Run Around

As I said in my last blog post, I had a great time this weekend for my First Thanksgiving in America with Jim's family. Since Jim and I have limited time in Illinois to do things for our wedding, we decided to spend Saturday doing "wedding stuff".

We awoke bright and early to head to the bakery where we would be tasting our cake and deciding on a design. The bakery works with our venue, and is included in our price. We both found it strange however, that the bakery was almost an hour from the venue location. We had to be there at 10 a.m. We actually made it a few minutes early for once. I had never been to a cake tasting before so I didn't know what to expect.

When we arrived, we were brought into a little room to start the process. We had about 10 cake designs to choose from. Surprisingly, Jim and I decided on a design rather quickly. This is almost a miracle because Jim's personality rebels against making a decision quickly. But, when it comes to cake there really isn't a wrong decision. ;)

After we had settled on the design we had to choose the flavours. Jim and I didn't really know how this tasting was going to go. It turns out they brought out some small cake pieces and some fillings and we could try them both together to decide what would work best. It is hard to make this decision because we had to take into account not only our personal tastes but what we felt our guests would like best. We made two choices and were able to use both. I won't tell you what we ultimately chose, but it is going to be good.

Our next task was to go and meet with the DJ. Jim's sister Jenn had told me about how much she loved her DJ and I contacted him and I was so glad he was able to meet with us Saturday. We felt he was a great choice because Jim has already heard him DJ and knows that everyone had a great time dancing at Jenn's wedding. We really enjoyed our appointment with him and feel like he will be a great fit for our wedding.

After the DJ appointment we headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond to register for gifts in America. We have already registered at Sears in Canada. It is really difficult when you will be having two showers in two different countries. You have to make sure you have enough things on each registry and that you don't forget anything. We decided for warranty purposes to not register for anything with a plug in Canada. So we registered for a lot of small appliances and such at Bed Bath and Beyond. I think we have a good balance of things on each registry.

The funniest thing that happened was that our consultant at Bed Bath and Beyond had lived in Detroit for a number of years and actually knew where Leamington (the town where I am from in Ontario) was. He even knew it is known at the Tomato Capital of Canada. He kept coming to check on us while we were registering and it became sort of comical because everytime he would come by Jim and I would be disagreeing on the number of things we needed or having a discussion about whether we really needed something or not. He must think all we do is argue! LOL

After we were finished registering, we ended the day with a trip to Giordano's for some Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. What could be better than that! A great end to a great day! (Even though Jim felt the need to complain on facebook! LOL)

Thank You

This weekend, I was in Illinois, celebrating my first ever American Thanksgiving weekend with Jim and his family. What a great time we had. Since my mom hates turkey, on Canadian Thanksgiving I am never able to experience the full traditional feast that most people have on Thanksgiving day. So it was such a treat to be able to indulge in turkey and stuffing and all the fixin's. Of course my waist line is not too happy with me, but I decided to give myself a free pass for the weekend.

It had been 6 weeks since I had last seen Jim in person so it was great to just be together again. When dealing with long distance relationships you just have to make due with the best you have, but being able to spend time together in person is such a gift. Most people take the time they have with the ones they love for granted but Jim and I never do.

Anyway, Jim's parents hosted Jim's whole extended family at their house for dinner. Everyone pitches in an brings something. It seems they have it down to a science. It was so nice to see Jim's extended family again and so nice to be able to spend time with Jim's parents as well. Here is a picture of Jim and I at Thanksgiving dinner.

The next day, we helped his parents put up the Christmas tree. This is a long standing tradition in their family. I was honoured to be a part of it. I was even able to put up the American flag ornament on the tree.

It was so great to have all this family time where I could get to know Jim's family a bit better. On Friday night, we were able to get together with a few of Jim's old friends from college. It was great to get to meet them as well. On Saturday we spent most of the day doing wedding stuff but I think I will save that for another blog post.

I hope everyone (from America) had a great holiday and were able to spend some time counting their blessing. I know I did. I am so thankful for Jim, for his family and their generosity and for my family of course. I am also thankful for Skype and other modern technology that allows Jim and I to remain close during the long stretches of not seeing each other in person. We are truly blessed.

Shop around

Before I begin telling you all about my excursion this past weekend to look for bridesmaid dresses, I thought it would be only appropriate to let you know who is in my wedding party. I thought it would be fun to do a little biography on each of them. So here they are:

Matron of Hono(u)r:
My sister Maggie.
Maggie has been married for 13 years. I was her maid of honour at her wedding and I thought for sure that in a few short years, she would return the favour. I didn't really think that it would take 13 years, but I wouldn't have anyone else be my matron of honour. Maggie has been a huge help to me not only in wedding planning, but throughout my whole life. She helped me with homework (well this wasn't really a hardship: She has wanted to be a teacher her whole life), she has got up with me in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I was sure there were murderers out in the bathroom ready to get me (this was when we were little, not just last year like some of you may be thinking). She has supported me through everything in my adult life too. She has encouraged me in my job, always willing to come and speak at RCIA or help with a retreat or anything that I am doing at work.  So I am so blessed she has agreed to be my matron of honour.

Bridesmaids:

My friend Kortney.
Kortney and I met 5 or 6 years ago when helping with Lifeteen in Essex. Even though we knew many of the same people, we had never really met each other before. I knew her parents as they were on my COR retreats as a teenager, but she and I had never met. We hit it off instantly. Even though she is 6 years younger than me, she and I bonded over faith, movies, and boys. We made it a point to get together weekly or bi-weekly to hang out, discover new restaurants and going to movies. Even though she has moved 2.5 hours away, we still remain close. She has supported me in all of my 'man troubles' so it is fitting she would be a bridesmaid for me in my wedding.

Jim's sister Jenn.
Jenn and I met each other when I went to visit Jim's family in Chicago for the first time in 2010. Jenn is Jim's youngest sibling and only sister and they are extremely close. I can tell how much love there is in their family and I cannot wait to be part of that. Jenn got married in September 2010 and I am extremely grateful for all of her expertise and help with the planning of my own wedding. I am so happy she is part of our special day.

Junior Bridesmaid:
Jim's friend's daughter Victoria.
I have yet to meet Victoria actually. Her family moved to Arkansas and I am really hoping to get to meet the whole family before the wedding. I can already tell however, by the way Jim talks about her, that she is a sweet, warm, compassionate young lady. I am so happy she can be in our wedding.



OK so now onto our bridesmaid dress shopping day. Since Jenn and Victoria live far away, they were unable to join us. My mom, Maggie, Kortney and I set out on Saturday to do some preliminary looking for bridesmaid dresses. I pride myself on not being a bridezilla so I really wanted to make sure that as long as the dresses came in the colour I have chosen for my wedding, that I would let them decide which dress looked best. We set out to head to a store that exclusively sold bridesmaid dresses. We headed off to where they were located, and to our surprise they were not there. Not only weren't they there, but we had no idea where they were now located. After a little investigating on our trusty yellow pages app on our phones, we figured out they must have closed.

So we soldiered on to the other stores we had chosen to go to. There were lots of choices, and at our first store we found 2 dresses that both Kortney and Maggie really liked. But being the shoppers were were, we knew we had to continue to look at other stores in case something even better came along. We went to the next store, and they tried on a huge selection of dresses. In the end, there was a clear favourite at this store as well. We determined quickly that this was a favorite overall. It looked really nice on Kortney who is 5'8 as well as Maggie who is 5'1. While I am in Chicago I will be sharing these finds with Jenn and hopefully soon we will decide on a dress for sure.

It was such a great day! I mean, anytime shopping is involved it is a great day! But bridesmaid dress shopping was even more fun. Mostly because I didn't have to try anything on (well except my wedding dress which I couldn't resist putting on one more time!) Thanks girls for a great day! :)

Obsession

OK I have a confession to make. I am addicted to a certain website. I know this may sound ridiculous but it is true. www.pinterest.com is my new obsession! It's a virtual pinboard! Instead of cutting out ideas in magazines there are thousands of ideas from everything from fitness to weddings. Of course, the wedding section is where I spend most of my time. I have already gotten a TON of ideas for our wedding. The problem is that there are SOOOO many beautiful things on the site that it is hard not to think "Oh I need THAT!" But, we are trying to stick to a budget for the wedding, so I have managed to take the spirit of some of the ideas and incorporate them into our wedding.

Speaking of the budget, I don't mean to brag, but I am pretty darn good at finding bargains. I managed to find a really great photographer and videographer for MUCH cheaper than average wedding prices. Don't worry I checked them out, they are both very reputable and their work is fabulous. My next mission is to find the nicest cheapest invitations possible. I don't want to make my own. I have TOO many things to do to worry about that! But if anyone knows of a great cheap place, let me know! :)

On a totally unrelated note, tonight I am going to see Breaking Dawn (in the Twilight series). Jim laughs at me all the time for liking these books and movies. (Well in actuality I don't really love the acting in the movies, but I like to see how they interpret the book.) I am going to spend a little time with my favorite vampires and werewolves. I am not really sure why Jim makes fun of me. This is perfectly normal, right?

Let the Good Times Roll

I haven't written one of these in a few days because I looked back on my old posts and I feel like I am complaining in every one of them. So I thought I would write a blog full of good news and/or witty anecdotes.

One thing I am really excited about is in a little over a week I will be experiencing my first ever AMERICAN Thanksgiving. I know we have Thanksgiving here in Canada, but, lets face it. It is not really the same. The American Thanksgiving is an event. Canadian Thanksgiving is just really a meal. So I am looking forward to experiencing the event in all its glory. Jim and I are also taking advantage of being together in Illinois and doing some wedding stuff. We are meeting with a DJ, registering for gifts and best of all going for our cake tasting and settling on a design. I can't wait. A long weekend full of family, fun and some relaxation.

Another thing I am excited about is next weekend my sister who will be my matron of hono(u)r, and my friend Kortney who will be a bridesmaid will be going to look at bridesmaid dresses. My other bridesmaid is Jim's sister Jenn and she lives in Illinois, so we will keep her up to date on our attempts to narrow down the many choices that are out there for bridesmaid dresses. I was lucky. I went the week after I was engaged to go looking at wedding dresses and found one I love and so I bought it then and there. Let's hope that we can find bridesmaid dresses that all the girls love too!

Now for my witty anecdotes. Last night, my nephews slept over. Whenever they do they like to talk to Jim on skype. Matthew, my youngest nephew, wanted Jim to show him around his house. I thought it would be fun to point out all the things in Jim's house that will be changing when I got there. Well, one of the things Jim has is a really old exercise machine. It is called a Healthrider. It looks something like this:

Well Jim sat on it and was working out and Matthew proceeded to laugh harder than I had seen him laugh in a long time. He called Alex,his brother, to come and see too. Maybe you had to be there, but I found this to be one of the most hysterical incidents in recent history.

Finally, my last anecdote is that I am currently on skype, watching my future husband try to fix his water softener. I love watching men when they think they can fix something. He is concentrating really hard. Now, being a girl, I had no idea even what water softeners were. He explained it to me. Apparently it has something to do with minerals in the water (I dunno I still wasn't really listening). For some reason there is salt  in the water softener. Part of Jim trying to fix it, is to remove some of the salt in it so he could move it away from the wall to see what the problem is. At one point he had a mop end stuck in there trying to break the salt free. And, now, as I watch him, covered in salt, I can't help but think I am the luckiest girl on the face of the earth.

Feelings.....

Remember that list that Jim and I decided to write of all the things that we need to get done before the wedding that was supposed to make us less stressed? Well we wrote it all right. And guess what? It managed to do just the opposite!! We are now more stressed than we were before we wrote it. Our list kept getting longer and longer. We have the list split up into three sections: wedding stuff, visa stuff and moving stuff. At the end of it, all that we really realized was we have a lot of stuff to do in these next 10.5 months. In fact, at one point I told Jim, "You realize I am going to have a nervous breakdown somewhere around August right?" LOL

Anyway, after we spent a whole night focusing on the list, for the rest of the weekend we decided to promptly ignore it. What ended up happening was that we spent the majority of time talking about stuff pertaining to the actual marriage. We talked about what it will be like, obstacles we anticipate facing, and how we need to come up with some sort of commandments or something that we can write before the wedding (in addition to our marriage vows of course) that we can have sort of as "relationship rules". We haven't developed them yet, but we are really excited about working on them together.

We also spent lots of time talking about God and sharing our faith with one another. We even managed to have more of an extensive prayer time together than we normally do. All in all, I think those two nights after the shocking list allowed us to refocus on what is truly important in the long run. The marriage. All of the 'stuff' we have to do is a step on the way to getting to the really important stuff. The day to day living of marriage. If we do not talk about it or ignore it, and spend all of our time making sure we have just the right centerpieces, d.j., etc., then we are not really focusing on the Sacrament we are about to receive. I think God somehow gave us a shot of grace this weekend to really realize how blessed we are and, in the midst of all the chaos to have one another and to walk that path to marriage together. What a great reminder he has given us this weekend.

Nice Work if You Can Get It....

In my job, every day is different. I have many things I am responsible for at once. In some jobs, you spend your whole day doing repetitive tasks. This rarely happens in my job. This is not to say I do not have constants in my job, for I do, but each year is different. I am responsible for helping the children of the parish be prepared for the Sacraments of Reconciliation, First Eucharist and Confirmation. I also work with parents to prepare them to have their children Baptized. These things do not change in duties from year to year. But every year I seem to get new ideas about ways to go about this catechises so every year truly is different.

On top of these constants, there are things that may or may not happen every year. Some years our parish runs RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) and some years it doesn't. If we do, I am the coordinator of that process. Also, this year we are running the Arise program run by Renew International to serve as a time of spiritual renewal for the whole parish. The coordinating of this program also falls on my shoulders. On top of all of these major programs, there are little things every day I am responsible for. For instance, I go and visit the Catholic schools affiliated with our parish and I also am there to answer any and all questions from parishioners who call or come in the office. Every day really is different.

I love my job, and thankfully throughout the year, there are ebbs and flows. Things really start getting busy in October and don't really slow down until April or May. The rest of the year, while a bit quieter still has plenty of things to do to keep me busy. On top of all the other stressful things I have going on this year, there are times in the busy time at work that can really add to that stress.

In an effort to get organized with all the wedding and visa stuff, Jim and I are writing a "to do" list for ourselves. We are hoping to include everything that needs to be done from now until the wedding. This will include all wedding related things, as well as all the things we need to do to get me moved from one country to the next. Once we write out everything we can think of we will assign a person to that task as well as a month it needs to be done by. Hopefully this will help me get some rest at night, knowing that we have planned out how the next 11 months will unfold.

Hopefully my organizational skills at work (which is different than my tidiness abilities as anyone who has been in my office will attest ;) ) will benefit me these next few months.  These skills will continue to help me to best minister to the parishioners I work with on a daily basis. Hopefully, this new "to do" list Jim and I are working on for the wedding will  help us to feel organized with all the upcoming things we need to do for the wedding and to look forward to the future and begin preparing for our married life together.

Up All Night

So since I have been engaged, my brain has been desperately trying to get organized. What usually ends up happening is that I focus on one aspect of the wedding and research it thoroughly. (Who knew my internet research abilities I honed from all my hypochondria would come in handy! ;) )

My first task was venues. I think I found every available place in a 50 mile radius of Plainfield, Illinois. I not only researched, I checked out reviews, estimated costs, made a top 5 list etc. The top 5 contenders then received emails from me to see if they were available. Three of them were. A few weeks ago, after visiting each of these personally Jim and I picked a winner.

My next obsession was photographers and videographers. I never realized just how much photography and videography costs! Again I researched thoroughly and found a great talented photographer as well as a videographer for a great price! Jim and I couldn't be happier with the people we have chosen.

My latest obsession is invitations. I realize I probably have more important things I should be looking at, as I won't be needing invitations for quite awhile, but there are just so many to choose from. I never realized how hard it would be to narrow them down. I want them to look beautiful and classy but I don't want to go over budget. It has now been my goal to try to get the best quality things for well under our budget.

Unfortunately all of this has led to a bit of insomnia. I find my mind so wrapped up in all the things that need to get done for the wedding that I can't seem to turn my brain off. This doesn't happen everyday (thank goodness!), but when it does it is not good. Then, the clock watching starts and then I just get more and more frustrated and find my mind going more and more out of control.

For instance the other night, my brain went something like this:
"If we get those invitations, I wonder how much postage will be? Hmmm, speaking of postage how are we going to work that? Response cards from Canadians sent back here and Americans ones sent there? Wow, that will be a crazy time in August/September. There will be so much to think of. Have to pack, get me moved, do all the last minute things like cancelling all my automatic bank withdrawals. I wonder when I should do that exactly...well all of this really depends on the visa coming in on time...I wonder how much longer til we hear something. I really should look at the next set of forms I need to fill out so I am prepared....."

It is never ending! I need to find ways to quiet my brain so I can get some glorious sleep. Or maybe, this is just God's way of preparing me for having kids, when sleep will be a distant memory. ;)