The most wonderful time of the year

Ah, December—the festive time when I come down with a voice-stealing cold just in time for a string of choir concerts; the magical days when I somehow squeeze Christmas presents, travel expenses, charity giving and the occasional treat for myself out of one paycheck; the joyous weekends when I ask my fellow drivers to please GET OUT OF THE WAY so I can finish my shopping and make it home before the snow starts and the roads become undriveable until Puget Sound’s three snowplow operators remember how their vehicles work and start sloooooowly clearing the highways. Isn’t this time of year *great*?

Annoyances aside, though, I really do like the holidays. I like that my office makes up for a lack of party budget by throwing a potluck white-elephant gift swap (even though I’ve yet to enjoy the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader audiobook[!] that I “won” last year), I love having an excuse to bake Christmas-colored cookies, and I enjoy figuring out which decorations I can put up that our cats won’t eat or otherwise destroy. (I learned to be careful when I returned after the holiday to find that Sabrina had batted every single ornament down from the tree. I was still finding them under furniture when I moved out of that apartment last summer.) The Boy’s workgroup is having a crazy-go-nuts holiday party tomorrow, and I’m so excited to break out my awesome (but not wearable at any other time of year) bright red plaid skirt that looks exactly like a wool blanket we had when I was a kid.

This time of year also brings back memories of Christmases past—buying what is to this day my favorite holiday album (Ren & Stimpy’s Crock o’ Christmas, featuring the classics “Cat Hairballs” and “The Twelve Days of Yaksmas”), playing “Carol of the Bells” in a handbell quartet on Christmas Eve on a couple of hours of rehearsal and very little sleep since I’d just flown back to LA after finals, wearing my most festive holiday headgear while singing (croaking…I was usually sick, remember) in the Yale Glee Club concerts, singing nearly every women’s part in my high school’s and college’s respective traditional holiday concert closing songs, stumbling across “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and/or “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on TV…yes, good times.

And then the rest of me realizes that it is only December *2nd* and it is very likely I will burn out on Christmas music by the 25th if I start listening to it now, so I’ll go concentrate on getting my voice back by Saturday’s concert. And also decide whether to wear my red plaid skirt to work tomorrow, or change into it closer to party time. Tough call.

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:

Thanksgiving 2010 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

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

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:

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 )

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

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!

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.

The search continues

...well, shoot.

Re: my previous post about wanting clean, simple dresses that my mom thought were boring? Well, I had one particular designer in mind when I wrote that. I'd wanted to go try on a few of his (simple, straightforward, cheap...as wedding dresses go) dresses when I'm in southern CA at the end of October (no showrooms in Seattle, but one near LA), but my mom checked out a few designs and strongly suggested we go check out "fancier" dresses at a different store. I grumbled--I grumbled here on the blog--but then I took advantage of the company's shipping program to have my favorite dress (see previous link) and another, slightly sparklier one sent to me at home so I could try on samples. And you know what? My mom was right. I hate when that happens.

The lighting's not great and the mirror needs cleaning, but for the most part what you see is what you get. The first dress made me feel dumpy; the second one was a bit more exciting but the only sample they had available was a size too big. (If you're looking for my other hand, it's clutching the back of the dress so the bustline doesn't gap too much in the photo.) Conclusions from this little adventure: I definitely need something more exciting happening on my dress--even with a bright-colored sash, #1 would be boring, and the jeweled empire waist on #2 helps but still isn't enough to be interesting. I know that some of the issues I had with the fabric come from these dresses being used as samples (what you don't see in the photos: fabric filled with snags, small rips, and makeup stains from past tryers-on), but compared to the more structured dresses I tried on a few weeks ago at David's Bridal these just felt flimsy. I'm sure they'd be great for naturally skinny women with little to hide, but I've seen my stomach and it needs structure. And shinier fabric. (That last part isn't required; I just think I'll like it more.)

So know we know: I'm ready for fancier. I'm ready for sparklier. I may even be ready for a few sequins. (I may still consider some other designs from this company for bridesmaid dresses.) I'm not thrilled that the style I thought I'd love didn't work out--this means I still have lots of trying-on ahead of me, oh joy--but it doesn't feel as overwhelming if I think of it as having crossed a whole genre of dresses off the list. Boring is out! Bring on the shiny!

Where does the time go?

Not much new progress to report on the wedding planning, but we have a meeting with the wedding coordinator this afternoon so I expect her to get us thinking more seriously about the little details that I've been avoiding. And, well, I guess by "not much new progress" I mean we haven't chosen (or seriously considered) any new vendors since picking our photographer a couple of weeks ago, but I suppose we've talked some about colors. I like cobalt blue and a nice heather/charcoal gray, and The Boy recommends adding a brighter third color so maybe yellow? We need to go to a hardware store and hash this out in the paint chip aisle, but at least we've started talking about it.

I'm also trying to nail down times to try on dresses--I keep forgetting to call J. Crew for an appointment in late October (the first time the local bridesmaids and I will be in the same city and not otherwise occupied), and I'll probably try to squeeze in a David's Bridal appointment for the same day. I may visit another DB the prior weekend when I'll be in southern California (it'd be nice to try on at least one dress in front of my mom), and I'm taking advantage of a small designer's try-on program to test out a couple of dresses next week. (Short version: the designer doesn't have showrooms in Seattle, but I love one of his [inexpensive!] dresses and for $15 they'll send you the dress to try on at home.) This is probably both my most and least favorite part of planning so far--the dresses are pretty and they're built to make me look good so I'm not anticipating body-image issues, but I already hate making decisions and this seems to be the biggest, most impactful decision I'll make for a while. I've got my mom telling me that the simple, clean dresses I'm drawn to aren't "special" or "stunning" enough for my wedding day (it seems the guests spend money coming to the wedding for a show, and if I don't look extra-special then it'll be a letdown), and all of the websites and catalogs and magazines are pushing sparkly dresses that don't speak to me at all but seem to be the standard for weddings. I realize that this is our party and I'm paying for this dress so the final decision is mine, but I don't want to choose something disappointing, and I'm terrified that the dress I love now will look boring in our photos. But anyway, all of this is to say that I think I have a good idea of what I want, but if there's a chance that I'll fall in love with something sparkly then I will go try on some damn sequins.

That was an unexpected rant. Quickly finding something good to report: work is...work, I got to hold a baby (still not interested in having any just yet, but boy do I like holding them), lots of traveling and fun times have been had these past couple of weeks, and this morning I made a lot of arrangements for the next couple of trips. And then I'll have a birthday and then Thanksgiving (more travel) and Christmas/New Year's (*two* desinations for that one! I apparently *heart* the airline industry) and then it'll be 2011 and the wedding will be just around the corner! Yikes!