My Best Friend's Wedding, or How I Ended Up Wearing Slippers

I promised, and I aim to please. So, without further ado, here is the story you've all been waiting for (or not, but here's the story anyway). Could I have a drum roll, please?

Almost a year ago, my best friend of 27 years announced that she was engaged. A while after that, I was asked to participate in the wedding. Of course, I agreed, and the planning went on as you would expect, complete with dresses and shoes, flowers and rehearsal dinners, but not things like showers and bachelorette parties, because that's just not Kate. Our story, however, begins with the flowers.

The flowers, which were alstroemeria, also known as Peruvian lilies, were beautiful. There were also half a ton of them. Because we were making our own bouquets, Kate had ordered a LOT of flowers. We picked up three buckets of them from the florist's shop on Wednesday evening, which pretty much filled the back end of my car with lilies. We then stored them in her back room to keep the cat from eating the leaves before we were even ready to use the flowers. Fast forward through our girls' night out on Wednesday (complete with Jello shots we didn't end up eating),

through the (totally not worth it) manicures and pedicures on Thursday morning,

and through our lunch at the Greek restaurant (complete with saganaki - OPA!).

After all this hard work, we went back to Kate's house to assemble the bouquets before the rehearsal. We managed to get the flowers to the dining room without incident, and got the bouquets pulled together and taped. As we were putting the bouquets

and the bajillions of extra flowers back into the back room, I managed to catch my pinky toe on the vacuum cleaner. It hurt, but I didn't think that much of it - after all, I've stubbed my toes many times and been fine. Unfortunately for me, I had to put shoes on to go out to the car. At this point, I realized that this may not be just a stubbed toe. The minute I put my shoes on and attempted to walk, I was in excruciating pain. Knowing that I would never make it through the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and the afterparty at the pub like that, Kate and I made the third of four Meijer's runs of the week. I found a pair of flip-flops that were my size, as well as a pair of Dearfoams bedroom slippers (like these, only in black), because I feared the worst - that I wouldn't be able to wear the pretty shoes I bought to go with my dress. As it turned out, I was correct. It seems (and I have not gone to the doctor, so I may be way off base with this) that I have broken my toe, and so, instead of these: I ended up with these:

because my toe looked like this:

In the end, however, everything worked out. The cake and the bride were both beautiful,
Jill and I made her cry with our toast, which included a letter and picture from her sister and brother-in-law, who weren't able to make it to the wedding, and a good time was had by all, even Aunt Rose.

Congratulations, you two. I couldn't be happier for you.

And the Brillante goes to...

A very, very long time ago, when I still knew what a computer was and how to access it, Jeanne bestowed upon me the award above. The rules for the award are very simple:

• Display logo and link to who gave it to you.
• Nominate at least 7 blogs.
• Add links to those 7 blogs.
• Leave the nominees a message that they received the award.

Now that I actually have half a minute to breathe, I wanted to share with you my nominees. Without further ado, I'd like to present the Brillante Premio 2008 awards to the following wonderful ladies:

• Jayne, who is always my go-to person for the strange, unusual, and just plain weird side of the Internet. How she finds these things is beyond me... and I'm not quite sure I want to know. Don't look at the post about the Sour Toe Cocktails - that one is just scary.
• Jayne's sister, Nancy, who I wish would post more. She always has cute anecdotes and cuter pictures.
• Rita absolutely cracks me up sometimes. She is a gifted writer and has a knack for getting to the sweet side of the story. She also shares my passion for 80s music - does it get any better?
• I love to read Dawn's blog. Her creativity (as evidenced in the layouts and other projects she posts) is amazing! She also has great pictures and experiences to share on a regular basis.
• Suzanna's stories about her boys are so cute to read. She also has an amazing store at Etsy with beautiful wall decor - check it out.
• Last, but certainly not least, I have to give this award right back to Jeanne. I love the fact that she posts every day, not to mention that what she's posting are the most beautiful photos and layouts and the best stories. This woman is amazing, and I'm so glad to have found her blog.

That's it for this post, but watch this space. Coming soon: My Best Friend's Wedding, or How I Ended Up Wearing Slippers. I also have the results of a fun little music quiz to share with you, so don't touch that dial!

Check this out...

I know - two posts in one day, but I had to share this picture. Brian and I went to explore the wildlife refuge nearby, but since it started raining, we couldn't go on the trail. Before the rain really got going, I got out to take some pictures in the parking area, and caught this one. I've cropped it down to showcase the reflection in the water drop - I think this might be the neatest thing I've ever captured on camera.

Photo time!

Ok - I have a lot of news/updates to share, but don't have the time to do so right at the moment. I do, however want to leave some pictures from the past week in the form of not one, but two slideshows!



Brian and I took the nieces and nephews (including my sister-in-law and our newest niece) to the park one night last week, and of course I had to take my camera. These are some of my favorite shots from our trip there. We decided to check out the park near my parents' house, as they had just installed a new playplace. The kids had a great time, and so did we.



I've been meaning to get out into our backyard and take some pictures of some of our flowers and of the neighbor's hollyhocks, so when Brian told me the $.99 rose that I got from Menard's earlier in the season was blooming, I thought it would be the perfect time. While we were out there, we saw the two bunnies by the fence on the far side of the yard, and I was able to sneak a few pictures of them. Way cool!

In other news, my very awesome Cottage buddy Jeanne bestowed an award on me recently. I'll write more about it and pass on my compliments when I have time to do it justice. That's all for now, but watch for updates in upcoming days! Have a great day!

Happy Independence Day!!

Happy 4th of July to all my friends out there! We (as in Brian and me, along with his brother and sister-in-law and their 4.9 kids [she's due any day now], and my BFF Shelly) went to the Saginaw fireworks tonight - they were great as always, and we were able to get really great seats thanks to my having taken pictures at a parade earlier today for a friend who is running for sheriff. Evidently some of the people working with the campaign had planned to go to the fireworks, and one of the ladies that I talked to at the parade and her husband had been camped out there since 6:30pm and were saving spots for more of the volunteers. As we were walking up to the bridge where we were hoping to find seats, the husband saw me and told me they were saving space in the center of the bridge and to go on up and sit with them. It was very, very awesome - one of the things that I really like about Saginaw is that they don't just do the up in the air fireworks, they use a nearby bridge and shoot lower things off of it, and we were in a perfect spot to see everything. I took half a million pictures, but most of them didn't turn out so well. Some of the ones that did are in the slideshow above.

That's all for now - here's hoping that your day was wonderful, and your weekend is even better!

I was scrappy today...

With the June commitment club looming over my head at Cropper's Cottage, I realized that I had to get busy and do some croppin'. Without further ado, I present to you my two pages for the month.



This is a layout of some of the pictures I took at Kate & Kevin's engagement/bachelorette/friends and martinis party this weekend. We went to MGM Grand in Detroit and had dinner at the very good, but very pricey buffet, then gambled the night away. It looks like some of the gang hit the bar for martinis later, but Brian and I left early-ish in order to make it home that night, so we missed that.

These are pictures from Emily & Alaina's birthday party a few weekends ago. The kids had a blast playing with balls that were meant to be soaked in water, then put in a slingshot to throw at your friends and enemies, but we found they were easier just to throw. A good time was had by all.

That's all for this episode. Stay tuned for more wacky antics... when I have time to have some, that is...

Update on the squirrel...

So, I was talking to a coworker who lives in Town A, where I saw the very scary sign advertising ground squirrel the other day. She thinks that the store is not a meat market, but a pet store, which still makes me say "Huh?", since I don't think you're allowed to sell squirrels as pets, but does make me relieved, as it's not quite as scary. Whew...

In other news, Go Live is upon us. I probably won't be around much for a while, but I'll try to write as much as I possibly can. Have a great week!

Random miscellany...

So, if this works, this slideshow will show the long-promised pictures from the baby animal farm. If it doesn't, there will just be a big black box in the middle of my blog and I'll feel really dumb... Be forewarned... The last two pictures in the slideshow are from Cascade Falls Park in Jackson. Brian was able to come hang out with me in Jackson a couple of weeks ago, and we got to visit the falls. They are a man-made, concrete structure about 80 years old that are lit every evening from 8:30 - 11:00pm. There are steps all around them and you can walk up and around if you so desire. We went up, but came back down the same side, since the wind was blowing quite strongly and making the other side rather wet. I would definitely go back to the park - it was really interesting and very pretty.

And now for the next edition of things that are just plain wrong and/or disturbing. As I was driving home today, I decided to take the more rural route instead of the expressway that I normally take. Now I know why I take the expressway. The first thing I saw when I arrived at the first little town I passed through was a sign for a meat market or something like that advertising "Ground Squirrel". That, my friends, is not a market I would like to shop at. I have this mental picture of a meat counter with signs for ground chuck, ground round, ground turkey, and... ground squirrel?? What the heck!?!?! Anyway, after that incident, I continued on until I reached the next little town I had to pass through. In this town, they are apparently going to do some updating and will be conducting a "Sanitary Sewer Project". Excuse me??? What other kind of a sewer project would you have?? Luckily, I made it home without further incident, but the squirrel thing still weirds me out.

Sad, sad news alert... I've been battling a pain in my forearm for the last couple of weeks that was apparently set off during softball practice with some kind of weird throw, so I haven't been able to play in our games, although I did go in in a pinch the first game. However, when I throw the ball, it really hurts, which was my first clue that maybe I should go see the doctor. Well, I went yesterday, and she diagnosed me with tennis elbow. I have to wear a tennis elbow brace (which turns out to be a hard foam half-circle that goes on my forearm just under my elbow and straps snugly around my arm to keep the inflammation in one area) for the next 4 to 6 weeks while it heals. Oh, and no softball, either. HUH?!? I'm very disgusted with this - I played with a broken foot last year, but a mere muscle is laying me low this year? Humph! So, I'm on the disabled list for most, if not all, of the rest of the season. Sad, sad news indeed.

I'll leave you with a picture of Amanda on the rolly slide. She teaches with Mom and will be sharing the disabled list on our softball team with me this year, as she is recovering from back surgery. This picture was taken at the park we went to for lunch and playtime after the baby animals. Have an awesome week, and avoid the ground squirrel!

Countdown to Chaos...

Well, we are officially going live with the new system on July 1st. I'm glad - I don't think we would have handled any more delays very well, but on the other hand, the upcoming Go Live means that for the next few weeks I don't have a clue whether I'm coming or going - or for that matter where I'm coming from or going to. :) It's going to be a good thing once we're past the learning curve, but I think the learning curve just might be similar to a bunch of hairpin curves coming down the side of a mountain - with your brakes failing. I can't wait!

In other news, I joined a couple of the classes from my mom's school on a field trip to the baby animal farm yesterday. I'll try to post some of the pictures when I'm back in Saginaw, but we had a lot of fun. We got to feed the goats, and two of the kids got to feed the calves their bottles. We saw baby goats, held bunnies and chicks and kittens, and went on a hayride. And I had my leg kissed by a calf. Evidently I looked tasty... Have a great week!

The power of friends...

Think about someone you've known for a long, long time. Someone outside your family, that is. What would your life be like if you'd never met that person? It probably would be different; most of us would probably say that we would be worse off. I got started thinking about this while looking for shoes to wear in my best friend's wedding. That led me into thinking about the aforementioned best friend, and from there into "What might (not) have been..."

I've known Kate since 3rd grade when we started carpooling to school together. That means we've been friends for 27 years now. If we had never carpooled/never met, my life would be very different. Never becoming friends with Kate would mean that I wouldn't have someone to share fond memories of sleepovers at Aunt Rose's house - watching MTV Rock Blocks (and always seeing "Is This Love" by Whitesnake), and eating cold pizza and warm pop at 3am. It would mean that I wouldn't have had anyone to drive over the "bump" behind 7-11 with and bounce our heads off the top of my car when we got airborne. It would also mean that we wouldn't have been able to take Kevin (Kate's fiancee) over the bump a few weeks ago when they were in town. I wouldn't have "graduated" from U of M by wearing a cap and gown and sitting in the stands with Kate because she couldn't get any extra tickets. I would never have been exposed to most of my favorite music groups today - when Kate went down to Ann Arbor and heard XTC, she came home and we had to go looking for "Nonsuch", and I fell in love when I heard the first few notes of "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" emanating from the speakers in my car. XTC led me to listen to other music that I probably wouldn't have heard of if it weren't for liking their music, like They Might Be Giants, Yazbek, and Ben Folds Five.

If I hadn't met Kate, I probably never would have gone to Cancun or climbed Chichen Itza. I wouldn't have had anyone to go to the Olympics in Salt Lake City with, and there would have been no one to break up the two weeks spent vacationing with Aunt Rose in Arizona and California. I never would have visited Milwaukee several times while she was living there, and I wouldn't have gotten to go to Chicago the weekend they lit the Christmas lights with her and our other friends - I met them through her. I also wouldn't have anyone to be planning a trip to Swindon, England with for our "golden anniversary" in 23 more years.

If I hadn't met Kate, my life would definitely be very different. We have so many memories and in-jokes that would never have happened. I'm very blessed to have such a wonderful friend, and honored to have been asked to be part of her wedding. Aunt Rose was friends with "Aunt" Ginny, her best friend for over 60 years. Hopefully Kate and I will be able to beat that record - I couldn't imagine my life without her in it.

Getting there...

I realized on my way to Jackson this morning that I probably won't be having to drive back and forth much longer, which will be nice. Maybe another month, then I'll be a whole 'nother type of busy! I'll probably love it, too - that's just me.

Softball starts next Thursday - pray for us. The girls decided at practice the other night that our goal should be two runs per game, so that's what we'll aim for. It ought to be interesting, that's for sure. And if nothing else, it'll be a blast. We actually are turning out to have quite a large team this year, so that's nice. I'm cautiously optimistic - maybe we'll win a game this year.

Happy Memorial Day - Hug a Veteran

Happy Memorial Day to everyone out there. Although a lot of times we forget the reasons behind the holidays and just see them as an extra day off work, take a minute and remember our veterans today. They're the reason that we're able to enjoy this day off in whatever way we choose to do it. Thank you to all the veterans out there - we wouldn't be here without you! Have a great day!

Eggs...

Yesterday, we were out at the in-laws for some roofing and burgers and S'mores, pretty much in that order. My sister-in-law decided to take a walk around their path in the back 40 - it's a nice little path and kind of meanders around the back area that just kind of grows wild. While she was walking, she got dive-bombed by a robin. This robin was protecting a nest that was in a branch of a tree back there, and the nest was only about four feet off the ground. So Sherrie came back and told me about it, and we took my camera out there.

We figured, correctly, as you can see, that the robin would be protecting something - probably eggs. So, Sherrie and Cheryl (my stepmother-in-law) and I moseyed on back, and waited to get dive-bombed. The robin, probably guessing that she couldn't take three of us, retreated to the next tree over, leaving us to hunt for the eggs.


After pulling the branch that the nest was on down a bit so I could get in with my camera, I carefully extended my arm, with the camera still attached to it, over the nest and started shooting. The whole time, the mama robin was chirping at us, scolding us to leave her babies alone. I took several shots, not knowing which ones were going to be decent and which ones wouldn't. The top one is my favorite, the bottom two are a couple of the others that I took. Hopefully we didn't traumatize mama robin too much, but I almost feel like it was worth it to have the chance to see something like this.

Flower Power

Well, after much tribulation, I finally finished my May ATCs, and of course, who better to share it with than my loyal reader? This is a photo of either my aunt's or my stepmother-in-law's lilac bush from last spring. I added the quote in Photoshop, then printed it on textured cardstock. I distressed and inked the edges of the cardstock base and distressed the picture edges also, then put them together with a silver brad recolored with alcohol inks. I think I like the way they turned out - they're out of my comfort zone a little, so I'm not quite sure.

Have you ever...

... ridden an elevator facing away from the doors?
... when you were the only one in it?

It's a weird feeling. We're so programmed to face forward, that it takes a conscious effort to ride it "backwards". I did it the other night, and that one floor descent was about the longest 15 seconds of my life.

Have a great Memorial Day, everyone! If I don't get the chance to get back this weekend, please help remember all of our military men and women, both those currently serving, and all those that have gone before. We wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for them.

Musings From the Road, or The Perils of Giving Me Too Much Time To Think...

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone who's read any of my back posts that giving me too much time to think can have some... unpredictable results. After all, that's where the whole camera eyes and streets named after Clue and Scooby Doo characters thing came from. Lately I've been having way too much time to think as a result of my travels for work. So, I took off way earlier than any normal person should be traveling this morning, and, as is totally possible (really), got to thinking. The thought for today was this: What if it were possible to look at something and see the potential in it? For an easy example, let's say you could look at a dying tree and see it at full strength, blossoming, swaying in the breeze, whatever it is that healthy trees do. Let's make it a little harder - what if you could look at a kid in high school who, although smart enough, got hooked on drugs and has no ambition and see them graduating from college/tech school/whatever and successful in their life? Would that be the most awesome thing ever, or the saddest, to be able to see the potential there but not be able to do anything about it? Would optimists see the positive potential, and pessimists see the negative, i.e. see the tree fully dead and the kid on welfare, just looking to score his/her next fix? I think that having an ability like that would be beautiful and heartbreaking, in that the world you see would be wonderful, but you would have to go through life knowing that none of it was real. What do you think?

Fun stuff...

While looking at Jeanne's blog, I saw her link to The Daily Meme, and while stumbling around there, I found a couple of cool things. Here's the first:

There will be an RAK for the first person to name that tune...

Music Meme
Here's how it works:
1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD-Player (or start your mp3-player, I-tunes, etc.).
3. Skip to Song 3 (or load the 3rd song in your 3rd playlist) **I had my iPod on shuffle, so I skipped 3 songs forward**
4. Post the first verse in your journal (blog) along with these instructions. Don’t name the band, nor the album-title

For a fabulous prize, name that tune (and the artist(s))...
"Back in high school I knew a girl
Not too simple and not too kind
We both grew up, but I heard she'd changed
From a new wave fan to another kind..."

The second one was also pretty fun. Over at World66, you can tell it all the states that you've visited, and it will show you a map like the one below. Clearly, I have some catching up to do as far as states I need to visit.



create your own personalized map of the USA

Oh, and I also took a geek test, which told me that I'm a "Major Geek". No big surprise there, right?

That's all for now, folks! Have a great week!

Happy Birthday to... someone!

Ok, it's not the best picture, but I just had to share the card I made for our birthday card swap over at Cropper's Cottage. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. We started out with a crew of seven who were supposed to be cropping tonight at one of the local scrapbook stores, and ended up having five of them cancel for various reasons, so it ended up being just me and my sister-in-law. We had a great time and I got a lot done, even though I was really upset that I left my supplies for my ATCs at home. :(

This is the first page of the layout I did using my two favorite butterfly pictures from Dow Gardens. I used the new KI Memories lace paper - love it! It's kind of a pain to get it to stick to the regular cardstock, though.



Here's page 2.










That's all for now. Have a great weekend, everyone!

I'm getting too old for this...

Well, our first softball practice of the year was last night, and as usual, I'm SORE!! Every year I swear I'm going to try to get into better shape before the first practice, and every year, I ache and "ouch" under my breath for a couple of days after practice. Our team this year should be about as good as last year - please understand that I'm using that term very loosely. Last year, we won 1/2 a game. That's right - 1/2. That was because both our team and our opponents had to forfeit. We may not have had a winning record, but we had a lot of fun. And I think that's what's important to remember. So, while we'll keep last year's goal of trying to score at least one run per game, in the end, if we don't score anything all season, we'll still have fun. Yeah, winning is fun, but being able to lose with dignity is important, too. And I think our team will have a lot of practice at that again this year.

Just a quick note...

Fact: I did not die of embarrassment from flubbing the solo last Sunday.
Fact: I am not, in fact, dead at all.
Fact: This has been an incredibly busy week so far, and it's just going to get worse before it gets better.
Fact: The three facts above combine to mean I haven't had time to blog.

I will say, however, that giving me too much time to think about things can be bad (after all, that is how I came up with my wish for camera eyes!), and that I'm discovering a heretofore very deeply buried sappy side that is surprising me. More about those later. Until I have time to breathe and sleep again, have a wonderful weekend!