedding—a new reason to bake Smile

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Test post from Windows Live Writer

Let’s see how posting from this desktop app works. Do the fonts translate correctly? Ooh, and let’s also check out the photo options:Introducing The Boy to SML on our quick trip to CT in October

Text wrapping and the ability to actually choose a font and have my choice stick? Check. (Blogger and I have this feud every time I try to write a post.)

Interesting formatting options (or at least more interesting options than Blogger offers, namely “small,” “medium,” and “large”)? Check.

Odd formatting quirks, for example making the photo disappear when I perhaps got a little too excited with the “click and drag” feature (very difficult in Blogger’s web app, by the way)? …well, yes, but I’m willing to accept some of the blame here.

Quirks aside, I’m liking this blogging experience quite a bit. Sure, the future is in the web or “the cloud” or whatever, but if “the cloud” wants to give me a free download of excellent blogging software, I’m not going to complain. I can even select from a handy list of previously-used content tags, which the app automatically imported when it pulled in all of my blog settings. Well done, WLE team. I approve. (And sorry, Mac users—looks like you have to have some form of Windows installed to use this stuff. I’m sure you guys have some magic, pre-installed blogging software that runs on unicorn tears anyway Sarcastic smile)

Look at me, trying out relatively new technology and liking it. Go me.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Off-topic: help me add this widget?

If anyone reading is more schooled than I in making Blogger templates and rogue HTML play well together, can you help me add the widget below (from theknot.com) to my blog template? I can't figure out a way to add it as an official widget, and I'm a little too green on HTML to try dropping the code into the template itself. Help!

Wedding Countdown Ticker

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Things are coming together

Trying to keep this on the short side, as it's been a while since I've posted and this could easily turn into a minute-by-minute recap of the past few weeks. I will not let this post get out of hand. Pinky swear.

Life update: I had a birthday (sigh...I mean, it's great that I keep having them; I just haven't gotten used to the fact that the darn number keeps getting higher). Our Brady Bunch of cats continues to not like each other very much, but blood has yet to be shed. Work continues as always, but I'm working on a sizeable project and solidifying some long-term goals. Christmas knitting has begun a bit later than it really should have, but I think I'm in good shape to have all projects completed by their respective gift-giving opportunities. (Whether they will be wrapped is another question.) I have an awesome new phone that doesn't make me want to throw it at the wall every time I interact with it. It has apps and everything!

Wedding update: We took engagement photos with our awesome (and awesomely-priced) photographer, and they came out really well. I had my third bridal store expedition last weekend and came away with two dress finalists, and after ruminating for a few days I think I've settled on one. It's one of the store's most popular dresses, but it's beautiful and it makes me look skinny and as long as I don't see it in a wedding between now and next July I think I'll be fine. I'm not even concerned about the copycat-ness of wearing the same dress as a friend; I'm more worried that the friend will come down the aisle and I'll turn to The Boy and say "hey, that's my dress!" before I can stop myself, and then the wedding day surprise will be spoiled. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Next up:

Time to figure out the bridesmaid dresses. I'm having what could be described as an existential crisis about dress colors (do they wear the very bright color that I like on paper but find a little overpowering in person, or do they wear a less-vibrant but still coordinating color and possibly make for unexciting photos?), but I'm heading back to the bridal store this weekend to spend some quality time with the color options. I hope to come away with either a single color (everyone picks their favorite style) or a collection of shades, so everyone can start making appointments to try things on a their local stores and lock things down in the next few weeks. There's technically plenty of time--it could probably wait until January--but the sooner I can stop worrying about this task, the better.

This post isn't too long, but it's threatening to get there and I can tell how boring it is, so let's run through the other open questions quickly: finalizing a design for the Save the Dates and getting them out the door before Christmas, staying sane/rested during choir concert season (which kicks off tomorrow), looking for flight deals for our Christmas/New Year's travel expedition (two weeks, three states, very few vacation days), wishing my right shoulder would just unknot itself already.

There. That should cover it. If you've made it this far, I'll reward you with a photo that may or may not show up in a later wedding-related communication:


Edited to add: Blogger.com and IE 9 beta do not play together well. I've tried to fix what I can, but apologies for formatting weirdness.