Day 3: Your Favorite Television Program

My apologies to everyone out there for my lack of posting yesterday, I'm sure you were all just absolutely devastated that I didn't post anything... Austin, Dan, Mel and I went to the Dallas Stars vs. Buffalo Sabres game last night and it was a ton of fun. Well, Austin and I had a great time since the Stars won 4-0. Dan was a little mad that his beloved Sabres didn't even have one quality scoring opportunity.

And, since the Rangers are in the World Series, the game was shown throughout the game. I've not really been following the games, but I have been able to gather this much: The World Series winner is whoever wins the best out of seven games. Last night was game three. The Rangers lost games one and two, so winning game three is a pretty big deal (apparently).

On to the 30 day challenge.

Day three is supposed to be my favorite television program. The only issue is that I'm not a huge TV person. I wont lie and say I never watch TV, but I'm more of a movie person than I am a TV person. That said, I would have to say that my favorite show would have to be... The Office. Or Friends. I never really watched The Office before Austin and I got together three years ago, but its become a show that we both love and watch every Thursday. Both of us have always loved Friends and it is one of the shows that we can watch and rewatch and rerewatch.

Day 2: Your Favorite Movie

Most of my close friends already know this. Most people aren't too surprised when they learn what it is. A few people are surprised because it is an old movie.

Drum roll please....


My favorite movie happens to be "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan, I've loved her ever since I did a report on her in the second grade (I only picked her because we share the same name... Shocking, I know). But yeah, I love her. She's classy, she's elegant, she's beautiful, she's everything I aim to be.

Day 1: Your Favorite Song

So, Day 1 is your favorite song.

This is actually a really difficult choice because I am a huge music lover and it has been such a huge part of my life, and will continue to be. I've had to think about this a lot. So I decided to pick the song that Austin and I consider "our song". This is going to be the song we use for our first dance and it means a lot to both of us.

30 Day Challenge

So, I came across this "30 Day Challenge" recently. I know its supposed to be for Tumblr, but I wanted to do it anyways. I think I"ll start today.

• Day 01 — Your favorite song
• Day 02 — Your favorite movie
• Day 03 — Your favorite television program
• Day 04 — Your favorite book
• Day 05 — Your favorite quote
• Day 06 — Whatever tickles your fancy
• Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy
• Day 08 — A photo that makes you angry/sad
• Day 09 — A photo you took
• Day 10 — A photo of you taken over ten years ago
• Day 11 — A photo of you taken recently
• Day 12 — Whatever tickles your fancy
• Day 13 — A fictional book
• Day 14 — A non-fictional book
• Day 15 — A fanfic
• Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
• Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
• Day 18 — Whatever tickles your fancy
• Day 19 — A talent of yours
• Day 20 — A hobby of yours
• Day 21 — A recipe
• Day 22 — A website
• Day 23 — A YouTube video
• Day 24 — Whatever tickles your fancy
• Day 25 — Your day, in great detail
• Day 26 — Your week, in great detail
• Day 27 — This month, in great detail
• Day 28 — This year, in great detail
• Day 29 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
• Day 30 — Whatever tickles your fancy

200 Days

I realised that the countdown has begun. We have 200 days until the big day. That means I need all of the planning done in no less than 180 days. So, really, we have 180 days until everything needs to be ready.


So if I start to freak out  a little now, I do apologise to everyone around me. I'm going to try not to end up like this:

Deathly Hallows

I just bought Austin and I tickets to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I". We are going to be able to go see it at midnight. I am sooo excited! This is the final book, thankfully split into two movies, and I'm sad to see it coming to an end.

I'm thinking about becoming a donor...

For several years I've been interested in becoming an egg donor. I don't have any desire to have children in the next five years (at the very least) and I know that there are thousands of women out there that would be more than thrilled to be able to have a child but due to varying reasons are unable to do so. That is my main reason for wanting to become an egg donor.

There are a lot of people out there that wouldn't want to have "part of them" out there, but I don't really view like that. I think that this is one of the greatest gifts that I could give to someone. I know that every woman is born with thousands of eggs and no woman will ever use all of these eggs. And there are many, many women that are unable to have children of their own. I would like to have the opportunity to help out if I can. There are also a lot of same-sex couples that are unable to have their own children and I'm hoping that this will be a way I might be able to help them create a family of their own. Since I'm one of those crazy people that actually likes to volunteer and donate to charities, this seems like something I would really feel great about being able to do. I love being able to help out others in any way I can, and being able to give someone the gift of a family is one of the greatest things a person can do.

I've been doing some research into different centers in the Dallas area and I found one that seems like it would be a great fit. It would be a six month commitment if I am accepted. I would have a lot of doctor's appointments to go to and I would have to administer a shot once a day (for a week, if I remember properly). I'm really not into doctor's appointment or shots, but for something this important I think I can suck it up and deal with it. The application was extremely long, but I was able to fill it out today and get it submitted. I should hear back in 7-10 days to know whether or not I've been accepted and I will move onto the next step.

All of you out there in the interwebz, keep your fingers crossed that I get accepted!

Baseball season is almost over!!

Well, I guess I should mention something about the fact that the Texas Rangers are in the playoffs. This really doesn't mean much for me, considering I know nothing about baseball, but Austin and pretty much everyone else in Texas is excited about this. I have been able to gather that the Rangers are in the playoffs, something that has never happened before, And I also have come to realise that if the Rangers can win one more game against the Yankees they will get into the World Series.

Austin has had a couple people over to watch the games, and I try to watch them with no real luck in understanding the game. Whenever someone scores, my thought (and I do sometimes say it outloud to the amusement of everyone else) is "Hey they got a goal!". I did learn that this is the final round is called the "World Series" not the "Super Series". When I say its the "Super Series" people laugh and shake their heads at my limited knowledge of the world of sports... At least I'm trying... That counts for something, right? Oh well....

Anyways, the Rangers have never made it into the playoffs before and they might make it into the World Series (obviously something they have never done before). So yay for the Rangers! Fear the claw and antlers (or something like that).

Florist check!!

We are finally able to cross our florist off!I received our quote from Luisa with Amici Events and all of the wedding party flowers that we need will come in under budget! Luisa has also been able not only been able to create a quote for all of the boutonnieres and bouquets, but the centerpieces as well! After two and a half months of searching for a florist and finding nothing that would work, I had almost given up all hope of ever finding a florist.

Dallas Stars!!

Hockey season has been underway for a couple weeks now and I am sooo excited! Austin and I went to the home opener on Thursday night when the Dallas Stars played the Red Wings (boooo). It was a fantastic game and the crowd had a ton of energy. I was a bit disappointed that Ott didn't have any reason to get into a fight, but I was thrilled that we won 4-1.

I had been able to get tickets from work and we had great seats. It was a sell-out game so almost every seat has filled. There were two seats next to us that were empty until the end of the first period, these were filled by a young scene couple. The entire game the guy was trying to explain what was going on during the game (and he failed miserably at it). So for all of you out there, don't get seats that are $150 a piece and take someone that doesn't even appreciate the seats or understand the game. It annoys the people next to you. And when you can't really even explain what's going on because you barely understand the game, it makes  the person sitting next to you want you to leave. Or get hit with the puck.

There was one thing that was very odd. Seeing Modano in a Red Wings jersey. Because Modano had been with the Stars for his entire career and this is his first season to be with any other team, and the fact that Stars fans have a deep hate for the Red Wings, seeing him wearing the Red Wings jersey was a bit odd.

After the game on Saturday night, the Stars remain 4-0-0 and I think we might have a decent team this year! Only time will tell if we can all stay healthy and keep up all of this momentum. The chances are a bit slim, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we might be able to bring home the Stanley Cup once again. Its been far too long...

Could we have a florist?

Austin and I met with Luisa from Amici Events on Saturday to discuss our floral arrangements. I am very pleased to say that, for the first time, I feel like the meeting with a potential florist went well!

Every florist I've met with thus far has given me the impression that they are not really interested in our business. I understand that we don't plan on spending a lot for a florist and some companies don't really want to devote a lot of time for a smaller wedding when they could be devoting that time to a couple that plans on having flowers everywhere, but I still feel like I should have gotten a better impression than I have from the five I had met with before Luisa. Out of the five florists I had met with, I only received a quote from one. And I have been meeting with them for about a month. Maybe its our low budget, maybe its the fact that we're a fairly young couple, maybe its the fact that I had only wanted to have bouquets and they didn't feel it was worth their time and effort, but whatever the reason, florists have been nothing but a headache.

That is, until we met with Luisa.

Austin came along for this meeting because he has started to get more involved in the planning process and he has been a huge help. I had a list of questions to ask her, printouts of what I would have liked for the bouquets and boutonnieres and a picture of the suit the groomsmen would be wearing. We talked with Luisa for about an hour and, not only was she incredibly nice, she was very well informed. She knew that we didn't want to spend a lot on the flowers, but was still excited to be a part of this big day. We also started to talk about centerpieces and she was willing to create a separate quote that included centerpieces. If Luisa can come up with centerpieces for $15-20 per table, it might be something we consider. Luisa understood that we don't want anything large or too tall, but small and simple. We're both keeping our fingers crossed that she can come up with something that will work. If Luisa can work out centerpieces for us at the price we asked, it would be comparable to what we would spend and it would be a lot less for us to work on and less stress.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that we can finally check off one more thing from our to-do list!

I'm a bridesmaid down... And I think I'm okay with that.

This past Saturday, I went with Melanie to get her measured and order her dress since I got a call letting me know the my MOH dress was in. I thought it would be a nice idea to invite Amelia to come along since she does live in town and it would be nice to go ahead and get her dress ordered. I hadn't heard much from Amelia in the past couple of months, but we had been talking about having a girl's night soon. I figured this quick little outing would give us time to plan something.

Apparently I was wrong. Amelia told me that she was no longer interested in being part of the wedding party.

I wont go into too much detail, but there is a bit of a back story... We had gone over to her apartment a couple of months ago and had proceeded to get absolutely shit faced drunk. Something was said at some point in the night and Austin and I got into a drunk fight. We were yelling at each other about something probably inconsequential, but it happened. Because of the copious amounts of alcohol consumed, everything was blown waaaay out of proportion.The next morning, we're all sober and Austin and I head home. We both felt pretty dumb about fighting over pretty much nothing and making such a scene. Amelia didn't call or anything and we didn't hear from here for about two months. I figured it was because she was trying to start a find a new job and was going to move into a bigger apartment in the complex she lives in. No worries, I know I don't have to be the center of anyone's life.

Well, last Saturday rolls around and I hadn't heard much from Amelia and I thought things were fine. Instead of just a simple "Yes, I can go" or "No, I have other plans" she decides to go into this long rant about how she doesn't feel comfortable around Austin and would therefore not be a part of the wedding. I was extremely hurt by this and didn't know the proper way to respond, so I thought about it all day and tried to figure out how to respond. I tried calling her to talk it over like adults, but she never would answer.So I decide to text her since that is obviously the only way to communicate with this girl.

As the night wears on, she begins to drunkenly inform me how little she thinks of my fiance and of me since I"m choosing to stay with some sooo awful.Really? You saw us have one drunken fight and you feel you have all of the authority to judge our relationship? I don't think so. And so she continues. Not just texting me at this point, but texting Austin telling him how awful he is, texting Dan telling him he's a horrible person... It was just ridiculous. After a point, I decided to turn off my phone because I was tired of reading texts that were paragraphs long about how my fiance is a horrible person and I'm an idiot for staying with him. I was tired of reading them and tired of trying to talk to her because at this point she was actign so self righteous and it was pissing me off.

The next morning when I woke up, I had quite a few texts that continued to berate me and tear Austin down. After about six messages, I finally got to one where she said she wasn't going to talk about it any more and she really wanted to get some sleep. (I still don't understand why she felt the need to tell me that since she had been texting me for about an hour and I had my phone off and was therefor not responding...) When Austin woke up, he had another series of texts that continued to harass him. He repsonded with (what I feel was a totally reasonable) "Fuck you" and left it at that. So she continues on her rampage and he isn't responding to anything she's saying at this point because it is THE NEXT DAY! He wanted to leave it be and not deal with it but apparently some people don't like to step away from a situation when things are spiraling out of control and everyone is mad.

I try to call her a couple times throughout the day, but she is constantly ignoring my calls. I wanted to be able to have an actual conversation and not send out text messages trying to work through this issue. I was still trying to work things out with her.

Finally, Monday rolls around and I can finally get her on the phone. She wouldn't let me even try to talk. Every time I would try to say anything, she would talk over me and finally started yelling and screaming at me. Apparently she felt that I was weak, stupid, insecure, etc for staying with a guy that treats me extremely well and loves me. Right. That makes sense.... Finally, after about ten minutes of her refusing to let me talk and her yelling, she starts screaming. There were no words, just unintelligible screaming. So I hung up on her.

I then went to my desk (because she decided to do this in the middle of the day while I was at work) and defriended her on facebook and twitter and blocked her on both. About five minutes after this happened, she decided to leave me a voicemail telling me not to contact her ever again.

Yes, things were said on all sides that should not have been said. I wont pretend like everyone acted like adults. But for someone to spend a good three days trying to convince me how awful my fiance is and try to get me to break things off with him is unforgivable. And then to have her act like she did absolutely nothing wrong the entire time makes it worse. I was trying to let her know that yes, we all had acted rashly. But she wouldn't have me telling her that she did anything wrong. She would continually complain about how she was "sexually harassed" at work, but she would never do anything about it. And apparently she's a better person than I am when I'm being "abused". Right...

So all of this boils down to the fact that Amelia will no longer be one of my bridesmaids. And I really couldn't be happier about that.

Engagement Pictures!

Austin and I got our engagment pictures recently and wanted to share a couple of our favourites! Amber with Lifestyle Portraits worked with us for about three hours at the Dallas Arboretum and we think they came out great! We didn't want to post all of them thinking that it would make this one post insanely long, but here are our favourites:

We're in wedding overdrive!

The past couple of weeks have been a very busy time for both Austin and I. Not only have we been spending more time than usual with his family after the recent passing of his grandfather, but we've also been working on all of the little details for the wedding as well as putting in as many extra hours at work.

That's right, Austin is finally starting to get more interested in the wedding and is actually starting to help out. I guess once we passed the seven month mark, he realised that things were getting closer. I'm glad he's starting to take some interest in the wedding, because (unlike most brides) its OUR wedding, not just mine.

Austin looked over the only proposal that we've gotten from the four florists I've met with and we weren't too excited over what she had outlined. And since it has taken the other florists more than three weeks to even get us a proposal, I kindly let them know that we had decided to use another company's services. After all, if they can't get us a proposal in a decent time frame, do we really want to trust them with our wedding? I think not. Our wonderful photographer has gotten us in touch with a florist that she has worked with in the past and highly recommends, so we will be meeting with her this weekend. We think the meeting we have set up on Saturday will go very well... Fingers crossed!!

Last Saturday I went with one of my bridesmaids, Melanie, to order her dress and to pick up my Maid of Honour's dress. Two more things checked off the list! We also heard from another bridesmaid, Amelia, and she informed me that she was no longer interested in being in the wedding party (more on that later). Now all we need is for Callie to order her dress and all of the ladies will be set, dress wise that is.

Austin has really started to think about who he wants to stand next to him (finally). He had already picked out one groomsman, Dan, and his Best Man, but was still working on the final guys. I thinks he's got it narrowed down and he should be able to give me names by Monday. Yay! He has also started to look into what they will wear and, yes with my input, decided this week. The guys will all be wearing a basic black tux with a cobalt tie and vest. Now the hard part will be to find a vest and tie that are the right shade of cobalt.

I have been able to finalize all of the information for the hotel blocks recently. I was happy to get all of that finished, now we have to figure out where we would like to stay for the wedding night... Decisions, decisions... Since that was all finalized, I did get all of the accommodation cards printed and put together, another thing checked off of our to-do list!

I have been talking with a friend of Austin's mom who is a top notch designer and has graciously offered to help us with the decor for the ceremony and reception. Its been a bit of a hassle, but hopefully we'll be able to get a time nailed down when she can come down to the Infomart and take a look around and give us her professional opinion on how things should look.

Well, that seems to be all of the wedding planning we've been working on lately. It might not seem like much, but we can finally see things coming together!

He will be missed

Austin's grandfather passed away this past Saturday. Since his family has been so wonderful and welcomed me into their family with open arms, it has been a very hard thing for us to deal with. He had been in the hospital for about a week due to a heart attack and we were fortunate enough to be able to visit him and see him before he passed.

His Grandad has been a huge part of his life and he will be greatly missed. I leaves behind a loving family and his wonderful wife of 72 years.

The Dallas Morning News had a lovely piece in the paper yesterday, you can read it here.