Necklace: $0 (bought in the Pearl District in NYC years ago)
Hair, Angie O’Neill: $100
Note: The cost of the dress fabric takes into account conversion from US Dollar to British Pound. Guess which one is worth more? Lots more? Were you to have this dress made with fabric bought in the US, you could do so for around $250.
The Groom – $380
Tie, Macy’s: $50
Shirt, Suit & Alterations, Macy’s: $180
Shoes, DSW: $150
Hair, Angie O’Neill: $0 (haircut given as a wedding gift)
Note: We could have gotten away with spending far less on beer (like, half) and we could possibly have had too much food, though I’m not certain since my mother took about 40% of it home.
Note: Rates for evenings are far more expensive, so we opted to host an afternoon affair at a savings of $1700. Also, it turns out people don’t drink nearly as much in the afternoon. Our wine bill (by consumption) came in a few hundred under budget and we had an insane amount of leftover beer. Cases of it. Votive candle holders we reused from my sister-in-law’s wedding. Toss ‘em in the freezer, pop out the frozen wax and voila!
Miscellaneous Expenses
Marriage License, Dallas County: $71
Invitations, Save the Dates and Thank You Notes, The Paper Guppy: Kindly donated by Maura at The Paper Guppy.
Postage, USPS: $150
Photographer, Mercedes Morgan: I won’t even tell you. Out of compassion, she cut us such a stellar deal, even driving from Austin to do it.
Minister, Neil Moseley: I believe it is customary to give the minister $100. We also let Neil and his wife Elizabeth watch our house and cat while we were on the honeymoon. You know, like as a tip.
Gas, ExxonMobil: One billion dollars. I kid. But seriously, the week of the wedding, I filled up my tank three times.
Please note that in general, dollar amounts have been rounded up and most include tax.
When people ask if the wedding was wonderful, I hear myself say, “Yes!” followed by, “mostly.” Mostly it was wonderful. Really wonderful.
The day was overcast and so we simply turned out all the lights and had the ceremony by candlelight. It was gorgeous. I walked down the aisle to Sinead O’Connor’s “In This Heart” and it sounded like a hymn (we recessed to Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore!” followed by Doris Day’s “Que Sera Sera,” in honor of my beloved Sarah Brown, who could not be with us).
We bought the flowers the night before from Whole Foods and made all the bouquets from fresh, bright hydrangea. Also gorgeous. The cake was a plain 8″ round from Society Bakery that I put a leftover bloom on at the last minute. I can’t imagine doing any differently. Central market made the fruit tray, Jimmy’s made the anitpasto. Both, perfection. My brother made the hot food and crustless sandwiches and they were exceptional.
Also exceptional was Neil’s officiating. The ceremony was short and so very touching. So personal. A benefit of having known each other since we were 15, I suppose. The Dork Lord’s mother provided the groom’s cookies (a surprise to my new husband who loves nothing more than his mother’s ridiculous chocolate chip cookies). They are crack. Sweet, sweet crack. That we forgot a cake knife and resorted to cutting the wedding cake with my brother’s switchblade (he’s a cop – that’s how he rolls. Also, with a gun in his crotch, but we didn’t require that) was undeniably awesome.
I’m about to launch a post – password protected – about the not-so-awesome parts of throwing a wedding, and should you feel inclined, drop me an email (sorry guys – I cannot get email addresses out of comments. You’ll have tosend me an email – click on the envelope icon up there) and I’ll send you the password. I figure, if I want to moderate the kind of response I get from unabashed public whining, I should simply moderate how public it is. You see.
Here, at last, as some photos, a la Mercedes Morgan. I will apologize in advance that the slideshow is in Flash. I meant to take time to learn some new technology to code something more iPhone/iPad friendly, but I ran out of time and steam. I hope you enjoy – as you can see by the photos (which are heavy on the candid, light on the posed), we certainly did!
Ta da!
(Aside 1: In retrospect, I should have whittled these down a bit more, but whatever – you’re bored at work! I know you are! Aside 2: My brother’s little girl – so effing cute. Aside 3: My maid of honor/sister is maybe the most beautiful person in any room)
So many, many thanks to everyone who made it wonderful and for all the well-wishing.
I stood there in the bank on Saturday afternoon wanting to leap across the teller desk and claw the bank manager’s eyes out.
I’d gone to the bank with two checks: one, a wedding gift, made out to the Dork Lord and me, two, the Dork Lord’s paycheck, signed over to me. We did it that way because, as a new customer, Bank of America has held his paycheck for ten. full. business days. I don’t have to tell you that being absent his salary for ten days was something akin to being kicked in the face. With boots made out out hot molten magma.
What unfolded was one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had with customer service. And in the end, I was left with the following explanation:
1. I cannot deposit his paycheck because they cannot prove that it’s really his signature on the back of the check. They have his signature on file, mind you, and I pointed this out very helpfully.
“Please just look at his signature,” I said. “I will happily give you his account number.”
No go, lady, sorry. Next.
2. I cannot deposit the wedding gift with my name on it because the Boy has not acknowledged, with his signature, that I have permission to deposit it.
“But, you just said you wouldn’t be able to prove it’s his signature anyway.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s correct. You will have to ask {insert name of brother-in-law} to reissue the check in just one of your names.”
“I can’t even aritculate how little sense that makes. I have deposited a dozen checks with both of our names on them through the ATM and have not had a single problem.”
“Yes, ma’am. You should track those. Those funds can still be rejected as fraudulent within the next two to three years.”
“Two to three YEARS?”
“Yes m’am. New policy.”
“This is crazy. Absolutely crazy.”
“I’m sorry ma’am. But good luck!”
And so here we go again. Ten more days without his salary and ten more days of wondering just where the hell I’m going to get the money to pull it off. I’d take my ball and go home but I gather that every bank on the planet is a nexus of stupid and that it would be a losing battle.
One of my favorite experiences on our honeymoon was meeting the owners of the villa we stayed at in Tuscany. It’s quite possible that there aren’t any two people in the whole world who are more genuinely charming. When we arrived at the villa, Riccardo was manning the fort on his own. Susan, his wife, was in Britain dealing with the death of her father, so Riccardo was going about tasks that, you could easily tell, were out of his normal jurisdiction. The meet and greet part was one of those tasks.
He fussed and clucked and zigzagged between the guest house and the villa, collecting forms and maps and towels and keys. Then he sat us down at table in the foyer to go over the details of our stay.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tilting his head to one side and studying me. “but ninety percent you look like chair.”
I only blinked. I looked like chair?
“When she was not old, of course. Very young with the long hair. You know, yes? Chair?”
I smiled. “Cher!”
“Yes. Ninety percent you look like her in the face.”
When I hugged Riccardo at the end our stay, it was mostly for that.
Once he’d finished with paperwork, shown us to our room and armed us with half a dozen hand drawn maps and far more information than we could process, he changed tracks rather quickly.
“The frigo! Come. I will show you where you keep your food.”
Like ducklings, we followed Riccardo through the foyer, down the hall and into a large, airy kitchen.
“The frigo,” he said, opening the door to a squat refrigerator. But before we’d even seen inside, he slammed it shut.
“Christ!”
The Dork Lord and I looked at each other, puzzled, both of us wondering what horrible, moldy mess must have overtaken Riccardo’s frigo. Did something spill? Was something rotten?
“These Australians,” he said, hands cutting the air with unspoken and unmistakeably Italian vocabulary. “They put red wine in the frigo!”
We smirked. And then Riccardo laid down the law.
“You go to the store, you get meat, cheese, chocolate. You can put anything you like in the frigo,” he said. “but not red wine.”
Eating a lot and spending money at the vet’s office. That’s really the most accurate summary of how I’ve been passing the time lately. Besides work. Which has been bizzzzy, but simultaneously boring, so let’s move on.
Hal stopped eating a last week. Insert days of nagging concern here. Because the last time we went through this and it took me far, far too long to notice, and resulted in hours of surgery and hundreds of dollars, I’m particularly honed to his kibble habits. So, two days after Midge went in for her Orphan No More check-up (2lbs 6 oz!), I wrastled Hal into his carrier and made the half-mile trip to our new vet. Taking Hal to the vet makes me feel physically ill. Because he hates it so much. It’s panic at the disco with a full set of claws after which he hides for at least a solid 24 hours. Forgiveness is hard earned after a vet visit – and I’m the one bleeding. Which is why I thought I was experiencing some sort of alternate reality on Monday afternoon when went about this whole business with complete calm.
Vet let him out of the carrier: complete calm. She checked his mouth: complete calm. He wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t freak out or bite or Ginsu knife anyone with his talons. She talked to him and petted him and he lay on the metal exam table in such a state of relaxation that she had to heft him up to prod at him with a stethoscope. His innards sounded fine, but she was mildly concerned there was something else at play. The ulcer in his mouth, while painful, was most likely not our culprit.
“Is he acting more lethargic than usual?”
“He’s a cat. How do you tell?”
“Fair. What about liquids? Is he drinking more water than usual?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t recall filling his water dish more often?”
“He… well, he drinks… out of the faucet. He comes and gets us, lures us to the bathroom, taps at the faucet and we turn it on. So, yeah, I don’t know that one either. I think I’m failing your quiz.”
“Okay, what about his personality? Has he been different?”
“He’s been pissed. We brought home a kitten. But come to think of it, he’s kind of always pissed.”
“Hmm. I think we’ll need to take some blood for anything conclusive.”
I conceded. So Hal calmly took a steroid shot for his mouth but the blood draw was a massive fail. I had to give him credit for even letting us talk about taking his blood within earshot and not calling on the powers of Chuck Norris.
Okay, enough cat talk. The lack of blogging combined with feline-centric content is starting to bug even me and I’m one of the most Content-to-be-Boring people I know.
We could talk about how I’m making a slideshow of wedding photos for you! Also of interest? I saw J in an HTC commercial on the big screen when we went to see a movie the other night. And my spinster sister (heh. I kid!) is getting married! We don’t get to go – it’s a big ole hurry since he’s a Navy man and getting shipped out to scary parts of the world and we haven’t recovered from our own wedding yet – but I’m gonna send a cardboard stand-in to be her maid of honor. Not that she asked, but I know any day now she’s gonna and I want to be prepared.
Oh man, oh man, you guys. I am toast. Yesterday was my seventh consecutive 12-hour workday and while it’s nice to know that all that overtime means a healthy paycheck, it also means that I haven’t had time to do anything else but wrangle cats and drool on myself.
Speaking of cat wrangling, Midge is an absolute, pure delight. Hal didn’t necessarily share that opinion and until about 72 hours ago, that cranky old bastard tried to kill her every time we turned our backs. I don’t just mean “used force to teach her lessons about who’s at the top of the food chain.” I mean, “dragged her down the hall by her throat” or “attempted to disembowel her with his fangs.” By the time I could rescue her, she’d be soaked in his angry, angry saliva. Regardless, that little fuzzball went back for more. Every. Single. Time. He’d hiss, smack, claw and bite and she’d hot foot it right back to him. Which, naturally, worried me because I’d seen that movie on Lifetime before. It doesn’t end well.
About three days ago, though, things shifted. Hal voluntarily climbed up on the couch to lay down with her. I glanced at the Dork Lord and we both shrugged and waited for him to realize what he’d done. And then eat her. But he didn’t. He just curled up in a ball and Midge… well, Midge rolled onto her back, whack! popped him in the nose and climbed onto the Boy’s lap to resume sleep. Somewhere in the middle of my amused shock, I swear I heard her say, “pwned!”
Lady friend has doubled in size in three weeks and I guess this is what happens when you weigh two whole pounds. You get to be in charge.
Because I am a glutton for punishment, I have rather unofficially assumed responsibility for Midge’s momma, too. Every day I feed her in under the bench on our front porch and we have conversations about life on the streets (she’s very vocal) and once or twice I’ve even managed to touch her ever-so-briefly. For a feral cat, she’s remarkably interactive.
Kittico, the cat rescue I contacted, said they’d be in touch about doing one of those trap-n-spays, but I’m guessing they’re over-extended because two weeks have gone by and nothing. Baby Mama is very young (8 months, maybe?) and I’d hate to see her get knocked up again before I can break that cycle. Obviously, we can’t take her in and she doesn’t want us to, but I want to do the responsible thing. I just can’t do it by myself. I don’t have the physical means (i.e. a cage) or emotional fortitude (seriously, cannot do it. Can’t. I would fall apart) to trap a cat. I volunteered to pay for the spay and her shots and flea treatments, but nada. Like I said, they’re probably over-extended. I get it. But now what?
If you’re in Dallas and have any experience with this sort of thing, I’d love some help. Like I said, I just want to do the right thing.
Okay, that’s not true. We took four… maybe five? Essentially, the things that were awesome in Rome are pretty much a google images click away, so we didn’t bother. I think we got a shot or two of our ridiculously funny apartment with the rock hard bed and shower so tiny you couldn’t lift or lower your arms without turning off the water. That’s worth sharing, so I will check with the Mister to see if he has ‘em. The things that were awesome in Tuscany were impossible to capture – smells, tastes, long evenings on the patio with the Australians who made us laugh so hard.
I think another reason we didn’t take any pictures is that we got to share all of that magical stuff on the spot – Can you believe this view? Here, taste this. There was never any sense that we needed pictures – proof to take back with us. We were each other’s proof. Sappy, probably. But true. And typing that makes me think about a line Susan Sarandon says in “Shall We Dance,” a delightfully cheesy ballroom dance romcom:
“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”
Anyway, Italy was wonderful and I will have stories and what few photos we managed to take later. Wedding photos are still rolling in, and while I figure out what to share and what to keep, I figured I’d share what might very well be my favorite picture so far. Because it’s us. The real, when no one’s watching, silly us.
We had been home from the honeymoon for exactly as much time as it took to sleep in our very own beds and stumble around our very own house in search of breakfast when I decided to go outside to water my withering petunias. I can be trusted to arrange care for my cat, but not to remember that I have plant life which also requires tending to. Oh, well. Nobody died. They just got crusty.
Quickly flash back to when we were scraping paint off the guest room walls a month ago and spotted one of the neighborhood’s feral felines with a kitten. It was just a puffball of a thing; could have fit in a tea cup. Naturally, I tried to snorgle it and was rebuffed in a low, snarly growl from its mother. The mother who, when I tried to feed its tiny offspring a bit of tuna before we left on the honeymoon, swatted its kitten away and ate every bit of food herself. Some maternal instinct! Anyway, I never got within ten feet of either mother or kitten – both were far, far too scared to partake of the fruits of my maternal instincts. C’mere you.
Now, fast forward to some plant watering when I see the kitten, still no bigger than a muffin, sacked out on the neighbor’s driveway, no mama in sight. I took a shot and called to her. And she came, trotting through the grass. More hungry than afraid, she stuck her little nose into my open hand. It took me a minute to realize she was mewing – her tiny mouth was open but no sound was coming out.
I scooped her up and pushed the front door open. Husband! We need food and water, STAT!
The kitten was all bones and fleas. I thought she might break in my hand. I thought my heart might break, too. The neighbor has been feeding strays for ages and yet, can let something like this go on? This kitten was starving right in front of her. Well, not in front of me. No way.
“Honey, would you be upset if I took her to the vet?”
Money being what it is, I knew committing to a vet bill wasn’t something I should just up and do without some discussion.
“Of course not.”
So the vet was called and an immediate appointment made and as we were headed out the door, the Dork Lord asked, “Wait, does this mean we just got another cat?”
“It means we will take care of her until she is better and we decide to find her a home or keep her.”
I wasn’t dead set on anything except not letting that tiny beast die on my watch. The vet pronounced her five to six weeks old, less than one pound in weight, and severely malnourished. She couldn’t even hiss when she got the most invasive of exams – too weak to make noise. He treated her for fleas and intestinal parasites, checked her heart and said that although frail, she would probably be okay. Come back in three weeks for a second treatment, he said, and if you decide to keep her, we can talk about vaccinations.
I didn’t think my husband was up for a second cat, I told him. But we’ll make sure she has a good home.
But then the Boy named her. And then he nicknamed her. And sang her rhymes about cat food and mean old Sir Hal. And watched basketball with her asleep between his feet. And that’s how Midge (short for Midget) came to live at our house. She may be another mouth to feed but it’s like the Dork Lord says, she pays us back in cute.
Hopefully, this bit of gorgeousness (love the color!) from Mercedes Morgan will tide you over until we return in two weeks! Thanks, Mercedes for patience and perfection. Friends and family – especially from afar – for showing up and making the day everything we hoped for. And to Neil for the most perfect wedding ceremony two very imperfect people could ever love.
Love is the particulars, the details, the specifics.
Love finds a place for an over-sized television.
Love is quick to laugh, and even quicker to console.
Love is supportive during exams. Semester after semester after semester of exams.
Love leans into the belt sander with both hands, and works into the night if that’s what it takes.
Love celebrates wit and embraces crazy, and tolerates moody pets.
Love even forgives dents and scratches on the car.
Love can let the second coat wait until tomorrow.
Love mourns and lets mourn.
Love supports changing jobs in the pursuit of satisfaction.
Love splurges on bathroom tile, cause damn it looks good.
Love endures idiotic shipping companies and celebrates the kindness of a seamstress.
And love is not stolen away even when lots of other things are.
The following photographs were taken either with an iPhone (the before/progress pictures) or at 2:00 this morning when we finally put construction materials away (the after shots) and thus 1) the light is really harsh or really, really dark and 2) I am way, way too tired to photo edit for color/light/blah blah. I’ve included some Before and After shots, as well as a slideshow with some progress shots, just fer kicks.
There are no pictures on the walls yet. I can’t bring myself to put nails in the walls. Also, I’VE BEEN BUSY, OKAY?
The Bathroom – Before
The Bathroom – After
What you should know: this was a total gut, with the exception of the bathtub, which I kept and refinished because of its quality. We moved the door over 10 inches to accommodate modern sized vanity (which I designed. There are sketches in the slideshow) as the original fixture was 10 inches too shallow. The color looks a little purpley here, but it’s not at all.
The Dining Room – Before
The Dining Room – After
What you should know: the dining room benches were also my brain child (and I love them) and one fine day, they will have cushions on them and my dream will be fulfilled. Scaled drawings of the benches are in the slideshow.
The Living Room – Before
The Living Room – After (sorry the light is so bad!)
What you should know: the greatest accomplishment in the living room is nothing you can see. Eliminating the dog pee smell required refinishing of the floors and window seat.
The Guest Room – During
The Guest Room – After
What you should know: We had not intended on renovating this room. However. I walked in one evening during renovations to find paint peeling off the wood paneling in this room. We had to strip, scrape and refinish which took hundreds of man hours. The design goal for this room was for it to be a sort of Caribbean guest house/B&B. It’s bright, cheery and a little cluttered. Goal achieved. I, uh, haven’t finished painting it (or refinishing that dresser, like I intended), but you get the idea.
The Hallway/Ceiling - Before
The Hallway/Ceiling - After
What you should know: *We removed an old, broken attic fan, repaired the ceiling, replaced the frame on the attic entrance, all the doors, baseboards, door frames blah blah and no one killed anyone else. MIRACLE.
* By “we” I mean, without the help of my almost-in-laws, family and the occasional friend (kisses, Amanda), NONE of this would have been possible.
AFTER the honeymoon I will get you some Master Bedroom & Office shots. They’re fun, too.
We’re getting married in five days – what a crazy, crazy feeling that is. Mostly because I’ve felt like we were married for a really long time, so I didn’t expect the legal bit of it to feel so… big.
I’ve made two trips out to the seamstress since Thursday and although the dress didn’t look a whole lot different from Thursday to Sunday, it did get things like boning in the bodice and a hemline. Inch by inch, we’re getting there!
Same with the house. I keep thinking I’ll be able to wrap things up, put away the tools (at least until after the honeymoon), mop the dang floor and take a few pictures. But the construction just keeps on keeping on. Tonight, no matter what, I will get the hallway sanded, painted and say enough. House guests arrive tomorrow.
I just told someone, “I’m getting married next Saturday.”
I’m. Getting married. Next Saturday. Well now, that’s exciting, isn’t it? It is! It’s also like, really soon. And as much as I’ve talked about things I need to get accomplished before May 21st, it didn’t exactly register that this is all actually going down. Finally.
Today I booked our final night in Rome (I’d been holding off to get a stellar deal on a hotel we couldn’t otherwise afford. It paid off – there will be a spa!), ordered the antipasto and fruit platters, confirmed pick ups for the wedding ring, cupcakes and wedding cake, finalized hair and nail appointments and then drank more coffee. It’s go time!
Tonight, I paint door jambs. Call me old fashioned, but house guests should have door knobs on their doors, I think.
Monday, marriage license. Tuesday, my maid-of-honor/sister arrives and then after that, my dad and a flood of siblings and their babies. E (or Ari for you FishBlog lifers) arrives Friday followed by more New Yorkers and some Bostonians. Somewhere in between there I’ll do stuff like run to Sam’s Club for napkins and tiny plates and toothpicks with fancy tops. Also, talk to the minister about the ceremony. We’re simple folk; we just want to say, “yep!” but even that involves a process. Then it’s the non-rehearsal rehearsal dinner and game on!
Among my last minute epiphanies came the realization that, when we were robbed, the Bad Guys got all my music – including the Wedding Playlist. So, uh, we’re gonna roll with what I have on my iPod. If we walk back down the aisle to Eternal Flame, it’s not because I chose it; it’s because WE HAD TO.
And on the forty-third day she rested. In fact, she got a massage. And she saw that it was good. Really, really good.
By the time the move was over Sunday night, I couldn’t lift my arms without all sorts of internal alarms going off. So, yesterday I made the executive decision that me and my aching back, we were going for a massage. I did the little, Can We Afford This? dance for a bit, but pfft! Can we really afford for me to be broken? I think not.
I feel worlds (WORLDS!) better. It’s been about two weeks since I could even bow my head and now I can look down at my feet and even check my blind spot like a real, safe-for-the-road driver. And my thumbs aren’t tingly anymore. Bingo!
There are still far too many unemptied boxes to go taking any “after” pictures, but I’m guessing by week’s end, I will be inundating you all with them.
T minus 11 days until the wedding. Supposed to have a fitting on Thursday – because if trying on the dress for the first time nine days before the wedding isn’t totally calm-inspiring, I don’t know what is. Rock ‘n roll.
Wedding Update
Cupcakes and wedding cake ordered. Ha ha yeeeah, I just did that. Like, 10 minutes ago. Can you tell how proficient I am at being a DIY bride? Le sigh.
As much as he swears it won’t be, I worry this whole event will be a letdown for the Boy, because as far as weddings go, it’s not very well… put together. The things I care about at this wedding are 1) that the people I love dearly are in the same room and 2) that we end up hitched. That’s it. Even the dress stress is strange – it’s really a product of getting my heart set on something that my head knows simply doesn’t matter. Not in the long run, anyway.
This marriage is hugely important to me; it’s no secret that my feelings about the wedding aren’t nearly so profound. What I do care about is what other people will think about how much I don’t care about wedding things. Disappointing people. It’s probably the biggest reason I didn’t want to do it. People judge things. They just do, even if it’s not conscious. And when it’s things that don’t matter – like what you do for favors or whether or not you went to the trouble of bedazzling your cocktail napkins – all I can do is throw my hands up and say, Eff it!
My actions clearly say something about my priorities. I may have just ordered the wedding cake, but the honeymoon has been planned for three months – right down to tickets for museums. And I’ve worked until midnight every night for the last four weeks to make our house homey. But somehow, I haven’t managed, in almost a year, to choose the wines for the reception or get all these new, bright silver hairs dyed for the photos. I promise I’ll shave my legs, though. At least to the knee.
Still no dress, by the by. Did I tell you that the seamstress said I’d lost weight? Yep. In my boobs. Since I first met with her over the winter, I lost an inch and a half off the bust and like, half an inch off the waist. Life is just mean sometimes.
House Update
The base is built for the dining room benches. Part of me is wishing I’d made one side a foot longer. Eh, leaves more room for an extra chair – and less for regret.
Office is painted!
I finished priming the Room from Hell (the one with all the wood paneling we had to scrape) around midnight last night which means tonight I get to paint the very last room in the house. The very last! And then I fall into an enchanted sleep so deep it will require the kiss of Timoth Olyphant to break the spell. What? That’s how these things work.
All the new doors are being installed RIGHT. NOW. Having run out of time and available staff (we, uh, might have broken the Dork Lord’s parents), we have hired a handyman to put in all the new jambs, doors, baseboards and trim. He gave us such a fantastic price (and every assurance he would be so gentle on our new floors), it would have been stupid to attempt that circus act by ourselves. I cannot wait to have a bathroom door. While the blue plastic tarp is lovely to behold, it’s not exactly made for privacy.
When I’m done with all this, I’m going to make a list of good experiences (J.J. in Home Depot’s Kitchen & Bath department) and bad (Coker Flooring’s sales rep who repeatedly asked to deal with my “husband,” and who seemed so surprised when I didn’t hire him) and lessons learned (if it’s plastic, it doesn’t belong behind a wall). Also, I’ll show you the sketch-to-completion development of our cabinets and storage benches, because of everything we’ve accomplished, that process was the most fun.
After an exhausting trip to the mall on Saturday, I have earrings and undergarments. Add those to the shoes lost somewhere in the packing mess and it’s almost like I have something to wear to my wedding!
My seamstress is an absolute delight and if you ever need services of that kind, I would recommend her in a heartbeat. She seemed momentarily concerned about the fabric remnants – they’re very narrow and in uneven lengths – and the likelihood that the dress could actually be crafted from them, but then she was all reassurances so I have put my worry away. For now.
The house is coming along. Or creeping along, I should say. These last few projects seem to drag and drag – especially with Sunday’s moving day swiftly approaching. But, the floors are now refinished a gorgeous dark walnut and there’s not a HINT of dog smell anywhere to be found. Success! While I wish we hadn’t been forced into the floor task (our refinisher said that while he and his crew were sanding, their eyes were watering from the smell), I cannot say that I’m not loving the aesthetic upgrade. Guh-orgeous.
The bathtub is also gorgeous. I’m so happy we kept it. Some bathroom counters and a couple of sinks would be nice, but I’ll content myself with a pristine porcelain surface on which to rest my tushie whilst I soak off weeks of construction grime. And drink wine. Out of the bottle.
Tomorrow, the replacement doors arrive and by Friday, all of the doors, baseboards and shoe molding will be in place. Not painted, mind you, but in place. I’ll paint them next year when I can hold a paint brush again without wanting to JAB IT IN MY EYE.
Tomorrow, the carpenters come to build the storage benches in the dining room. My original sketches were more complex than the finished product will be, but that’s what happens when you run out of money: value engineering. When the contractor called to confirm that I wanted them left unpainted, he seemed to question the sanity of my decision.
“There will be gaps that require caulking prior to the first coat of primer,” he said, leaving an amusing, patronizing pause between us.
“Caulking? What’s that?”
“…”
“Kidding. We’re prepared to prep, prime and paint. Don’t worry.”
“Okay. I wasn’t sure of the level of expertise here, but it sounds like this isn’t your first rodeo.”
“Mmm, well, this probably is our first rodeo, actually, but we’ve been on this bull for weeks now. We learned some things pretty quick.”
My realtor sent me the MLS for our home so I was able to download some “before” pictures. Then I’m gonna make a nifty slideshow so you can see the fruits of our labors! It’s funny how nervous I am about that, though. Dooce always gets downright nuh-asty comments about her decorating choices and we chose some pretty… specific colors and applied them rather liberally. Philipsburg Blue (Benjamin Moore), Bolero Red and Castle Path (both Behr). One house, three colors. And that’s it. Because we are nothing if not consistent… or really, really tired of sorting through paint swatches.
I’m getting married in three weeks and last night was the first time I felt, even in the slightest bit, like a bride.
Event planner, travel agent, project manager, bookkeeper, cleaning crew, construction worker, courier. Every day, an endless combination of roles – but never once bride.
“I know, I know, you’re trying to get out of here and I just want to play,” the seamstress said, smoothing my hair to pin a feather in it. “But playing is the fun part.”
She stretched a birdcage veil across my face and gave a self-satisfied, Mm hmm. “Oh, yes. That’s very nice.”
I looked in the mirror and tried very hard to imagine it all coming together. The pile of fabric on the daybed in her spare bedroom pieced together in an actual dress. The paint on my nails coming from a manicurist’s bottle and not a two-gallon jug of Killz primer. My friends and family in the same room instead of addresses on a reply-to-all.
It was brief. A quick flutter of excitement. Anticipation.The birdcage didn’t suit me, but it did something. I sighed and smiled.
Then there was a text message from the contractor, followed quickly by an auto reminder to send the mortgage payment, and blip! that something was gone. But for a minute, I got it. And it was sort of nice. Like playing dress up and having your sister braid your hair and making sweet, naive plans about the future. Really sort of nice.
You guys are so wonderful. Time and again you blow me away with your generosity. To those of you who have offered your beautiful dresses, you can’t know how deeply that touches me. Especially those who thought there was even the slightest possibility I could fit into a single-digit dress size. God love ya. Okay, maybe I’d make it into an 8 with some Spanx and a Gone with the Wind corseting – but when I tell you I have made zero effort to skinny-up for this event, it’s no joke.
My mother even offered to buy me a dress – and hooboy, that caused an even BIGGER meltdown. The idea of standing in front of three-way mirror in bad lighting, feeling squishy and pale while I try to make my body fit into a stranger’s idea of how a woman’s body should be shaped – holy cow, I’d rather prance around my new workplace in a bikini.
In brief, the wedding dress status is: the folks at the shop in London who had the fabric special ordered for me are going to send remnants and my seamstress is going to figure out how to make a dress out of them. My original order was for 7 meters; they had 10 made. So the left over 3, plus the few they had on the original bolt in their store will be sent via DHL tomorrow (it’s a holiday today in the UK) and arrive Thursday. IT WILL. I’m willing it to.
I’m going to answer every one of your emails, I swear – just give me until the middle of the week. Tonight is our last night in the house before the floors get done and even after I spent thirty-six hours working on that time suck of a house this weekend, buckets of chemical stripper and the four of us scraping and scraping and scraping, the task is still not quite finished. I can barely hold a pen, my hands are so sore. It will be worth it though, right? Of course right.
My wedding dress fabric was shipped from London three weeks ago.
It arrived in Dallas one week ago.
It has since disappeared.
The fine people at the US Postal Service have hung up on my fiance and failed to provide any information in addition to what we can see on the tracking screen.
It’s four weeks until the wedding and I don’t have a dress. Moreover, I’ve spent far more money than I planned ordering fabric that will likely never show up so buying something to take its place is not an option.
We have a toilet! When demolition started three weeks ago today, the toilet was the first thing to go, which then presented a problem when we had to go. Seeing that nasty old thing ripped out and sent away was pretty heartwarming, but its absence over the last couple weekends means that our renovation party has seen its fair share of the Home Depot bathroom, a facility one would be hard pressed to describe as sanitary. It only took me two squeamish visits to opt, instead, for the facilities at our local McDonald’s - a mite cleaner and a visit there always ends in soft serve. After a good hand-washing, of course.
But now! Now we have our very own toilet! A toilet I didn’t even notice until I’d been at the house for a couple hours. I’d inspected the taping and mudding on the walls and the new door frame but because I’d been so used to a gaping whole where the crapper once was, I missed the glorious addition entirely. What a happy discovery (happier once I remember to bring some toilet paper).
Tonight, I buy doors… because the doors decided to join the guest bedroom walls in spontaneously shedding their latex paint. Look, I don’t know who painted those doors or the bedroom walls and whether or not it was the previous owners. It could be a coincidence of timing, but I’ll admit I find it very suspect that we have our first hot, humid day and bam! it’s like a molting effing paint snake at our house. IF the previous owners painted as a quick fix for the sale, and they did it incorrectly (as evidence by the peeling), I can’t help but feel immensely disappointed. As a contractor, he would know better. Period. And yes, I bought the house from a coworker – and then quit. We don’t interact at all. Which is good because I am fuming and when fuming, deliver one mean stink eye.
Up next: tub refinishing, floor refinishing and – pending carpenter quote – banquette seating for the dining room. T-minus two weeks and two days til move in.
Last night, I showed up at the house to sand the final room in preparation for painting this weekend. What will eventually be our shared office was, in its previous life, the master bedroom. The purple master bedroom. The most common question I get when I show friends and family around the house has to do with the status of the previous homeowner’s… uh, man bits. That a grown ass man went to sleep every night in a seven year old’s My Little Pony dream room either says that he really loved his wife (who, clearly, loved purple) or he simply didn’t notice.
Anyway, when I got there, I walked through the house cleaning up the assorted painting supplies that were strewn about and when I passed by the guest room I noticed that SURPRISE! the paint was peeling off the walls. Paint. Peeling off. The walls. Oh, man, I sure do love surprises! This whole time, I’d been thinking that the guest room would be a breeze. A breeze! A lovely Caribbean breeze! Not some dirty, downwind of the dumpster breeze. As the only room with the original paneling intact, the walls we a far sight cleaner than the rest. But joy of joys, they were painted with latex paint over years of oil paint, either to test of my fortitude or because some really just didn’t know how freaking foolish that is.
Just how freaking foolish is it? Really freaking foolish.
Now I don full body armor and a mask and I scrape. Because I’ve been left with no choice. Most of the offending paint peels off in long, rubbery strips. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking the whole thing will work that way. Tonight will be interesting.
Did I mention that we have to be done by Tuesday? As in, one week from today? Oh ha ha, yeah. On Tuesday, the floor guys start sanding the every lovin’ crap out of the lovely hardwood that apparently doubled as a dog toilet for many moons. Those floors are going to be glorious when they’re done. At some point I’ll probably roll around on them naked just to commemorate said glory. In the meantime, though, I’ve sort of hit this cement wall. And the more I tell myself, “Keep going! You’re almost there!” the closer I come to a persistent vegetative state. I’m worn out (to the point I feel sad instead of tired). But also, it turns out, stubborn. So full steam ahead.
Ahem. If you’re handy with either a small electric sander or a putty knife, PARTY AT MY PLACE! Tonight. 7PM. Who’s with me?
Woke up this morning to an email from Google telling me my AdSense account had been terminated for invalid clicks and that any money I’d earned was being refunded to advertisers.
Well, that’s not good.
They don’t explain why, and per their Terms and Conditions they don’t have to. The strange thing is, over the last several weeks (content updates have been few and far between because someone decided to up and buy a house and take up residence at the Home Depot) ad clicks were way, way down. I mean, like fewer than half of the months before. So, I’m confused. Were all four of yesterday’s ad clicks invalid?
I’m also confused as to how I could have controlled invalid clicking, a task which their messaging seems to suggest I was in charge of. For as much as I’m a part of ye olde Interwebs, I still don’t actually understand a lot of it. Bots. Spiders. Whatever.
Anyhoo. I guess I can appeal, but the kicker is, how to appeal something I don’t understand? So. Looks like we’re rolling ad free – and I’m off to plan a bake sale. If only I were any good at baking.
