Not in the wedding budget...

Exhibit A (and yes this picture was taken in the McDonald's drive through):

No, that is not a white wire.  That is a crack that has been developing across my windshield over the past week.  It started began as a tiny rock chip in the top corner and has grown in length to cover almost half of my windshield.


Ugh.  Not part of the wedding budget at all.  Since I am new to the whole "replace the windshield," I really have no idea how much this big 'ole crack is going to cost me.  The last time I had a broken window in my car, I traded it in and got a new one.  Car, that is.


Don't think that's in the cards this time, but can't help but think about what I would upgrade to this time around.


Wishful thinking.

Voters Choice

I bought two new dresses tonight - one will be returned, the other will be an outfit in our upcoming engagement pictures.  Voters choice!  I will wear the one that gets the most votes: please leave them in the comments section.


Option #1 - one shoulder white cotton dress with belt (eyelet cotton lace)

Option #2 - ice blue dress with lace embroidered shoulders

Excited to see how this turns out!  You will have to wait until I post engagement pictures to find out!

White Teeth

I love the feeling when I open the Groupon daily deal and it looks like it was hand selected for me!  Yesterday... I had some pretty tough feelings about how Dr. Pepper has stained my teeth over the past few years.  With engagement pictures coming up in less than three weeks, I was getting worried that my teeth would look a little dingy.  The (good) whitestrips are about 40 bucks a box and even then, it's only a temporary white.

Lo and behold the Groupon daily deal!  29 bucks for over 150 dollars worth of teeth bleaching, complete with trays, gel, and light (just like the dentist uses!)



All that being said, I did a little research and after finding the FDA approval, I was sold.  Big step for this bride - teeth bleaching!  Limit one per customer...  Guess I will be shopping for this again once September gets here!

Still pondering whether or not to post before and after pictures.  Thoughts?

Things That Make Me Sane

Things that make me sane #1: Baking things.


Point totals for today - loading dishwasher (2 points), cleaning kitchen twice (4 points), straightening up bathroom (1 point).


How do I spend my hard-earned 7 points for the day?  Cheesecake stuffed strawberries.  All the nutrition of a fresh strawberry combined with the indulgent cream cheese mixture seen below.  It was a bit of a messy process: core strawberries, stuff, roll in crushed graham crackers...  But the end result was pretty darn tasty.  Observe for yourself:

Dee-lish.

Fro-Yo and the Point System

I feel like the title of this post could be attributed to a small ghetto child and an unfortunate system of earning good behavior in a failing school system...

I have a small confession and then I will offer a solution to the problem.  I have new (and strong) addiction to frozen yogurt.  I don't know why I harbored such animosity to "yogurt" before now.  Actually, it's probably because I am such an ice cream lover and any low-fat version of that could not possibly be as good as the real deal.

So it was by pure divine intervention that I discovered a new fro-yo shop next door to my local Publix.  Here's the real issue: the toppings.  The yogurt is amazing (tahitian vanilla, triple chocolate, sea salted caramel pretzel), but the real kicker is the fact that they have those pink and white frosted animal crackers with the sprinkles in them.  Need a visual?

Not fair to this dieting bride-to-be.

So what is the solution here?  Do chores and exercises to gain points to cash in for fro-yo.  My friends will have to chip in and hold me accountable here... (how 'bout you fellow reader!)

For example, I came home tonight and vacuumed all the dog hair off the carpet in the bedroom.  Five points!  Also, I opted for a sugar-free, calorie-free soda at lunch today, one point!  What is the fair amount of points to earn for a cup of low-fat fro-yo (with the aforementioned necessary toppings)?  Ten points?  Feel free to leave your suggestions on point values on this post.

I'm up to four punches on my fro-yo frequent customer card.  Shouldn't there be a big reward for filling up that little ray of sunshine??

Hot Pants

I love Groupon: love looking at the outrageous deals and laughing at the deals that make no sense at all (best one this week: 120 for 200 dollars worth of Irish meat... do people really buy this stuff?)

Needless to say, I got suckered into this particular deal this morning and actually made my first Groupon purchase:

26 bucks for a 70 dollar pair of athletic Spanx: good deal?  The caption at the bottom of the ad stated that it makes you sweat up to 80% more than normal in order to increase lymphatic drainage.  Lymphatic drainage is apparently necessary in getting rid of cellulite (which this girl needs!)  Sounds disgusting, but when I took into consideration that it works while you sleep...

"HotPants discreetly slip beneath work dresses and footie pajamas"--direct quote...

I was sold.  Here's to literally sweating my butt off.

Mistakes already?

Well, I'm not off to a very good start.  Ryan and I made a promise to get ourselves in better physical shape before this wedding.  He has meal planned and joined a gym and is already losing weight.  How do I contribute to this plan?

Left to my own demise, I found that the pantry just "happened" to have the ingredients for homemade chocolate chip cookies.  My extra additions included walnuts and sea salt.  Gulp.  Going to regret this later... but for now, indulgence is calling.

Let's Try This Again

So here goes.  I'm giving the blog world another attempt because I feel like I finally have something worth reading that might be to the masses.  My unsuccessful previous attempt was a detailed description of my somewhat (okay, very) uneventful life.  Now, as a bride-to-be, I feel that my efforts to become a "wife" will be something fun to read later down the road.  Additionally, I hope that it will be fun for my readers, few as they may be, to stay up to date on my wedding planning woes, making exciting honeymoon itineraries, and maybe even some deelish pre-wedding meal planning that will result in my wedding dress being altered down to nearly half its size.  Wishful thinking?  I "think" not.


Ryan's comments on my becoming famous as a result of this blog:


"You're already famous to me."


And that, my scattered readers, is why I am marrying him.  Love him for being so encouraging to me, even in the most trivial of endeavors.


And also because he can cook better than anyone I know.