missing: two teeth!

ok, so my nephew did not GET teeth until he was almost one and then got like 7 at once. that is just how he rolls. so it shouldn't be a surprise that half his first grade class looks like jack-o-lanterns while his baby teeth held fast.
confession: i really didn't want them to fall out because baby teeth are just SO CUTE. and also? i want him to stay small and sweet forever. good luck, my future children.
ANYWAY, in true hunter fashion, he lost two in two weeks. BAM! happy thanksgiving, little man.

Another one gone

hey mama

ok, so this photo does NOT do it justice, but behold... my mom's infamous stuffing. the woman had two Very Good Recipes and this is one of them. (the other is chicken soup.) she passed away sort of suddenly in february of 2006 (i say "sort of" because i feel like if she wasn't my mom, i totally would have seen it coming, but when your mom's 49, it doesn't matter HOW sick she is, you revert to 5 years old and completely believe she will recover from COPD and early-onset emphysema. duh.), so i was, of course, completely unprepared. hahaha unprepared -- what a totally asshole comment. OF COURSE I WAS UNPREPARED. i think, even when you KNOW it's coming, you are completely unprepared. ok. tangent.

ANYWAY, i meant that i didn't gather up all of the important things, all of the stuff that only MY mom knows and could pass on to me, and for me to pass on to my kids and all that other happy bullshit. i had made The Stuffing (and The Chicken Soup, for that matter) probably 25 times, but always with her standing over my shoulder, barking at me. I totally zone out when people bark at me. It's like when you're driving and someone's barking directions at you, then you need to go to that same place again, but by yourself... and you ask for directions and the barker barks, "don't you remember?!" no. same for this. whoops, sorry. another tangent.

ANYWAY AGAIN... luckily for me, my former roommate JM (heh) has been fortunate (fortunate=drunk) enough to spend a thanksgiving or two with my family and thus has been a party to The Stuffing. she remembers stuff. like directions and street names. and THE RECIPE. so last year, my first thanksgiving without my mom, i was a mess and pissed for not paying attention and all that other guilty shit that just comes with the job of being a daughter when JM saved the day and reminded me of the recipe. so my sister and i ate it last year and it was a wonderful gift. ok, i'm getting sappy now. but seriously, the stuffing includes SAUSAGE AND BACON. hi. a little bit of heaven, much?!?!

you may be wondering about The Chicken Soup recipe. hahahaha yeah, no i don't remember that either, but thank god, my sister does and she pumps that out all the time. i'm so lucky.

look at me, all thankful. just in time for thanksgiving. mom would be proud of her forgetful, directionally challenged daughter. ;)

i can't stop

with the wedding pictures. we're still getting some in from our friends and our proofs are on their way... watch out, it's only going to get worse!!

in other news, what's up with the freak snow storm today? i didn't even wear a coat. it snowed and i had no coat. i'm DEFINITELY not old* enough to be married. yet somehow, i am.

*by "old" i mean "grown up" -- i am CERTAINLY old enough. sadly. and don't even get my husband started about the color of his hair.

couple more wedding pics

here is my amazing nephew, who, by this point, had been up, showered, spent three hours at a hair salon and was waiting to GO to the ceremony. an almost-six-year-old who sat quietly (and bored) while i freaked out about my dress and the weather, then rode to church, gave me away like a CHAMP, sat quietly through the hourlong ceremony, rode to city hall for pictures for like two hours and didn't get TOO cranky. (he did refuse to be in any more pictures at one point and tom had to carry him), then to the reception where he danced with his auntie before escaping to his batman jammies for the evening. i love you, hunter. you are the best. and your mom ain't too shabby, either!
i know. the sunset is unreal, right? well it damn well BETTER BE considering the bullshit weather we had all day!! yes, it was absolutely freezing, also. at least i had the giant dress on for warmth. the poor bridesmaids had cocktail length strapless dresses on. i owe them all. big time.

aaaand here's the happy couple after surviving their hourlong full mass catholic wedding ceremony. i still can't believe that fool was crazy enough to marry me. i totally scored with this one. :)

i'm sorry

but how cute are we?? i call this our "holy shit, did we just actually GET MARRIED?!" picture.

eta... no, that's not a prison tattoo on my arm, it's the photographer's watermark.

i cannot wait!!!

just read this:

Wake up refreshed every single morning. The plush Lakefront gives you six comfort layers of premium foams that cushion your body and keep you snug all night long. Includes luxurious SealyFoam, which is ten percent more durable than conventional foams.

oh that's right. we just made our FIRST important purchase as a married couple. a new king-size bed. saturday, november 24th cannot get here FAST ENOUGH!

no more waking up black and blue from being beaten (while) unconscious by a sleeping tom. he's a Flailer. i will not CARE now that i'll be sleeping in another ZIP CODE in our new bed! woo hoo!

come to mama.

YEAH PHILLY AND GIANT AIRPORT BEERS

mellied... SHEESH!

well, despite noel´s BEST efforts (i´m talkin´huge wind, sideways rain, complete with the golf umbrella being flipped inside out as i´m ENTERING church trifecta) we did it!!

enjoying a much-needed week in the riviera maya. PEACE!

are you fucking kidding me??

THANKS, NOEL, FOR FUCKING UP MY WEDDING DAY, ASSHOLE.

yeah, sox! and a full 5 days before the wedding!

warning: there may be rambling and evidence of a psychotic break on this blog in the next few days.

don't you DARE say i didn't warn you. and the appropriate response to ALL aforementioned ramblings is: "FUCK 'EM!"

that is all.

let the madness begin

ok, it's close enough to the wedding that some asshole said "oooh your 10 day forecast is up!" I DON'T WANT TO KNOW. but of course i checked and so far, so good. for those of you not in the northeast, it's been crazily warm (holla back global warming!) this fall -- like in the 70-80 range. of course, on my wedding day, one week from now, "they" are predicting a high of 46. hold up... what!? but whatever. checking the forecast is just not a productive use of my time. or sanity. my sister has strep throat. i have my doctor on stand-by with a bad-ass antibiotic prescription and in the meantime, i've left some antioxidant tea on her doorstep and i'm pumping myself full of airborne (the orange isn't so bad! thank you, second grade teacher/inventor!) and vitamin c pills.

i'm also obsessed with foliage reports. because, if the weather is decent, we'd like to get some outside pictures. i know you are all DYING for a chart, so here you go:


ok, as you'll see illustrated above, we are in FULL ON PEAK SEASON. do you think it will last a week? maybe, but just in case, i've booked the atrium at city hall in hartford as a back up. because yes, i am that anal.

single digits, people.

the wedding is in NINE days. game 1 of the series is tonight.

cue: emotional breakdown.

in other news, tom has worked REALLY hard to turn my nephew into a sox fan. not that he was a fan of any other baseball team when he moved here at the age of 4, but tom insisted that we train him young. ok, fine. well, at first, hunter thought it would be HILARIOUS to shout "YANKEES RULE!" just to send tom into convulsions. i thought it was funny. he was clearly just saying it to get a reaction, but tom was very serious. "this is how it starts, stephanie."
so.
after almost two years of red sox caps and tee shirts and tee ball, hunter has decided that he wants to be big papi when he grows up.
he came home from school the other day and said to tom, "i learned a new song." ok, please, sing, dear child...
"red sox rule, red sox rule. red sox go to college while yankees go to baby school!"
i said, "hunter, that is a teasing song," but i saw a small tear of joy forming in the corner of tom's eye.

mission accomplished.

love that dirty water...

especially since game 7 would be on 11/1. I'M SAFE!




also, i think i might love papelbon, a bit:

This is my view of the game. under the bleachers with hot chocolate because It's FUCKING POURING

my head hurts

it's a big weekend, my friends. i don't mean big necessarily as in MOMENTOUS, but more along the lines of packed. like sardines-type packed.
tonight is the uconn homecoming game against louisville. things that COULD make this a more fun night include: less assinine weather, earlier start-time, better parking and the whole day off from work.
my hair, dudes. i'm seriously teetering on the edge of marge simpson hair. it's overcast, yet disgustingly humid. add the impending thunderstorm and some seven layer dip and we've got a par-tay!
it also begins tom's Bachelor Party Weekend. i have a sneaking suspicion there will be several shots involved in the tailgating portion of our evening. i have my second fitting tomorrow, so i have to say no thank you to basically the BEST PART of tailgating... beer and food. so. tomorrow.

• meeting at reception hall at 9am
• eye doctor appointment at 10:45am (did i tell you about my DOUBLE EYE INFECTION? no? oh that'll be tomorrow's post)
• meeting jen at the apartment at noon for lunch (hahahahah lunch. yeah right.)
• fitting at 1pm

i think after that, i might pass out. but then we have a bunch of other last-minute wedding stuff to do. and i also have to bring the cd w/ the picture of my parents to cvs to print out the teeny locket-sized picture of them to put in my bouquet charm thing for the wedding. i guess the florist needs it or something. it's not like the wedding's in two weeks or anything. oh wait. shit.

also?

suck it, cleveland.

(eta... i mean the baseball team, not the city.)


signed,

a sox fan who is hoping they make it to and win the world series, but swift-like. like preferably waaaay before even november 1.

now for my next-in-line favorite commercial

i've already pledged my love to mcnuggets, so here's this month's fave:


..if you don't like it? y'all must be crazy.

baseball fans?

ummm what are the chances that say, a game 7 of the world series could be taking place on my WEDDING DAY?
someone please assure me that the chances are approximately (if not definitely) zero. i'm not saying that a certain scrappy team from the northeast will be in it; i would never project, but i'm simply wondering in general. as a concerned bride. i got a lotta fans in my wedding party. a lot.

i wonder how god would feel about plasma screen tvs at church?

open letter to mother nature

who the hell do you think you are brewing up a thunder storm DURING THE OFFICE???
wtf?

seasons change

finally!!! it's cooler out. but it's also sucky out. and yes, i bitch a lot. get over it. ok, i'm sorry. i haven't had much caffeine today yet. but seriously, it's like doomsday out there. all gray and misty. and also? apparently when the highway is even almost moist (ew.) all hell breaks loose and people bust out their chains and snow tires. COME THE F ON. it's not like we aren't used to changing weather here, people. relax one time.
we got a coffee grinder at the shower and i'm scared of it. i seriously am afraid it'll grind my fingers or something equally ridiculous. yet, i want freshly ground coffee. what to do?
ok, on to wedding news. hahahahahha you seriously thought i'd get through an entire post without mentioning the wedding (which, btw, is 22 days away)??? oh, naive reader. anyway!
my sister and i made 50 of our 80ish placecard holders last night. they are wine corks laid out the long way, with a groove cut out for the card to sit in and a penny glued to the bottom to keep the cork from rolling. ok, when you write it out like that it sounds like a first grade project (minus the super glue and sharp knife necessary to create said project), but they are cute.
hey, i have a question... do i make a card for every individual guest? or can i put couples on one card? melanie and i are leaning toward one per couple. don't worry, i have a favor for every single guest (i'm not THAT cheap. well, almost.) let me know what you think.
what else, what else? oh yes, our non-responders are down to 8. tomorrow their wedding fates are decided BY ME if they don't get back to me on their own by then.
MWA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

if you can't realize that this is awesome?

then you need awesome lessons.
my shower was yesterday and omg. it was SO FREAKING AWESOME. this picture pretty much sums up the day:

the girls had it at the wood'n tap in a private room. with a BAR. complete with bartender. do they know me or what??? it was so much FUN.
and look. even my mom and dad showed up. melanie got this little tiny picture of them from a photo booth on their honeymoon in cape cod -- in 1974, blown up and placed it on the mantle at the shower. so fucking awesome.

and the best part is? people said i look like my mom. oh mom, i HOPE you heard that. my whole life everyone always said i look just like my dad. she would be DELIGHTED to hear otherwise. she, afterall, DID do all the hard work. :)
oh and also? they played the best shower music ever. a little beastie boys, a little humpty dance... hunter and i practiced our auntie/nephew dance to talk dirty to me. (no, pervs, we're not dancing to that at the wedding. we're dancing to you've got a friend in me.)

this day was definitely in my top 10 of best days ever.
thank you, Bridal Crew. you completely ROCK.

damn work "rules"

so the only computer i have is my work laptop. and they won't let me install ANYTHING on it. not even my home printer, let alone my camera software. install it on tom's laptop, you say? ok, i know this joke is lame by now but seriously? the commodore 64 is faster. no wait, hunter's spiderman FAKE laptop is faster. sorry, tom.
so there are various reasons this sucks, but the most recent is i had my hair and makeup trial last night. and my pretty pictures are going to live on my camera for life. (or until we break down and buy a desktop for me for home.)
in other news, i definitely will NOT be eating any sort of shrimp. here we are, two days past the deadline and 18 non-responders. i've decided to wait until monday to release the hounds.
tomorrow is my shower. i'll take lots of pictures that i can't share with you. i'm sure you're looking forward to it!
and speaking of the shower... what the hell do i wear? i know it's october and i live in new england, so you would THINK that means it's getting cold. au contraire. it's like i live in TEXAS since yesterday was like 80 degrees and today is supposed to be warmer. wtf?! do i wear a f'ing sundress??? WHATEVER.

is this thing on?

come out, come out, wherever you are!! i know it's dreadfully boring to listen to me ramble about the wedding. it's almost over. i promise!

cajun?

hmmm... i may actually have to eat the shrimp. we got 15 responses yesterday!! and i heard from some people via email that cards are On The Way, so that's also awesome. waiting on 29 absolute question marks. (of those, 11 are my family members.) in absolute amazing news, frank (my Former Step Father), is making the trip from nebraska, which rocks. woo! hoo! i wonder if he'll dance around like a fool like he did at his wedding to my mom. hahahahaah oh god that was funny. i do recall us all dancing the conga to "come on ride the train" -- ah, good times.

30 days to go, people.
thirty.
days.

RSuckVP

ok, so our response deadline for the wedding is tomorrow. can i just throw it out there that MOST of my family hasn't even responded? i am pretty much assuming it means none of them are coming, which is pretty much expected, but hi, AT LEAST TELL ME. if you can't be bothered to check "decline" and throw the pre-stamped postcard (you don't even have to seal an envelope -- IT'S THAT EASY!) in the mailbox, just call me, email me, send a smoke signal -- carrier pigeon, SOMETHING.

ok, fine. maybe i'll have 32 response cards waiting in my mailbox tonight. maybe. but i DOUBT IT.

if i do get all of them by tomorrow, i'll eat shrimp. (i hate shrimp.) THAT is how confident i am that we'll have to make phone calls. i guess this happens to everyone but it still sucks and it's my wedding so i can bitch if i want to. bitch if i want to................

hello hello

things are getting busy the closer we get to The Day. we met with our dj last night to go over a final Play/Do Not Play list and should i be worried that most people's Do Not Play list is our Must Play?
i mean, who doesn't like humpty dance!? and baby got back? COME ON PEOPLE! lighten up! this baby does indeed got back, so why not celebrate it by wearing a poufy dress, crinoline AND a bustle to accentuate it -- and dancing to sir mix a lot?
but i am woefully behind on some stuff. small stuff, but stuff all the same. when, you ask, was i suppose to deliver ribbon to the cake baker? oh, probably two months ago. dude, shut up. they HOPEFULLY don't need it till they bake the cake which hi, shouldn't be until november 2 at the EARLIEST.
also, i met with the florist last week and was supposed to give her two bouquet lockets with pictures of my parents in them and that was a task i just didn't get through yet. again, shut up. i know i've had nine months to go through the horrifying process of sifting through old pictures and memories of my parents and me at five years old in a picture tom lovingly refers to me as "chubby and not cute" but still. it makes me miss them, then i cry, then i punch tom for calling me fat and it's just not a good scene.
so i need to still do that.
first fitting is tomorrow. oh god. please. please let the dress fit. PLEASE!!!

deep thoughts...

Random Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

braggart

this is what i'm wearing to the shower tom's mom is throwing for me on sunday: ha!

dip dip dip

i cannot get this out of my head. and? i kind of love it. it's a nice distraction. i also dance very similarly to the guy on the right. haaay!

potato chips

=my eyes. i'm so freakin tired. why haven't i written in almost a week? dude, i haven't even had time to vaccum the 18 pounds of cat hair (no, the carpet isn't gray by choice. simon is, however.) saturday morning i ran to the post office at 8am to weigh the invitations and get stamps. ok, so our response cards are postcards so we can use the cheaper postcard stamp. the lady at the post office was like, "you aren't going to like them." um, what are they? BLUE PANTHERS. after the laughing subsided i was like seriously? i so don't f'ing care what the STAMP LOOKS LIKE. also? i kind of like panthers. remember thunder cats? just saying.
anyway, she says the outer envelope is the 58 cent one and pulls out the little heart wedding stamps. i asked if she had any others (because sorry, but that's just a little too girly for me.) and she said, "yes, but you aren't going to like them." i assured her i would. she whipped them out and they were pictures of ella fitzgerald's head. i went with the heart stamps.
so i stamped and stuffed like a fiend until 9:45, then took a shower and we left for the krueg's wedding. i realized after we left the house that i forgot my ring and we had to go back and get it. whoops. wedding was great. but we didn't get home until pretty late (my name is kate. get me a plate.)
sunday, we got up early to go to long island for tom's godson's first birthday (shut up, of COURSE i got him a duplo set.) and didn't end up getting home from THERE until late. when i stmaped and stuffed the rest of the envelopes.
monday, we chilled at the beach. it was awesome. but again, home late and i was so crankified. i haven't even had time to do laundry. not that i LIKE it, but come on.
yesterday, i had an early meeting at work, so tom mailed the invitations (holla! thank you pete for our FIRST RESPONSE CARD!!!) and i had hunter after work and, yep, you guessed it, didn't get home until late last night aaaaaaand had an off site meeting at 8:30am in springfield today that included a dinner and i didn't get home TONIGHT until almost 10pm so shut your asses up about the posting. our cats must think we just stop by once in a while to feed them.
tomorrow, back to springfield, but i'm busting out at 4pm because i have an appt w/ joan at 6 and should be home around 8pm... at which time, i will promptly die from exhaustion.
in wedding related news... other than the invites, i am just too damned busy and tired to do anything else this week so suck it.
night.

well it's aBOUT freakin time!

the invitations.............................................................. ARE FINALLY FREAKING HERE. seriously, dudes, i was thinking i was going to have to send out an evite. of course they conveniently arrived after 5pm on friday of a holiday weekend, so i can't even get THEM WEIGHED UNTIL TOMORROW. and we have the krueg's wedding tomorrow, so i can't be a stamping fool for ten hundred invitations before 11am because well... i'm not a morning person, ALRIGHT?

but at least they are here and they are awesome. and? though we painstakingly proofed the guest list about 7 million and 47 times before we sent them off to be printed, we still ended up with a Mr. & Mrs. _____ and were informed that yep, they're divorced now.

can't i just cross the non-family half off?? oh well. another envelope down. that's a bitch.

ring ring ring!

wahoo! with just under 9 weeks to go, we bought our wedding rings! seriously, tom tried on about 70 million of them.

no joke.

who even KNEW there were that many to choose from!?!? at any rate, it was a lot of fun and scarily, may have only just whet my appetite for more sparkly treasures. though, after this gig, i'm pretty sure all my presents will come from a bubble gum machine or a cereal box.

oh well!!!! i can't wait for them to get here. except. i will have to make tom hide them (obviously in a theft-proof safe, for all you robbers out there) on me so i don't just wear mine around the house. HOW CAN YOU NOT?!?!

sigh! 67 days to go!

les freak, c'est chic!

11 days

till we can get our

marriage license !!!!!

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

FREAK OUT!

happy birthday, melly!

how in the world are you 27?????

post secret.

this site is so moving.

my favorite purchase so far...

LEGO for winos! ps, you can see me taking the pic w/ my cell. it's all artistic. or something...

there are no words...

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I received a wedding invitation from my nephew's son, whom we have never gotten to know very well. Included in the invitation was a deposit slip to a bank savings account "in lieu of gifts"!We later learned that everyone on the guest list received a deposit slip, even the grandmother. Is this proper? This is the first time we have ever heard of this, and frankly, we were rather insulted. -- PUZZLED IN COLORADO

DEAR PUZZLED: Please waste no more time feeling offended. The family who issued the wedding invitation is obviously grossly ignorant about the basic rules of etiquette. According to "Emily Post's Etiquette" (17th Edition), when issuing wedding invitations, "any mention of gifts or listing of gift registries is unacceptable."I am sure you dealt with the solicitation you received as you would any other. Just be glad they didn't have your bank account number, or you would have found enclosed with your invitation a notice stating that your account had already been debited $125 to cover the cost of your dinner.

dresses still in my closet.

i am just turning into a wedding mush now that i have to go to an office. the place we were GOING to have our rehearsal turned out to be totally not worth it, so back to the drawing board. when will i have time to find a new place? i don't know. i have to get back to uploading lego flashback magazines. ;)

OH!

i never filled you in on the dresses! i obsessed about them for months on end and then didn't even bother to write when they got here. all seven arrived, all correctly sized, all correct colors and of the three that have been distributed so far, all actually fit. hot diggety! ok, g'night fareel.

i'm baaack!

and i should be sleeping. i'm exhausted still from our jillion hour journey home on sunday night. but i shouldn't complain because this is where i spent four days:

was very nice, but i'm still so tired. i guess i'm overtired. because i have to get up even earlier than normal tomorrow to bring keli to the vet to get her teeth cleaned. (don't ask.) then off to work for a 9am meeting. yawn. i want our invitations to just GET HERE ALREADY and i still haven't sent jen, christine and erin their dresses yet. i am committed to sending them out on the way to work on thursday. and if, yet again, i fail, i'll send them on saturday morning. jeez, actually GOING to an office takes up a lot of the day. (tom is totally rolling his eyes at me. or he would be if he hadn't been asleep for an hour and a half already.)

and ps? only 4 cat pukes to clean up after leaving them alone (not TOTALLY alone, they had becky and mel feeding them all weekend) for four days. these guys do NOT tolerate us leaving well. and lemme tell you... i do not tolerate cleaning up 4 cat pukes at 2am after travelling for 8 hours and needing to go to sleep so i can get up at 6am for work very well. but at least one of them was on the kitchen floor so that was easy to clean. thanks, simon. you're a gem.
ok, peace out.

i'm so getting this for hunter...

back to school, baby!! ps, sorry i've been mia. just trying to settle in. it's great so far. i love it. dresses are here and PERFECT!! well, i think they're perfect and let's just call a spade a spade... as long as i love them, that's all that matters. hahahaha. just kidding. sort of. ok, i have to crawl the message boards to get kid feedback. it's so funny. we're leaving for puerto rico in the morning so hopefully i'll have some cool pics (and some color) for ya's on monday.

so much to say so much to say...

so much to saaaaaay (^TMDave Matthews).

so yesterday was my LAST DAY AT TOWERS PERRIN. i haven't really posted much about the job sitch because, well, it seemed like it was jinxy to do that. so today, i have the day off and am heading to hammonasset (yeah, i am way to lazy to look up the correct spelling) with becky for a bit before i come home and wait for the dresses to get here. that's right, the bridesmaid dresses will arrive today. know how i know? well, first, i've been stalking them every five seconds on ups.com, but also, ups left me a lovely automated message last night confirming delivery between 8am and 7pm today. oh ok, i'll definitely wait by the door for ELEVEN HOURS. hi, leave me a post it and i'll come pick them up this afternoon. ok, so last night i had the following dream (i'm lazy and running late for becky's so i'm just c/p an email i wrote to her):
So the dresses are coming today "between 8am and 7pm" and someone needs to sign for them, so likely I won't be here and I'll get a sticky to pick them up somewhere later... but anyway, I just woke up from a dream that I got them and they were irridescent brown... so when they hit the light, there was blue and green... which would be fine except that doesn't really jive with the "fall theme" so in my head I was scrambling to change the flowers, the invitation colors -- basically everything. Ah, my first wedding-related nightmare. I'll be over in a little bit!!!
ps, i know i just totally jinxed myself. ok, one more thing then i'm off. like an irridescent prom dress...
so monday i start work at LEGO?! i'll be producing their club and play sites. how freakin cool is that??? hopefully very cool. the office is so cool that i'll sneak attack cell pics and post them when i start. oh yes, i am so going to be that dorky new girl.

BEACH TIME BABY!

oh cottage weekend 2007...

i can't believe this year was the 7th annual. here's an end-of-the-night-camera-balanced-on-a-cell-phone-timer pic featuring our two newest members, but missing jeff. oh yeah baby. we's hot.

sucks.

i hate being caught off guard. i'm in valhalla cleaning out my desk and i stumbled across a card from my mother from around three years ago. i remember i had spent the weekend up there and we kept hunter overnight for melanie at my mom's house. i got up in the middle of the night to pee and saw her on the porch smoking... after she had supposedly quit a few weeks before. i was so upset; i remember yelling at her and her just looking at me, looking so embarrassed and sad and saying nothing. and i remember feeling awful for yelling but not knowing how to explain to her how much it was killing me to watch her kill herself. i still can't even put that feeling into words because i'm not sure they exist. and i can't put into words how she looked sitting there listening to me cry and plead and yell -- i remember her looking so small and defeated and when i think about it now, i want to crawl under this desk and disappear.
so as i was packing my bag to leave the next day, i noticed an envelope in my bag that said "steph (to read later)" it's a card from her... "the only thing i can say or do is to tell you i'll try again and i promise with all my heart that i will do my absolute best to stay 'quit'. i realized this weekend (before last night) how much of life i'm missing because of it. i do love you and i'll try everything and anything to make you and mel proud. love, mom"

i seriously could throw up. i hate that this office is just home to the most awful times in my life and i can't wait to start new. i love you, too, mom. and i'm sorry that it couldn't be beaten. i'm just sorry altogether.

update on bridesmaid dresses

i received the following email from my dear pal laura at netbride today:

Hello Stephanie,Thank you for your message.Your dresses are in transit to us, and we are expecting to receive them on Monday. Upon arrival, we will be shipping them to you to ensure delivery by August 3rd.

While it does not appear that the order will be early, as we had previously hoped, it will be on time.

so oh well, not early, but on time, which is FINE with me!

boring week

but! last night i was surprised visited by mel, heather, jan and becky so that was fun!!! i just wish my house wasn't completely torn apart when they got here. whoops. i'm mid-clean. sorry, girls. and what's worse? i had NO WINE. blaspheme.

in other news.... though i don't know why i'm mentioning it because you're all obviously counting down to the wedding on your own, but we are in double digits! 99 days. whoa. i gotta lotta stuff to do.

also, i start my new job at LEGO soon. whee! it's weird though, to leave a job i've been at almost 5 years. i have never worked in one place for so long. i am going in on monday to sift through all the crap i've accumulated (wow, did i even spell that correctly?) and dump it.

tom comes home from VT tomorrow, yay!!! but, i will probably be gone before he gets here because i'm leaving tomorrow for CW 2007. this year tom and andy's fiancee are joining us, so it'll be a packed house on saturday. here's hoping for good weather!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

son of a b.....

yeah, so as i was pulling out of my parking space, my neighbor was pulling into one and we collided. my first instinct was that it was my fault, well, because it usually is. but i'm really not sure this is on me. he definitely could see me before i could see him, so... ugh. my poor car is just going to fall apart soon.

106 days to go!

join spidey as he dances for joy!

gotta love free ice cream night!

our apartment complex sponsored a free ice cream night tonight, so we got to get all our faves (rocket pops, toasted almonds, strawberry shortcakes...) for free!! hunter got a sonic the hedgehog pop and a danny phantom. DELISH!

whoa.

today is a good day.

wedding checklist

so as i've been planning the wedding, i visit the knot on occasion (shut it, tom!) for my weekly dose of "OH CRAP I STILL HAVE SO MUCH LEFT TO DO!" with 109 days to go, here are my (mostly overdue, btw) checklist to-do items through july (with my notes after):

• Start planning the rehearsal dinner. Provide the host with contact information for your attendants and any other guests. well, we have a list of invitees and we've visited two places and i think, as of like 2 days ago, we decided on a place.
  
• Book rehearsal-dinner site. oh crap. i guess we should book it.
  
• Brides: Choose your bridesmaids' accessories (shoes, gloves, etc.) and either purchase or pass along purchasing information. choose them?? can i delete this to-do, because i have 7 bridesmaids who are all perfectly awesome and capable of choosing their own fabulous accessories. i'm already forcing them to wear a dress i picked out. isn't that enough dictatorship?
  
• Shop for and purchase wedding bands.it's funny, but i keep forgetting about these. i found a ring i love, but in new hampshire, so tom either just needs to trust me that it's awesome and i'll call and order it, or we need to get our butts in gear and go look.
  
• Brides: Experiment with your beauty routine, self-tanners, and facials. um. experiment? i didn't realize i was supposed to do this. can mani/pedi and massage count to fulfill this one?
  
• Pick up your invitations.hee, i'm so excited for these. they aren't quite finished being made yet, but rest assured, that within the next week or two, we'll be having an assembly party.
  
• Brides: Buy any special lingerie your gown requires in time for first fittings. when's my first fitting supposed to be, i wonder? i'll have to check august's to-do's because i wasn't planning on getting my first fitting until september, you know, when yoga has turned me into a centered, meditating, ass-kicking goddess.

notice that MOST of it is "BRIDE" stuff. sigh. ok, back to procrastinating. have a great monday!

07.15.07

happy 32nd thomas! xoxo

sick dude.

so keli is a blog whore this week. two consecutive posts dedicated to her! tom woke me up this morning saying she had some dried blood on her neck. when i got up, i looked and she has this gaping wound on her throat. gross. so off we go to the vet at 11am. wish us luck: she needs it for wound treatment and general fear of the vet and i need it for getting her into the cat carrier and general fear of keli.

master impersonator...

this is keli impersonating a loaf of bread. she works long and hard at this trick. every day. it's tough being keli.

ow.

so i guess i have been doing some of the postures wrong at yoga...last night we had a small class so the instructor was able to help me a bit and WOW do i feel it today. my back is SO SORE. after class she said she does private classes if i wanted to check that out. does that mean i'm focused and might be good at this or i'm so bad i can't be in a regular class? i'm guessing the latter. whatevs. i can't afford to go to the regular class AND private classes. we ain't big pimpin. so regular class it is. and i'll just have to work on my posture with all the other sweaty peeps. ps, i think i mentioned in a previous post that it's bikram yoga, so it's like 107 degrees in there... there was a guy last night taking his first class. wanna know how i know? he came in with a SWEATSHIRT ON. yeah, it was off in about 3 minutes. i don't know how he even handled 1 minute in that thing.

fishing boys!

hunter and tom went on a fishing expedition yesterday morning. 7am!! they caught THREE FISH! and hunter hooked his finger on a bucket. otherwise, it was an excellent outing.

ahhhhhhhh!!!

we are under the four month mark, people. i repeat, we have less than four months to go.
the bridesmaid dresses will be here in two weeks!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, ridiculously excited giddy freak out over. for now.

back to your regularly scheduled weekends.

thanksgiving in july??

first holidays first... happy belated 4th to you all. (hahaha, like i have a vast readership!) hope you enjoyed yourselves despite the stupid weather. it wasn't so bad for the early half of the day (which i spent inside a yoga studio sweating my ass off) but just as i'm putting up our summer string lights on the deck? pouring. yay. but who cares because i'm now on to the second holiday of my post... thanksgiving in july. now i know what you're thinking... turkey=yum. regardless of the season. but i'm not talking about food. i'm talking about how grateful i am for all of my fortune and by fortune i don't mean money, (ha. obviously.) i mean friends and family. there's so much going on in life, it's easy to forget how lucky we are to have what we have. that we're here. i have amazing friends who go out of their way to show me how much they care about me. i have a wonderful husband-to-be (note to married friends: when does saying "husband" stop feeling like you're playing dress up?) who not only dances like a madman, but loves me even when i'm at my crankiest -- which is NOT easy to do. and i read so much about people not being able to stand their in-laws. wow, how lucky am i? seriously, mine are The Best. and i get to share all this with my sister, who is just doing such great things for herself and really making a solid life for herself and her little guy. how fortunate am i to be able to see her almost every day? to be a part of that? and i get to have date nights with my favorite super hero. any random tuesday night, i can grab hunter from daycare and take him to dinner and a movie, where he can wow me with his math skills and infinite knowledge of tree frogs. all these things are constantly swirling around, surrounding me and i just wanted to stop and take a second to breathe and say thank you and i love you guys.

rat-a-too-ee!

taking hunter to see ratatouille tonight, which made me wonder what's actually in ratatouille. both sound very good. i'll post a review tomorrow about the movie. not sure when i'll get to actually try the dish.

happy birthday, mom.

we miss you every day.

namaste!

so i went to my first bikram yoga class yesterday morning. oh. my. god. i can't even explain the amount of sweat. the room was 109 degrees. 90 minutes later... i was blinded from the sweat. and i'm so randomly sore today. like, the right side of my neck, my left forearm, my right lower back... so weird. but alas, i am going back tonight! i might wear a super cool headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes. woo hoo! oh yeah, i'm stylin...

meow.

so i just read about mr. lee and his fun cat life. his owner affixed a tiny digital camera to his collar and has it set to take pictures about every few minutes. i would do this to simon (hi, keli would slice my hand off) but all he does all day is sleep and cough up hair balls. i definitely do NOT need that on film.

yawn.

so i got up at 4:50am this morning to make sure i was here (in valhalla) for 7:30am to catch up on the training i missed yesterday due to below mentioned car trouble. it's now 8:25am (day 2 of training begins at 9) and nobody has caught me up on nuttin. so glad i got up IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAMNED NIGHT for this.
so anyway, to elaborate on said car trouble... basically i got a flat tire on the highway in danbury and waited on the side of the road for an hour for aaa to get there. side note: 4, that's right.. FOUR police cars drove past me. none stopped. granted, given the flat spare tire, there was nothing they could've done to help me, but come on... at least CHECK on a stranded motorist! in fact, nobody stopped. i know it was rush hour and they all probably assumed i had a cell, which i did, but jeez. chivalry, anyone? no one? i guess not.

JERKS!

JERKS!

Stuck on side of highwy

Stuck on side of highwy with a flat tire and no spare and would you know not 1 of the 4 cops that drove by have stopped? Good thing for AAA.

how was the wedding this weekend, you ask?

tom really likes ac/dc.

falling behind again...

sorry. it was a REALLY busy week last week and this week? i just don't really have a lot of cool things to say. Except, how I am considering Trashing the Dress after the wedding. How fun!!!

i would rather be here:

than working. just saying.

invite samples!!

looky at our fancy logo...

back!

i visited jen and mike (and abby) in nh yesterday and who knew it would be a productive wedding weekend?! i tried on her beeeeautiful jewelry to wear for the wedding, another hair pin/clip idea for my trial and a dress to borrow to wear to shawn's wedding in two weeks. PLUS we went to her jewelry store to try on wedding bands and i found "the one" heh. woo hoo!

a new must-have for summer festivities...

i just saw this on GMA Weekend. It's PERFECT for beer pong at any sort of cottage environment. i'm lucky enough to have two (four actually, if i ever get my butt to either becky's or pete's) cottages in my life: "THE" cottage, and vermont. i'm not sure we want to swim around with this at "THE" cottage, but vermont for SURE. oh yeah. just when my new family didn't think they could love me more, i roll up with a waterproof beer pong table. woot!

that's it, you had your chance!

mom? dad? ross smoked pot in college!
you are such a tattletale!!
mom, dad? remember that time you walked in my room and smelled... marijuana?
yes.
well, i told you it was chandler who was smoking the pot, but it was me. i'm sorry.
dad? chandler didn't melt your records...ross did.
is that true?
and dad? you remember that mailman that you had fired? he didn't steal your playboys...ross did!
hurricane gloria didn't break the porch swing, monica did!
ross hasn't worked at the museum for a YEAR!
monica and chandler are LIVING TOGETHER!
ROSS MARRIED RACHEL IN VEGAS AND GOT DIVORCED! A! GAIN!
i love jacques cousteau!
i wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle!
I WANNA GOOOOOO!

oh i love it.

wkrp in cincinnati

ok, who's checkin me out from ohio dudes? show yourself! ok, if you don't want to, i will respect your privacy. i'm just excited that i may have a lone visitor who isn't someone i force to read this. ha!

tomorrow i'm off to jen and mike's. i had to work SO LATE tonight. i'm consoling myself w/ a (ok, 2 glasses) of wine and some vanilla frozen yogurt. and dvds. tom's at a bachelor party this weekend so i must keep myself entertained. no, i'm not wearing my wedding dress, but i really want to. i am not ashamed. :) i know i should be.

for my dessert...

i have chosen to make a traditional english trifle!

what show is that from?

hahahahahhahahahaaha

so i put my bathing suit on today.
oh my.
i mean, it's not horrifying, but dudes. i hate being 32. that's right. i'm blaming it on my age. not my exercise or eating habits. hahaha. but you can bet your toned behinds that i was at the gym running, lifting and squatting like a champ because hi, i have to go to puerto rico in 8 weeks.
ps, i'm also working from my deck, trying to get rid of a little of the white GLOW i have. sigh.

yet another reason...

why i need to have lasik eye surgery. ALLERGIES. my contacts are not an option. itchy, watery crack eyes are no good. glasses are not cutting it either as they are a little heavy (what we suffer for fashion) and hurt my sinuses so much i have watery eyes ANYWAY from the pain.
can i get away with no eye help at all, you ask? um no. as is evidenced by the giant bruise on my shin from walking into the chair. blind.
so. and hi... claritin? is a bitch. it's not helping. AT ALL. whatever. bite me.

oh and in case you're wondering...

i will HAVE to get a movie of this.

i gave the cats catnip and keli is now doing an upside down worm on the carpet. she keeps writhing around in the nip and then doing some sort of breakdancing move. oh we are in trouble tonight. i suspect we'll be kept awake by a cat pahty. tom's gonna kill me. but i felt BAD. they were alone all day during the freak hail storm with me in valhalla and tom in purchase.

well they are feelin no sort of pain now, lemme tell ya.

i'm going to be a wreck.

i'm watching videography samples to help choose someone to tape our wedding. i'm a mess watching OTHER people get married. although tom will be excited about this one... last weekend we went to a catholic wedding and he noticed that the bride and groom have to kneel for like an hour and he's like hi, i can't do that. knee problems, y'all understand. in this sample, the bride are groom are all pimped out in chairs, so maybe we can do that.
anyway.
so i'm back to blogging, but don't expect to hear about anything other than the wedding for the next four months and twenty-nine days.

I'M BACK!

wow, what a terrible blogger i've been. OVER A MONTH. that's unacceptable and to you, my dear readers (which equal zero now, i'm sure) i apologize.

holy cow is pre cana

holy cow is pre cana draining. We're now at the end of our second night. Last night didn't end until midnight and we were up at 6 this morning.

drunk dialing is not limited to humans.

i want to help!

this is the view over my right shoulder:

she keeps thwapping me in the head with her demon tail, too.
seriously, though, i cannot believe the change in this cat since she's been living with us. once my mom got really sick, both simon and keli (the above-pictured cat) turned very lackadaisical. i guess they just fed off of her vibes, and since she couldn't really get around, they decided they didn't need to, either. lazy bums.

after my mom died and they had to pack up their little cases and come live with tom and me, i warned him that keli doesn't like boys. she's never, in her 11 years, even enjoyed the sound of a boy's voice. (just ask my stepfather.) she is such a little skank... every DAY she jumps right up on the couch for him to pet her. he doesn't pick her up yet, but you don't even know what kind of progress this is. this is the same cat that almost clawed my sister's arm off last year. side note: my sister thinks keli has a grudge against her. that she secretly plots your death whilst you sleep. my sister's sanity is a topic for another post.

go sox!

little late in posting this, but tuesday we played hooky (hookie?) and schlepped it up to fenway for the red sox home opener against the mariners (boo seattle!) where we witnessed a massacre (that sadly did not carry through to last night, but whatever).

it was a great day, but dude. it's APRIL. and absolutely freezing. ps, my favorite part of the picture below is the guy behind me to my left. so good.

no good, very bad blogger.

sorry i have basically been the worst blogger EVER lately. to make it up to you (if there are even any of you left...) i'm going to put up bunches of pictures from the weekend. they include, but are not limited to, easter with the wrights. enjoy!

raking up sticks and acorns from the wrights' yard on saturday.

i really raked. seriously. first time ever. it was everything i dreamed and more.

i got tired so i needed to be carried around.

tom is a nice resting spot for hunter and me.

>>nerd alert<<

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