Oh, hi.

Hey there Internets. It's me, Amanda. The bad blogger.

I have all kinds of things to write about, including our fabulous wedding pictures that we recently got back from our photographer. But it seems a little overwhelming to start recapping the wedding, so I've been avoiding it. So I figured why not get back in the swing of things with my oh so (not) favorite topic........ weight.

So we got this super cool electronic scale as a wedding gift (what kind of crazy would buy someone a scale as a wedding gift, you ask? well.. we actually registered for this. so I guess we are the crazies!) Mark stepped on it a few weeks ago and even announced to me last week that he's already lost 4 pounds of post-wedding-weight-gain. I, on the other hand, have been avoiding that scale like the plague. It sits on our bathroom floor, taunting me every day and just begging me to step on it with its cool digital screen and weight accuracy right down to the tenth of a pound and handy-dandy recording feature to remind you how much you weighed last time you stepped on it. No thank you Fancy Scale, I'd rather not know how many LB's I've gained in the 2+ months since the wedding, during which time my food pyramid has consisted pretty heavily of french fries and skittles.

Well I bit the bullet this past week and now have been stepping on Fancy Scale every morning (after peeing, of course). The number today (post El Chico for dinner last night and Chick-fil-a for lunch on Saturday) was a good solid ten pounds higher than the number I fill in on medical forms and at the DMV. Sigh. No wonder my pants all feel tighter and those cute green shorts I wore on the honeymoon don't even zip up anymore.

So today I start over. Get back on track. Quit eating crap every day. Visit the gym more than once every other week. I am going to loosely follow weight watchers and see where it gets me this week. And by loosely I mean I'm not paying to sign up, but instead keeping track of it all myself, on little post-it notes all over my desk and purse. Because I've paid for it for months and months before and that cute little web page with all the bells and whistles just doesn't keep me committed. My too-tight green shorts are keeping me committed this time!

I'm telling you this, dear Internet friends, to help me stay accountable. In the spirit of "if you write something down you'll stick to it" (shout out, Oprah), I'm hoping this will get me back into my non-fat jeans by the holidays. Anyone else out there have any Stick With It tips, for WW or otherwise?

Thanks for listening... I'm off to eat my Lean Cuisine.

Next up.. much more exciting posts with pretty wedding pictures :)

work, work, work, work, work, work.....

Just a quick little post to let you know I am still alive and kicking. Work is especially busy this week, so there's little time for anything else. It's wearing me out, but the end is in sight.

Happy (almost) weekend to all!

Coming up: Never before seen photo booth pics!

Hi Internets! *wave*

Well.. I'm back. For now, at least. The wedding is a mere 18 days away. Whoa. I can't believe our countdown is a) in the double digits, much less b) starting with the number one. (!!) I go from being beyond excited that It's here!! to being sick to my stomach that.... ohmygosh. people are going to come. what if they don't have a good time?! One thing's for sure. I know I am ready to marry this boy and start this new life together.

With the countdown dropping and my To Do List staring me in the face, I find myself trying to speed-learn adobe illustrator, bargain with Mark to add one more detail, tie a bow that doesn't look limp and lifeless and finally read the fine print on all our vendor contracts (what do you mean we can't bring our own chairs to the reception site?! [mini heart attack follows.]) I am putting out fires with some wacky small-town church ladies, making the trip to Hobby Lobby for the 14th time this week and waking up in the middle of the night thinking "what if the piano player doesn't know our version of this-and-that song?!?"

The closer it gets, the more surreal it feels. I'm used to going to other people's weddings. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like to be my wedding. Will everything get done between now and then? Probably not. But that's okay. Because even if every pew doesn't have a pomander on it, or if every table doesn't have a candle on it, or if every person doesn't leave with a program, at the end of the day, I'll still get to be a wife. A wife. Wow.

Listy, Version 3.0

Reading:
* Firefly Lane

Listening To:
* Touch My Hand, David Archuleta (love it.)
* Sweet and Low, Augustana (the acoustic version will melt your heart)
* Justin Bieber (yeah, I'm a thirteen year old girl on the inside)

Planning:
* My wedding invitations (yikes)
* Games for a friends' bette party in NOLA next month (new ideas, anyone out there?)
* Flights to St. Lucia (5 months and one week, not that I'm counting...)

Working On:
* Updating my school's Twitter account multiple times per day. How can anyone be creative that much?!
* Grandparent's Day (argh)

Overwhelmed By:
* Weddings. My own and all the others.

Looking Forward To:
* The Olympics! Weren't they just in Beijing like, yesterday??
* A belated Valentine's Day celebration
* Weddings. My own and all the others :)

Victory!

A whole basket of cookies arrived at work today and were just sitting there in the break room, staring at me with their little chocolate chip eyes.

And I did not eat one of them. I didn't even do my usual break-off-a-corner-just-for-one-bite routine.

Six months and counting!

PS. Yes, I know I've been seriously MIA recently. My excuses are coming soon.

Rain = Sleepy

Oh Monday. You always come too quickly. I had a nice, lazy, rainy weekend and it was just what I needed. I babysat Friday night and since nothing was on TV, I browsed through their DVR list and ended up watching the pilot for Vampire Diaries on the CW. It was pretty fabulous. It was Gossip Girl meets Twilight meets True Blood. Lots of high school drama, some teen vampire crushes, and bloody attacks in the the forest. Pretty good mix! Vampires are so trendy right now, so I figured I'll stick with it a little longer. Oh and speaking of GG, how excited are we about the premiere tonight?!

Three hours later and $30 richer, I went to bed early Friday night. When I woke up Saturday morning I knew I needed to clean the apartment. We've been out of town for so many weekends that everything has gotten greatly neglected. I got on the ball and ended up filing away mail, dusting the ceiling fans, washing the bed skirt and scrubbing the bathtub -- all kinds of things I usually skip over. My mom called me three times that morning from the Muenster City Wide Garage Sale - she and my sister go tup at 7 AM to hit up the sales and called me hourly to report on all their good finds. We are stocking up on candles and class vases for the wedding and she apparently found a lot of loot. I need to get back up there soon to check it all out, and to meet with the florist.

Last week Mark and I met with Kristen, our fabulous WP/BFF, and the three of us worked out the dreaded budget. It's good to finally have some numbers though, so we can move forward with some sort of game plan. Next up on the list is hiring a DJ. Kristen pretty much already has us sold on a guy she knows, but we're going to meet with him next week to make sure he's what we're looking for and in our price range. My mom has really been on the ball lately - she's booked us with the cake guy in town and even got the piano player at church to put us on his calendar. Everyone keeps telling us to call them in the spring, but at least we know they've got us on their books!

Saturday night I went to a couples shower for a friend who's getting married in a few weeks. We watched football and sipped on champagne while the bride and groom opened heir gifts, then Mark and I snuck out early. Sunday morning I watched a lot of House Hunters and then met up with Christina for lunch at the Galleria. She talked me into her five must have items for fall, so we're hunting out the best deals on gray handbags and brown boots. I've been so good for the past few months and NOT SHOPPING, but I couldn't resist a good sale and a 30% off coupon from ATL. I went in for a shirt I knew they had marked down, but came out with an additional two sweaters and some little camis. I couldn't help myself! It had been too long. I'm back on my no shopping diet now though. And avoiding the malls...

I headed up to McKinney after lunch to go check out Mark's new u-verse and have pot roast for dinner (we love the crock pot!). I got there around 2:30 and by 3:00 the (brand new) cable was frozen and the internet was down. Six hours later it was still out, so I missed the MTV awards and Mark missed all the late day football. He called up AT&T and chewed them out pretty good, so they are apparently coming back over this evening to get it up and running again. You'd be surprised how dull a rainy evening can be with no cable or internet! We actually ended up watching Titanic on VHS.. Mark's idea! So it wasn't a total loss. And for someone who swears up and down he's only seen Titanic once in his entire life, he sure did know a lot of the lines by heart :)

The weekend came and went too fast, but we've once again got a pretty open schedule ahead of us this week. I love not traveling! We're home every weekend between now and mid-October. It's nice to know that things are going to slow down for a bit.

Umm.. this seems to be a reoccurring theme around here.

Hi. It's me.. again. Being a bad blogger.. again. It's not that I've been busy (although I have) or that I don't have things to write about (because I do) or that I'm not spending much time on the Internet (because oh lord, I am). I have no excuse. So once again, straight from my laptop, here's what's been going on over here for the past, oh fourteen days.

Well, most recently, Michael Jackson died. Whoa. So strange. I am enjoying the Tribute To Michael that every radio station in DFW has been playing this afternoon and omg MTV is playing all his old music videos. It almost made me jump on Itunes and buy his greatest hits album. But then I remembered that I AM TRYING TO SAVE MONEY for this (kind of) big deal that I have coming up... you know, the wedding.

So since I officially brought it up, the wedding. It has and hasn't been consuming me. I go through waves where all I want to do it sit online and read wedding blogs and look at wedding photos and agonize over colors and dresses and flowers and decor and DJ's and more more more. Then I have days that go by where I don't want to look at a single bride magazine or even talk about it. We did set a date though, which I'm hoping will be the most difficult decision I have to make because lordy, it was a tough one. Spring? Summer? May? June? July? April? Soon? Far? Middle? Ahh. We have officially booked the church, the reception and the photographer. July 10, 2010. I want it to be less than a year away. I think then I will be able to really feel like its okay to start hard core planning. Because right now, I feel like every vendor who asks me "so when is your wedding date?" is rolling their eyes internally as i try to casually say "oh next summer."

I am so excited for our photographer. So. Excited. Check out his work at www.brooksblog.com. Mark and I are chipping in to cover the costs of the photos because its something we are so excited about and we want to have great photos, naturally. What I didn't want, was for my photographer to take up a substantial part of the budget, so we're taking on a large portion of the photo costs, which doesn't bother me in the least.

I took two days off this week and went to look at dresses with my mom and sisters. I wasn't too jazzed for it, because of the whole my-wedding-is-over-a-year-away thing. But once I started putting those dresses on and once they'd pin the veil in my hair, it got really fun, really fast. I have a good idea of what I'm looking for now. I even found a potential THE dress. But, I've got so much time on my side still, it's just going to sit in the back of my mind, burning a hole until I start looking again. I am taking off more time in mid-July and Mark's mom is going to come up to look with us too.

I also found some FABULOUS bridesmaid dresses that are exactly what I had in my mind. My sisters got to try them on and they looked adorable. The designer is offering a great deal for Summer 2010 brides, so I will likely jump on these pretty soon. But, that requires me PICKING A COLOR. This is all my mom talks about. Colors, colors, colors. We cannot do ANYTHING until we have our colors, according to her. I am really torn on the colors. I have some great options - but I'm afraid of committing to one and ordering dresses and then not being able to go back! One thing I know I want is naturals, greens and whites in my flowers. Green hydrangeas. White peonies. Bright green leaves. So I need colors that will match that. My two front runners are deep royal blues and rich plums/raisin colors. The cute bmaid dresses that I found come in both shades, so I'm weighing my options and trying to sell myself on either one.

Over the weekend, I started working on creating a wedding website. It was quite addictive. More to come, once it gets some more beef to it.

Mark found out this week that HE PASSED HIS PE TEST!!!!!!!! Huge news over here. Finally, he can relax and stop stressing about this stinking test. We went out last night to celebrate with dinner at Texas de Brazil. This was my first time at this place. Let's just say that by the time we left, I wouldn't even let Mark say the word "meat." I was beyond full. But it was Fabulous.

How on earth is the fourth next weekend?! We are heading up to the lake and I cannot wait. We haven't gotten up there even once yet this summer and Mark's brother will be home from Beijing and coming along with us. It's the first time we've seen him since we got engaged (or any of Mark's friends for that matter) so we get to celebrate.. yet again! My favorite part of the summer is going to the lake.. I'm glad it's finally time!

We went to my parents' house last weekend to meet with the priest at the church where we'll be getting married, and to take one last look at the reception site. While we were there, my mom and I did crafts while the boys branded the cattle. Yeah. Branded cattle. No one knew what they were doing. It was horrible and hilarious all at the same time. Mark was covered in mud and cow poop and he has an awesome farmer's tan to show for it too.

Work has been going really great and we've got some fun events coming up this fall. Plus the summer hours are completely spoiling me. When school starts again in August, it's going to be a rude awakening.

It's hot in Dallas. Like really hot. Argh. I am enjoying some quality time at the pool though. This summer is flying by, like always.

Oh Goodness!

Where do I even begin? The longer I stay away from the blog, the more I dread coming back to it. It's hard to imagine that I will "catch up" on everything that I've neglected so far. But, here it is in a (lengthy) nutshell.

Since You've (I've) Been Gone:

I lost my still new-ish iPod, bought a new one, lost the new one, found the new one. Whew. Original one still MIA.

Went to Austin for a whirlwind Memorial Day weekend.

Got engaged. I think I may have mentioned that :)

Finished out the school year. Hooray for summer hours, short weeks and casual day everyday.

Resurrected the ol'Book Club. Picked the first new book. Read the first new book. Hosted the first new meeting. Started on Book 2 last night.

Spend a weekend with the future in-laws. Showed off the ring. Revisted the engagement site. Toasted over brunch.

Scoped out some reception sites in Muenster. It's slim pickings out there. But I believe in the power of good lighting and a lot of flowers.

Found a florist that I LOVE. Love, love, love.

Picked out about 28 bridesmaid dresses that I could be perfectly happy with. Haven't really thought too much about my own dress...

Set the date. Haven't 100% committed to it though. Spring Wedding? Summer Wedding? Winter wedding? I can't decide!!!!

Spent a weekend at a friend of a friend's lakehouse. It was cold and rainy, but we had a good time nonetheless.

Met with my BFF's mom twice since the engagement. BFF got married last fall and her mom did all the planning, so she's full of advice and tidbits. She's sending me almost daily emails with pages of information and ideas.

Started my Wedding Binder. So much fun!

Hired a wedding planner. Slash best friend. It's nice having a good friend with her own wedding planning business because she a)gives me a steal of a deal on her rates and b)"work expenses" our happy hours and picks up the tab

Will this blog take on a huge wedding planning theme now? Probably. Not entirely, but likely a lot. What else will I have on the brain for the next however many months?! Tonight Mark and I are meeting with a photographer to hear him out and get some prices. I am super stoked. The wedding photography is one of my most favorite parts of all of this, so I want to get me a good one.

Listy, Version 2.0

Has it really been two weeks since I've posted? I'm a bad blogger. Here's why:

* Went to Bartlesville this weekend, to hang out with Mark's parents and eat a lot of good food. We watched movies, read books, napped on the couch, drove around and looked at houses, hit up the newest restaurant in Bville, watched the rain, watched the Derby and just relaxed. It was almost like a real vacation.

* Went to Muenster last weekend for Germanfest. We had eight people and six dogs at the house. I'll have to post a picture of our attempt at a "Dog Family Photo" with all six of them sitting together. But I haven't even uploaded them off my camera yet. Food consumed at Germanfest: kettle corn, brats, kraut, cabbage, potatoes, grilled corn, funnel cake, tator twisters, margaritas and a lot of beer.

* Mark took his test!!!! He feels good about it and is daring to see he is pretty confident that he will do well when he gets his score back. It's been nice getting to hang out with him more when he's not studying. It even feels weird to just sit around and watch TV without him having a book open.

* Goose cat is still as cute as ever.

* Our summer calendar is already filling up. In the next four weeks we are going to Austin twice and to Possum Kingdom once. I can't wait to get to the lake and sit on a boat while I soak up the sun! It's my favorite part of summer.

* China is officially off. I've tried to plan numerous other vacations in the past few weeks: cruise, Destin, Kansas City, California, North Carolina - but they are all ending up in a dead end. I'm not giving up on my big summer plans yet though. Just today I was trying to sell Mark on a weekend getaway to the Gaylord Texan. At this point, I will take anything!

* Tomorrow we are having an "office retreat" at work to plan for next year. We are meeting at my boss's house and are supposed to come with all our ideas to make next year our best ever. I'm looking forward to a day out of the office, even though I am coming off a 3 day weekend. Sigh.

* Gus is staring at me. He always gets very whiny when I've been out of town for a few days. He demands all my attention and wants to play a lot. He's making my feel uber guilty right now.

Blogging Temporarily Delayed...

... due to a certain someone who thinks I've been gone too long and on the computer too frequently. I'm working on an update of sorts, but won't get around to finishing it up tonight, since three times now he's climbed up on my keyboard.

More to come.. soon i hope.

On the road again..

This is a first. Blogging on the phone, from the road, where we have apparently missed the entire town that we were going to stop at for lunch.

We're nearing ft. Worth. Our tummies are rumbling.

More to come. But in case you've been worried, I am still alive!