Wedding Dress Shopping

If you like to get mostly naked in front of a stranger, get into and out of many different dresses and then parade in front of people and anxiously await their thumbs up or thumbs down, wedding dress shopping is for you!

My mom, my aunts Connie and Maggie and future sister-in-law Kim came along on this interesting adventure with me. We first went to Flutter, a small boutique in Minneapolis that specializes in bridesmaids dresses. For those of you that don't know, I am a non-traditional bride. I have not been dreaming of this day my entire life and I don't look good in white, irovy or cream. Therefore I am looking for a dress with some color (and when I mean some, I mean something bold). I also don't want to spend much money on this dress - I want to look good and I know I can do that with a dress that doesn't cost 40% of our wedding budget.

Back to Flutter - great place. For any of you that like one-on-one attention with friendly and understanding staff who listen to what you are looking for and adapt as you go along, this is a great place to go. They also had a couch and beverages for your little helpers. It had a big and comfortable dressing room that was very well-lit (no crappy dressing room lights).

There is a strong possibility I found my wedding dress there :) Because I was kind of nervous going in there and generally stressed out about the wedding, I wasn't sure at the time. It's also because I can't envision a different color for the life of me (the dress I tried on was a silver color). But after Connie's photoshop skills, she had me in the color it would be and I'm really liking the way I looked in it. Also, every person I've shown loves it. I'm not going to give away the surprise color on my blog just yet, so no telling those of you who already know!

Flutter was a great experience all the way around, which made the second shop I went to difficult to bear: The Wedding Shoppe. There are several people who have talked this place up and down, but I hated it. First off, they put me upstairs with the traditional brides and they realized the mistake when I said I'm looking for a dress with color (hence my response of non-traditional dress). So they shipped me downstairs in the flood of colors and dresses. It honestly felt like a mix between a department store that was overstocked and a warehouse. The woman there didn't help me in and out of the dresses, so Kim was awesome enough to help out (btw - so glad I wore full underwear!).

I felt like I was trying on prom dresses most of the time and the woman that was "helping" me kept bringing me stuff I didn't want to wear, like stuff with ruffles and folds in the front, stuff that was strapless, etc. After about 45 minutes of hell and the smell of smoke, I had enough. I should have left before that point, but I tried to tell myself maybe it's in the sea of craziness. Nope, not there. I'm sure for traditional brides, The Wedding Shoppe was a decent place to go.
After that horrible experience, we went back to my house and I cracked open a beer. It tasted incredibly good.

Just so you don't feel left out, here's a sampling of the worst looking dresses (i.e. those that made me look huge, ridiculous, like a bell, etc) courtesy of Connie:

I've got shell boobs and the dress is expecting!

I couldn't bring myself to show you the back...baby got back.

How to appear you've gained 30 pounds in under a minute.

Kim suggested I store my beer in there.

I'm like a little bell - ding dong.

Officially winter

It's been quite chilly - kind of surprising actually. All of a sudden it really is winter. There's a dusting of snow on the ground and the wind's got some bite to it.

I starting decorating for Christmas with the help of my mom. She came down to go wedding dress shopping with me. After some discussion, we decided it would be best to not set up the big tree (which apparently is not eight-foot-tall) and instead, set up the small tree on a table or something. I decided to set up our little tree on the buffet in the dining room to ensure Banjo's inability to eat any ornaments. I decorated the chandelier too and I realized how much I actually like having that.


I also love having our fireplace. Not only have we had a fire at least every other night, I got to decorate the mantel (pictures to come). Banjo got to enjoy a lovely raw bone as we worked since he was in the mood to steal a small bottle of lotion out of my mom's purse to say "pay attention to me!". It kept him out of trouble since my playing with him didn't cut it.

Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day! I'm super excited to eat some real food then to taste my not-burnt pie :) I was nervous that I was going to set it on fire again after the blazing incident last year, but I did not! Hooray! What I'm even more excited about is eating my mom's stuffing tomorrow!

I'm also proud to announce that I have completed all of the Christmas stockings I made last year! I gave myself the deadline of Thanksgiving to get all of the yarn ends tucked in (I hate that part!) and I made my goal. Phew! Now I get to finish Chris's hat and start on Pokey's porch blanket. Also, I will be making my mom a lap blanket as soon as the yarn arrives. I'm also hoping to knit myself some wrist-warmers this December since the building I work in keeps the temps nice and cool.

I'm excited to start decorating for Christmas after this weekend. We have the eight-foot tree to go with our nine-foot ceilings, so it will be interesting to see if I have enough decorations! I'm also planning to string some cranberries for the birds out back. I'm guessing they are going to have everything eaten in a day though, so I might just wait until closer to Christmas day.

I'm super excited that my craft room is essentially complete! My dad made me a sewing stand! I of course haven't taken a picture yet because I was too excited to get it set up. I filled the drawers with my sewing goodies and the quilt that I have not gotten anywhere on (project number 534). Thank you Dad! I will post pictures soon.

Weekend recap

I've been working hard on Connie's shawl since I'm trying to get it done by next weekend. It's looking really good and I realize how much I like this pattern. I will post photos when I'm done. I'm also getting ready to start Chris a replacement U of M hat that he unfortunately lost a couple of weeks ago. Of course the local yarn store didn't have the yarn and I had to find it online and of course I didn't know what color number the yarn I used previously was. I took a stab at the color and got it right (phew!). I'm going to write that down.

I finally got out climbing yesterday with Kim - it felt really good and makes me realize how much climbing I've missed out on since we bought the house. Speaking of the house, we're getting a modest amount of firewood because both of us are really enjoying our fireplace (as I write this, I'm enjoying the sizzle of the not-so-dry lilac branches along with some drier wood).

I've embarked on my test two months of being off estrogen. So far so good, but it's definitely still in my system. I realize it's probably not the best time to be shopping for a wedding dress, but I'm not going to get it altered until much closer to the actual date.

Speaking of the actual date, we are going to get married on June 26th next year (save the date!). We will be sending out invitations next year. That's another thing that happened this weekend: Kim is awesome-o and helping us plan our wedding. We went over the general flow of the few days before to the day after. I'm quite excited even though it's going to be a lot of work to get there. I will be asking my family for some help with decoration ideas (simple and inexpensive - preferably something people can take with them so we're not left with a ton of stuff after the fact).

Lots of new-to-me stuff

My aunt Connie graciously passed on a Swedish buffet which I am now using for all of my yarn :) Additionally she brought along other decorative pieces, including some from my aunt Maggie's (thank you both!). I will likely post other pictures when I figure out exactly where to put them. I was also extremely excited about a sofa cover Connie had (thank you!!!). The couch in my room no longer looks completely silly and out of place.


Additionally, I think it was last weekend that Chris reassembled our bookshelf for the living room. I stained it all (first time and I don't think I did too bad of job) and we combined efforts to varish it. It was a long process and I have even greater appreciation of all the work that goes into my dad's furniture. Thank you Dad for all of the pieces of furniture you've made me over the years and for letting Chris be an apprentice!

My adventure with migraines

As you already know, I am suffer from migraines. I have been working with my doctor to try a few different drugs, and I seem to have found a combination that works (one pill takes away the pain while the other takes away my urge to throw up). The side effect of this combination: I feel like I'm buzzed. Today was the first time I had taken both pills together and that was a very weird feeling. The best analogy I have is that I felt like I had had a couple of drinks.

I already found that when the migraine starts and I can take two of the pain pills in a two-hour time span, I get VERY drowsy. I feel asleep on the couch last night really early and was in a deep sleep the entire evening. Chris woke me up to go to bed (hee hee - sounds familiar right Mom and Dad?). When I woke up this morning, I took the pain pill and the nausea pill at the same time and got a little drowsy again, but mostly buzzed.

I overall consider this combination a success and will continue to use both. I am going to hold a two-month experiment soon - I'm going to get off the pill (and use other birth control methods!!!) and see if the frequency of my migraines are fewer or less severe. My doctor assured me that I only needed to do it for two months to see if there's a difference. If I find the frequency is reduced, I will likely switch birth control methods (use ones that don't include estrogen).

Migraines suck.

Trick-or-treat success

Banjo and I got through our first night of trick-or-treating (Chris was shooting the Gopher football game and missed out on the fun). The action started around 7. We got about 60 kids over the course of two hours. I was expecting 100+ given our location, but 60 was pretty good. It was fun seeing the kids and hearing their reactions to my costume. I'm going to have to do that every year!

Banjo behaved for the most part. I distracted him with a bone and whenever I saw a kid coming to the door, I snuck out into the porch. Sometimes Banjo figured out what I was doing and howled in the livingroom, but he was pretty good most of the time. Everything slowed way down after 8 and I was disappointed to see that so many of the neighbors don't hand out candy. I think it's because this half of the block has a lot of old-timers in it who are likely on fixed incomes. Too bad.

One thing I was surprised by was how many parents were driving their kids from block to block. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me, especially since it was really nice weather out last night. It was good to see large groups of parents and kids walking around though. You have to work for your candy! A lot of kids were carrying around pillowcases as bags and one kid had a heavy load and he told me he had hit eight blocks already. Now there's working for your treats!

The funniest costume I saw was a one-eyed octopus - the kid made it himself and you put the candy in the monster's mouth. I loved it. A lot of the kids loved my costume, which is funny because all that was unique was the black wig, hat and feather boa - the rest of my costume was work clothes, black long-johns and winter boots. Happy Halloween!