I made another blanket. If you recall, I made my first blanket a while back, and even though I loved the colors and was pleased with how my first came out..it barely covers one of us. Its good for a baby blanket, but we dont have a baby, so it was my goal to make a blanket that at least covered one of us. The step by step was similar to the last one, though I’m a little more comfortable with my sewing machine now. I also tried making a consistent pattern on the whole thing, but ran out of matching fabric, so three of these rows are  not in the right pattern. What I love about this design with the quilt, is it doesn’t really matter! It still looks good and you can barely tell that the pattern is wrong.

I’m also going to fill you in on a little secret. I am not really good at cutting fabric into even squares. So because of that, I buy my fabric pre-cut on eBay. I look up 5″ charm packs, and I usually get a ton of cute options. You can get 4″ squares too, and I’m guessing there are other sizes as well. This is how I buy my fabric for my Wunzees as well. Bigger variety, smaller pieces. I am going to stick with the squares for now until I master this quilt..then I’ll move on to more complicated quilt patterns.

Im pleased with it. Look at how comfortable Mick looks!

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well, not really. If you consider choosing where we go for our honeymoon a tough decision. Its a fun one, but important none the less…especially considering you only get one (hopefully).

Our original plan was as follows. Get away for a little weekend after the honeymoon, maybe head to Sea Ranch or somewhere cute. Then save money and head to Thailand, when its not the rainy season, around February or March. However, we are currently re-thinking this plan, especially with all of the drama going on in Thailand. Sure we could just stay on the beaches…but I want to go where the culture is. I want to head to Chang Mai, and Bangkok, and see all I can. Especially if I’m paying for a trip out there. So…plans are changing.

I have asked many friends for advice as to where THEY went and think we should go..and the responses have been great. Aruba, Barbados, Jamaica, Tahiti, Bora Bora, the options seem limitless. We are getting married in August, and now it looks like we aren’t going to wait till next year to go. We might actually just head out the week of my birthday in September. Sooner than later sounds good to me!! But, the Caribbean is rainy season during that time. Apparently Barbados and Aruba are slightly off the hurricane belt, so those are considerations.  There is also the Mexican Riviera, but those locations are in the Gulf, and with the current state of oil in the Gulf, not sure that’s an ideal location either.

However, I’ve always wanted to head to Costa Rica. Not on the Gulf side, not hurricane season, and we found a lovely all inclusive hotel that includes food, drink, all non-motor water sports, and more!! This site ResortVacationsToGo.com is pretty rad. I think that this is where we are leaning. Its too bad we didn’t think of this a little earlier, as I would have used one of the registry sites like Honeyfund or something similar and registered for a honeymoon. Looks like we are on our own. I am now in love with the idea of going on a honeymoon soon after the wedding…and enjoying the new wedded bliss. Why wait!

This past Saturday I went to a lovely wedding. It was my first of the year, and the first I’d been to since I started my own planning. I couldn’t stop looking at the details. There was no judgment on my end…just observing and checking out the decisions made. The wedding was very different than what I am planning. It was in a church. She walked down to “Here Comes the Bride,” and her dress was an adorable, just below the knee, 50′s looking thing. The biggest difference was that their wedding had 30 people in attendance.

It was actually pretty nice being a part of an intimate event. We felt honored to be the only “friends” guests that weren’t in the wedding party. We got to know the family. We got to “make” the party. The reception was held at a hotel in Half Moon Bay, buffet style, and they treated us with an open bar. Their DJ even told us that Denon & Doyle (our DJ) is his biggest competition. Guess we did something right!

Attending someone else’s wedding just got me even more excited for my own. I still want the details that I have planned, but do realize that the bigger picture is just being surrounded by the friends and family that you love. Hooray for love! A few pictures are below. I liked the way my Hipstamatic shots came out better, but you can see the whole set here.

So this post isn’t mine. I didn’t write it. It was written by a blogger that I don’t know, and likewise, I have contributed a blog entry to someone elses blog out there in blogland as well. You can find links to all of the participating blogs here.  Today’s post is part of the Blog Share. It’s interesting participating in these blog shares, as the topics usually stray from the theme of the hosting blog. The below post is a perfect example. Enjoy.

I don’t write about religion on my blog. I am religious. It’s not cool to say this, but I like being religious. My faith makes me put other people first. It makes me think about what I can do to be a better person and what I can do to make the world a better place. It keeps me humble. It keeps me grounded.

I don’t take most of the Bible literally, and yet, I realize my religious beliefs are unrealistic and maybe a little bit crazy. The story of Jesus isn’t exactly the most believable, sensible story. I know that, but I still believe.

I don’t care if other people are religious or not. I don’t care if they are religious but believe in a different religion than I do. The ultimate thing, really the only thing that matters, is to try to be a good person. Unfortunately it seems to me that other people care that I’m religious. And they think that because I’m religious, they are smarter than me. It’s stupid, but one of the reasons I don’t write about religion on my blog is that I can’t stand the comments from people who think they’re smart because they’re not religious. When I read other posts about religion, there are almost always comments about how stupid religion is, how religion is only for weak or ignorant people, how they are so much smarter because they figured out that all religion is a lie. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m an idiot because I’m Catholic, and I really don’t appreciate that attitude.

After writing a big boring thing about how I don’t want anyone picking on my religion, I have to admit that I’m struggling with being Catholic right now. I still like my faith. I like going to my church because I really like my priest and my parish. At the same time, I don’t want to be affiliated with a bureaucracy that has protected child molesters and that teaches that homosexuality is wrong. Can I help to change the Catholic Church from within it? Do I need to leave the Church? I don’t know what the right thing to do is. I know there are hardcore Catholics who think that if you don’t agree with everything the bureaucracy does, then you aren’t really Catholic. Personally, I disagree. I’m afraid that if all the people like me leave the Church, then it will never change.

We got our first wedding gift a few weeks back. It was our pots and pans set that we had registered for, and we couldn’t be more excited. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and love to cook…so it was perfect that we got a nice, new, shiny set.

Last October, we saw some heavy rain, and our apartment wasn’t ready for it. We had roof leaks, closet leaks, and floor leaks. We had to protect our stuff, so we used a few of the older, crappier pots and pans to catch the rain and protect our furniture. We threw those rusty and ruined pots and pans away after, making our collection significantly smaller.

Even with the smaller collection we already have, with this new, shiny set, we have no where to store them all! They are actually still in the box.  We won’t be in this apartment forever, so we will make do with what we have, but I would love to be able to display and hang my new, shiny pots in a convenient, space-saving and decorative way. So I started browsing. There wont be a place for it now, but I figured a girl can dream right? My two thoughts were hanging rack, and peg board. How do you keep your pots and pans?

This over the stove rack is nice to look at, and a good use of space, but would the pots and pans be affected by the grease?

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After the success of the last blog share I chose to participate in, I decided to jump in on this opportunity that Bright Yellow World brought to me as well. On Monday, the author on my blog won’t be me. In fact, some of my writing will be somewhere else floating around as well. The beauty of the blog share is everything is anonymous. You don’t know who wrote on mine, and you won’t know where my writings are. Pretty cool way to speak your mind and not have to deal with the repercussions.

Below are the participants in this blog share. Feel free to have a look around their blogs prior to Monday, but definitely check them out on Monday. There will be a lot of good stuff (so I hear).

A Little Coffee With My Cream and Sugar
And You Know What Else
Another Bloody Mary
Bright Yellow World
Cake or Death
Dispatches from the Failed Mommies Club
Feel Me Don’t You
Heidikins
Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men
Kirida
Malfeasance
My 33 People
Nothing Is Easier Than Self-Deceit
Postcards from Inania
Rediscovering Me
Snow Covered Hills
Tales of a tree-hugging 2L
The Gay White North
The Little Goat
The Opposite of Classy

The whole time we have been planning the wedding, I’ve been trying to keep organized. I have all my emails that come in wedding related labeled with a bright purple wedding tag. I even opened a new email account for all our vendors and registries. My contracts ended up in one folder from my venue, but at least they are all together.

I was worried about this phase though. We are now coming on the final stretch. 78 days and counting….eeeeek!

Our invitations went out, and its actually super fun to come home every day to check mail, because so far, minimum of 4 response cards daily. But…how should I keep track of all the YES/NO’s and keep myself in line and prepare for gift listing, Thank you card sending, and most important, the table seating and place cards.

I think I have worked out a system….I wanted to share, and compare. I also thought that this would be handy for my few friends/blog readers who are also planning a wedding.

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Upon checking out the new and shiny Bright Yellow World, I have been inspired. I have been having some blog woes as of late. I cant update my wordpress…my code is wonky..and I’m not a computer expert. I’ve been toying with the idea of paying to have a blog redesign, and since the folks at Splendid Sparrow did such a great job with Abby’s blog…I went for it. You only live once right?

She has sent me some thoughts and ideas for me to ponder thus far…but I am eagerly awaiting a new shiny blog that I can call my own. A blog where all I have to do is push a button…and viola! an update occurs.

So stay tuned my devoted few. Change…she is a coming.

I saw some lovely peonies at Trader Joes yesterday. Yes…I’m doing my flower browsing at Trader Joes, but regardless…I saw them, and they inspired todays Etsy Tag Monday. Going to keep it simple and keep it pretty. You can link to the listing on Etsy by clicking the image.

So I mentioned that I have talented friends right? Well its a good thing that one of them is my wedding photographer. During our trip to NOLA, we embarked on our photo journey, finding textured walls, cool vines, and letting Eray do what she wanted. I’m so glad we let her have control. We saw the whole set of edited lovelies today…though I can’t post them because they are in a locked album in the tubes of the internet. I can however post this sneak peek that she sent us. This is a small portion of the beauty that she produced for us…but you get the gist. She works magic.