I wear my sunglasses at night...

do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do...

Boy, have there been some changes around here! This calls for subtitles.

NEW BEDROOM DECOR
I really believe that if you make small changes in your life every so often that you will be much happier. Maybe that's why my mom always changed the living room around every month when I was a kid, hehe. Anyway, Dan and I were doing some apartment/house browsing in the last month, mainly because I'd like to have a place of our own, more space, and a dining room (rather than an office occupying said space). After looking at a couple of places we decided that our budget is not going to handle the amenities we really want. Since we're dividing our current rent with a roommate, it makes things much more affordable. SO...back to the subject...I decided that if we're not going to get a new place that I'd like to make some changes around here. I thought it would be nice to get a new comforter/sheet set and curtains in the bedroom, etc., and I also wanted to do something with our living room mantel to make it more "homey."

We ended up going to a few different home stores last Saturday and finding an awesome set at this place. By the end of Saturday, we not only got new sheets, a down comforter and duvet cover, curtains, and rugs to put in the bedroom and living room, but we also got a cute candle plate set to put on the mantel *whew!*. Oh, and I got a new sleeping pillow that is foam = squishy pillow bliss = I really don't want to get out of bed! Along with the candle arrangement, I also printed out some Niagara photos and put those up there. Picture time!

BEFORE - Bachelor pad central


AFTER (the pictures were always there, just not visible above)


Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...I mean, the short curtains. We have longer windows in this place. They will fit "normal" windows. ;)


I can't say that my decorating itch was the least bit cheap, but I can say that I am in love with our place now. I've added some of my own touches to it, so it really feels more like "our" place. I walk into the bedroom and it feels so warm and cozy, awwww!

WEDDING SPEAK
After buying the bedroom stuff last weekend and cleaning through most of the night Saturday, Sheri came over to visit on Sunday and we went to a bridal show here in Cincinnati. I normally only get to see Sheri once a year on her birthday (ha), so it was great that she drove down from C-bus and got to hang out. She's getting married in September, so we'll get to see each other at least three times this year, lol. The bridal show was fun and we went back to this one cake vendor like five times hoping they wouldn't remember us.

Afterwards, we went to this place so I could try on some wedding dresses for the first time! Ooooooh, I tried on about 10 dresses and I'm definitely in love with two or three of them. I still have more places to try, but if I love two already I can tell this will be a hard decision. Vicki = Miss Indecisive. If you want to see pictures of the dresses I tried on, minus one or two rejects, shoot me a comment with your email (if I don't already know it) and I'll give you the password to the photosite album *wink, wink*. I tried to show Dan pictures of the rejected dresses at least, but he refuses to look at anything related to a dress! Good boy he is, but who am I going to share this with? No one lives near me! :)

Also, as of today, I think we have a reception hall! We've been looking at this one place about a half-hour away and they have been the best deal so far. A couple we know is also having their reception there, so we've been talking with them about it, and I think it's really too good to pass up. Pretty much everything is included in the price - and having our wedding on a Sunday will get us some mad discounts! We visited the place this morning and decided to take the last room that's available for our date! Is that a blessing or what?

Aaaaaaaand...tonight our parents met each other for the first time! They all came here first, including my younger brother, and we went to have a big "family" dinner at this place. It went really well, so we're happy about that.

NEW APARTMENT, SAY WHA...?
Now that I've written a nice paragraph on how we redecorated and I love our place, we're MOVING! Indeed, last week our roommate came to us and said that he's going to move out in November to live with some band members. Well heck, we just decided against getting a new apartment! Needless to say, we had to start the search again because paying the full rent here was not happening. We decided to look at two different apartment communities the other day after work, and after the first one we were hooked! Not only is this place right down the road from work, but it's very new, is a two bedroom/one bath with garden tub (have to mention that!), and with their move-in specials right now it put the rent right within our budget.

After checking it out that day, we went back the next day on our lunch break and measured the living room to make sure our big stuff would fit, and the day after that we turned in our applications and deposit! We're soooooo excited to move into a new place with so much potential! The best part is that the complex can't hold apartments any longer than 60 days (actually 30, but I guess we're special), so we asked our roommate if he could move into his new place earlier, and wa-la! We get to move in October 1st instead! Yippee for having two months to pack our stuff (read: throw away stuff we haven't touched in ages). After this week, getting the apartment we want and the reception hall we want, I'd think someone's looking out for us upstairs! ;)

Anyway, it's definitely time for bed. I don't have any layouts to share, but maybe tomorrow I'll have some time to scrap. I'm stocked up on products I NEED to use, especially from the ScrapArtist sale this weekend! Oh, and now that Holly's fully self-employed, she'll be on fire with the rockin' kits! Yea!

Goodnight!

Three posts in two weeks!

I'm on a roll! Okay, not really. I do have some layouts to share, though. :)

I'm glad the weekend is here, though the past week didn't seem that long. Tonight, Dan and I had a hot date night! Well...maybe not so hot, but a nice night together, hehe. We've needed it with our busy schedules and faces glued to computer screens. You realize I'm saying that as my face is glued to the computer screen and he is playing a video game. Riiiiiiiight. We had dinner, went to Target to do some shopping for a baby shower I'm going to on Sunday, and we watched The Family Stone when we got back home. I thought it was pretty good. Actually, the tears streaming down my face during half of it would probably indicate that I thought it was pretty good, but I'm a weenie anyway so tears don't say much.

I scanned in several pictures yesterday so I could put together a couple layouts I had in my head. I am in love with this stack of baby pictures I have of myself. I seriously crack up everytime I look at the expression in some of those photos! You'll see what I mean in the second layout. The first page I did indicated a huge milestone in my life...my first real job, lol. I scanned in my work badge and went to town on it. The second page is definitely one of my favorites. I can't believe the laughter pouring from these baby pictures, I absolutely can't stop looking at them!

[THE REAL WORLD]


Credits: Holly McCaig's Glory Days kit at Plain Digital Wrapper. Stitch also Holly's from her Spring in St. Louis kit, painted alpha by Rhonna Farrer, and torn paper action by Atomic Cupcake. Font is Pea Jenny Script.

[SWEET BABY LAUGH]


Credits: Holly McCaig's Shabby Retreat kit, amazingly fun!, at Plain Digital Wrapper. Torn paper action by Atomic Cupcake and stamp alpha by Nancy Rowe Janitz. Font is Pea Jenny Script (can you tell I'm obsessed with this font - it looks like my handwriting!)

So how crazy is Big Brother? Kaysar is HOH?! I wonder who he's going to go after now...Dr. Will and his business-buddy Boogie better watch out! I wonder if Howie would fight for Will to stay in the house since he has a little crush on him?

Until next time...goodnight!

Two posts in two weeks!

At least it's better than one a month, right? This one won't be quite as long, hehe!

First of all, I made a mock-up of my save-the-date cards! Now we just have to figure out the rest of our guest list to get a head count, and take the cards to Kinko's to be printed. Behind these white cards will be the cute purple and green patterned paper I bought at the scrapbook store a few weeks ago. Ribbon shown is by Shabby Princess, but we'll be tying different types of green and purple ribbons on the cards.



Other than that, I've been trying to organize my picasa lately. I had it organized at one time, but haven't kept up on it during downloads and such. I've been renaming almost all of my folders, which I think is done, and moving things around, etc. Now I just need to add tags like I want for random searching. I really like how the newest beta version can search for colors!

What else...I'm addicted to Digishoptalk now. I just keep checking back at the forums to see what's going on, like it's an illness, lol. I'm proud to say that I have two layouts uploaded to my gallery there, too. I'm starting with most of the ones from my last post since they are the latest and greatest! I also started a thread on the forum to find chickies that live around me so we can meet each other and possibly do some scrapping!

I think that's it for tonight because I'm zonked! I start work at 6am on Wednesdays and it kicks my butt! Goodnight!

Yes, I'm alive! (VERY long! )

I've seen a lot of blogs with that title lately, but it's true! In the last month I've been getting used to my new schedule...no school or homework, but working 40 hours a week...and blogging hasn't been included in my evening activities yet. I would blog while I'm bored at work, but since our web activity is logged, I'm a little afraid to do that! :) I am alive, though, and hopefully I'm here to stay! I think this entry calls for headings, it'll be a LONG one - just a warning.

SCHOOL STUFF
By the second week in June, I finished my Master's paper and it totaled 40 pages! I graduated on June 10th, and four other girls in my group were also walking in the ceremony. I only expected one other girl to be there, so I was shocked when I found out the others were there too! I still can't believe that I'm not taking classes or teaching right now. I come home after work and feel like I have to work on my paper or grade something. It is nice remembering that I don't have to do those things. Here's a picture that was taken before graduation...

Some hot Communication M.A. girls


WEDDING STUFF!!
Yes, I have wedding info already! Not a lot, but some, lol. We have our color pallet picked out already, heck that was the first thing we did! I really love these colors, and they were inspired by a bouquet in one of my wedding magazines. My favorite color is purple, so we HAD to have that color in the pallet, and Dan's favorite color is green. I really like the olive greens, but I'm okay with mossy greens, too. Those will be the main colors, and then we picked light hues of yellow and blue to be accent colors. Dan's second favorite color is blue and mine is pink, but we thought that a lot of weddings use pink already and we were inspired by that bouquet. Since we'll be having an end-of-Spring/ beginning-of-Summer wedding, I think these colors really scream fun (as if colors could scream). So, here they are...in all of their Photoshop Pantone-color glory.



A couple weeks ago my mom and I went to Archiver's and bought supplies to make save-the-date cards, too! We ended up finding some adorable packs of purple and green patterned and solid papers, and I thought they would be perfect to go with the color theme. Though I keep wondering if I should make my cards digitally, or just make simpler ones. I'm terrible with decisions! Dan and I have an idea of the invitations we'd like to get, but now we need to decide whether we'd like to make them ourselves or buy them professionally.

In other news, we also have our church booked for the ceremony! I'm really exicted that this is done already, but we did run into some problems booking it. First, we had to go to an information session about having one of the pastors perform the ceremony (we have many at our huge church) and/or booking the new chapel. Dan had already been talking with the coordinator that week who said that the day we wanted was totally free. The information session went really well, and afterwards we were talking with the director/pastor that ran the session (Steve). We had some questions about us living together and the ceremonies in general. While we were talking to Steve, another guy came up and wanted to turn in his request form and deposit for the chapel. His fiance couldn't make it that night, but she told him that he HAD to turn in the form that night to request their date. He said something like this to Steve, "My fiance wanted to make sure I turn this in tonight...we're looking at a Sunday wedding next year, around 5:00 if possible...it would be Memorial Day weekend." WHAT?! That's OUR day! Argh!

In the end, Dan talked to the coordinator again (who contacted the other couple), and we will have our ceremony at 2:30 while the other couple has theirs at 5:30. They already had their reception booked, so they couldn't move their wedding back any further. So, we were fortunate enough to get our date, and I'm happy about the time! When the ceremony and other stuff is finished and we get to the reception site, it'll be about 4:30 or 5 - just in time for dinner.

Also, my sister is a wedding planner. Even though she lives in California, we've been able to ask her questions and get some awesome planning worksheets to use! I'm sure she'll be an invaluable resource for us.

RANDOM STUFF
Check out these adorable pictures I found in a stash at my parents' house. I've been getting all of my childhood pictures from them to scan and scrap. You've probably seen some of them on layouts already, but there are hundreds to go. These pictures were actually pretty faded, but my scanning software fixed it right up with one click! The first one is one of my daddy and me, and the second one is a look that my parents say I always made as a child. There's another picture of me that puts me in stitches everytime I look at it, but I can't find it right now... hmmm.

My daddy and me in front of an indoor train display


My mischevious look, LOL!



SCRAPPING STUFF
If you've made it this far, I'm impressed. In the last week, I've managed to do a lot of scrapping! It's been such a release to be able to scrap and be creative again! I thank my cutie for being tolerant of it, but he's also been able to play his video games...somehow I don't think he minds, but I'm sure he wants me to spend more time with him and less time on my computer. If you want to check out the credits to these, go to my gallery here. My style has evolved and I'm really loving it! With all of the new embellishments coming out like office supplies, paint, and freestyle stuff, I think my layouts are much more free. I used to love having structured layouts, but not anymore.

This first one I started back in April for the Chick's Life challenge. I just got around to finishing it - the prompt was "Your age" - but now the journaling is a little outdated. :) I guess I need to make a new "24" page now, lol.

[24]



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I love the kit for this one! I used Holly McCaig and Kristin Cronin-Barrow's All About Me kit, and it's so fun! These pictures were taken exactly one week before Dan proposed at Niagara. We were at my brother's graduation party and he asked permission from one of my older brothers and my dad...boy was I in the dark!

[Happy Couple]



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This one is also for an old Chick's Life challenge, for the prompt "About green." Since my mom's birthday is in May and her birthstone is an emerald, wa-la a title was created!

[My Emerald]



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[Master's Graduation]



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The next two aren't in my gallery yet since I maxed my allowance for the day, lol. I love these, though, and they're the first layouts I've been able to do of my Niagara trip. These make up a double-page layout.

[An Engaging Dessert]





In case you're wondering what my long story says, it's just the engagement story that was written in my previous post. I'll have these up in my gallery in the next couple of days if you want to check out the credits...frankly, I still need to figure out what they are! :)

Oh, and if you haven't heard about Plain Digital Wrapper yet, go check it out! It's awesome! There are so many designers in one place!

Okay, I warned you that my post would be long, so if you're STILL here then I'm really impressed! Thanks for reading everything, and taking a look at my latest layouts! I hope everyone in the states as an awesome July 4th and takes tons of pictures to scrap!