Today

I'm awake in my hotel room... I went to bed late, but I slept well. My sister is still fast asleep... I can't stay in bed any longer. I'm getting married today! It's a wonderful feeling. :)

I'm off to shower and beautify myself for my future husband.

Hooray!

OMG! Do You SEE That Little Ticker Thing???

It says 3 days until I tie the knot. THREE DAYS!!!!!!!!

GAH!!!!!

I am 82 and a half hours away from being a MARRIED WOMAN! From having IN-LAWS! From having to check a WHOLE OTHER BOX on my taxes!!!

My wedding day has never, ever, been this close before! (It's true, think about it!) ;)

I'm off to shop for a dress for the rehearsal dinner and then to pick up a million things from Target and Jo-Anns.

I'm getting married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Most Delicious Sandwich Ever

Maybe it's because I've been so busy lately that most days I forgot to eat anything until about 2:30 pm - at which point I'm so ravenous that I usually just end up eating whatever is closest to my hand the second I open the refrigerator door - but I just ate what I have to call the worlds most delicious/easy sandwich EVER.

I have a LOT to do today (seating cards, chair sashes, presents for our parents, returns to Nordstrom, etc.) So I thought it might be a good idea to actually EAT something before I get to the point of almost passing out.

Sandwich Ingredients:
Sourdough Bread
Turkey
Havarti Cheese
Avocado

Directions:
Toast two pieces of sourdough bread
While bread is toasting, slice Havarti cheese and Avocado
Put cheese, turkey, and avocado on the toast and then stick the whole sandwich in the microwave for 30 seconds, or until cheese is just starting to melt.

SO EASY. (Toaster + Microwave = no skillet to clean!) And SO DELISH!

Enjoy - I'm off run about a million errands! (I'm Getting Married In FIVE Days!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Moving On

Here we are, 6 days before the wedding, Kyle and I have officially switched hotels. And switched all of our guests over too! Gah! What a logistical nightmare! But it's done and I'm moving on. P.s. If you happen to be one of my wedding guests and you HAVEN'T canceled your room at the Marriott yet - PLEASE CALL ME!

Whew.

Kyle and I are now in the process of writing our ceremony (a downside/upside to getting married outside of a church/temple/insert preferred house of worship here is that there really isn't any sort of "preset" ceremony to follow. On the one hand, the ceremony will end up being immensely personal - especially since it's Kyle's dad who will be performing the whole thing. On the other hand it's a LOT of pressure to write a meaningful/special/beautiful ceremony... part of me just wants to fall back on "for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and in health, till death do us part." You know?)

Other than the ceremony writing part, we're getting pretty close to being ready to go!
I picked up my dress from the seamstress and took it to the cleaners to get pressed. I booked a limo to take the bridal party to the wedding (and a drunk bus to take us all home!). I met with my florist one last time to go over all the flower details. I gave a final head count to my caterer. We got presents for our bridal party members. And Kyle and I came up with all of our must play songs (including Black Eyed Peas' Don't funk with my heart and Wilco's California Stars) and our do not play songs (including I will survive and any song that has associated hand movements/line dances - think YMCA, the Hustle, the Macarena, etc. In fact, I told my DJ that if he lets the electric slide break out at my wedding he won't be getting paid.)

Kyle's parents arrive tomorrow, my mom, step-dad, and sister will be here Thursday.

I can't believe it - by this time next week I'll be a married woman. Wow!

Oh Come On!

The saga with the hotel continues... what saga you ask? Oh right. I wrote (and then deleted) a whole long pity post about how the San Mateo Marriott RUINED my wedding by allowing some stupid convention to swoop in and book EVERY SINGLE AVAILABLE ROOM in the entire hotel (all 325 of them!) that my guests were supposed to be staying at. Leaving me with just the original 25 rooms I reserved. I specifically ASKED if I should reserve more rooms, but the stupid lady handling my block ASSURED me that they were not even close to selling out and that they certainly didn't predict a sell-out and that she would call me if anything changed. Well, they did sell out, and she didn't call me. In fact, she didn't even KNOW that her entire hotel was being taken over by a convention. She's absolutely terrible at her job and hate her with a white hot passion. Basically, half my bridal party doesn't have hotel rooms at my hotel now, and they're having to stay 2 miles away, and they'll have to take cabs back and forth all weekend. So annoying. This 90% the fault of the stupid-stupid hotel... but also 10% the fault of my dear friends who procrastinated like crazy and didn't even TRY to book a hotel until the very last second. (p.s. had they booked just a few days earlier all of this heart-ache would have been avoided.) Anyway - so yeah, I spent about week in woe-is-me land basically moping around saying nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms. And I wrote a big "why does everything terrible happen to me!!!????" post. And, upon finishing it, I realized I was being a whiny self-absorbed brat. So I deleted it. I'm (mostly) over the whole situation now. But ANYWAY - there is a reason I'm telling you all this back story...

As I said, the saga with the hotel continues. I was talking to the lady at the hotel (whose eyeballs I'd like to stab out) the other day and she says, "So I should probably warn you about the convention that is taking over the hotel" And I'm like, "k....." And she's like "Well... it's sort of like a comic book convention and a star trek convention mixed together... the convention goers are fans of these comics and they are VERY dedicated, and they tend to dress up in very elaborate costumes, and really get in to character. So I just wanted to warn you, so you weren't caught off guard." And I'm thinking, "Great, so while I'm taking wedding pictures, some dude dressed as batman will be sitting in the hotel bar. Awesome."

Oh well - it'll make for some good stories at the reception, right?

Well - I looked it up online today, and it turns out that the convention is actually none other than the west coast's one and only Y.aoi-Con - "a celebration of male beauty and passion in A.nime and M.anga."

*blink blink*

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY!!!???

Beautiful cartoon men, being celebrated... by people in elaborate costumes? WHAT???

Note that there is a whole section on the website that specifically points out that Yaoi, "which has become a catchall term to indicate any story that includes a male/male relationship and is linked to Japan", is not porn. Uhhhhh, the fact that they have to point this out, to me means that it is, in fact, PORN!! The website also points out that the convention is strictly 18 and over and that much of the material is very sexually explicit. Hello - PORN!!!!

Yes. On my wedding day, I will be sharing a hotel with 325 rooms worth of people (probably like 600+ people!!!) in elaborate costumes, coming together to celebrate sexually explicit cartoon Porn.

Kill me. Kill me right now.

You can read all about it right here: http://www.yaoicon.com/what-is-yaoi-/

Did you read it? Did you note the part about it being made by women, for women? Really? Guy on guy, by women for women? Really?

My wedding is in 9 days.... and my hotel is going to be filled devout female fans of Japanese, male on male, cartoon porn. And they're going to be dressed in elaborate costumes.

I couldn't make my life up if I tried.

We Survived!!

Success!!! The LCH (Large Haldron Collider) was turned on this morning!!! And no one died!!!! Which is a good thing, b/c my emergency preparedness kit DOES NOT cover what to do in the event of a microscopic singularity growing large enough to engulf the eastern hemisphere! You know?

And the craziest thing (next to not destroying the planet in one fail swoop) is that they'll need 60,000 computers to analyze all the data they'll collect from this nifty atom smasher!!! Can you imagine? Computers all over the world sifting through 15 petabytes of data each year trying to figure out how the universe started. Crazy! How much is 15 petabytes? Well... it's 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes!! Of data!!! Gah!!! So much data!

I can't be the only nerd who cares about this stuff... right???

Some People Just Don't Get It

Her: So what are you up to?

Me: Watching the Cal-Washington State Game

Her: Wait, didn't Cal JUST play a football game... like a week ago or something?

Me: Um, yes. Exactly a week ago... every Saturday... it's called football season.

Her: Really? EVERY week? Oh that's exhausting. I don't know how you keep up.

*sigh*

I've Always Wondered Where To Go To Pick Up My Fictitious Business Name

Hello Hello!!! I remember when I first got engaged, I really truly hoped that this blog wouldn't become all wedding all the time... little did I know that my LIFE would become all wedding all the time and wouldn't even have time to blog. Sheesh! In 20 oh so short days I promise to be back to blogging as usual... well... maybe after the honeymoon.

Anyway, we're getting down to the wire and things are finally starting to come together! Kyle and I went to the county clerks office and got OUR MARRIAGE LICENSE!!!!! (EEEEEEEEE!!!!!) We are now officially authorized to get married (EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!) Check out how cute we are... (and humble, no?)


Walking up to the counter... Fictitious business names????


Shelling out $78... Love may be free, but a license to wed will cost you!


Officially authorized to get married!!!!! Wheeeeeeee!

Also, as the RSVPs were rolling in I didn't think mail could possibly get any more exciting... (our "be there with bells on" RSVP cards induced some wonderful responses!) but then the PRESENTS started rolling in. Oh my! Kyle and I are now up to our ears in cardboard boxes and packing peanuts. And with the exception of one "what on earth were they thinking!!??" very off the registry gift, we've been thrilled with everything and absolutely floored by the generosity of our friends and families. But seriously? the cardboard boxes? OUT OF CONTROL! These are boxes we recycled just this weekend:


Oh so many boxes...

Also also, Kyle and I finally got our seating chart for the reception all worked out! And when I say Kyle and I got it worked out, I mostly mean that I fought with it for 3 days and cried and cursed and threw my hands in the air and told Kyle that everyone could just stand for all I care! And then Kyle took my laptop from me (perhaps for fear that I might chuck it at him), fiddled with the seating chart for about 30 minutes and Ta-dah! it was done. That man is a genius. I can't believe I get to marry him! :) So yay, my guests get to sit. Which is always nice.

Also also also (!three alsos!) We picked a cake!!! An amazingly delicious cake! Tiramisu flavored covered with white chocolate instead of frosting (I hate frosting.) My mouth waters just thinking about it... mmmmmmmmmmm.

So yeah - things are good in wedding land... I still need to find a make-up artist... and we need to finalize things with our videographer... and well, I guess at SOME POINT I should sit down and write my darn vows... but really, it's all coming together quite nicely if I do say so myself. YAY!