Christmas Capers

Today was a day of Yuletide Merriment. I arranged three days off for work so I could spend some Christmastime with my sweet baa boo before he goes to Austria for a week before Christmas, poor thing. This afternoon we went on the long awaited "special date" that I have been promising for two weeks. I wouldn't tell him what the plans were and if you know my beloved, you know how he LOVES to not know what's going on (please read the appropriate amount of sarcasm into this comment). We took the Metro (joy, the novelty does indeed wear off) because we didn't want to worry about parking.

First stop, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. William is a wonderful influence on my spiritual life, and encouraged me to make a good confession before Christmas. So that was fun (not) but really wonderful and I was very thankful for such a wonderful gift. Best part of this leg of the trip (besides absolution) was seeing the 5 dominican brothers, in their capes!! I want one so bad. Why wasn't I born into a life where I could wear a cape and not be a freak?

Stop two, we went to our favorite meal, Chipotle and William defended me from a rabbit sized man eating pigeon. The we set off to see the National Christmas Tree, which was disappointing firstly because it had colored lights instead of white (because our nation is being overtaken by yankees) and second because the stupid people are already setting up for the stupid inauguration so there was scaffolding everywhere. Ugly. But, it was pretty and kinda romantic because the sun was setting and it was chilly and there was a Christmas tree.

The view in the other direction. So purty.

Then we got cupcakes and they were delicious. There is a little jewel of a bakery hidden in Union Station and they have FANTASTIC cupcakes. William got a Black and White Cookie and I got a brownie cupcake, that was devils food, homemade chocolate icing and brownie bites on top. Heaven. 

This is where it got amusing. William all day had been trying to guess what we were going to do because I had refused to tell him and simply had told him that it was a big surprise for him and he was going to love it. Here are some of my favorite guesses:

1) Did you buy me tickets to go see something by Belmont Abbey? Because I love Bill but I don't wanna pay to hear him speak.

2) Are we going to see a bunch of religious at some meet and greet?

3) Did you coordinate a party with my mom and dad to celebrate the end of the semester? HA.

William's number one fear was that we were going to see the Nutcracker. He will swear that he loves the ballet, but the last time we went 2 years ago, we were orchestra center and he fell asleep before intermission. So the entire day, he kept asking if we were going to see the ballet. Finally, I made him think that's what were doing. I wish someone could have seen the disappointment on his face. I told him that I thought he would like it because he liked it so much last time and his dad had just been to see it last week. The sport put on his brave face and was ready to suffer through it again. I only fed into this by humming classics from the ballet. 

So I had no idea that the two theaters were so close, but apparently they are right across the street from each other, so I had William convinced as we walked towards it that another onslaught of dancing was coming. 

But then we turned the corner for....

 We were so excited, and we had a great time and loved the show. We also enjoyed people watching because thats what we do when we go out. Tops of the night include a half dressed mother who had her 12 year old daughter with her dressed in a floor length princess gown and cape, a couple who carried around a stuffed ninja to take pictures with (kinda like Kate and Biscuit the Meerkat, may he rest in peace) and also our people who were sitting beside us disappearing. We could have been friends with us because they couldn't come back to sit beside us because they made fun of the people who came back late last time.

This was the stage at intermission. ^^^ Soooo cool.


That was our day and we had a great time. He is such a great companion.

OH AND ONE LAST THING.

I have been saving this for a while because I wanted to show Johnny first, on his visit a few weeks ago. Great friend, harsh critic, I had him notice all the things I didn't like about it first that I said to myself whilst I was working "Johnny is going to notice that and make fun." He lived up to my expectations and complimented my work so now I can post it.

MY PRETTY ENTRANCE WAY!!

I did this one afternoon while William studied. It was long and tedious but I absolutely love it. I still need to erase some pencil marks and touch up some areas but I think its beautiful. 

I have a post coming soon about forgiveness but right now I'm tired. 

XOXO, 

Laura

alone (uh-lohn): separate, apart, or isolated from others

WARNING: Be careful to glean the actual meaning from what I am about to tell you, before just assuming that I am whining about my solitude, because this blog, is in fact, devoid of whine.

As you may or may not know I currently am living solo, preparing a "nest" for William and I to live in once we are wed. We are indeed blessed beyond measure and have a lovely home that I am so thankful for. I am having the time of my life decorating (Rome wasn't built in a day and this is taking equally as long).

However, I am CONSTANTLY alone. Unless I am at the restaurant with my wonderful community that I love so dearly, or William and I get the rare chance to see one another, or he comes to visit me, I am by myself. Now for some this may sound kind of like a dream come true. All this time to myself, no screaming children, limited amounts of drama that I can leave at the restaurant, plenty of time to wedding plan, any music I want, I can walk around the apartment in any state I so desire, the temperature is my choice, the lighting, what I eat, when I eat, where I eat, I can watch all the Netflix I want and spend much needed time with my best friends, the Kardashians. Everything is as clean as I want it, everything is where I last put it, no one steals my treats, I can be completely in tune with my thoughts and do whatever I so please. Dream. Come. True.

On the contrary, I have only recently begun to view it this way. Poor William, Johnny, Katie and my mom receive the brunt of my loneliness with such messages being sent as:

Laura to Katie: Have you seen the episode where scott drunkenly crashes kim's birthday dinner? i'm so stressed from it!

Laura to Johnny:  Guess what just came on pandora? Love on Top and then Gospel Truth from Hercules. Perf.

Laura to William: Do you like it?
William: I love it.
L: Do you really like it?
L: Like really really?
W: Yes.
L: would you tell me if you didn't like it?
W: Yes.
L: are you sure?

While, as previously stated, I am the most content with my life right now than I ever have been, I have only recently learned to like being alone. In college, I swear I was never alone. There was always someone around, someone that wanted to see you, or you wanted to see, or neither of you actually wanted to see each other but knew that the other didn't want to be alone so you simply tolerated each other for the sake of company. Same living with my family, I am with Blove and Thomas like 23 hours a day when I am home. I love being around people. My mom used to call me "The Social Butterfly" of our family. In the past, there was not a day when I didn't have something to do, someone to see, somewhere to be. And I LOVE that. I love taking care of people, investing in project, learning about others, I love affection, I dearly miss the Abbey where I could just walk outside and see someone who would at least LET me hug them. I always had opportunities to love and serve people around me. I've never really had my own room. In fact in college, I moved out of my solo room because I was too lonely. I am a communal being. The epitome of a sorority girl. I LOVE COMMUNITY, more so even than my intended. I would be perfectly happy to be a Siamese twin I think. But in this part of my life, there are days and days on end where the only thing I have to do is go to work. And then come home. To no one.  While the restaurant supplies me with every possible human interaction I could ever want and not want, I obviously have to maintain a line of professionalism. So intimate relationships there are nil. At this time in my life, I have had to learn how to keep myself company and it has led to some startling and fun conclusions.

1) I am never bored. EVER. You know how you sit on your computer and pin all these things on pinterest and say to yourself "Self, one day we will do all these things." Not me. I actually do them. Just  from where I sit in my favorite spot, I can count five Pinterest inspired things in my room (which to be honest is quite barren because as I said, Rome wasn't built in a day) I have refinished an end table, printed large b&w prints from staples, made a 3 mirror thing so I can see all angles, refinished a stool to put at my vanity, and based the color pallet of my room off of some designs from Pinterest. While to some this just says that I am a freak, to me it is impressive and not to toot my own horn, impresses me that I haven't procrastinated and I am not stuck in my ways. I am always trying to find better and prettier ways of doing things around the house.

2) If I make my bed, I won't come back to it. Making my bed makes me feel great. And I don't nap or waste time on the computer if I make my bed because I don't want to mess it up because its so pretty and time consuming.

3) If I designate places for things to be, I won't lose them (as often as I usually do).


4) I can entertain, discipline, and provide for myself. I feel like this is probably the most important thing that I have learned about myself. And to be completely candid, the entire reason I am posting this post. Ever since The Fall, no not God's favorite season because of football and pumpkins, but the Original Fall from Grace, like Adam and Eve, I think it has been one of the subsequent consequences of Original Sin that women feel like they MUST  have a man to be happy.

 It is interesting to me, that for me and most of my girlfriends that I know have experienced the same thing, that when it comes time for me to say, "Goodnight" to William, he can say good night, kiss me and say I love you, and walk out the door. It's as easy as pie to him. Yeah, I know he doesn't really like it. He would rather be with me but there he goes out in to the great blue yonder without so much as a flinch. It was the same in college with my other girlfriends, I had a friend, and I am guilty of this too, that sometimes when her man would leave for the night she would almost be brought to tears. I try and hold on to his hands a little longer, find any excuse for him not to leave, pout, act like a child, and am literally heart broken over him leaving, even though I will see him soon.  It sounds crazy, mostly because it is, but these feelings of abandonment and loneliness are so deeply sown in the hearts of women that its difficult to act like a normal human being sometimes. Once I recognize what's going on and give it the appropriate response it deserves it's easier to act like an adult but those feelings are still there. Genesis 3:16 says, "To the woman He said: "I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master."" Uhhh, maybe someone forgot to mention that this overwhelming desire to be with my husband was part of this Original Sin punishment thing.  My urge is definitely for my husband. And there he goes...out the door. The master of his own destiny. And here I am. Alone. Again.  Now, I won't even give any attention to the part about him being my master, what ever, if you give it the slightest bit of normal human thought instead of Feminist circa 1960's bra burning craziness, you can see that being the "master" is sometimes just as difficult as being the "mastered".

Where am I going with this? Living alone has taught me that, yes I want to get married. The urge in my heart is for my husband and soon I will only have to say "Good night" and rarely "good bye". It is 191 days away and I am stoked. However, God forbid anything should happen, I could be perfectly fine on my own until my circumstances changed. I can certainly keep my self occupied. I have been getting up at 8:30 everyday, well almost every day. I eat pretty healthy, and I rarely eat out, unless it is with William. I find ways to entertain myself that don't cost much money or if it does, its something useful that we will have around for a long time, not like a manicure or something. My apartment is clean. William has done a lot of iron on iron for me as far as making me a better, more organized and well rounded person. But I am doing pretty well on my own.

 My one bit of advice to my friends that I am learning from being engaged is make it a short engagement. 6 months is sufficient. The rest of that time is superfluous waiting, and awkward. Make it quick.  However, I can clearly see God's hand in this and how He gave me this time to be reflective and confident in my own abilities and worth, sans my better half. Living alone has given me a chance to love myself, spend time with me, get to know what I actually prefer and what things I was actually just doing to make the people I lived with more comfortable.  Solitude has shown me my heart and the quiet ways that the Lord speaks to it.



That being said, I'm tired of living alone and need these 191 days to fly so I can get back to what I do best, that is, taking care of someone.

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.