Surviving FrankenStorm

Today was the arrival of Sandy aka FrankenStorm. While there are many people suffering and removed from their homes, Sandy for us has delivered a much needed day off. William didn't have to go to school and I didn't have to go to work so we just did pretty much. Um.  Nothing. It was pretty epic.

We survived off solely frozen pizza.

Oh and Krispy Kreme.

Oh and failed oreo pops. 

I caught up with my good friends the Kardashians. I watched the episode where Kim gets a dog and then has to give it away and I realized why we are so alike because she knows how I felt about Lacey. :-)

 I didn't do this during FrankenStorm but I wanted you to see our cool bathroom wall.

 We enjoyed watching our Halloween decorations on the porch being torn to shreds. 

I fell deeper in love with my new favorite band. I am heading back to my bluegrass roots. 

And I began work on my new table. I can't wait for Johnny to comment about how the bottom row isn't the same as the other rows.              

The Nest

I am currently sitting in my future married home in the spinny chair aka Kim and I's office.  Which is weird. And REALLY EXCITING. Today I did something I have wanted to do forever and painted our dining room Tiffany Blue. It's absolutely gorgeous. I painted it today/last night and I am so pleased with it. (Like my pumpkin place mats? Me too.)

I told William recently that I am just so happy. Nothing is particularly different other than living in our home (alone, I'll remind you) I am just always busy making our home perfect for him to move into with me. I believe his official move in date is May 26th. Oy. But plenty of time to ensure that it's perfect. The wedding is seven months from tomorrow and I am LITERALLY counting down the days.

I recently took an amazing trip to NC. I left Wednesday and surprised my family by coming home a day early. I mostly just hung around with my Mom and Anna and Thomas on Wednesday and Thursday. The Friday was Weddingpalooza. Our first meeting was at 9 am with the event coordinator of the reception. My next move with that, is sending her our tentative menu and schedule. Thank goodness, lets get this show on the road.

Then at 11 we had our meeting with the music coordinator for the wedding. Now, let me just brag a little bit. I have been exceptionally cool headed, organized, simple and realistic when it comes to planning this wedding. I don't want anything too huge and elaborate because thats not what marriage is about. I have handled this whole thing exceptionally well, however I could foresee in the distance that there was going to be some aspect of this shin dig that was going to set me off and make me ill. However, I was hoping that it wasn't going to be planning for the mass. William and I, (obviously if you are reading this you already know this) are passionately Catholic and so for us the Mass is the most important part of the whole day. He and I slaved over picking the perfect music, and we are pretty well exposed to a wide variety of music so we knew exactly what we wanted. There was a little give and take from both sides, but we finally reached an arrangement we were pleased with. Now I explained this all to the poor unknowing organist of my beloved parish. However, I don't think she got it. She faced my Southern Bell wrath, which looks a lot like kindness but is about three steps away from 1st degree murder. I am happy to report though, while we did not reach an arrangement I was happy with in the meeting, a few passive aggressive emails seem to have cleared up the situation to my liking. Now the next step is getting all of this sheet music to the music coordinator at Holy Family and to William's lovely and talented cousin, Rose. Phew.

1 pm led into a much more relaxing meeting where we laid the ground work for the actual mass with the Wedding Coordinator and it was a breeze and only lasted for like 30 minutes and then I went to Charlotte and had an EPIC Bachelorette Party with all of my favorite girls in the entire world (sans Meggy, but you can't have everything). It was the epitome of perfection and definitely a night I will never forget. Being with those girls solidified my heart's desire to eventually go back to Charlotte where  William and I belong.


PS if you are looking for the meat and potatoes of this post check VVVVV


This past weekend I was so blessed to be able to attend the wedding of a good friend of mine, Kelly and her husband Allan. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to the reception because of work but I considered it a huge blessing to even be able to attend the Mass. It was an absolutely beautiful celebration and it fills my heart with joy to see two such beautiful souls joined together and being an excellent example of marriage. As I was sitting there watching my beautiful friend and her adoring love of her life, the most awesome sense of calm about our impending Nuptials came over me. Here were these two people, totally in love and ready to pledge their lives to each other. And that's all that mattered. Nothing else. The food for the reception was cooking and may have been perfect...so? Kelly's dress was absolutely gorgeous and fit her perfectly...so what? None of that mattered at that moment. All that mattered is that these two hearts were ready.

For me that was the wake up call that I needed to stop worrying about the wedding and start planning for the marriage. What am I doing to prepare for immediately after the party is over? Is my soul ready to be joined to another one? Am I ready, not only for the responsibilities of marriage corporally, paying the bills, managing our money, cooking, and cleaning, but am I prepared spiritually for what's going on in the eternal sense? Am I giving enough attention to the preparation of sharing my soul with someone else? I am almost certain that answer is no, and so I dropped back and punted. For a night, I didn't address any more thank you notes or Save the Dates. I didn't prepare packets of music to be sent off to various artists. I didn't worry about what we are going to eat or drink, what I'm taking on my honey moon, how much money I need to spend out of this pay check on the wedding or what I should give my bridesmaids to wear for the wedding. I put that all aside and prayed. And that is the best preparation I have done for this wedding in a long time. Making the effort to prepare for this marriage, not the wedding, the marriage, needed to reclaim its spot at the top of the list of most important things to do. Luckily enough, I have a sweet fiancee that has been supporting me in this most important realignment of priorities and it has made all the difference.

Also tomorrow's my birthday and I always want to decorate a pumpkin for my birthday so here is this year's winner. Cute. Another pinterest original.

love notes

I am currently working on a blog post about a very interesting occurrence in which my handsome knight in shining armor saved me from the big bad frat boy on the metro, but I really want that one to be well developed and written so it is going through a few drafts (are you proud, LJ?)

 I was just thinking about a little known piece of advice about being in a relationship that I learned from my mom and dad. I am so blessed to have been brought up in an "against the odds" family. My parents were 20 years old when they married each other. Neither of them were old enough to buy any alcohol for their wedding, so there wasn't any (much in contrast to my own upcoming nuptials where alcohol will flow freely from any cup that is not right side up). My parents are still just as in love today as I feel like they probably were when they started dating at 15. (Side note: my Grandma and all of my aunts and obviously my mom, married the man that they dated in high school. I was running out of hope when I hadn't dated anyone by my senior year and then met William in March of my senior year. Just under the wire. HA.)  I am not saying by any means that I think my parents had it easy because they were so in love. Simply examining my own devious childhood, raising me might have been enough to drive anyone insane. I don't think I developed a conscience until I was like 12 or something.

 One little thing that I learned from them, something very practical, I try to do for William as often as I think to do it. Honestly, it is just as good for my heart as I think it is for his. My parents had this adorable/annoying habit of writing each other love notes on our bathroom mirror in soap. Obviously, this was adorable for a bevy of reasons, even more apparently this was annoying because I had to maneuver around their sap to be able to see in the mirror to fix my hair properly. My dad would also write "I love you" in the frost on my moms windows on her car in the morning. My mom always writes their initials in the sand on the beach. As lame as this sounds, nay it doesn't just sound lame, it is lame, my mom and dad both take to Facebook to make their statuses about how much they love each other. I am pretty sure that before I got a hold of them (remember the whole no conscience thing) my mom had kept every love letter my dad had ever written her in high school.

What I am getting at is my parents LOVE to write love notes to each other. It is like their bread and butter. There is something so final and permanent and timeless about writing down what you think, how you feel, what you mean and showing it to another person. My mom also keeps a journal, she is on probably her 567765 volume, and only certain people can read it, because when you share what you  have written, it is such an intimate thing. That is why I believe it is so important to write love notes. They are a vessel of affection that requires no money, no physicality, not even much talent. It just requires time, thought and honesty, which are three things that are often so hard to come by. I love to write William love notes. I can write down things that I often cannot say because I either a)get sidetracked b)try too hard to explain what I mean or c) can't think that quickly on my feet. Writing for me is often like praying, which is also a lot like thinking. I can organize things. God can do a lot of work on me when I can give him a little organization to work with. I can tell William in a love note, in such a clear way how much I love him. It's not rambling, like it often is when I talk. And he can go back and look at it any time he needs to. It doesn't have to be long. Not to brag or anything, but he has kind of an old one packed away that I left on his car that just says, "I believe in you and me."  Now I am not saying that if you are blessed with the gift of gab that you should force yourself to write out your feelings, I am just saying it is such a clear and lasting method of communication, that it has the potential to work wonders in any relationship.

In summation, my advice is, write love letters. To everyone. That's all.

She gets me...

For Richer for Poorer...or just poorer

Recently I have been giving a lot of thought about the cost of the wedding. I REFUSE  for us to go into debt over a PARTY.  Someone said to me recently that a wedding really isn't for you. Its for impressing your guests. Negative. No. Not doing it.

Thus far I am really proud that the majority of the money spent has been put towards a better cause with the wedding being a happy receptor of the benefits. Example: my wedding dress was donated by its designer and what I paid for it went to support a family who was struggling with breast cancer. I feel good about that. Wedding shoes. Judge away and they may be trendy, but I bought Tom's so that I know I am only going to wear them like one time (maybe) but some kid in Africa is going to wear the other pair that I paid for until they don't fit anymore.

I found this statistical analysis on how much people spend on weddings and I am proud to say that as of right now ::fingers crossed:: we have one more than average bridesmaid, 150 more guests than average, and are still coming WAY under what most people spend on a wedding.

May 19th, 2013

Photo credit to William's sister, Maggie McKenna. Everyone has a different opinion of what's going on in this picture but I remember exactly.

Working in the restaurant business can be more than interesting. What makes it such an interesting line of work is the people. I meet so many people a day and hear so many different stories it really boggles me. Not only do I meet the vendors, customers, and such but also because the business is such an accessible one to work in, if you have the patience and ability to multi task, I work with people from all backgrounds, traditions, ages, shapes, color and size. Spending so much time with this diverse group of people leads to some interesting conversations and new view points. Being the new kid on the block I spend a lot of time learning about the people I work with and they want to know all about me.

Probably one of my favorite groups in the restaurant is the hostesses. I have such a heart for high schoolers and with the latest wedding fad, EVERYDAY,  they ask about the wedding. They ask about being in love. They ask about William. They ask about our plans. They ask how we met. EVERY DAY. This week is exciting for me because William and I will be living within thirty minutes of each other for the first time in 9 months. I am beyond elated that he will be close enough to get to whenever I want to. So I was telling my little hostesses about this and it struck up an interesting conversation. It's not the first time it has come up but it was definitely got me thinking.

Hostess: So when is William moving in with you?
Laura: May 19th, 2013.
Hostess: What? You're not living together before you get married?
Laura: No.
Hostess: Are you sure that's a good idea? How do you know that you can live with him?

I paused for a second because the societal background of this question broke my heart. Why has marriage become a question of being comfortable? I know I can live with him because I am saying I am going to. No matter how difficult. I feel like the basic premises of living together we have down pat.

1) Neither of us is an ax murderer or cannibal.
2) We sleep in a bed.
3)We are comparably clean, although he is more organized than I am.

I don't understand why our society believes that for our marriage to be successful we have to do a trial run first. What kind of love is that? William isn't a new vacuum or a car that I am just "trying out" to make sure that it's the right fit. Isn't that why we dated? The idea that I would stop loving or not want to have a life with this person because of something like his living habits boggles me. Wouldn't I have figured that out by now if there were some kind of huge deal breaker? I realize that when we get married and do live together that I am going to discover things about him that I never knew and even scarier still, things about myself that I didn't even know. But it saddens me to think that this average 17 year old girl doesn't think that a marriage could be successful without giving it a test drive first.

Prior to this discussion, someone else asked me why we weren't living together. I asked him what the difference between living together when you are dating and living together when you are married.
He gave me a pretty standard answer stating that they were pretty similar except one you could leave, and the other is harder to leave. Then I asked, well then if you are already living together when you get married, what changes? You are MOST LIKELY (not always) already having sex, you have worked through the kinks of living together, you already share bills and responsibilities, perhaps share a pet, and then you get married. Now what? You had a big party. Now to separate you have to fill out some paper work instead of just leaving. What has changed? Why is your marriage any more special than when you were just dating? You took away all of the things to look forward to in marriage. There are no surprises, nothing new or exciting. Its just life as usual with two new pieces of jewelry and 4  new toasters. You have already experienced most of the joys, especially if you have had children, and now all that's left to experience are the sorrows and trials. Whats even scarier about this is that my potential mate if I am living by this standard, may have had multiple trial marriages, carrying around so much emotional and physical baggage from this trial marriage that didn't work out because of one thing or another. Unless there is some HUGE difference between the two of you that would usually be figured out in normal conversation (cannibalism,  differing political views, huge incompatibilities) then maybe you shouldn't be getting married, period. Marriage is about compromise and change and growth and if you can't live with someone because they leave the toilet seat up or snore, then maybe marriage isn't for you. I feel like that is an idea that people are afraid to entertain but the truth is marriage is REALLY hard and it isn't for everyone, but that's an entirely different rant.

So, in short, William and I are not living together before we get married because we don't have to, we don't need to, and no matter what sort of living habits I wake up to the morning after our honey moon, this is no 90 day trial, and we are in this for good because we love each other. The end.

Birds of a Feather

Today, I decided to take a note out of my fiance's book ( PS check out his blog, link over there>>>) and write about marriage instead of the wedding. While both are important, the marriage definitely takes the cake. Recently, I was reflecting on the reasons why I had chosen to marry William. They are so numerous and easy when I look at our companionship and the attraction and affection that I feel for him and he feels for me. But objectively, why am I marrying him? Sometimes when I think about things like this, I like to reflect on what I would want for my sister, one of my best friends or my sorority sisters. Just the other day I was doing some searching for a beau for a friend and I was surprised by the criteria other people were throwing into the conversation. Well dressed, jocky, cocky, tall, likes to go out, nice, a good person, someone I can get along with. What is it exactly that women should be looking for?

First and foremost, I am very attracted to William. The day I met him I knew I was going to marry him. Attraction is essential. We are very silly together and he knows the most intimate details and secrets of my heart. He always opens doors for me, helps me with everything he is able to, makes me laugh, stimulates my mind, keeps me engaged in conversations, regularly sends me flowers, polishes away my rough edges, and puts up with my silly shenanigans. These were excellent reasons to date him, to make him my friend and to invest so much time with him. But looking at these reasons, I consider them weak reasons to get married. 

I was reflecting and praying the other day about friendships I have had that were very intimate and special and close to my heart, and how those people were some of the best friends I had ever had but the friendship had fizzled out. People say you should marry your best friend, and while I happen to be lucky enough to be marrying mine, I still don't think the bonds of our friendship are the reason or the basis for a lasting marriage. 

Friendships and attractions fade. Mediocrity, while it should always be battled, ultimately sinks into our life without our noticing.  I had this wonderful friend that told me a story about a friend of a friend. After a heated argument, this lady's five year old daughter asked her how she knew her daddy was never going to leave her. The mother just smiled and said, "Because I know your daddy loves Jesus more than he loves me." 

It is really simple and kind of cliche to say to marry a good Christian. While that is something I wanted for myself, for my sisters and for my friends but I want more than that for them. Marrying for virtue and for a hard line relationship with God and dedication to the good is the most important aspect. Even for my non Christian friends I would encourage you to find a man that has a strong understanding and definition of "the Good" and realizes the difference between right and wrong and is not drowning in relative BS.  Attraction, friendship, laughter, sweetness, affection, and intelligence are all nice perks but the reason and basis of my confidence in marrying William, is his dedication to the Lord and his constant pursuit of the Good. When our bubbling conversation grows into comfortable silence, when the newness and shyness of our bodies fade, when the flowers stop, and we eventually begin to wear on each others nerves, I can trust that William will do the right thing, the honest and good thing. That every Sunday come hell or high water he will be at Mass, and that no matter what, this marriage is until one of us is put in the ground. Marry a man of integrity, with an understanding and dedication to the Good. 

That's what I think. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear it.