yay...a Christmas tag!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? both...i am quite partial to gift bags if i'm running out of time!

2. Real tree or Artificial? artificial but i do love real trees...nothing beats that smell!

3. When do you put up the tree? it's usually the first week of december

4. When do you take the tree down? umm...after new years.

5. Do you like eggnog? one work: ewww.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? ohhh, one Christmas, Santa brought me some cabbage patch dolls, a play pen, stroller, AND carseat for them. i was in baby doll heaven!

7. Hardest person to buy for? my daddy because his reply is either that he doesn't need anything OR just to get him socks. socks?! totally not an acceptable Christmas gift!

8. Easiest person to buy for? my mom, my sister, my niece

9. Do you have a nativity scene? YES...my mom and sister gave it to me at my family/friends shower and i LOVE it!!

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? mail but so sorry--no one will receive a Christmas card from me this year!

11. WORST CHRISTMAS GIFT U EVER RECEIVED? hmm...there was the collared sweatshirt with the bird/birdhouse on it (i was 13 yrs old...not that i would wear that now but come on...13? that's just a recipe to be destroyed in middle school).

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? ohhh i have so many! miracle on 34th street, how the grinch stole christmas (the animated one), rudolph, frosty, charlie brown christmas, elf, christmas vacation AND THEN all the christmas movies on hallmark channel, family channel, and lifetime.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? i usually do my christmas shopping the 2nd week of december but this year i will be on a cruise sailing around hawaii...so, i have already finished my shopping. can you believe it?

14 . Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? yes

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? my mom's entire christmas eve spread is AMAZING (she has close to the same menu every year), my sister's cranberry coffee cake...

16. Lights on the tree? either white OR those old fashioned colored lights...the big bulb kind

17. Favorite Christmas song? o holy night, what child is this, baby it's cold outside, santa baby...

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? stay home

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer'? donner, blitzen, dancer, prancer, comet, cupid, dasher, vixen, and rudolph

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? christmas morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? the song feliz navidad

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? traditional christmas colors...red, white, green

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? hmm...to enjoy a stress-free time with family after the wedding. gift wise...i have mentioned a few things to "santa" ;)

the great flu shot of '08

so, today we had the option of taking the flu shot free at work through our insurance provider. i signed up a month or so ago because, hello...i am getting married at the beginning of december and then travelling to nyc and then hawaii and the flu is the last thing i want to catch. i don't usually do the whole flu shot thing because i hate needles. seriously...i hate to admit that i used to think that i'd rather have the flu than get a shot. (crazy, i know.)

well, today is my bday and i am not ashamed to admit that i planned my bday outfit (girls, you know it's true...you know we do it). i have felt very cute all day long (yay for the bday outfit) but quickly realized as i stood in the flu shot line that i did not plan a practical flu shot outfit. so, the ladies around me started trying to figure out how we were going to accomplish the flu shot of '08 apart from me having to completely undress my top half (i have some dignity, you know, AND i think they would frown on that at work...we have to be professional and all :). just so you know, i'm wearing a super cute white button down shirt with a gray button down cardigan over it. we all decided that unbuttoning the top button and sliding my arm out of the sleeve was the only option. so, two ladies (major shout out to lisa and felicia) stood in front of me and held my sweater up to "cover up" any skin mishaps ;). i wiggled my arm out enough for the nice flu shot nurse (who was looking at me as if i'd lost my mind) to reach my upper arm.

given my fear of needles, i decided it was best that i not watch the whole shot giving process...i had my head turned facing lisa and felicia who were doing their best to distract me. the actual shot itself didn't even hurt but all of a sudden felicia and lisa's faces changed (all i could think was...uh oh...they look alarmed) and then i heard the nurse say, "oh no. that doesn't normally happen..."' well, of course i had to look and i see that blood had spurted (is that a word?) out of my arm and yep, you guessed it...onto my white shirt :(. the nurse kept apologizing and felt horrible that it had gotten on my shirt but to be honest with you, i was more concerned about WHY blood spurted out of my arm...especially when the nurse says, "that never happens." gee, thanks.

my only explaination for it is that if anything weird or bizarro is going to happen, it's going to happen to me.

i did learn that apparently, hydrogen peroxide will take the blood out of my white shirt. so, the whole experience wasn't a total loss :).

floating around in my head...

believe me when i tell you that nothing floating around in my head is coherent right now. most of all, the only thing i can think about right now is that i seriously need a nap but since that's not going to happen, i'm trying to focus on other things :).

so, i'm relying on my old, familiar friend...the list. here we go...it's the list: pre-wedding crazy style :). (note that not everything has to do with the wedding but i think because i do have SO MUCH going on, it has caused my brain to turn into mush.)

• i'm seriously reconsidering the style we've chosen for our wedding programs because right now, tying 300 ribbons does not seem so appealing. BUT i'm sure i'll love it once they're done so i'm going to grab a stack of girl movies and get to tying.
• this week (on wednesday to be exact) i am officially saying goodbye to my 20's. i'm turning 30 AND i'm getting married (not on wednesday but in the same year...the wedding date is still 12/6). i guess i'm ready to be a grown-up! ;)
• i desperately want to invest in some super cute scarves (you know...the longer, trendy ones) but trying to figure out how to wear them is holding me back. i'll have to think about it some more.
• my heart hurts for two of my friends right now who are going through/have recently gone through some hard times. i'm so thankful that when i don't know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes for me.
• i had to print a "wedding calendar" for november/december just so i can keep everything straight. i also decided to add my "to-do" list at the bottom of the calendar. all i know is that i was calmer when the "to-do" list was in my head and not on paper...it looks so much more overwhelming written down!
• if you have attended a shower and are still waiting on your thank you note, know that it is on its way. we are having them printed and they will be ready very soon...the list for thank you notes isn't even on my wedding "to-do" list. sheesh.
• while this particular time in my life is crazy and a bit of a whirlwind, i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

check back with me tomorrow (or sometime this week) because i have a plan for a birthday post. (not a post-birthday plan but a plan for a post related to my bday).

until then...

engagement announcement

i know the three of you that read the blog already know that i am getting married (for real, how could you not be aware that i'm getting married in 35 days!! yippee!!) but i thought i would post the link to the engagement announcement that was in the paper.

we're not excited or anything ;).

yay for fall!

fall is my absolute favorite time of year (except for christmas time but that is coming soon....and this year with a wedding...yay!) and i love all things fall. i love the mountains, the leaves, pumpkins, fall decorations, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin muffins, chilly days, daylight savings, fall festivals, etc. get the picture? i love, love, love it.


so, i talked joel into having a little fall celebration...just the two of us (he's such a sweet man). last night we made caramel apples...yummm. they're not very pretty but they're very tasty.

AND...

painting pumpkins. yes, we...2 adults....painted pumpkins last night and we had a lot of fun. i know it's not exactly how a grown man plans to spend his tuesday evening but we had so much fun being together and making some fun fall memories :).

i must say, i give hubs-to-be major creative points ;0). (obviously, my pumpkin has the pink stem!)

in 42 days...

-i will most likely be awake at 5 am not because of some random reason (like this morning) but because i'm anxious and excited about what that particular day will hold.

-i will change my last name and take on a new name...a new monogram, new initials... (we all voted for elizabeth alley, right ;).

-i will officially have my "own" family but will also gain another family.

-i won't have to worry near as much about my skin (am i breaking out? yikes! is this new makeup going to work or cause problems?!), my hair color (are those dreadful gray hairs covered up, is my color too dark, are my roots from past high lights showing? ugh), and my nails. now, while i am a girly girl and do care about all of these things, i've been a little more concerned than normal with the upcoming nuptials.

-i will be a wife and sometimes thinking about that overwhelms me because i've never been a wife before. hopefully, i'll learn and be pretty good at it ;). i have LOTS of great examples to learn from, though.

-my to-do list will shrink dramatically...YAY!

and

-in 43 days, i will board a plane to nyc as amy alley (yay) enjoy our time there and then hop on down to hawaii. i am SUPER excited about the honeymoon...i'm way excited about where we're going but i'm also excited about the vacation because after the next 42 days, i think we're going to need it!!


i know that most of you who are married have been where i am right now and so this is nothing new to you but i have to say that this time in my life seems so surreal. i didn't set out to blog about the wedding and such just because it seems like that's all i talk about but the reality is that right now, the wedding and the upcoming marriage is pretty much all consuming (and in a good way). yes, my to-do list is long and my calendar is WAY full but i'm working so hard to enjoy ALL that i have going on so that it doesn't seem like a blur. some days, i feel like i do a great job with that but others....i feel like my life is on fast forward and i don't know how to slow it down (and then i feel a little panicked that i'm not really getting to "soak in" everything. geez). either way, it is an amazing time that i wouldn't trade for anything in the world. it truly is a little crazy to watch your life changing before your eyes and it's also exciting.

hope you have a beautiful saturday! i don't know why i'm up at 5 am this morning and i'm going to try to solve that by going back to bed. hope you got to sleep in!


ps--and soon after the 42 days have passed, the blog address will change....so keep your eyes open!

a month, what?

i seriously cannot believe that it has been a month since i last posted anything. all i have to say is that life is busy. planning a wedding takes time, people and at the end of the day, i'd rather sleep than blog :).

life has been rather full over the last month with wedding planning, day trips to the mountains, a trip to orlando for a conference and the wedding shower season has officially begun. whew.

today is my first "official" wedding shower in greenville, sc, with joel's family. i'm so excited but i'm also nervous...i've never been the "center of attention" (for lack of a better term) at a shower before and it makes me nervous. i don't know why, it just does. but i know we will have a great time and am so thankful that i am going to have some time to get to know better and build relationships with the ladies on this side of joel's family.

i wish i had a funny story or something to share from the last month while i have been absent from the blog but i can't think of anything...it's not because nothing funny has happened but it's because my brain still isn't back to 100% after the whirlwind trip to orlando. i can promise, though, that many pictures from the blog hiatus will appear on the blog sometime soon (soon is a relative term on this blog...maybe within the next month ;).

oh, and one last thing...for those of you who have the countdown already going....there are 24 more days until my birthday.

until next month (kidding, i'm kidding :)

have a happy weekend!