The dog ate my wedding invitation

Oh, if only I were joking. After months of planning and printing and cutting and coordinating, I have so far put together a grand total of ONE wedding invitation. And then the dog ate it.

Molly seemed awfully quiet for an awfully long time this morning while I was working in the office and she was downstairs alone. So I went to investigate. And I found that, despite months of not destroying anything (other than a stray receipt the other day, but I don’t count it) and the fact that my one done invitation has been at a reachable level for her for about two weeks, Molly decided to go to town on it today. And now it’s in pieces. I told her that was her invitation and since she destroyed it, she’s not going to know where or when our wedding is being held and therefore, is no longer welcome to attend.

The larger problem is the fact that I started counting up all the pieces of the invitations yesterday and found I’m 10 or 20 short on the paper that is the basis of the whole thing. So, um, I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. Do you think people will mind taking a look at their invitation and then passing it on to their friend? My mind has been cranking through the options and I think the best idea is to purchase some paper that will definitely be different than the two others I already have (which is no longer being produced or, at the least, is not available anywhere in the two states I’ve checked). So there will be three versions of our invitations, including the one I’m going to call “my favorite” and the one I’ll call “second best” and the one I’ll call “oh crap, I didn’t have enough paper so if you’re getting this one you should know you are still invited, but are not among the people who must be there or I’ll die. But, you know, it would still be nice to see you again.”

I will not tell which is which, but SJ should rest assured she’s getting the first one, especially because she just called to tell me she’ll be over Sunday to help assemble the invites. That has put her so far up in the “my favorite” category that I’ll have to handwrite one and have it delivered by a singing telegram guy on a white horse if she does one more thing to help with this wedding.

I’m hot, blah, blah, I know it, you know it… next subject.

Since you’re probably well over hearing how I’m so attractive that both sexes feel compelled to hit on me every chance they get, I thought I’ll talk about something completely different this time. Instead, I’m here to announce that the future is here (climactic music, please).

To explain, the Pretend Husband and I started what we called “The Future Fund” waaaay back before we bought our money pit house. We put money in the account religiously (to the point where I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in like, 17 years) and– amazing how this happens!– the balance began to grow. I think this was about the same time I became an adult and realized that not spending money on things like shoes (did I mention how long it’s been since I bought a new pair?), clothes, cute curtains and boozy nights out, meant I had more money to save. Crazy, isn’t it?

So the Future Fund has been steadily growing, with a couple of withdrawals here and there (including the one I experienced when I realized I hadn’t bought new shoes in a year!) for expenses like oh, a new house. But a new house requires surprisingly less money to buy than you would think (I think I may have signed something saying I would birth the mortgage broker’s children, but at least I didn’t have to put much money down!) so the Future Fund has stayed pretty fat and healthy.

Until Friday (ominous music, please). When we bought the money sucker house, our inspector told us we would need to upgrade the electrical system from the hamster running in the wheel that currently powers everything. We will need to get a real, live fuse box, but this time without actual fuses (what do you call the new version, a “flippy-switch box” perhaps?) And I guess we’ll throw in things like new and improved wiring that is less likely to catch fire in our walls and stuff that will actually be able to handle our power usage (I’m just now realizing there are some people in the world who are able to run their washer and their stove at the same time!)

Anyway, I just learned that this kind of upgrade doesn’t come cheap. So the Future Fund is going to resemble the change found under the couch cushions more than an actual bank account. If we’re lucky, we might have enough left over to get married.

In the meantime, get running Hammie, I’ve got laundry to do!

if i didn't eat the ice cream, and You didn't... then we must have a burgular in our house

so last night i'm about to get ice cream, and ask my husband where it went. he looked at me all surprised and said "i thought you ate it."

"no, no i didn't."

"yes you did. you had some before bed." now, i did actually, but i only had some - not the entire rest of the carton.

this went on for a few more minutes. in fact, my husband swore so ardently that he did *NOT* finish the ice cream that we came up with the obvious solution that someone had broken into our home to eat our ice cream. in fact, the person must still in fact be there. so this led to the inevitable search of the basement and second floor.

it was okay though, because we still had a brand new pint of ben and jerry's to tackle. so i had a little scoop of that on a wafer cone, and all was well.

and alas, we didn't find the ice cream burgular. or KAT in the closet with the ben and jerry's, which j now informs me has also gone "missing."

hmm. wonder if we'll ever solve this mystery.

Almost married... but not dead!

I've heard guys tell other guys to wear their wedding bands because it will attract "the chicks." Who knew there was such a market for unavailable men? (What's that? You're only here for the sex and then I'll never hear from you again because you have to get home to your wife and kids and your wife has a long list of chores for you so you'll be tied up for the next couple weekends? Oooh, do me, baby!) In any case, I am unwittingly testing the theory that wedding rings attract the dudes too. So far, it's worked on one out of the dozens of men I've met since the Pretend Husband put this diamond on my finger, but it makes me feel like I'm not some frumpy married woman who will never get checked out again.

I met a new co-worker last week. We had a chat about who knows what, all while I was holding a soda can down by my side in my left hand. (I wasn't flashing the bling or anything.) At the end of the conversation, he said, "so when's the big day?" and when I looked a little confused, he gestured at my hand and said, "it's hard to miss." It's hard to miss! Yup, like I'm toting around some huge rock that blinds people when it catches the light. I don't think it's that so much as-- as my friends pointed out-- he checked out my hand in order to figure out my status.

This week, he came into the room and started sniffing. I tried to smell what he smelled, figuring something was burning, but my sinuses were all clogged up. Then he said, "What are you wearing? What perfume is that?" When I told him, he said, "It smells good" and walked out.

Oh yeah, I've still got it!

If you’re not a lesbian, why are you hitting on me?

So I went to this outing for my soccer league last night, a happy hour at a brewery followed by a comedy show. It was fun… especially the part where another player tried to pick me up.

Well, that may not be exactly the case, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. I got there and found that no one from my team had arrived yet. There were about 25 people there, one or two who I recognized, but no one I really knew. You can imagine my relief when, while I was waiting for my drink at the bar, a woman sitting on a nearby barstool introduced herself. Even if she was a stranger, it was still better than standing in a corner by myself sipping a drink, you know?

I learned “Elaine’s” life story over the next 20 minutes or so. She’s 56 years old, but really likes playing in the league (um, just to clarify so you don’t think I’m some old lady who plays in a senior league, the league is actually mostly people in their 20s and 30s and besides, I play in the “A” division while Elaine rocks the “B” division). She’s never been married, but has had a lot of boyfriends. And she doesn’t regret not finding a husband, but she does kind of wish she had kids. (What is it about me that makes people tell me their entire life story?!?)

Then Elaine touched my arm and asked, “Are you married?” I told her I’m getting married later this year and she said he’s a lucky guy, I seem like a great person and I’m very attractive. Not sure what kind of look crossed my face, but she followed up with, “You can say that kind of thing when you get older… I’m not a lesbian. Far from it!”

Which isn’t that strange in itself, but when a teammate showed up a short time later and we finally shook off Elaine, she mentioned that the two of us at the bar had seemed kind of cozy. She said it looked like we knew each other really well (really? Even with me leaning as far back on my stool as I could without falling off?) and she kind of wondered what was going on.

Admittedly not the greatest story I’ve ever posted and while I’m confessing here, I should tell you that you really only got this story because the title I came up for it is one of my most favorite ever. I’m thinking of having T-shirts made up.

A wedding planner would be nice right about now...

So a friend who's getting married about six weeks before us casually mentioned the other day that she was getting her invitations ready to mail. And I freaked out just a little bit. Because, although I had in my mind a vision of exactly what our invitations will look like... and I had bought all the paper I needed to make the vision a reality... I hadn't made even one. Ah, the joy of a do-it-yourself wedding, huh?

So I freaked out some more and did just about the only thing that will bring me down off the cliff when I'm stressed... I ate ice cream. Then I got to work and wrote down a list of everything I need to get done before our wedding in one... two... three... four... ohmygodfivemonthsI'llnevergeteverythingdoneintime! It's a full page and includes really easy tasks like "Call the coordinator at the reception place" but it also includes stuff like "Bead enough roses (which take eight hours each)to make a bouquet." It's not fair that each takes up the same amount of lines, but I couldn't figure out a way to weight the tasks accordingly.

In the three days since I've had the list, I've accomplished exactly one task (actually, more like half of one task) by printing out the invitations, which now need to be cut and glued onto fancy paper. I tried to get the Pretend Husband to take over the task, but he very succinctly announced that, if the project were left up to him, our guests would be invited either by a handwritten note on notebook paper or an email. (And now it's obvious to me why the grooms are rarely left in charge of the wedding planning!)

So, there's some deep breathing going on in our house today as I convince myself it will all work out in the end. And the fact that we decided to buy a new house, paint said house ourselves, travel out of state for two weddings, attend two other weddings, work a job on the weekend and plan our wedding all in the same year... well, it hasn't killed me yet. But if I don't post for awhile, you may want to send SJ over to check on me... I could use the extra hands to glue invites.

sj is having so much fun today

sj is having a blast today. why, you ask? because sj has been referring to herself in the third person today. so fun! in fact, sj may start calling herself sj mcsjpants.

so it all started when one of sj's co-workers (not a particularly popular one) set up her out of office message to refer to herself in the third person. so it read something like:
* marie will be out of the office until 6/15. if you need to reach her, you can reach her on her cell phone.

it went on, to mention her name twice. (her name is not actually marie. sj changed it to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, but a little odd and out of touch with technology.)

but ever since we made this discovery, sj and her coworkers have spent the entire afternoon speaking in the third person. it is actually much more challenging than you may think. try it for a day.

oh- and side note. paris should be in jail.

Too hard… too soft… oooh, just right

(get your head out of the gutter, I’m talking bedding here, you pervert!)

Another way to tell I’m a grown-up and no longer the vodka-guzzling, fun-loving, all-night partying young’un I used to be: I’m really excited about our latest purchase of a queen-size bed.

I mean, drinking with my friends, meeting guys in bars and staying out until dawn are fun and all, but they no longer compare to the fact that I own a real (very expensive), plush mattress and mahogany-color, real wood sleigh bed. And did I mention it’s queen size? Because between my ability to sprawl, Molly’s ability to creep up between us and take up more room than something that’s only 15 pounds ever should and the Pretend Husband’s ability to not be able to sleep if he doesn’t have three empty feet of mattress on either side of him, we weren’t lovin’ the full-size mattress any longer.

The argument swayed between getting a king size bed (but it’s king size! Plenty of room for everyone! Molly can have friends over to sleep with us!) and a queen (but it will actually fit in our room! And we’ll still be able to have a dresser in there!), but the queen won in the end… and I chose the queen-sized mattress.

So the mattress gets delivered Saturday and the sleigh bed gets delivered… um, well, sometime after we actually order it. The PH wanted to hold off on ordering it until we actually ordered the mattress just in case I was going to magically change my mind (and the dimensions of our bedroom, which is cute and all, but would have been literally a room for only a bed while we would have had to hike across the hall to the spare bedroom in order to get dressed in the morning).

So we spent two hours in the mattress store last night, hopping from bed to bed, getting some sort of scan done that told us– surprise!– the best mattress for us is the $3,100 one and explaining why I didn’t like almost every mattress we tried (too soft, too firm, um, I don’t know, it’s just not comfortable).

And I learned a lot about our relationship. Like, how easily the PH is swayed by a sales pitch (but he says it’s much better than the S-brand mattress, so it must be true!) and how easily I’m not swayed (I got the guy to admit he used a “top down” approach where they have you try one of the most expensive, most plush mattresses first so the cheaper stuff doesn’t seem as comfortable). I consider it a victory that I got the guy to admit to his sales techniques.

But I guess he still won because we spent a little more than we had planned on. But it is a really, really comfortable mattress we’re getting, and we do have a new headboard to go with it (haven’t had one since I lived at home as a teenager) so maybe we all won this one in the end (except maybe the PH since he didn’t get his king-sized mattress, but then again, he does get to sleep with me every night and I’d say that’s the best prize of all).