Until I started planning my own wedding, I had no idea what was involved.  Just absolutely no idea.  The amount of time you have to put into this thing is ridiculous!

I’m in the wedding business myself (I have a string quartet that plays music for weddings) but I am learning so much.

Things I’ve learned so far:

1) We brides get very impatient.  Grooms too.  Chris once got annoyed that a vendor hadn’t responded to him after a day.  Over the weekend.  In May.  I convinced him to calm down, because I figured the vendor was busy with actually doing a wedding that day and would likely respond early the following week.  Heaven forbid anybody get a day off.

2)  Everything costs more than you think.  Food.  Venues.  Photographers.  And things on your registry.  At one time there was a $109 gravy boat on my registry.  And I thought I could have a wedding for $10,000. (Yet people are still hesitant to spend $150 on a violinist…)

3)  It’s hard to think about anything other than my wedding.  Which is still six months away.  Almost every conversation I have with somebody ends up being about my wedding.  I used to find this incredibly annoying when other people did it…so I must assume everybody now finds ME incredibly annoying.  Sorry friends!  🙁

The good part is that I have a full time job!  Granted, it doesn’t provide a salary, but it does keep me busy, and there is free cake involved (later today in fact.) 

What we’ve done this week:

Finished the wedding website

Sent out save the dates

Started on our invitations

Met with a florist

Made other appointments with florists

Made cake appointments

Finished our wedding registry

Made appointments to shop for my dress

Made appointment to check out the hotel suite again

Signed deal with hotel for guest rates

That’s a lot, I think!  Not to mention I also got a haircut and discussed hair and makeup options and timelines with my hairdresser.  And did some planning with Leslie too.

See what I’ve done?  I’ve made a whole blog post about my wedding.  The thing is that Chris is going to a festival soon and we need to get as much done together as possible before he leaves.  He is very involved in the planning (equally with me) which surprises vendors, but it’s just the way we are doing things.

I almost decided to spoil the save the date card, but I’m waiting.  I picked them up today at the shop, and mailed them out.  I took some great pictures of them that I will share in a few days after I know that most folks have gotten theirs in the mail (local folks will get them tomorrow!).  I love them so much!  I would marry them, yes.

What is this?  It was next to the parking lot of the shop.

They misspelled my name.

By the way, I am not on speaking terms with Mike right now (Mike, if you are reading this, I’m very mad at you) because I can barely walk, stand, or sit today.  I definitely didn’t go for a run this morning.  I may not be able to tomorrow either.

Gotta go though, friends are coming over to test drive the grill before our 4th of July BBQ!  Hope you are having a great Wednesday—I know I am!

*jumps up and down in excitement over paper products*

Today I had two firsts:  my first visit to a "fro-yo" place, and my first blogger meet up! 

I know the blog world is abuzz about frozen yogurt places where you can mix all kinds of stuff together and top it with a variety of toppings and then pay by the weight.  I never had occasion to go before, because I am more of a "go out for coffee" kind of person. 

But then Clare organized a St Louis Blogger Meet Up, and I thought, why not?  I’m not really a food or healthy living blogger, so I wasn’t sure if I would fit in, but I figured worse case I would have wasted an hour or so.  We decided to meet in Kirkwood at Red Mango, which is (of course) a frozen yogurt shoppe.

The photo is courtesy of Clare at Fitting It All In.  She had her camera out and I suddenly got really shy about whipping mine out also (plus I was holding a cup of frozen yogurt).  I guess I’m not used to hanging out with other bloggers, as generally I have my camera out! 

That’s Clare, Rachel, Laura, me, and Stephanie.  We had a great time chatting and I hope we can get together again (though Clare is moving to Dallas).  It was funny meeting other bloggers, and especially meeting Clare since she really tells it all on her blog.  I felt both super creepy and yet like we were already friends. 

I would definitely go to another blogger meet up.  It’s great to meet new people who are interested in many of the same things as me, and ALWAYS great to meet new people outside of the music world.  I would go to another frozen yogurt place if other people wanted to, but I wouldn’t seek one out.  I’m just more of a gelato person, I guess 😉

Wow, the tops of my legs were really sore yesterday.  I’m told those are called “quads”.  I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know.  I did spend about 30 minutes during “Covert Affairs” using the foam roller.  That thing is painful!  But supposedly helpful.

Chris often asks what I do in my workouts with Mike.  The sad truth is…I usually don’t remember.  He’ll ask what muscles I am working out, and I’ll answer, you know, legs, or arms, or whatnot.  Even when I know what muscle an exercise is supposed to be working, often I feel it somewhere entirely different.  Usually in my right wrist or left shoulder…oh wait, that’s probably a problem (violin-related I’m sure.)  Oh, and sometimes I don’t remember because we goof off a lot and I am easily distracted.  Nonetheless I generally get an awesome workout!  Somehow.  Or maybe I don’t.  I could be totally wrong.  I’m not trained.

I guess that’s why I need a personal trainer.  I am completely unable to do weight lifting without being told what to do.  It’s as if my brain shuts off when my muscles start working.  Peter Sagal has the same problem (from Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me) and wrote a great article in the July edition of “Runner’s World”.  One could argue that I COULD do a proper workout on my own and I simply don’t have to, therefore I can’t, but I might disagree.  It worries me…what will I do when I no longer have a personal trainer?  Yes, in an ideal world I would ALWAYS have one, but I’m sure there will come a point when I’ll stop.  Or maybe at that point I will feel ready to move on?  Has anyone experienced this?  I’ve been working out with a trainer for about 1 1/2 years.  (Mike is my second trainer.  My first trainer left the gym to become a car salesman, but then came back.  I had already moved on though.  No hard feelings of course—Joe was and still is awesome.)

And no, I’m not rich!  I just think it’s important, because I have never felt better in my entire life.  Yes, I am lucky to be able to afford a trainer.  But I rent in a cheap area, have a fairly small place, wear clothes from Target and Old Navy, and do not have a huge TV.   Fiscal matters are often a matter of choice.  My TV is over ten years old.  Lucky too, because the thieves didn’t want it.

(that baby doesn’t need a trainer, he probably could train me!)

Okay, I AM rich.  But not in money.  In friendships and love and fat cats.  And I am rich in comparison to most of the world’s population.

Now you know if you are a millionaire or not.  I wasn’t sure before.  Now I know.  (I am not telling you the answer.)

How is your Friday going?  I am looking forward to my day immensely.  I don’t have any tremendous plans for the weekend, and Sunday I must wake up early and drive to Kansas for Suzuki Institute Teacher Training (can’t wait!)  Should be great 🙂

If you are coming here from Skinny Runner’s Blog, WELCOME!

You may have read a quick recap of me there:  basically I blog about nothing, running, violin, teaching children, going out to dinner with friends, and wedding planning (fairly new).  I play and teach violin for a living.  I also have an adorably fat cat.

Yes, she’s judging you.

I wrote a post last night to post this morning about wedding planning because I did want to keep people up to date on what was going on…but it only has one photo…boring.  I had more photos to share, but my camera battery was dead and I was recharging it.

It’s a brand new camera for me, a bright pink Canon PowerShot Elph, and I love it!  It was a birthday present from my dear fiancé Chris, and so far has made one man practically vomit (funny story:  my friend Jen asked him to take a picture of a group of us, he agreed, I handed him my camera, and in a funny, nauseous sounding voice, he said, oh my god it’s a pink camera.  I just smiled.)

That’s my fiance, Chris.  He thinks he’s bad at taking pictures, so we’ve been practicing.  I mean, after all, I have a WEDDING coming up and he will be on camera all the time!  Our photographer says she has lots of tips and she will really work with him to help out.

We went out the other night to celebrate our friend Kyle’s birthday.

I’ve been working on my candid shots.  I took that picture and afterwards a few people looked up and wondered where the lightning came from.  I like the picture though, really shows the seriousness of the situation.  Birthdays are serious business.

Other than the fact that I seemingly have no eyelashes, I like this picture.  I remembered to put my arm away from my body—that’s another tip from the photographer.

Last night I met up with my friend Laura and her in-laws to take a walk up to the Compton Hill Water Tower.  It’s a cool looking water tower that you are able to climb up, but it’s only open on occasion Saturdays and evidently on the evenings of full moons in the summer.  We noticed that was last night, so decided it was an excellent activity for out of town folks.

Views of the tower at night and at day.

View of Grand Boulevard from the top of the tower.

There were 198 winding steps up to the top.  Since I am a super hard core exerciser (if you read previous posts you’ll know this 😉 ) it was NO problem for me, but I did start to get a little freaked out by the heights.

Today my legs are really sore.  I don’t know if it’s from that, from my run yesterday, or from all the lunges my trainer made me in our workout yesterday.  (Yes, I have a trainer.  If you’re new you should know that.  I have lost over 40 pounds in the past 1 1/2 years, and I workout with a trainer twice a week.  He’s awesome, and we ran a race together last month.  He beat me.  He also beat almost everybody else.  His name is Mike and you should train with him too.  Then you can look like me.)

That’s me and Mike (it was an 80’s themed costume race, I don’t always dress like that.)

Anyway, that’s everything so far in a nutshell.  I’m debating if my legs are too sore for a run this morning…

Thanks for stopping by and come again soon!  Every post is different and random, but I try to keep it entertaining.  What do you think?

Also, here are some other recent posts you might like:

If it isn’t posted on the internet, has it really happened?

Summer Retreat Day 5:  Body Image

A Night at the Circus

I haven’t written about my wedding recently, so I thought I’d give you a little update.  I believe the last time I really talked about was after we set our date.

We’ve made a lot of progress, and I’m enjoying the planning.  Chris has been wonderful (of course) and super helpful, and we’re enjoying planning an event that will showcase our relationship and our love, yet also be fun for our friends and family (hopefully, and please try not to vom after reading that.)

Here’s what we’ve done so far:  We set the date of 1/2/12 at Moulin for the ceremony AND reception.  Our reception will be a sit down dinner, and there will be a cocktail hour in between.  We’ve hired an officiant to marry us, someone we have worked with in the past, a woman that will write a ceremony for us that we will be happy with.  We found awesome invitations online that just need a bit of tweaking to make them more special, and the woman who does them lives locally!  (We are super close to sending out save-the-dates…).  And most recently we hired a photographer who is the mother of one of my students who gave us an excellent deal plus we really love her style. 

What’s next on the agenda?  We are currently working on the music end of it—we want a band for the reception (let’s not go there yet for the ceremony…I can’t…I just can’t…  Also we are working on the registry, hotel accommodations for the guests, and starting to think about flowers, cake, and of course…my dress.  I also have generally figured out hair and makeup for myself and the bridesmaids.  When I get back from Kansas I need to do some dress shopping though, and I have two friends here I plan to bring with me to be brutally honest.

So that’s pretty much what’s going on with wedding planning.  I don’t want to give anything away, so I don’t want to give too many details!  For instance, I’m super excited about our save the dates, but I don’t want to post anything here yet.  And the save the dates are part of a greater theme for our invitations, and likely for the programs as well.  It all works together, plus I realized that I just love paper.  

Unrelated to wedding planning:  My facebook free week is going pretty decently.  I had to log on the other day to verify addresses, and YES I post my blog there but that doesn’t require logging into facebook.  I am glad I’m doing it.  People doubt my ability to go facebook free, but seriously, it’s the best week ever 😉

Last but not least:  What do you think of this?

http://www.pottermore.com/

Try not to pee yourself with excitement. I may have.