Spidey Sense

Hello friends! Sorry for a month of sparse updates, but really nothing has been happening, I promise. BUT! a mere two days ago, Miss Stephanie Awesome Pan has finished coding bits and pieces of our website! The URL is as follows:

http://maureenandvictor.com/

I know, our address is SO original. Right now, it's just the home page that has information of any sort, but as time goes on, more and more will be completed! So yes, in case you are that bored at work or class or whatever, and since, apparently, this blog will be getting fewer updates from now on (I mean come on, most of the big things have been covered, right?) you can all amuse yourselves there and stare at our wonderful website.

She hasn't told me this outright, but I'm sure Stephanie Awesome Pan is up for some freelance work in case you are interested :P

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Only six months until the big day! Leslie and I have been pretty regularly corresponding about graphics and images for our wedding stationary, and it's made me notice how ridiculously quickly time passes. Not only have invitations been ordered, but I have been hectically collecting emails so that we can get the save-the-dates out quickly and promptly. I've also been making sparse plans for my trip home in March so that I can have sufficient time to address those envelopes. And can you believe it's been ten months since Victor proposed to me??

Now that I'm back on the East Coast, wedding crazy-ness isn't as present in my life, but once in awhile I will get into a panic when I think of all I have to do. Just today, I had a panic attack because I owed Stephanie some information that was due YESTERDAY, and I just remembered to email the company ordering the invitations the approval for their proofs a few days ago even though I got the email a week ago.

As the number of email threads tagged "Wedding" increases in my Gmail inbox, I'm starting to look more critically at the ideas that I have and how it relates to what this day and this relationship is all about. A few of my previously strongly-held ideas have been thrown out the window as too extravagant and as something that really misses the point of this event anyway. I'm happy to say that I am concentrating more on the meanings of everything that we have, and I am also talking with Victor more and more about each of my crazy ideas. He, of course, contributes more willingly now that the day is closer :)

Request the Honour

My, what a productive break this has been! Today, my mom and I headed to DirectBuy and purchased an order for 200 beautiful wedding invitations. The process was a bit longer than I expected, but thanks to the lovely staff at the store and the 50% discount I get from my parents' membership, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Previously, I had thought that I would be DIY-ing my invitations due to the enormous costs of your typical invitation. With an average price of $5-$9 per set (including the invitation, blank outer envelope, reception card, and reply card), I was more than ready to roll up my sleeves and get down to printing, reprinting (because I am bound to make mistakes), cutting, folding, and stuffing some 150 to 200 invitations.

But my mother, the anti-DIYer of the household, tried to dissuade me from this decision by always stopping by the wedding stationary section of any store that happened to have it, always highlighting how beautiful it was to have thermography or embossed print, features by which a homemade invitation would be hard to come. At first, her pleading could sway me no more than a tree trunk moves by a slight breeze. Then, I found the perfect invitation at a highly discounted price and she might as well have bulldozed me over.

So, while our electronic save-the-dates are still in the works, I am expecting an emailed proof of my invi - I mean, VICTOR AND MY invitations and the whole batch to arrive within the next month or so!

By the way, do you personally prefer honOr or honOUr?

Thank you Agnes

I would like to say that I am truly appreciative for my maid of honor, Agnes. After a number of emails back and forth between the other maids, Agnes and I have finally gotten down a couple of designs for the bridesmaid dresses (the above is just a simple and quickly drawn example)! I decided from the beginning to follow after my sister's footprints by allowing my maids to have options in deciding what they wanted their dresses to look like. No, I wasn't volunteering for the monstrosity of having 5 opinions deciding on one thing, but instead gave them the color, the material, and a basic shape. They could then alter the details as much as they felt was necessary (neckline, straps, bodice patterns, etc). I'm excited to send the order off and to see them in a few months!

We'll be ordering the dresses from the same company from which I'm ordering my bridal dress. The whole process reminded me that I still needed to think and browse more for my reception dress, since I'm not too much of a fan of walking around with a giant bustle on my butt for an evening during which I should be having fun. So after a satisfying dinner of lamb chops (yum!), my mom and I sat down with a pile of bridal magazines and flipped through a couple of them, and I think we've got a pattern down for that as well. Now it's just waiting for Agnes to come back from her trip to sunny San Diego so I can figure out what that material is... Oh Agony, what would I do without you?

White Christmas

This year, our family decided to have ourselves a merry little white Christmas by taking a trip to Tahoe with some family friends and my precious fiance. This was to be the first snowboard/ski trip for both Victor and Chachu, our family friend (who also came with his parents), so we wanted it to be memorable. And memorable, it is to be.

Yesterday, we took our equipment and decided to practice a bit on a small hill that quickly became boring. Today, we actually purchased lift tickets and took a few trips down the (not so) treacherous and icy mountain. On the last run of the day, I decided to sit it out and spent the next 20 or so minutes looking for my brother and Victor to come charging down the hill. I saw John speed by and looked expectantly up the hill only to see Victor fall on his back and do a couple flips until he finally stopped. And stayed still. For awhile.

Optimistic me, I thought he was simply recuperating from a big fall. After he got up, took off his snowboard, walked the little bit of the rest of the way down, talked to my brother at the bottom of the hill, and came to where I was, I started realizing that something.. was not... quite right.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Victor had a concussion.

I know I am definitely not cut out for 50 first dates, especially since I started wanting to smack him after we had THE SAME CONVERSATION about three times. I usually knew that the conversation had restarted when Victor would ask "What happened?" or "Did I fall?" The next couple of questions would then be "Am I going to law school at Santa Clara?" followed by "Am I marrying you on August 1?"

John says that people usually ask questions about things most important to them when they're trying to remember things after a concussion, so I was a bit flattered the first time he asked that. After maybe the 3rd or 4th time, I started getting annoyed and snappy. He didn't ask anymore after that, so I think his unconscious decided to finally embed that knowledge permanently. Especially since he started saying, "I am marrying you on August 1. Right?"

On another note, my mother is going to make the next 4 or so generations of our family wear helmets when we go skiing or snowboarding due to this fall. Thanks a lot Victor.

Have Yourself

I love the blog Apartment Therapy: the Kitchen. I love how it fills my google reader with hundreds of posts every week from its plethora of authors, and I love that each of the writers give the blog a little something different.

One of their (more) recent posts is about 15 small luxuries for home cooks [which you can read HERE], and it talks about some artisan cheeses. This led to a hankering for some artisan cheeses to consume myself. I sense an upcoming trip to a local cheese shop coming up!

On Friday, I am planning to drag Victor with me here and there and around the city for a full day of fun and non-studying on Friday so that I can get my fill of the city's holiday spirit (Bryant Park holiday shops, Union Square holiday market, Rockefeller Christmas tree, etc!) before I go home, and mayhaps I shall add this little shop to the list and have ourselves a mini cheese and wine party (consisting of... one cheese and one wine). Still, I am looking forward to it. I love Christmas!

Anything you guys can't wait for as the holidays come up? Any creative ideas I can steal from you? :P

Snake!

Hello faithful followers of our blog! There are many exciting developments happening; but, it would be premature to announce them now. There is one announcement that I would like to make and hopefully, many of you will be excited to hear this announcement. If not, then I apologize for wasting your time and you can skip down to the joke posted below.

Originally, Maureen and I had hoped to be wedded on August 7th, 2010. Many things were set: vendors were booked, ceremonies were being mapped out in our heads and we were counting down the days. Then disaster struck in the form a scheduling conflict. The allHOC retreat was scheduled for that same weekend...DOOM! MAYHEM!! WHERE IS BATMAN?!?! Fortunately for us, all our vendors were available on our new date August 1, 2010. I am posting this as a claim of right. Maureen and I officially claim August 1st as our wedding day--where I will be claiming her...as my bride.

Joke time!

Two snakes were out taking a stroll when the son snake turns to the mother snake and asks: "Mommy! Are we poisonous?"

"Why, yes we are", says the second.

Again the baby snake asks, "Are you sure we're poisonous?"

"Yes, we are very poisonous."

The baby snake becomes very upset. Again, he asks, "Are we really really poisonous?"

"Yes we are really really poisonous. In fact we're the most poisonous snakes in the world. Why do you ask?"

"I just bit my lip!!!"