On my Mind

Here is my little long list of crap i have to do-

Monogram aisle runner (optional)
Design, Print & Assemble church programs
Design, Print & Assemble menu cards
DPA Thank you table cards
DPA Table #s
Go Nuts
Order apples for place cards
Write & pin in name card onto apple
Assemble, Fill and box up favors
Wrap up 6 Bouquets
Seating Chart- Half way done, i did our side and my coworkers
Load car with Vases/Candelabras
Get centerpieces to florist
Get copy of BC
Go nuts
Apply for Marriage License ( I cant seem to get this one crossed off =-( )
Give Paty girl's dresses & accessories
Give FR.Jose copy of confirmation Cert

I'm sure there is more to add, and i have a few things that are in mid-process.

In the News

As of Tuesday night i really wasn't too worried about the Swine Flu. I mean i knew that it was out there and it was spreading, but recently it has hit closer to home. Actually about 8 blocks away from home. A few schools in the area have closed indefinitely. The high school i went to is one of the MPS schools that is closed. Even some non-MPS schools are closing precautionary measures. Its scary to think that this has spread so fast and to so many places.

As i watched the news last night, they had footage of police officers on foot literally handing out face masks. Hell last night at Leon's some girl in line in front of me had a face mask on. I'm usually never this concerned with 'outbreaks' but the CDC increased the Pandemic level to 5 out of 6 last night.

I hope everyone out there is taking this seriously and is taking any precautions in their ability. If you experience any flu symptoms, rather be safe then sorry, have it checked out. I know i will.

Updated to add: I think the animals are finally taking their revenge on humanity- Avian flu, Monkeypox virus, Chicken pox, and now Swine Flu?

Burgers & Beers

Since we are spending an arm & a leg and a few toes on the wedding we decided to have a casual cookout for the rehearsal dinner. Nothing fancy, a few burgers, beers and paper plates. That's how i roll. (and soon 'we')

Being the savvy consumer that i am, i purchased a bunch of 2 liters of Pepsi products when the grocery store had them at 10 for $10. I bought 20 of them, and saved 16 dollars. I'm sure we wont use them all at the rehearsal, but i figured if we had any left over we could always save them for the gift opening.

Also, on Monday, while grocery shopping with my mom, i saw that the ground beef was on sale as well. And what are burgers made of boys and girls? Beef! So i bought 15 pounds of beef, on sale for 1.99 and saved 22 dollars!

Sometimes juju looks at me a little weird when i come home with 15 pounds of beef. But there's a method to my madness, plus there's also bottom to my pocket.

So far so good. I'll most likely get the hot dogs, buns (burger & hot dog) as Sam's club or Woodman's. So if you see a good deal on Chips/Plates/Cups/Napkins/Charcoal/Lighter fluid let me know! Seriously, don't just read this and go about your day. When you're out shopping and you see any of the before mentioned items on sale let a girl know.

Now all i have to do is get a hold of the lady (who also serves as the decorator) at the church to make sure she opens the church for us.

Bachelorette-athon

This weekend begins the first of my 3 to 4 part series of Bachelorette parties. On Friday i will go out with my family and friends, we are planning to catch a comedy show, a casual bite to eat and then head over to a tried and true bar/club for a few drinks and some booty shakin'.

Saturday morning- My brother has threatened-and most likely will- wake me up at 6:30 to go have breakfast with him and my mom. If i manage to stumble out of bed in time, i will go and enjoy some breakfast before meeting with the priest at 9:30.

This meeting with the priest presents a problem, you see there is a few underagers in my bridal party. Therefore they cant really go out to the bar or a club for my bachelorette party, thus i had to brainstorm on different options to still have my bachelorette party with them. I came to the conclusion that a quick weekend trip to the dells would be perfect. That's part 2 of my bachelorette party. So after i meet with the priest i am meeting my bridal party who will be packed up and ready to go.

We will be staying in a condo at the Wilderness on the Lake. I cant wait to be up there with all the chicks! we are going to pig out, do some shopping, some swimming and enjoy pitchers of margaritas! (21 and over only, WE [i] Card)

The following weekend on the 9th, my friends from work and i will got out for dinner and then to the bar for my bachelorette party. Dre is going to let me borrow her flashing button! a flashing button! im very excited about the flashing button as you can tell.

And last but not least, maybe, if i have time to, i will squeeze in a quick bachelorette party with my coworkers from DB. They insisted, but i told them i would be rather busy these next couple of weeks. We'll see.

As for juju, his wont be until the weekend before the wedding. My only concern is that he will injure himself as a result of being a stumbling mess. Lets keep our fingers crossed shall we?

Targeting Deals

Remember a few posts ago i talked about my fabulous coupons?

Well Juju and i went on a mild shopping spree and basically used up just about every coupon in my little book! The results- I purchased the largest laundry detergent available, both powder and liquid, bleach, fabric softener, body wash, toothpaste, band aids, 2 different types of dish soap, 2 different types of girly products, shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash, face wash, and one more thing, but i cant quiet remember.

Anyhow- I saved 17 dollars AND earned a 5 dol target gift card.

Total 'saved'- 22 big ones!

Bridesmaids Bouquets Take 2

This past weekend I just about finished my girls bouquets. Here are a few more pictures and the rest of the instructions.

This picture shows one full stem with a variety of colors. In order to make one bouquet, i will use 2 stems to make it fuller and a bit bigger.

I measured the desired length for the bouquets, I cut the stem and took the bottom part of the stem and added it to the handle stem part to give it added fullness. So in total there was 4 stems, 2 actually attached to the flowers and 2 pieces of stem from what was cut off.

I tied the top and the bottom of the stems with floral wire, to hold all 4 stems together.

Then i wrapped the stems with floral wrap- is that what its called, that sticky, stretchy green stuff?
Lastly i wrapped them in ivory ribbon. This was hard to take pictures of it took 2 of us to hold the bouquet, hold the spool of ribbon, and turn the bouquet.

So here is the finished product. The length looks sorta long in the pictures but in real life they are the perfect length and size.my shadow is all over the first one. And honestly, they look a lot better in person then in the pictures, you'll see at the wedding!

Wedding Meltdown

Friday had to be by far one of the worst days in wedding planning history. I wont get into nitty gritty details of the issue, nor will i put anyone's name out. As i have said many times, the priest who will be marrying us is quite a busy man. He is extremely hard to get a hold of. After weeks of playing a phone tag by myself I finally got in contact with him. Matter of fact his receptionist called ME while he was there since she knew the trouble i had getting in touch with him.

In a nut shell, he was very rude, short (no pun intended) and just plain mean. He questioned me as to why i hadn't done what he had asked of us. He proceeded to insult my priorities and short of calling me a liar, asked me the same question over and over again. For those who know me, i am quiet the emotional, chicken hearted, 'it wasn't my intention to ruin the surprise', type of girl. At this point, im trying to answer his demanding questions when he simply says "Im sorry but i wont be able to marry you" Just like that.

Im sorry? You're sorry? For what? for not being there to do your job. Or for putting a screeching halt to our wedding? I cried and cried until my contacts nearly came out of my eyes. I frantically called my mom, juju, nico, emailed my sister, basically anyone that would answer. My head was spinning. I immediately began thinking of what we were going to do if he refused to marry us. All of our invitations are out. We could simply get married at the courthouse, but that's no what i wanted. I then called a priest at my church to vent and get his advice. He was so graceful as to lend his support and offered to celebrate our service if the other priest refused to marry us. He even wrote us a letter to deliver to the other priest.

He agreed to meet with us on Saturday, were he his attitude, although still a bit rude, was much changed from Friday. He proceeded to fill out all the paperwork the Archdiocese needed from him, and we talked and discussed our next options. At one point he did apologize and with that, the wedding was back on- well it was never really off, but close to hitting a major road block.
I spent the entire weekend thinking. I thought about how close we came to drastically changing our wedding ceremony location. I thought about how sad i became when the though of us not getting married popped into my head. I know everything is fine now, but this experience really shook me up, i wasn't able to sleep, i literally felt sick/nauseous and just all together out of it. I'm glad we were able to patch things up and continue with the church preparations.

On a lighter note, i am 97.5% done with the BM bouquets-more on that later.

Taina

I just want to share the cuteness that is the new addition to Irma's family. Her name in Taina. Taina is the female version on Taino, and the Tainos are the native indians of Puerto Rico. As i read some information on the Taino indians i came across this description-

Their complexion were bronze-colored, average stature, dark, flowing, coarse hair, and large and slightly oblique dark eyes

I couldn't have thought of a better name for her, well expect her the coarse hair part. Juju and i went to go see her at the pet shop even before she was brought home. She is only 8 weeks old and shy of 2 pounds. Here are a few pictures.

She is absolutely tiny, so tiny, it seems surreal. When she walks, she pounces. She makes this pitiful attempt to bark/growl that sounds more less like a duck.

After playing with Mathew (Maria's little brother) she was wiped out. I held her for a few minutes while she almost literally gave me a tongue bath, before she fell asleep. I wish i could remember when Cookie was a puppy, but since i adopted her at the age of 7, her puppy tendencies were long gone. I guess I'll have to like vicariously through Irma.

Bridesmaids Bouquets

I started making my Bridesmaids bouquets with the help of Nati this past weekend. I purchase all the materials at Michael's, with a 30% entire purchase coupon of course! I was a little apprehensive about the girls having silk flowers, but my friend used all silk flowers for her wedding and even for her bouquet. Her flowers looked amazing and were a fraction of the cost of real ones.

Also, I didn't want to purchase a single color, or have them look monotone, so i wanted a nice mix of color. They are not completely finished, but this is what i have done thus far.

I purchased 16 stems/4 different colors to make 8 bouquets.

Here a few steps to the process:

1.Remove the flower bud it self from each individual 'branch'. Be careful to pull from the bottom of the flower bud, or else you could potentially tear off the petals themselves. Once you are done, the stem should look like this...

Here are all the actual buds off the flower. 2. Place buds back onto stems- I separated the 4 colors of flowers. I wanted them to be somewhat mixed, so i arranged a little assembly line and began with white, then pink, then green, and lastly the dark pink. I started around the outside and worked my way towards the center.

For some reason, even though all the flowers were the same just different colors, the branches & buds weren't interchangeable. So some colors, specifically the white one, had a smaller hole, then the rest. So what i had to do is literally shave off some of the plastic tip on the branch so that the flower bud would fit.


And since the buds/branches weren't all the same size, some buds were too big for the branch. My simple solution was to hot glue each bud onto the branch. Simple enough right? Well, i seem to have forgotten that i was working with plastic and melted a few of the branch tips with the hot glue. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but after a while i was a pro.

Tonight, i have one more stem to go and i will hopefully get them tied up and fully assembled. I will post the results tomorrow.

Hair Today Gone in 3 Hours

Other then the usual wedding related weekend activities, I wanted to talk about a certain little Xfurry family member. He is Juju's family dog. This is Leche. Leche (meaning Milk) is a designer pooch-PomaPoo. Not to be confused as a cross between a pomegranate and a poodle, but a Pomeranian and a poodle.

This is him at about a year of age. He's a tiny little guy but he is feisty and hyper and a bit uncoordinated. Cookie and Leche started off to a bit rough. Cookie is turning 9 in 30 days and leche, well leche is still a puppy. Therefore he loves to play and jump and bark and even nibble on a shoe or two.

I recall once helping juju give him a hair cut. It took up nearly 6 hours, and to top it off, he wasn't even trimmed all the way. During the winter months they abstained from cutting his hair, you know, to help him keep warm. Well as time passed and the weather got warmer his hair became long, and tangled and simply unmanageable. Knots became to large and nearly impossible to brush out.

Juju's parents invested in a (almost at the) top of the line clippers and cut his hair on Sunday. It took Juju a little over 3 hours to cut his hair, mainly because of the knots. Also, Leche was relatively nervous and as the hours progressed, and his coat disappearing-he got cold, anxious and pretty sure he was hungry.

Here are a few before and after pictures-
And after, it was hard to get a cute picture of him, I know he feels naked, therefore he darts from place to place. Possibly to hide, but for all i know he probably thinks he's streaking.


He looks so tiny with out any fur! He looks like a completely new different dog. Juj had no other option then to basically shave all of his fur off.

répondez s'il vous plaît"

We received our first RSVP in the mail yesterday.

I opened my mailbox to sadly only find junk mail and bills. Then as i was getting ready to lock it back up a little postcard slipped out from in between the newspaper- 2 of them! Sweet! i immediately became excited. I ran in my house to put them in the special designated RSVP card location, on top of my desk. I received a few responses at work already, some yes, some no, but both very exciting.

I hope that many people RSVP. We, Hispanics, have a bad tendency to not RSVP for the smaller events- birthday, communions etc. I'm hoping everyone sends them out even if they are not coming. My biggest fear is that people don't RSVP and end up showing up for the dinner and we have no way of accommodating them. I mean the hotel can only be held liable for the final guest count and a small overage percentage. At Nick's cousins wedding, 35 additional guest showed up who never rsvp'd. Can you imagine that Thirty-Five! That is almost 5 extra tables. That is 5 extra tables that wont have centerpieces, and linen, and favors nor place settings. Oh my, that's scary to think about.

There is still more 14 days until the RSVP deadline- So if your reading this... and you haven't sent out your RSVP. You should be ashamed of yourself! If you've sent it already-Please disregard this scolding.

I'm testing text blogging...

And it works! perfect. This will be so much easier, sometimes i dont have time to get to a computer and post my almost daily ramblings.

Super Saturday

I'm happy to announce that this weekend was very productive! On Friday Nati helped me stuff and close the invitations. On Saturday Juju and i went to Michael's and purchased all of the flowers for the BM bouquets. I had a 30% off coupon that was good for my entire purchase so i decided to pick up just about everything else that we need. While we were there, Juju chose the 'R' wax seals, we picked out the paint & paint brushes for the runner, bought the tea lights for the candelabras, got a few more jump rings, I mean a TON of stuff. We also went honeymoon clothes shopping. Well, Juju did most of the shopping, he got a ton of shorts, swim shorts, tees, shoes and i bought myself a cute pair of espadrilles.

Once we got home, we got started on working on everything and anything that needed to be done. Irma and Nati joined us again a few hours later and we got a ton of things done. Irma painted the last of the candelabra votive holder cups. Nati & Juju (burned themselves) melted the seals onto the invitations. Evelyn and I worked on the BMs jewelry, which by the way, look amazing. They sparkle so nicely and they look very delicate and dainty, they are perfect. The necklaces are definitely tricky to make, it almost requires that two people work on them at once.

Not only are we done with all the invitations, a lot of them have been passed out. I cant wait to start receiving the rsvp cards. I'm trying to find a way to keep track of them via my blog page.

One week in paradise

It's only fair that i share a few details about our honeymoon. We (I) had initially decided to go to Riviera Maya. I priced out a few options and found a great hotel. I was thrilled to do some lounging and exploring and shopping. After much thought we decided that going to Mexico just wasn't going to happen for us anytime soon. The main reason we opted to go elsewhere was because neither one of us have a passport. Sure, we could apply for one, but that's another expense, and we really put it off to a point where i wasn't sure if we would get it in time. So i researched a few other destinations, including a few big cities-which we will still visit [eventually], just not for our honeymoon, plus i still wanted to lay out by the beach with a fruity drink with a tiny pink umbrella in it.
I give you Puerto Rico! Or la Isla del Encato. Juju, although he is half Puerto Rican, has never been there, and neither have I. Its perfect! I get the beautiful white sand beaches, the city, the nightlife, the museums, the food, the historic site, the jungle and in one convenient little island! I have been doing a lot of research on what we should do & where we should eat. I have made a short list of all the place i would like to see and places (restaurants) we should try.
Among those are:
El Morro- Historic site
Casa Bacardi- 'nuff said
El Yunque- Rainforest
Old San Juan
SOFO (South of Fortaleza) district
Just to name a few-

We will be there for an entire week. Of course the hotel has a casino and a spa, so I'm sure we'll spend some time there too. The best part of it all, is that you need nothing but your ID (and ticket of course) to travel to Puerto Rico. Oh and i found an AMAZING deal as well, we are staying at great resort, flying nonstop, and with all the bells and whistles. And if you know me, i'm always looking for a better deal (sometimes) I stumbled upon the San Juan edition of the Entertainment book, and since its later in the year it is more then half off, plus free shipping! I found a few good coupons for different restaurants that we can use, so even if we just use 1, that will pay for the book itself!

I'm so excited i cant wait, our wedding will be on a Friday, we have the gift opening on Saturday and we leave for our honeymoon on Sunday.

"It's like the party never ended"- A.Donley

I will-

Today, exactly one year ago, Juju proposed.

That was the day when it all began. All the planning, all the preparation, all the saving. As i sit here staring at my countdown clock, i realize how much i have been looking forward to our wedding. Of course im looking forward to the wedding, but there is this feeling i cant even describe. Every bride anxiously awaits their wedding. But I can feel my heart beating, i can feel my emotions taking over. I can feel that knot in my throat. It takes me back- 7 years old sitting in the back seat of my dads silver oldsmobile (i think) with my sister. My Dad had told us over a week ago that we would be going to Chuck-E-Cheese . and I couldn't wait. I had been looking forward to it. I would think about it, and become overwhelmed with joy. I was beyond excited, matter of fact too excited for words. And there we were, driving, on our way to Chuck-E-Cheese. Only the smile across my face was louder then my hearbeat. I just felt this immense feeling that i couldn't seem to contain in my chest. A shortness of breathe, even though i was sitting. I think i might have even hyperventilated a bit. A giddiness that only a child can feel.

Hello old feeling.

We meet again. I'm filled with this immense happiness that no one in this world could ever know.

In 42 days I will say 'I Do' for the first. The Only. And Last time.

Speech! Speech!

Goodness... I wasn't prepared for this ;-)

First, I would like to thank my amazing families-

Gaby-My favorite and best big sister i could have ever wished for.

Candy- The best MOH and Hyde/Cousin/Niece i could have ever wanted!

My mom & Future Mother in law- For putting up with my randomness, and still loving me.

Mom, FMIL, Gaby, Candy, Nico, Sodi, Sam, Irma, Madrina Felix, Leah, Titi Julie and anyone i forgot- for selflessly and lovingly preparing/purchasing yummy food.

Isolda, Ale, Maggie & Bela- I couldn't have possible opened all those presents without your girls' help.

My Comadre & Compadre- For obtaining the hall & helping with clean up and set up.

All the attendees- Well, you'll get your thank you cards in the mail

My bridal shower was on Saturday, but its taken me a while to post about it due to lack of coordination between my camera's battery and my memory card. I am extremely grateful for everyones generosity and willingness to help. It truly means a lot to me.

I arrived shortly after all the guests. And then the party started. Everyone ate and mingled as i pranced around from table to table. The little kids ran around laughing and screaming, my mom and my FMIL scrambled to keep the food warm, Canaan (my nephew) continuously congratulated me, and it was beautiful.

Dezzy Esa & Sasha, Don't you just love Sasha's bangs?

I actually allowed myself a moment to stop and look at all my surroundings. I took it all in. This is my BRIDAL shower. Every 'milestone event' make me realize how real everything is, how close the wedding is.

After a few games we were ready for cake and presents. It was adorable, i had 3 little helpers. One got the tissue out, the other one got the card out and the last one attempted to lift the gift out of the bag.

My Mom, Sam & Leah

Sheryl, Ana & Elia

Titi Julie, Estela & 'guapote', Carlisa & Evelyn

Maria & Adriansito

My cousins- Norma, Liset, Bela, Ale, Isolda, Maggie, Laura & Patty

Cristy & Titi Irma

Me, Candy & Juju (im not sure why Candy looks like a midget)

My cousins- Elvia, Mario, Lilia & Godmother Felix

We played several games, but my favorite one was where they had to create wedding gowns from toilet paper. The only rules were that you couldn't use tape, you could cut, fold, tuck and knot, but no tape. I wont say who, but one bride was disqualified.Team, You know who you are! I was pretty amazed at some of the creations. What was even funnier, since i was the judge, one member from each team had to tell me about their design and what had inspired them.

Here are my TP brides....

And these were the 2 winners-

I loved that she had the complete party going on, plus she did a quick up do followed by a retro headband.And Esa, well just look at that beauty. The dress looked very sophisticated and it was screaming Amsale.

I took tons of pictures while opening gifts, but i figured i would share a few, i wouldn't want to keep you from getting back to work-

Here is my red Crock-Pot with free mini dipper!!

Here I am cracking up because the next box i opened was the same Crock-Pot in silver.

After everyone left we did an all out clean up of the room. Everyone was running around cleaning and packing up left over food, moving tables, sweeping. We cleaned up in about 50 minutes, loaded everything into several cars and took it to jujus house. As you can tell by the pictures, there wasn't any men there. They arrived late into the shower to eat & help pack up the gifts.

We went home and sorted through the gifts in an attempt to get them organized. My siblings and cousins wanted to go dancing afterwards, but Juju and i were just exhausted. It was 10:30 and we were having a yawn feast. We opted to not go out.

It was an amazing day. I had so much fun, eat great food and got the gifts that will help Juju and i start our lives together.

Now i just have to get started on those Thank You cards.

Financial Security

In tough economic times, Juju and I are grateful we have taken the proper precautions to avoid the many struggles people are facing today. That's right, Juju and I are clipping our way to financial security.

Kidding. Juju is a great shopper, sometimes. Once he went to target, came out with 30 something dollars worth of merchandise and only paid 17. That's right, you guessed it. The difference was saved via coupons. Still to this day...i am puzzled when i try and figure out how he did it. So when we registered for our wedding i stopped to think of all the things that we are going to need from day 1. I'm not talking about forks, plates, bed sheets. I mean like toothpaste, and toilet paper, and a sponge to wash the dishes with, a broom (he actually already has one), napkins, a bath liner... I could go on.

Its exciting to think that one day we will take a trip to target and fill it with a bunch of things that, we as newlyweds, are going to need. And if i really think about it, we really wont need it until we come back from the honeymoon. Oh which reminds me...But that's whole other post. But you see that nifty little booklet of coupons? Well 32 dollars worth of coupons. Well really 30 since cookie doesn't eat IAMS and we wont really need crayons, at least not anytime soon. And they are all coupons we can actually us. Detergent to water filters, that coincidently match the pitcher we registered for. So I'm psyched to go use them. The only catch, is that they expire on the 20th of April. So on or before the previously mentioned date, Juju and i will go stock up on our newlywed essentials.

And I recently discovered amazing deals at CVS. I cant wait!

Corny? Yes

Is my smile Ear-To-Ear? Yes!!