you hear that? those are the winds of change...

Well, hello, everybody! I bet you've been wondering where I've been.

Well, here's the short answer: I have a new blog.

Here's the long answer:

As much as I love blogging, I was really dissatisfied with this one. It was full of college girl insecurities, wedding planning, and theater snark. I'm not a college girl anymore. I'm not planning a wedding anymore. And while I dearly love theater, I'm not in a constant stream of auditions, rehearsals, and performance.

I outgrew my blog.

I went through a ton of change in a very short amount of time, and I'm still kind of reeling from it. In a fit of pique last month, I started up a new blog. Come to find out...I love it. It's intensely therapeutic to have a fresh start, and with all the other changes in my life, it was perfect timing.

I didn't announce the change immediately because I wanted a little time to get settled, and to see if I would stick with it. And I have.

And going along with all these changes is the Day Zero project, wherein I try to do 100 things in 1,001 days. I've been doing it for a few days and I'm having a terrific time. You should check it out too.

I'm also probably going to recap my wedding over there too, just because I can.

So yeah. It's time for a new blog. I hope you'll follow me over there.



(Also, if you want to see what my self-done hair cut looks like, go here.)

guess what I did, kids?

So I was bored. Guess what I did?

Cut my hair.

And not just a trim. I grabbed one of my pairs of sewing scissors and went to town on my head. And the results?

My bangs are nice and thick and no longer sideways, and I cut in all sorts of layers that make my hair look thick and curly.

I should get bored more often.

Pictures will be up tomorrow, but yea and verily, it's 11:46 pm and I haz the tummyache. But I look a bit like this lovely lady.

The Continuing Adventures of the Case Against Pants

When it comes to fashion, I still dislike pants. True story. I've only worn pants three times so far in 2010. My goal in 2011 is to NEVER WEAR PANTS.

"But why," you ask, "do you hate pants?"

Well...

#1: They don't always flatter me. I am a hair under 5'0" but was blessed with curves. Lots of them. I have a proportionate hourglass figure with some extra squish on it...and abnormally short legs. They're nice, sturdy, shapely legs, but mega-short. Wearing pants just makes me look...well, stumpy.

#2: I don't find pants comfortable anymore. I'm really not sure why. All I know is that unless there is an elastic waistband and a considerable amount of stretch (or flannel, flannel is good too...) I am distinctly uncomfortable.

#3: I am a girly-girl. Aside from second grade, when I became a tomboy because my BFF Samantha said she wouldn't be friends with me other wise, I have been a girly-girl. Frills, lace, bows...the whole nine yards. And I feel my girliest in skirts.

#4: I have to dress up for work. And let's face it, it's easier to throw on a dress and call it a day than stare at a pair of basic slacks and think all right, let's get this going...

#5: Dresses are easier to sew than pants.

So that's why, when P and I were moving into our apartment, I tossed a megaload of crap. Jeans with holes in the heels, khakis that I wore day in and day out in high school, knit tops that were faded and pilled and had a tendency to slide up my tummy squish. All the stuff that I wore to death in college, but I really shouldn't wear as a young grown up.

All in all, it was rather cathartic.

However, that left me in a predicament. What shall I wear to work? Pretty much everything that's still in my closet is still ancient (you buy a lot less when you stopped growing at the age of twelve) and is splattered with the remnants of a life as a theater kid. You know...diluted paint. Wood glue. Glitter. Snags from getting caught in the flies. (Don't laugh...it happens.) Am I really supposed to wear that to my new big girl job?

Luckily, my parents offered to help me get some new pieces of clothing. HALLELUJAH.

And, oh wait, it gets better.

My mother has become a fan of getting me things from Modcloth.

That's right, the Holy Grail of all things adorable and retrochic. I am now the proud owner of four Modcloth dresses.

How This Dress Got Its Groove Back (which I wore for my rehearsal dinner)

The Soda Fountain Dress in cola (because I have to wear black for trunk shows)

The Tea Rose Rendezvous Dress (so comfy!)

The Indie Darling dress (which is currently awaiting me at my parents' house)

I'm going to have to face it, I'm addicted to lo...um, Modcloth.

Now I just need to sit down and figure out how to match up my outfits and figure out what else to get and what else to get rid of. So...maybe I'll start doing fashion entries? Maybe? Yeah...that'll be fun.

I also have plans to sew up plenty of things to augment my wardrobe. The only thing is I have about a hundred unfinished projects. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. I spent about three years going "ooh! I wanna MAKE THAT!". So I would buy up the supplies, perhaps get started, and then move on.

It's ridiculous.

So I'm trying to sew through my stash in hopes of putting together some redeemable outfits. Some of them, however, are just awful. You know how I was going to make New Look 6722 in yellow knit? Yeah. Yeah, that was a travesty. Just awful. Thank the pattern gods that that bad boy has been discontinued.

(I'll discuss it further when I've figured out how in blue blazes I can salvage the remaining fabric, but let's face it- there's only so much you can do with a highlighter-yellow knit.)

Oh, well.

I hope you enjoy my further fashion endeavors! Now I'm going to give Simplicity 2622 a try!

A Dress...for a Hockey Game?!

I might have mentioned this earlier, but I hate pants. I've worn them maybe three times so far this year. I don't like how they fit my short, curvy frame, and I don't like how restricted they feel. So dresses it is.

Well, tonight I am going to my VERY FIRST hockey game. Kat and Rose have been promising to take me for like two years, and now I finally get to go! And yet I have nothing to wear. I don't have a dress that I feel is just right, and I definitely don't have a tee and jeans I can just toss on.

Luckily, the last time I was at my parents' house I picked up about a dozen or so of my unfinished projects. One of them includes two yards' worth of a yellow ribbed knit that I bought from Walmart's dollar-a-yard table.

I texted Kat to ask her if yellow was a Preds' color. She responded by saying "Yes...you're making a dress, aren't you?"

What can I say? My best friend knows me well.

I originally planned to use New Look 6722 for it, but I wasn't sure.

I wasted a heck of a lot of time looking at other potential dresses, and whadaya know? This dress from Modcloth (it's not available now; I had saved the image) caught my eye.

So it looks like...if all goes as planned before 5:30pm when I have to leave for Kat's apartment, I'll be rocking a little yellow wrap dress for my first Preds game!

OH MAH GAH!

Dear sweet goodness, everybody, it's been a month and a half (thereabouts) since I wrote my last blog! And STUFF HAS HAPPENED.

Like, I got married.

And we moved into a new apartment the week of the wedding. Yeah, I said it. We moved on Wednesday...the wedding was on Saturday. Were we crazy? YES.

And I am still working steadily at Bridal Warehouse, the shop where I purchased my wedding gown.

And I have been writing up a STORM. Without rehearsals to go to, I spend my evenings in a state of vegetative boredom. Hence, I have been planning about twenty new novels and scads of short stories.

But...

I haven't been blogging.

I just don't know if I'm that interesting anymore. I mean...no reports on rehearsals or audition freakouts. No "here's-an-interesting-thing-I-heard-in-class." No obsessive wedding planning posts. And while P and I are QUITE happy being married, there are no babies in the works (and won't be for a while), so this shan't become a pregnancy/mommy blog for another two years or so.

(unless there is a surprise. But I doubt it.)

In short, I am now boring.

Oh, well.

I guess there are still other things to write about. Like being a newlywed...a very young newlywed. It's weird, but I still feel like a little kid even though I'm a twentysomething wife.

And my kitchen adventures. Like the time I substituted hard lemonade for lemon juice, and it ROCKED.

And our apartment. Although....don't expect any super amazing home decor ideas. Our design scheme is best described as "poor newlywed who takes all the free stuff they can get."

And my continuing adventures to update my wardrobe, which will become even more complicated since, you know...that whole "no money" thing.

And my writing. I have so many novels. SO, SO MANY. And so many heroines. Apple...Beatrice...Anna...Caroline...Ginevra...I love them. And I want you to love them. I might have to start posting excerpts so you can tell me what you think of them.

(Especially since I really want to get Beatrice and the Cat published.)

Also, in the realm of writing, I need to confess something. I've mentioned it before...but I'm going to declare it proudly. I am a fanfiction author. And I love it.

I know, I know, it's like the dorkiest thing ever. I've been doing it since middle school, though, and it's such a great stress reliever and a brilliant writing exercise. Besides, I'm famous in Singapore for it. I'll explain that later, but yeah. I love it...and despite all the times I've tried to retire, it's proven to be impossible.

And of course, when I get my pro pics, there's going to be a whole series of recaps about the wedding.

So maybe I won't be a stick deep in the mud.

And I like blogging. And that's always a good reason to do it.

In 29 hours, thereabouts...

All right, so first off, I'm not dead...I just haven't had any time to blog lately!

At this time tomorrow, I will be at the church with five of my favorite friends, curling irons and makeup boxes and a long ivory gown in tow. It's for real, everybody. I'm actually getting married!

It's absolutely, positively surreal. All the big things are taken care of- now there's just some details that I have to do. Well, a lot of details, actually. But still. It's down to a rather manageable list.

I just can't believe I'm really getting married!

The Procrastinator Proceeds!

So...the wedding is in EIGHT days. Am I ready? Hecka no! Time to get cracking.

The biggest project on my list is my going-away/reception dress. Because is it done? No. Is it in progress? No. Is it started? Hecka no!

So my goal is to finish the dress tonight. Petticoat tomorrow morning. Flower girl dress tomorrow afternoon after work. Rehearsal dress and robe tossed in there somewhere. My goal is to at least be done with all the sewn bits-and-bobs by Sunday morning, so I can move on to other projects.

Shall I succeed? Who knows! I'm just going to keep updating my progress.

Saturday, 5:24pm: Arrive home from work with every intention of getting started, but instead got distracted by packages and a newish episode of Big Time Rush. FAIL.

5:53pm: Get off my butt, change out of my work clothes, and pull out my supplies. Time to get cracking!

6:00pm: I read through the vintage, circa 1956 pattern instructions. It's a size fourteen, so it should fit...right? I mean, that's 2-4 sizes larger than what I usually where. WRONG! It fits a 32" bust. Um. No. That's my sister's size. I'm glad I already bought the fabric for a practice bodice...

7:33pm: Wow. Just wow. After nearly a year of planning for this dress, I realize that this is a NO. GO. Seriously, the test bodice is a hawt tranny mess, to quote Christian Siriano. So now I'm back to square one, searching for an inspiration bodice.

(I would post the test bodice, but it's just too sad.)

Nine Days. Cue Mass Chaos.

So I'm a terrible blogger.

I haven't blogged in what, a week? Yeah. No good. No good at all.

In my defense, I have been pretty busy, at least. Let's see, what have I been up to?

-Well, work, for one.

-Apartment hunting with P...it looks like we found one in our budget, and if all goes as planned, we can move in on the TENTH! Yeah, that's merit for a freak-out, right? Planning a wedding and moving in together? I've already started packing.

-P got a promotion! *cue joyous parade here*

-A simply KILLER bachelorette party that has been in the making since 2006. I need to have some pictures before I post about that one, though. Although I don't have pictures of the inebriated gay men. And when I say "gay," I mean that these guys were pooping rainbows. Seriously. They were at a level of fabulousness never before seen. And did I mention that we met them at Ihop at 3;30 in the morning? Yeah, it's going to be fun telling that story.

-My dress is done and hanging up in my closet AS WE SPEAK.

-We had our engagement shoot on Tuesday, and it was amazing. Like ten kinds of amazing. Jenna has already dropped our CD in the mail, and as soon as I get them I'll post them. Because they're seriously corgeous. What's that? You want to see a sneak peak? Well, all right...

(from Jenna at jHenderson Studios)

They're the bomb.com. Seriously.

So yeah. That's what's been keeping me occupied.

And now I'm about to get EVEN BUSIER! Because the wedding is in NINE DAYS!

Good news: I work best (crafting-wise) under pressure.

Bad news: My to-do list is about ten miles long.

So it's time to get cracking. I have the day off today, so I'm going shopping. Then I'm prioritizing my to-do list and off I go! I'll blog when I can. And you can guarantee that I'm going to do recaps!

Wish me luck!

Showered with Love (and mixing bowls.)

All right, so Facebook has stopped being a skunkbag. Time for the wedding shower recap!

When we last left our intrepid couple (re: me and P), I was completely stressed out and P was trying to help with damage control. You see, our shower was being hosted by a very sweet lady who grabbed the "let's-throw-the-poor-as-church-mice-couple-a-party!" idea and kind of...well, ran with it. And when I say "ran with it," I mean it in the "someone-just-hijacked-this-bus" sense of the phrase. I don't want to go into details, because she meant extremely well, but things went downhill to the point that she was talking about canceling the shower because her plans had gone so incredibly astray. Luckily, my mother stepped in and asked that she not cancel, since this was going to be our only shower, and some other lovely ladies from the small group helped dig the shower plans out of the ground. And so things progressed!

I made a dress to wear to the shower a few weeks ago, but then realized I hated it. Ah, such is life. So I dug through my projects bags and dug up a dress that I had started this past summer (Simplicity 2951 in a white floral knit), then stayed up till 1am on Sunday to finish it. It turned out decently, although I still want to alter it a bit.

That whole day was fun. After church I went out to Panera with P, his mom, and his sister. Also, if you have not tried Panera's white cheddar macaroni and cheese, YOU HAVE NOT LIVED, MY FRIEND. You have not lived. It was fun, but I was antsy with excitement. I had received notifications about presents that had been purchased off our registry, and I was totally excited about it.

(But I didn't know what had been purchased. I'm sneaky like that. With the Target registry, they tell you the numbers at the top of the page. For the Bed Bath and Beyond registry, I put a magazine over the left half of my screen and scrolled down.)

(Please don't judge.)

Anyways, we arrived at the annex of the church and were immediately welcomed. And this is where it dawned on me that I was about to spend the next two hours with EVERYONE STARING AT ME while I opened presents that came from well-wishers that I may or may not know personally. And you might not know this, but while I'm not shy, I am easily intimidated and get anxious pretty quickly. So my excitement quickly dwindled into panic! mode.

Luckily, I was greeted by friends. And that made it easier. I was so excited that Heather came all the way from Union! And I was excited because they were excited. They bustled around the annex, showing off the decorations they put up and the food they helped put together and in general just oozed pride over my bridal status. That was awesome.

Also, we had a lot of pictures taken. Let me demonstrate:

First, we have the couple looking sweet. I look rather demure, don't I?
And then we have me and my ENTOURAGE. Just kidding. These are some of my super awesome friends. And Mrs. Dallas is photobombing by the cake table in the back.

(Rose, Kat, Rebecca, Sioda-Heather, and Crissy-Heather. The short girl with the rosebush on her shoulder would be me.)

And now P gets stuck in the pool of estrogen, and is apparently being seduced, threatened, and ogled by turns. Except by Emma, who leaped into the picture without knowing that we were all making faces and instead flashed a lovely smile towards the camera.

(Also, I love his face. He is total awesome sauce to obligingly pose with a collection of girls in dresses who make odd faces at him.)

Anyways, after the initial photo session, we were propelled to the seats of honor, where we were instructed to open gifts. We were happy to acquiesce to this request.

We got into a pretty good system. Rose handed us a gift, we took turns opening (one would hold and the other would unwrap/lift cautiously out of the bag), and Kat wrote down who gave what. Also, we opened the cards and read them together prior to ripping off the paper. My mama raised me right.

I know I showed this picture yesterday, but I just love it to little bits and pieces. We were given a glass cake plate and dome (which actually wasn't on our registry!) and I exclaimed that it needed cake. on. that. plate. now. So Emma booked it over, tossed us a cupcake, and the darling little baked good lived cheerfully in its glass habitat for the rest of the party.


(It ended up at Death of a Salesman rehearsal, where it was happily devoured by Stephen Moss.)

Also, there shall be pizza. (P was checking the tag that came with the bag.)


And OH LOOK MOAR CAKE. P was amused by my rapacious joy.


This is a little ridiculous, but I love how my nose looks in this picture.

Also, I would like to point out that Rose's torso and legs are lurking in the backgrounds of all these pictures. Girlfriend is tall. Her hips are the same height as my waist, thereabouts. I am short.

Our shower turned out to be a lot of fun. The hostesses did an excellent job, and were very, very, VERY generous to us. We had lovely vanilla cake, and my one request- CUPCAKES! The decorations were yellow and blue, to match the wedding colors, and I appreciated the detail. I also deeply appreciated the fact that life didn't stop so that everyone could stare at us opening gifts. Usually people dropped off the gift, greeted us, enjoyed some cake while chatting with their friends, and stopped to say goodbye and congrats before they left. It was very calm, very chill, and very fun.

We had a lot more people show up than we expected. I've been told that Woodmont showers are usually pretty quiet, but we had about 40ish, maybe 50ish people stop by, including one of my favorite people, P's grandmother Baba.

It was so much fun. And we were incredibly blessed by all of our generous friends and well-wishers! We were pretty astounded by the overflowing gift table!

At the end of the party, P and I opened up our cars and we all teamed up to get the gifts. By the time we were done, both his Hyundai and my PT Cruiser were completely full! We drove back to my parents' house, and he unloaded the cars while I sorted everything onto the wedding table in the rec room. And I changed out of my dress, because even though I'm a freaking ridiculous girly-girl, I need my shorts and tank tops.

(Lora, you better be still holding your girl card. No need to turn it in. :P)

We finished our super fun day of reveling in our bride-and-groom-ness in a decidedly low key manner- eating a Big Mac (him) and fries (me) in front of the TV while tidying up our registry and discussing where the crap we're going to live. (Answer: we're apartment-hunting on Thursday.)

We're still just completely stunned by how generous people have been. We were a little worried for while, because neither of us have lived completely on our own (he lived in an on-campus apartment and I went back and forth between a dorm room and Disney housing) and we don't have much in the way of practical stuff. I'm not quite as worried anymore. The only necessities we need are the bedding stuff and our everyday dishes. But everything else is just icing on the cake!

(Although that yellow KitchenAid mixer will be the queen of icing. It's the vanilla bean buttercream of our registry...)

But yeah. I am one happy bride/almost newlywed!

cupcakes is srs buzness

Of course, now that I finished my blog entry, Facebook decides to work. And now I am too tired to do anything. So I shall just leave you with this.

yes, that is a cupcake on a full-sized cake plate.

no, I see nothing wrong with it.

for yea and verily, we all shall rejoice.