A brief history of blogging

For people who've been following me FOREVER on this blog (when did I start? 2004? I think that was when this whole internet fad hit the nurse's station at camp.)

Anyway, you've been with me through xanga. (Dang. Remember xanga? Is anyone on xanga anymore?)

Then you followed me to blogger, into The Puzzle Box. We stayed there for a few years, before I dwindled a little bit on the blogging. You know, there was a lot going on then. Graduating college... and... hmmm... the heck did I do after I graduated college?

Not sure. I didn't write it down. But six months later I started another new blog. That blog is this one here, though back then it had a different name...

What's Your Story? was soooo 2008. It was simple. Fun. I really got into my groove that year.

In late 2008 I discovered the amazingness of Spring Awakening. And one of their songs inspired both my 2009 goals and new blog:

Nope. I didn't do sadness that year. Mostly because in January 2009 I re-met the OSF, and you all know the rest of that story.

Halfway through 2009, I realized, hey! My header's kind of dark. I need to change it up a bit:

I guess this would be called 2009 2.0? The name of the blog was still Don't Do Sadness, just with a lighter, friendlier look.

Then this year I switched it up to the blog you all know and love:

So what's in store next for the smallblondeone's blog? Well, it's been awhile since I changed up the URL, and I was thinking since I'm getting married and starting this whole new life anyway, anyway, then maybe I'd just go ahead and start a whole new blog for these crazy new adventures?

Things. They are a changing.

Be prepared.

2010. A new blog.

The adventures of thesmallblondeone... the married years.

25 day countdown

At 25 days left (25!), here's how our evenings normally look:

He + computer ( + beer) = last minute wedding design.

She + computer ( + extra large coke) = math, math, and more math studying.


25 days!

"Napoleon goes over plans for world domination"

Alternate title: Chris pours over plans for wedding domination, 2010.

Photo Booth

Chris and I spent a lot of time in the garage yesterday, going through all our accumulated wedding stuff. The month countdown has come, and we're making our lists and checking them twice. Guess what? We're almost there. Pretty close anyway. And the weekend was very productive getting some forgotten or last minute items. We sorted things into categories (i.e., cake table, guest book table, candy bar, photo booth...), and played with some of the new items...

28 days to go!!!

Packing it up.

Due to the late arrival of summer this year, and the atrociously hot temperature in our townhouse these days, the only time I can pack without wanting to to die is times like this. Three a.m. Three a.m. has found me on the last few nights boxing up scrapbooks, clothes, and old memories. Seriously, I have lots of old memories. Like, bins of old memories. They range from photo albums to old camp staff notebooks to boxes of pictures to stuffed happy birthday bears. I am amazed at how much of my "stuff" is in the form of memories.

(I'm also amazed at how much underwear I have- certainly more than one person needs, and this is not helped by last week's bridal shower.)


(Can I talk about underwear on here? Will you guys stop reading if I do?)


(Please don't stop reading. I'll go back to talking about normal things here.)

So I've been sifting through my memories. And boxing up my present. And the future? It's kind of up in the air right now. Besides the obvious changes, that is. I'm marrying an amazing man. I get to spend the rest of my life with him. But where we'll spend our first year? What our house will look like? When we get to settle into our own space? That's all TBD. For now, we just know we'll make do at the condo, most of our things packed away in the garage for the real move. Whenever and wherever that will be.

We are at exactly 30 days now, and it's still so hard to believe that in just 30 days, everything will change. As I sit here on my bed, looking around at my half naked room, it's hard to imagine that in 30 days I won't be roommates with Jenna, Brittany, and Jen. I won't be waiting for Jenna to finish up in the bathroom at night so I can go in and brush my teeth. I won't stay up late watching Friends episodes with Jen. And I've seen so much of Brittany these past few years, what with living and working together, but 30 days from now I'll be gone and she'll have started her new job.

It's all so weird.

Also, weird? I get to live with a boy.... weird.

I now dream in numbers.

You know how bilingual people are often asked, "What language do you dream in? English or Spanish? French or Italian? Tagalog or ASL?"

Well, I have a new language to dream in: Numbers.

Apparently I have done so much studying for the math CSET recently, that the numbers have seeped into my head and begun setting up camp to come out in my subconscious. While my brain should be resting.

The night before last I had a dream that I was calculating direct and inverse variations. There was nothing else in my dream but me + math. And I was super intent on these problems. It was imperative I finish these problems, fast, or someone was going to die or something. To my surprise, I suddenly found myself awake, sitting up in bed, still fervently trying to divide out 7 for the constant of variation, k. After a couple disorienting moments I realized 1) I was in bed, and 2) I did not have to finish the math problem. Everything would be okay, even if I didn't solve for k at this particular moment.

It was highly amusing.

The moral of the story is this: The CSET is taking over my life.

(In fact, I've got my headphones on right now while Jeeves whispers sweet nothings of matrices in my ear.)

My first ever bridal shower

Sunday was my birthday! And as is tradition at the Woodman classroom, we had a celebration!

But not just any ol' birthday celebration, mind you. I was surprised with a birthday/bridal shower luncheon on Monday!

My co-workers seriously rock. No wonder Woodman is the most coveted classroom.

So I headed into the kitchen around 12:15, prepared for my birthday lunch, as as I rounded the corner I saw... (da, da, da!)... a Victoria's Secret bag. And I was all, "wha?" and Brittany was all, "welcome to your birthday bridal shower!" And I was all, "the guys are leaving, right? Right?"

Nope. The guys stayed.

We had a big ol' potluck with lumpia, fried chicken, couscous, a fruit bowl, and two cakes... one of which was my favorite Hans & Harry cake.

Brittany even facilitated bridal shower games to play! She passed out clothespins to play the "you may not say the words bride, groom, wedding, dress, or Chris" game. I lost real fast on that one, using Chris' name of course. But Dave ended up winning his very first bridal shower game from it.

We also did the "how much do all these things cost?" with a bag of cleaning supplies... I was exactly $1 off that game, P.S., with a guess of $16.76. Darn that Rachel girl for taking that prize from me.

(But it's okay: I got to keep all the stuff in the bag. Chris and I will have a clean house!)

Co-workers Lora Lae and Baby Rachel (Woodman inside joke):

Our resident math wiz, Domingo, hanging loose at the shower, and sporting his clothespin:

Michelle, who is my specific teacher, and who is amazing!

Me opening up various presents and cards. I got a birthday card signed by the students and a special card delivered by two of my favorites, plus the Woodman staff card. I was a little, ahem, wary of opening my Victoria's Secret bag in front of the guys, but Michelle assured me it was fine. In it was a gift card... thank goodness. ;)

I also got something from our registry: our two glass mixing cups. Our kitchen is well on its way. And, my fellow scrapbooking co-worker Lora Lae also gave me an adorable scrapbook for wedding pictures, in our specific wedding colors! Loved it!

But by far, the best picture of the day goes to Baby Rach:

Thank you, Woodman friends! I love working with you all and couldn't ask for a better place to spend the majority of my day!

It's [almost] my birthday!

Thought you all should know. :)

We are getting quite popular.

As photographers, that is. Got an impromptu shoot tomorrow with Chris' little cousins from Europe, as well as maternity shots next week for another member of Chris' extended family. Not to mention our pending family picture dates with the Aubreys, Holzes (Melody? Is that the plural of your last name?), and Bests. And then we're going to have to go on hiatus from taking and editing pictures to go take and edit our own on our Hawaii vacation.

Tonight we're working on pictures from Kayla and David's wedding on July 17th. We've been playing around with some softer effects, which is definitely new for me, as I tend to go very sharp and contrasty. But it's also super fun trying out some new stuff, even if trying to maintain the style all the way through is proving quite difficult.

I'm still working on my set (I take a lot of pictures), but Chris has finished his and is now setting up his most recent blog to showcase. His pictures are amazing. I really truly love that we share this passion together- it really makes spending hours and hours going through pictures so much better when there's someone next to you doing the same thing. And it never hurts when you look up to find him looking at your screen in admiration at whatever photo you're on. :)

Anyway, if you want to see some great wedding pictures (especially the first one- I pretty much fell in love with him all over again when I saw that first one), check out my almost-husband's latest blog. (And, yes, that is a new blog site he's using- read his previous post about breaking up with blogger to find out why he switched.)

45

And that's all I'm telling you.

:)

Tuesday was an emotional roller coaster.

It really was. First my car broke down again. Chris had to come rescue me at the school's Old Town office. I started crying when he came to get me. I hate that my car just randomly dies on me. It makes me nervous to drive, and that's a sucky thing to be nervous about. I hate that Chris had to take time out of his work day to come get me, even though I know he didn't mind.

(I also hate the bill for fixing my car, which my wonderful pre-husband took care of without batting an eye. I love my pre-husband.)

Then there was family stuff that Chris and I talked about on the ride over to Goodyear. And I cried again.

Then we got the bill, and I told myself I would not cry.

Then on the way home, Chris said, "This'll cheer you up." And he pulled out our brand new, just printed, beautiful, wonderful guest book from the backseat of his car.

It was really beautiful and wonderful. Chris designed it, and while I at first gave him a hard time for all the extra work he was putting into it, I'm so glad he went with the inspiration. It looks amazing, and I know everyone's going to love answering the prompts we picked for the pages.

Then we got back to Chris' and made dinner together and talked about more family stuff and I was getting all emotional again, until Chris came downstairs and instructed me to close my eyes, that he had a surprise. I did. When I opened them, he was holding his phone in front of my face, with this picture on it.

And seriously, how can you be sad when you see this cutie in her flower girl dress? This is the first time we're even seeing it in real life, and it looks awesome, if we do say so ourselves.

After that was a great chat with Sarah. Let me tell you something: Sarah and Chris video chatting is the best thing ever. I generally try to catch it on my own webcam, sneakily facing my laptop screen toward Chris and his computer because he just gets so darn funny and animated when he's talking with Sarah.


In fact... I just went back through some of my funnier videos of "Chris Chats with Sarah," and I decided maybe I'd whip up this little piece for the general amusement of our viewers at home.

Mmmmm... that makes me feel better.

46

We are packing up to wazoo over here. And over there. At both of our places. In the hopes we will have a place to move into by the end of this month.

We're still not sure if the whole house is going to work out for us, but we know God's going to work out something for us eventually. And if we have to live at Chris' condo with roommates for awhile, so be it! At least we'll already be packed when it's time to go to our own home!

Mail Call

Okay, so now that we're less than 50 days out, this whole wedding thing has started getting pretty exciting. For instance, we now have really fun mail on a regular basis. Yes, they are in the form of RSVPs, but you look at our awesome logo and tell me you wouldn't love seeing five or six of those postcards in your box everyday.

We (read: I) make a game out of it too. Either Chris grabs the mail on his way in or he hands me the key when he gets home and I throw some sandals on to go get it myself. Then we keep them upside down until Chris pulls up our guest ledger, and begin flipping them over one by one to see who's coming. So far, I feel I'm kicking Chris' butt in RSVPs from my side, but he points out that there are still a LOT more blank spaces on his to fill.

We've filled up about half our expected spots- now comes the point where we find out if we sent out way to many invites than we can comfortably seat!

House Update

You may have remembered this post from a couple months ago... yeah, we didn't get that place.

Here's what's been going on on the house hunting front.

1) We put an offer on a place in Chula Vista (the nice part, thank you). They already had an offer they'd just accepted. Boo.

2) We put an offer on previously mentioned place in El Cajon. We put our offer in the day after it went on the market. We offered $10,000 more than the asking price. We had the place in the bag. In. The. Bag.

Without going into too many details (since we are now so over getting incredibly screwed by Bank of America), the bank who owned the property passed it on to one rep to clear us to make our offer official. One rep. One clearance. Should have taken a day. We heard nothing for two weeks. Finally got a new BofA rep. He got our offer finalized by the next day; bank told us they accepted an offer just the day before. Bank of America's selling agent told us we even had a higher offer, but thank you to Miss Doesn't Do Her Job At all at Bank of America, nobody won.

(The moral of the story is if you try to buy a place through Bank of America, go in and sit in the office of whoever has your offer and stare at them until they do their job. This is my plan for the next time this happens.)


3) We found an A-freaking-mazing place that was CHEAP. Completely remodeled, amazing layout, high vaulted ceilings, everything brand new... we fell in love in one night, sent in our offer the next morning. They already had a cash offer, but the guy wasn't responding to a counter-offer by the seller. We offered $15,000 more. The selling agent made us feel very optimistic. Another one In The Bag. We waited out the weekend to hear the good news that we had the place.

This past Monday: They went with the cash offer.

I prepared myself for Chris and I have to have roommates for our first precious months of marriage.

4) We put another offer in on Tuesday, for a place we'd looked at while we were quite confident we would be getting the remodeled place. It was a great place, but we didn't really bother with it, since we were already pre-decorating our newly remodeled condo that was In The Bag. When we found out we'd lost the other place, Chris put in the offer just because... why not?

On Tuesday afternoon Chris called me: "Um, they sent us a counter offer."

Me: "What does this mean?"
Chris: "Basically if we accept it, we start the process of actually buying and no one else can beat us out."
Me: "Okay, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I've been hurt too many times before." (Dramatic hand raise to the eyes.)

We found out Thursday we got the place. It's a pretty nice 3 bedroom in El Cajon with a brand new huge kitchen.

BUT!!! I won't believe it until we have the keys. I went digging around online and found all kinds of horror stories. Allegedly (Chris' favorite word) we will close at the end of August and the place will be ours. Our main hurdle we foresee is that the place won't appraise for how much the seller is asking for it, in which case the bank won't give us the full loan, and the seller will have to be okay with dropping the price. Hopefully, the seller isn't completely blind and has looked at the comps in the area as well, and isn't really expecting what he's asking... if he is, then hopefully he'll realize that no one else will be able to get the full loan amount either.

In conclusion! We are in escrow. We could move in beginning of September. We could lose the place and have to start the search all over. We are not discussing where the TV will go, what carpet color we want, or the fact that we could have a library in one of our 3 bedrooms.

But crossed fingers and prayers and good thoughts are completely welcome!