I've been busy.

At some point I should probably either give up on this blog or force myself to sit down and write more regularly, but for now I will continue to feel vaguely guilty about not writing more and throw up a post whenever I feel like it. It's a lot harder to become the Etsy-empire-owning, lucrative-mommy-blogging domestic goddess I feel is my destiny when I never blog (and don't have an Etsy store...and have yet to develop a single domestic trait except a nasty habit of baking whenever the weather dips below 50 degrees), but I did check one thing off the list in the nearly two years since my previous post.

We made a little human! She's quite a bit bigger now than she was almost a year ago, but she still has plenty of growing to do and so I will continue to call her my baby for the foreseeable future. It's been a whirlwind of a year in addition to the craziness generally created by a new baby: at first I was planning to be a working mom who totally intended to go right back to work after maternity leave, and then I was a stay at home mom for seven months who seemed to spend more time at play groups and Target than actually sitting in my house, and as of two weeks ago I am a full on working mom who drops the baby off at day care, puts in a day at the office, and then tries to do as much baby bonding (and dinner making, and cleaning, and laundry) as possible in the maybe two hours before baby bedtime. It feels like I've been through three identities in the past year, but they've all had an expiration date and this current one is no exception as my contract ends next spring and I can decide then whether to go after another one. (The contract job has great hours compared to my old gig, but after paying for day care I can basically cover groceries and maybe a couple of trips to Target. Kids aren't cheap, guys.)
So that's what I've been doing! I'll try to check back in before I have baby #2 (who should not be joining us for a couple of years at least. Gotta make sure I don't screw up this one first.) or launch my crafting empire, which on the surface sounds like the sweet life but is probably more like late nights hunched over a sewing machine and becoming besties with the staff at the post office. It may be time to revisit my life goals.

(Last-minute add: I was just hunting for previously used labels for this post, and it felt a lot like choosing hashtags. Has it really been so long since I've blogged that now I think in hashtags instead of labels/tags? #hashtagcraycray)

I know this guy.

Okay, so I realize that most of my followers here are the same people who follow me on Twitter (and who can see what I like on Facebook--creepy, btw), but I had to share it again.

This? This is my friend Kevin:

Fostering Tech Talent in Schools

A few years ago--like, after I knew him--Kevin needed an extra challenge on top of his day job, and he started teaching first period (actually, I think it was technically zero period) Computer Science at a high school near his apartment. Then he decided to use his master's in education (may we all make such good use of those graduate degrees that we feel so compelled to collect), and that other CS grads like him should be doing the same thing if we really want to continue matching the hiring needs of tech companies around the world. Then he found a way to make that his job while remaining a full-time employee at Big Company That Pays The Bills(tm) and using the company's resources (people and money) to grow the program. *Then* he was featured in the BCTPTB's recent yearly company meeting...and then in the New York Times.

I'm so insanely proud, you guys. To know someone who's stumbled on their life's calling, and then made it an official job, and then got a ginormous company to throw some money at it (maybe not directly related, but still a nice connection), and then got recognized in a world class publication? Add that to the variety of excellent people that I've met between high school, college, and beyond, and damn. We're good people, guys.

...And one of these days I'll convince my husband to start getting up early so he can join this program. Time to use that CS degree (in addition to your current job, whatevs), sweetie!

Envy

Take one particularly hideous choir audition (the director is re-screening members, presumably to weed out people like me who absolutely crumble when forced to sing solo) a couple of days ago, and combine with the discovery of vocals-only tracks of iconic songs by fantastic singers. What do you get? Yes, lots of envy...but I had to post this anyway. It's too awesome. 

In related news, my fingers are crossed that I'll be allowed to continue singing with this choir once I get through another travel season at work, but even I wouldn't let me back in. The audition was that bad, and now I'm questioning the whole concept of "talent" and whether I have any, since singing--solo, at least--clearly isn't a strength of mine. But that's another post. (#pityparty)

Whiplash

Yes, I do realize that I’ve been neglecting this blog. A few weeks ago I heard about a blogging service that emails you every day and you just have to hit “reply” to write an entry, and my level of laziness is such that I’d rather have my blog ask me for entries than actually remember to write them on my own. I am just that lazy. It’s a good exercise, though, and I’ve been treating it as a private diary where I can post anything from Twitter- to novel-length and not worry what my readers will think because I’m the only one. That said, I do have a very nice blog with very nice (if not plentiful) readers who would probably like to hear from me once in a while, and since I actually have something to report I will go ahead and do it now:

I’m changing jobs!!

I suppose I can provide some details now that I’ve officially accepted the offer and the wheels are in motion: Starting sometime soon (early June?), I will leave my current role as a marketer and become a recruiter for college/university applicants to Software Company That Pays the Bills, Inc. It’s a discipline change, but many of the skills (teamwork, juggling multiple projects, staying excited despite sleep deprivation) remain the same, and really it’s still kind of marketing, just to a different (and much more skeptical) audience. This is a shift I’ve been thinking about and actively pursuing for several months, and I’m a little apprehensive about the workload and especially the travel (I may have to take a choir hiatus ), but I’d much rather work my butt off for a job I love than pretend to care about a job I merely tolerate. I’m very lucky to have this opportunity—heck, I was lucky to have the first opportunity—and I will keep that in mind when I’m bumped off a flight coming home after weeks of travel and tempted to turn in my frequent flyer miles for a one-way ticket to a deserted island. (Okay, two one-way tickets. Future Husband can come, too.)

I’m thrilled, of course, but now the tricky part begins where I have to figure out how and when to tell the people I currently work with. My manager, his manager, and my manager’s peer who’s been following my job search (and trying to convince me not to leave, bless him) all know, but I’m working on how to tell everyone in person who needs to hear it from me before 1. the news leaks out on its own and 2. my manager sends the official transition email to the organization. One complicating factor that I can’t do anything about is that the Co-Worker Who Hates Everything (and who is not not a reason I’m leaving) just left town for almost two weeks, and poop will hit the fan when she gets broadsided by this news upon her return. I’m actually physically tense about how she’ll react, since she’s been trying to get off this team for years but isn’t getting interviews because people sense a toxic personality/lack of social skills. It’s a shame because she’s actually quite smart and has good ideas that she can execute well on her own; the problem is that she has no sense of how to work well with others and alienates anyone who tries, including our shared manager. And if you’re not with her (like I’ve tried to be, sometimes to my own detriment), you’re dead to her and she won’t hesitate to badmouth you to others. The stress of working with her has brought me to tears multiple times (once in front of my manager’s peer…sigh), so I’m both thrilled to leave and terrified of her reaction. I can’t do anything about that until week after next, though.

Finally, an explanation for the title: One nice feature of my new blogging platform (which has not totally replaced this one, I promise) is that the daily emails include a past post for me to mull over as I work on the current one. Right now I’m getting posts from a month ago, and the one I received last night was all about how miserable I’ve been in my current job and how the best-case scenario was that a recruiting job would just land in my lap so I could live happily ever after. I wouldn’t say this job was quite that easy to get—I did have to interview and there was much gnashing of teeth as I prepared and then waited for a decision—but life has changed a lot in the past month. The job appeared, the team invited me to interview, and they unofficially offered me the job within days of my last interview. This happened fast, even if it seemed excruciatingly slow at the time. (There were some emotions yesterday morning as I nearly convinced myself that the weeklong delay between unofficial and official offer was a sign that they had changed their mind. The official offer materialized within hours.) Lesson learned: Patience! Few things are really as slow as they seem.

Sat down and I wrote this…post

Well, I was going to start rereading the first Harry Potter book tonight, but when I opened to the first page I found myself daydreaming about where I was when I read each book and saw each movie, and how much my life has changed since I first discovered the books in college. After a couple of minutes of thinking I put the book down and started writing for real, and I ended up with the brain dump/essay below. I hesitated to share this here as it includes a lot of navel-gazing and it’s not my best writing, but I figured if I managed to voluntarily write a two-page essay, I might as well let a few people read it.

[TL; DR: I read the first Harry Potter book a really long time ago. The final movie comes out this summer, two days before my wedding. Things have changed a lot in those eleven years.]

The Boy Who Lived

I’m restarting the Harry Potter series tonight. I’ve read many of the books more than once (especially books 1-4, which featured prominently in my college senior thesis), but this will be my first time reading the entire series straight through. I’m doing this in parallel with three of my best friends with whom I’ve traded theories and imagined endings over the past several years, and our goal is to have each reread the full series by the time the final movie opens in July.

So, just how much has my life changed since I first met Harry?

Early spring 2000: I’m nearing the end of my freshman year of college, and I’ve just pulled one of my first nearly all-nighters finishing some sort of paper. It’s a Friday afternoon and I’m trying to stay awake to get back on a normal sleep schedule, but I’m definitely taking the rest of the day off from schoolwork. It’s a cold, windy day, so I borrow my suitemate Sara’s copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and spend the afternoon in a coffee shop with my good friend Colette. She sketches the people around us for her art class while I finally dive into this book that I’ve been hearing so much about. By the time we head to dinner a couple of hours later, I’ve finished most of the book and I’m hooked.

Summer 2000: I land a semi-regular babysitting job for a family friend’s nine-year-old daughter. Celeste and I enjoy our evenings playing games and watching movies (including “Mystery Men,” which is highly underrated), and at bedtime she likes to be read to. Mostly we read fairy tales, but she’s a Harry Potter fan and we discuss Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban, which I borrow from Colette during what turns out to be my last “normal” summer. When Goblet of Fire is released, I read a couple of chapters out loud to Celeste before begging her to let me read from any other book so I don’t spoil the story for myself. (This is when I begin to realize I have a problem.)

Skipping ahead a bit: I acquire my own paperback copies (including South African editions of books 2 and 3) of the series to date by fall 2002, when I hit upon the idea of making a senior thesis out of the Harry Potter series. I’m majoring in religion, so I figure I can draw some religious ideas out of the lessons Harry learns, and for good measure I throw in the Left Behind series as kind of a fundamentalist-Christian parallel to Harry’s world of witchcraft and wizardry. While my ultimate argument feels somewhat weak (Harry Potter espouses morals that are just as “Christian” as Left Behind, so churches should stop banning it!), I’m graded well and my advisor points out that a religious scholar will be giving a talk comparing the very same books at an upcoming conference. It seems my idea isn’t totally unfounded.

Skipping ahead some more: Order of the Phoenix is released the summer after I finish college (and of course I put my name on the waiting list for friends’ copies), Half-Blood Prince comes out the very night of my last day of work before beginning graduate school (future wedding officiant Danielle and I annoy our fellow hotel guests by reading aloud at breakfast from the book procured at a midnight launch party in Pennsylvania during the first of six yearly amusement park road trips with Matt and Kat), and my pre-ordered copy of Deathly Hallows arrives, courtesy of Danielle’s parents, as I am unpacking and procuring furniture for my brand-new apartment in Seattle. I’m so busy setting up my apartment that I implore my visiting mother to scan news sites before I’ll look at them, just in case CNN or the New York Times has accidentally posted a spoiler. It takes me several days to get started, but once I’ve sent my mom back to California and opened the book I spend hours in a new favorite coffee shop finishing the series that I’d begun in a coffee shop seven years earlier.

Along the way, I’ve been going to see the movies shortly after they’re released. Some I watch in the first few days, some I see at midnight on opening day, and one I watch on Christmas night with two childhood friends since there’s nothing else to do. And now the very final movie is coming out just two days before I get married. Let’s look at that again:

Spring 2000: When I first meet Harry, I’m an 18-year-old who’s still vaguely afraid of boys, sitting in a coffee shop on a cold day in Connecticut with one of my oldest friends. I have two living parents and only the slightest idea of what I might major in, much less what I’ll do after college, much less what I’ll do after that.

Summer 2007: The final book is released as I’m embarking on what for me is a huge life step. My now-widowed mother is helping me move into my first solo apartment in a city I barely know, which I’ve moved to because I’ve managed to land a job at a company I knew next to nothing about just a year earlier. I’m scared and lonely, but for several hours over a couple of days I’m in the company of familiar characters, and when I finish the book I discuss the ending with close friends across the country whose emails remind me that I’m not alone.

And now I look ahead to summer 2011: I’ve made new friends (and kept the old), and one of those new friends turned out to be someone I’d like to spend the rest of my life with (and he picked me too, which is awesome). Eleven years ago I spent an afternoon reading with Colette; this summer she’ll be a bridesmaid at my wedding. Nearly six years ago Danielle and I read out loud to each other from the second-to-last book; in a few short months she’ll be making my marriage official. Almost four years ago Kat, Matt, Danielle and I discussed the full series in great detail; in July Matt will be an usher and Kat will be my maid of honor. I am very seriously considering potentially ruining my sleep schedule shortly before the most-photographed day of my life so I can watch the very first showing of the final installment of the Harry Potter series, hopefully surrounded by all of these people. It just seems fitting.

Part of me thinks it’s silly to draw parallels between a book series and standard life events. Lots of college freshmen have no idea where they’ll end up a decade later, and it’s certainly not unusual for someone to move to a new city and find a life partner among a new network of people. What’s unusual, though, is for a series of stories to have such longevity that it spans life stages. In the past eleven years I’ve matured from an awkward, directionless college student to an awkward, somewhat less directionless adult with one fewer parent but a future husband who embodies many of the qualities I miss most about my father. And as Danielle has pointed out, kids who first encountered Harry as pre-teens in the late 1990s will be viewing this final movie as college graduates. I seriously doubt JK Rowling had any idea how significant her modest character would become, but I’ve grown up with Harry. I’ll probably be emotional when the final movie ends, not only because it doesn’t have the happiest of endings, but also because I’ll be reflecting on how much has changed since I opened the first book. As in the series, I’ve lost some of my favorite people, but I’m ready to move forward with the ones I have left.

 

Right. Blog.

I forgot I had one of these. Quickie update, then:

I’m getting married! The planning continues, as it will until the very last minute, and I may very much regret this in the coming weeks but at the moment I am totally looking forward to making the invitations (mostly) by hand. I get to play with fonts, wording, and pictures, and last weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time in a paper store picking out the perfect combination of colors. I even got a fancy hole punch and a tape gun. I was a crafty child (I liked making things, too), so my inner 12-year-old is downright giddy that I get to play with paper and shapes and glue and even a paper cutter (which I was never allowed to touch as a kid). My outer 29-year-old is pretty thrilled, too…or she will be until the first paper cut. Pre-emptive ow.

I’m a member of the arts community! Well, so things were getting better after the disastrous choir rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, but then I skipped rehearsal two weeks ago because I felt vaguely crappy, and then I got way sicker the following weekend and barely made it through half of the next rehearsal (as an observer, even, since there was no voice for singing) before I had to go home and crash. The choir’s probably getting better, but I’m still at square one in terms of sightreading. Sigh. (Cough.)

I bring home the bacon! (Well, I bring home some bacon, but much of it gets paid out to various college loan agencies. Meh—worth it.) Work continues to be work, but I seem to be gaining some traction with other groups thanks to a well-placed friend who is awesome about passing along job postings. Even if the possibilities currently on the table don’t work out, it’s nice to be considered (seriously) and I’ll have made connections who might think of me next time. We’ll see how this one works out.

Three things happened this week

I’ve been feeling the urge to blog but haven’t had anything significant (that I wanted) to blog about, so I’ll just give you a snapshot of vaguely interesting things that have happened this week.

1. Choir rehearsals started again this week after a holiday hiatus, and it was great to see the group again but learning new music is tough. I’ve always struggled with keeping my confidence up when sight-reading, and this rehearsal was no different. Our repertoire last fall was quite easy, so it’s been quite some time since my brain has had to work so hard. It’s a good workout, but very frustrating. My fingers are crossed that we can turn last Tuesday’s mess into enjoyable music by early April. We will see.

2. Work is…work. Back in “ugh” mode. I was looking into this one thing a few weeks ago and was holding on to a little bit of hope that it might work out, but I got the official no Sunday night. So…back to square one.

3. I’m rocking a brand-new (and my first!) pair of Tom’s shoes today. They’re not the most attractive shoes I’ve ever owned (including some monstrosities in college…ah, the late nineties), but man are they comfortable, plus I get the added selfish benefit of knowing that a poor child somewhere in the world is getting their own pair because of my purchase. I noted a few days ago that Payless is starting a similar program with (what else?) Tom’s knock-offs, and I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it. I mean, it’s great that even more kids will get donated shoes, but did Payless have to directly copy their model, and (of course) charge less? It’s one thing when they copy shoes from a big company like Nike (and I’m sure I’ve bought some of those knock-offs), but I feel like the smaller companies—especially philanthropic ones—should get a break. Anyway.

It’s after 5pm on a Friday and I appear to be the last person left in the office, so I’ll end this here. Happy weekend!

A new project

A few months ago my good friend and future bridesmaid Elisabeth (who is recently married herself) were talking, and we hit upon the topic of marriage and children and how occasionally our brains and bodies would demand babies RIGHT NOW but other times we would thank our lucky stars that we were still (mostly) well-rested, (mostly) independent women. One of us (it might have been me) mused aloud, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a blog that just featured terrible, gut-wrenching stories about how pregnancy and parenthood could be miserable?” Our thinking was that such a blog would function as a good barometer of readiness: If you can read it and still want babies, then it’s time. If, on the other hand, the stories make you clamp your legs tight and look upon your significant other with fear, then perhaps you should hold off on the babies. Well, it didn’t appear that such a blog existed…but now it does.

Introducing So Not Ready, the blog full of stories that will help you be positive it is baby time before you take any steps to procreate. Elisabeth and I (mostly Elisabeth so far) are combing the Internets for stories that make our biological clocks skip a beat, and then we post them for all to read. (Think of it as an almost-mommy blog.) Heck, even after we start building our own families I fully expect that we will be sharing our own stories with future generations of readers who are not quite ready.

Don’t get us wrong; we love babies and children and we totally intend to raise our own families when the time is right. We just want to make absolutely certain that we know what we’re getting into before baby-making time begins, and maybe you do too. If you run across any articles, blog posts, or real-life stories that should be featured on our site, please let us know. Enjoy!

Happy (early) new year!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, so just popping in quickly to say that 2010 turned out to be a pretty good year (with some great surprises along the way, i.e. unexpected job satisfaction, the occasion for the photo at right), and I’m hoping 2011 will be even better. There’ll be the Big Event in July, of course, but there are other great or at least big things to look forward to: getting to know a friend’s new baby, supporting another friend as she introduces her boyfriend to her parents and gets engaged, and perhaps some career changes next year as well.

I’m a little apprehensive about creating a detailed list of the things I expect to happen in the next year just in case they don’t happen or the year sucks or something, so I’ll leave with a snapshot of the good things happening right now: there’s a mug of ice cream in my belly, a glass of mulled mead is waiting for me to take a typing break, and I’m surrounded by some of my best and oldest friends as we celebrate the new year together. Good times.

Happy 2011!

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!

A sea of pink

Things are kind of slowly starting to come together! All of the grown-up attendants have been confirmed, the parents of one flower girl have signed off (and I'll work on the second when I have some time at night to send her mom an overdue email), and my stack of bridal/wedding magazines continues to grow. We're getting married!

I've been too preoccupied by moving out of my apartment to focus on wedding planning the past couple of weeks, but now that the vast majority of my stuff is in the new house (if not unpacked) I'm getting back into planning mode. We spent about an hour at a wedding expo on Sunday (this was apparently the mini-expo--the "real" one in January takes over the entire Convention Center and I hope to be mostly done with planning by then or else my head will explode from all of the choices) and came away with a stack of brochures, postcards, and even more magazines. Our primary goal was to pull together a list of potential vendors and then spend the next few weeks researching our options, but when we compared notes that night we realized that we'd found our photographer!

His was one of the first tables we visited, which normally would be a reason not to book him immediately, but none of the other photographers we met there matched his enthusiasm and he just seemed like a really great person to work with. (The advice we got from the venue coordinator is to choose someone who clicks with you, and this guy definitely did.) His portfolio is solid, his online reviews are stellar (best of The Knot 2010), and it didn't hurt that a hefty "you visited my booth" discount brought his price way under anything else we've seen online or in person. He does the standard formal photos (bride's hands holding flowers, couple smiling at each other, flower girls looking cute, etc.), but what sold me were the party photos. He finds people at their happiest and makes them look good (as opposed to red/sweaty/drunk, all of which they probably are), and those are the memories I want.

Anyway, we've tentatively booked him over email (contract to be mailed and signed in the next week or so), and it feels really good to have one big item checked off the list. The next big hurdle is going to be the dress, and I have a couple of dates penciled in (David's Bridal and J. Crew with local bridesmaids, possibly an LA-based studio with my mom when I'm there in October) but I'm still trying to psych myself up for this search. I already don't like making decisions, and according to our venue coordinator the dress style will set the tone for pretty much everything. Pressure, much?

Happy belated to me

I wasn't planning to do a workiversary (work + anniversary. I made up the word, but the concept is big here) post this year since I've been feeling less than cheery about my livelihood lately, but today's annual performance review changed my mind a bit. It turns out that the people I work with--the ones whose projects I help make happen, whose problems become my problems, whose prose and spelling I constantly correct to make things customer-ready--actually do value me! In an official (involving money) way, even! The money part's not the point (I'll take it, but unless I win the lottery I'm not paying off my student loans anytime soon); it's that my record now shows that folks at this company think I'm doing a good job and expect me to continue doing well. To someone who thrives a bit more than is probably healthy on the appreciation/approval of others, this is a big deal and has been the cause of much smiling this afternoon.

I don't love what I do every day any more than I did before, and I still want to take my career in a different (but perhaps related) area someday...but man, it's nice to know that the time I spend here isn't a waste of time. Phew.

I'm celebrating tonight with a trip to the gym (where I'll listen to my new favorite podcast), followed by Korean barbecue and catching up on new episodes of my favorite web series, then going to sleep early. Me = lucky, lucky girl.

Oh, those summer nights

Who am I kidding? Seattle's summer nights are pretty much like nights during the rest of the year--considerably colder than the daytime, and either foggy or downright rainy. Today's high was low 60s and it rained this morning. August here is very confusing.

But I *did* do a lot of fun things this summer, and lacking the motivation to write a more involved post, I'm just going to drop in some photos of highlights from the past couple of months.

This actually happened a few months ago, but dude! It's Mario Batali! Signing a book from which we have since cooked!

We joined some friends to go clamming in early July. It was cold and muddy and my quads hurt for days from all the squatting, but the clam chowder we made that night was AMAZING.

Lots and lots (and lots) of lavender at the Sequim Lavender Festival. Fun girls' weekend with two future bridesmaids.

Traditional group shot from this year's awesomely awesome amusement park trip. (This is the Alamo, not some incredibly authentic-looking olden days roller coaster.) Lots of future wedding participants in this photo. And finally...

This is where we're getting married next summer. Behind us is the main clubhouse that I'll walk out of and down the stairs, and the little stage area is where the ceremony takes place. (The plywood in the background is early construction on one of the stages for the yearly golf tournament, but the coordinator assures us that our wedding date will most likely fall before any visible construction.)

And I suppose a quick life update: thanks to a small crew of surprisingly strong movers, the vast majority of my remaining stuff (after an embarrassing number of trips to Goodwill) is now cohabitating with the fiance! I'm writing this from my new office with one kitty asleep in the chair next to me and The Boy computing in his own office about twenty feet away. The new place is many miles removed from my old apartment (and work, and downtown Seattle, and most of the places I normally go), but it's huge (distant suburbs = more for the money) and I'll get used to the distance and we're happy to be together full-time, even if our respective cats have yet to fully embrace each other. I'm a lucky, lucky girl.

Back in the habit

I was doing so well about posting regularly, but then I went on vacation and lost steam. Whoops!

No pictures yet available of said (awesomely awesome) vacation, or even of the place where we are officially getting married on July 17, 2011(!), but I'll upload them soon and probably do another photo-filled post. (Mid-packing means that camera and USB cable are rarely in the same house, and when they are I'm too tired to use them.)

It's the beginning of what promises to be a busy work (and life) week, so rather than launch into a full-fledged discussion of life stuff, I'll do a quick list of what's on my mind:

• Moving. Sucks. The outcome will be wonderful--streamlined stuff! living with my fiance!--but I've never been a fan of sorting through clutter (which is how I accumulated so much in the first place) and the weather isn't cooperating. I'm glad the Pacific northwest remembered that it's summer, but packing in an un-air-conditioned 5th floor apartment when it's 90+ degrees outside is a bit much.
• Third workiversary!...Yeah, so I hit the three-year mark while on vacation, and I thought briefly about doing a milestone post but then decided it wouldn't be much fun for anyone. I still love this company and I believe in its mission and products, but I'm much less enthusiastic about what I do every day than I was last year (or two years ago, and certainly three years ago) and I'm feeling stalled/stuck in a role I wasn't actually hired to do and losing the passion I need to convince the people who matter that I'm capable of something different. I could do a whole series of posts on this, but I won't.
• Holy crap we're getting married! Last Thursday I chatted with a friend who's planning a wedding for the week after ours next summer, and they've already picked their colors and are arguing about invitation styles. Um...The Boy and I like blue? We'll swing by the local wedding expo in a couple of weeks, but after the rush to find a venue and lock down a (hopefully) sunny date, I was looking forward to chilling on the planning for a few weeks. I hate feeling like I've fallen behind. Sigh.

Anyway, time to get to work. Photos of my recent travels are forthcoming...