Gidgett and the Geek

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

2010-06-04T08:38:00.002-05:00

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?

2010-04-28T23:43:00.002-05:00

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

2010-04-27T11:16:00.003-05:00

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?!

2010-04-22T11:59:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-04-21T09:41:00.003-05:00

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...

2010-03-12T08:03:00.002-06:00

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!

2010-03-05T17:50:00.005-06:00

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.

2010-03-04T08:09:00.002-06:00

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.)

2010-02-23T22:45:00.003-06:00

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

2010-02-23T01:02:00.003-06:00

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.

Musical Monday #22

2010-02-23T00:37:00.002-06:00

Well, I was going to talk about how spiffy my shower was, but Facebook is being a total skunkbag and not letting me on. (Please don't be another layout change!) So in the meantime, you'll have to be content with just a standard Musical Monday.

One of my FAVORITEST bands ever (besides Bowling for Soup) is the Pipettes. P actually introduced me to them back in 2008ish, since their single "Pull Shapes" was on the American Eagle video loop, and he had to listen to it all the time. In any case, I thought they were the absolute shiz, and I ended up buying the British edition of their album in a music shop in Bath.

The band consists of three gals named Riotbecki, Gwenno, and Rosay (although Riotbecki and Rosay have been replaced by Ani and Ana...sad day...). They also have a group of backup dancer boys called the Casettes.

On a funny side note: once I got my car, I subjected my dad to some of the more annoying selections in my wildly eclectic musical taste. (I'm looking at you, Aqua!) But when I played the Pipettes, my dad liked them so much that he listened to it on his own time. Fail. But hey, it was fun driving him up a wall with "Barbie Girl" and "Roses are Red."

So here's the Pipettes, teaching you some of their dance moves. Because they're so difficult and all. For serious.

Also, I just would like to point out that Rosay, the brunette, is my twin. For serious. If you have ever seen me dance, we are at about the same skill level. And we have a similar vocal range. And...well, she's adorable, and I yearn to be adorable. So we're even.

Also also, the Pipettes are making quite a splash on my wedding music playlist. So learn them steps, y'all. Especially "The Shocker." That's my favorite.

Although, truth be told, my dancing typically looks like Rosay's dance break...just so everyone's forewarned.

a bride...for real

2010-02-20T23:27:00.002-06:00

Three weeks from today I will be married.

How WEIRD is that?

I never thought we would actually reach this point. I thought we were going to be stuck in engagement purgatory forever, planning the wedding and dreaming about married life and never actually getting there.

(Word of advice: unless it's absolutely necessary, do yourself a favor and don't plan on a long engagement. Because three years can feel like a decade. No lie.)

People used to tease me about planning the wedding so early. Well, now I have less than a month and people are teasing me about not having enough done! Oh, well.

This wedding is really happening, and do you know how I know that? TOMORROW IS MY SHOWER!

I'm so excited. I was really anxious about it earlier (seven messages in one day about an event you're not supposed to be involved with is a bit stressful), but things seemed to have been smoothed over. I am sad that the hostess chose the date without checking first- my mother is out of town and I would have liked to have her there. But my mom was very gracious about it, and I have a pretty dress for the occasion.

(On a side note, I have a compulsive addiction when it comes to dresses. If I'm going anywhere, I need a new dress for the occasion. A party, going out to dinner, going to see a show, vacation- heck, anything could merit a new dress!)

But to get back on topic...this is one of the big events where you get to be officially acknowledged as a bride. And that...that's pretty fun. I'm excited.

Let the spoiling begin! For yea and verily, I shall not stop it.

(Especially since there are hopefully going to be cupcakes at the shower. Oh mah gah. I hope to high heavens that there shall be cupcakes. I shall stuff my bride-y face with them. Mmmmm...)

A theater gal's wedding style

2010-02-17T12:58:00.005-06:00

I've been in theater since I was three, and learned to apply stage makeup at the tender age of ten. So when I started thinking about wedding makeup, I figured I could just do it myself! After all, wedding makeup is probably at the same level as straight makeup in a small theater. Probably.

I usually don't wear much makeup- moisturizer, a little concealer, mascara, chapstick, bah-BAM! I'm out the door. Granted, now that I have a job, I wear a little bit more- mineral foundation, a tiny bit of blush, and a swipe with the greatest thing since sliced bread, the Covergirl smoky eye cream stick thingamabob.

(CoverGirl Smoky ShadowBlast in bronze fire. Seriously. Lifesaver!)

I used the wedding as an excuse to splurge a little bit on some new makeup and snatched up some snazzy new items to try. I also checked out Miss Rainbow's posts- she's a makeup artist and had some GREAT tips!

I figured I'd do my makeup trial at some point, but I was cleaning out the rec room this morning (which is currently Wedding Central) and found my pile o' makeup and thought "Huh...eh, why not."

So thus it begins!

I started out by washing my face with my trusty Noxzema Wave. My skin doesn't like cleansers- I get dried out in seconds. I usually use the St. Ives apricot scrub, but it seemed like a little much. So Noxzema Wave it was. I followed it up with Clean 'n' Clear toner, which is a standby from my high school days.

(No makeup whatsoever! Notice the quizzically skeptical eyebrow...what am I getting myself into?)

Now that I was squeaky clean, I checked out Miss Rainbow's "signature cocktail." I love it, but I ended up modifying it to suit my needs. I definitely used the Monistat chafing gel (who knew it was the same formula as primer?!), but I used my standard moisturizer instead of Cetaphil. The only Cetaphil moisturizer was in a big jug for ten bucks, so I stuck with my usual St. Ives moisturizer. And I couldn't find any MAC Studio Fix Fluid...mostly because the MAC store at the Green Hills Mall scares the pants off me. Go ahead, ask Keeton about the time we ninja'd around it. And it's on a corner, which makes it harder.

In any case, I grabbed a foundation I've been dying to try: Maybelline dream liquid mousse with an "airbrush finish." Then I stared at my three vials for a while, wondering exactly how to blend the three together. I started to put it all on my finger, since she recommends using your fingers. I chickened out at the last minute and put it all on a sponge.

I applied it the same way I apply theater foundation, and was pretty happy. It still looked a little sparse in spots, so I put on a tad more foundation and liked that. I'll probably try again with mixing just the Monistat and the moisturizer, and then putting the foundation on top.

Then I buffed it with a skunk brush. OH MAH GAH. Where has this been all my life?! The skunk brush buffed everything out all nice and smooth. I just love it. It's just one of the Target Studio Tools brushes, but it's simply love. If there was a fan page on Facebook for it, I would sign up.

Miss Rainbow says she doesn't use concealer, but since I didn't use the MAC stuff (although I might brave the MAC store for it) I used a little bit. My everyday concealer is actually a cream stick, but for this I got the CoverGirl 24-hour liquid stuff. It went on pretty smoothly, except on my forehead. But I have bangs, so this won't really be a problem.

Then I realized I didn't have any setting powder. So I resorted to a theater trick- baby powder. I grabbed the bottle, patted some into my hand, and then buffed it onto my face. It seems to work, but I think I'm going to go with Miss Rainbow and order the powder she recommended. I don't want my face to smell like a baby when I go in to kiss the hubster. But at least I can get a good feel now of what the makeup will be like.

(Yay, nice and smooth! But you can still see the cool little freckles around my eyes!)

So far I'm pretty happy. I feel I can master the blend of moisturizer, primer, and foundation better- if you stare at my right cheekbone, it's a bit streaky. And my face smells like baby. But all in all, the test is going well so far! Time for part 2.

I read over Miss Rainbow's instructions for contouring first, then got started. I ended up blending her tips with what I usually do.

For a midsized theater space (meaning the audience is a fair distance, but not a cavernous hall), I usually begin with a water-based pancake base or a CoverGirl clean liquid makeup and then layer it with normal blush. Unless I'm playing an old character (I typically play very young or very old) I don't need much age. This is from Beau Jest in fall 2009, when I played Miriam Goldman.

You can see the contouring on my cheekbones and some light lines on the corners of my eyes and my nasal-labial folds. Miriam isn't terribly old and it was a fairly intimate theater, so I didn't need a lot.

On the other hand...

Just one month later I played General Cartwright in Guys and Dolls in a large proscenium theater. Holy decrepit, Batman!

Now there's contour lines on my cheeks, chin, sides of my nose, nasal-labial folds, and my forehead. When I turn to the side, you can also see shading on my jawline. And keep in mind that this was taken with flash- it was much stronger in person!

All this to say, I guess, that it just goes to show you how much contouring can do. It can do a lot to streamline your face and shape it properly.

So I picked up CoverGirl's contouring blush in Refined Rose. It has three shades- dark, medium, and light. I started with the medium on the apples of my cheeks and buffing it back. One of my favorite theater tricks is that you should brush your blush from the apple of your cheek up towards the top of your ear. If you brush from the apple downwards, it makes your cheeks look longer and flatter- it's actually how you apply a man's makeup for the stage.

(On a side note, it's hilarious to see a boy who forgets and brushes up instead of down. The end result looks pretty silly.)

I brushed just a bit of the darker shade on my jawline, my cheekbone, and the sides of my nose. The reason for the latter is because it can make your nose look thinner if applied properly. I also put it on my jawline because I hate my chin- I feel like a Simpsons character.

I applied the highlight just like Miss Rainbow recommended, and I love the final result. My face looks so nice and polished!

(Contouring on the left, nuthin' on the right. See the difference? Sorta? Maybe?)

Now it's time to venture into unknown territory, since Miss Rainbow hasn't done any tutorials for eyes and lips. (Although if she ever does...I'll definitely read them and try them out!)

I started with eyeliner. I used CoverGirl's liquid liner in black-brown. WOW that stuff goes on sharp. I ended up grabbing a little brush and smudging it just a bit, which helped. I lined the top lash and the outer corner of the lower- it makes my eyes look larger and more open.

Then...I realized another crucial mistake. I forgot to get eyeshadow! I rummaged through my theater makeup box and dug out two old ones to test. I want a lightly smoky eye, so I found two different brown sets that might work.

(Two different shadows!)

The left eye was Almay's Blue Intensify set. I use it for auditions and dressy occasions. It's fairly reliable and does make my eyes look bluer, but I don't know if the coppery shade of the main tone works well.

The right eye is a Maybelline four-color set. I bought it for The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (I played Janice Vickery). I don't think I like it, though. It looked fine for the performance in the black-box theater, but for a wedding it just looks kind of dirty.

In any case, I used the same basic setup- the middle tone on my eyelid, the dark tone in the crease and lower lash, and the light tone on the inner corner, under the eyebrow, the middle of the lid edge (just above the pupil) and right underneath the lower lashline.

Eh, I'm not all that excited about either one. I'll have to try it again (unless someone really likes one of the ones I tested!)

Next: mascara. I'm sticking with my tried-and-true favorite: CoverGirl Lashblast. I bought a new (waterproof! waterproof! waterproof!) bottle in black for the wedding, so for this here trial I just used my old and almost empty one. But before I did, I curled my lashes for the first time.

I've never curled my lashes before- they're naturally very long and dark and curly. (I think it's karma's way of balancing out my Simpsons chin.) But I bit the bullet and got a cheapie one to try it out. It didn't really look different, but it did make the mascara go on easier.

Speaking of which, I followed my usual theater M.O. It goes a little something like this:

#1: Lightly coat the top lashes and give it a second or two to set.

#2: Go back over the top lashes. Look up and slide the brush through your lashes from base to tip, wiggling it slightly back and forth as you go.

#3: Lightly coat your bottom lashes while the top lashes dry.

#4: Go back over your top lashes with one last light coat.

I swear, it stays all day and looks like I have on fakes. As I type this I can see my lashes as I blink! Awesome sauce.

Now for the last step, the lips. My plan is to wear a light shade for the ceremony and the first part of the reception to match my princess gown, and then put on a bright red lip to match my retro lace-and-tulle reception dress. So I picked up CoverGirl Outlast lipstain in Teasing Blush, and CoverGirl Outlast All-Day Lip Color in coral. I usually only wear cherry chapstick for moisturizing and a slight bit of color, but I love lipcolors!

(The lipstain! Oh, and mascara. Mm, mascara!)

The lipstain was a little odd- I felt like I was drawing on my lips with a sharpie! It also looked really dark when I put it on, but I blotted it lightly by pinching a tissue between my lips, and it came out a lovely medium shade of pink. It's also incredibly precise! I feel like I have the perfect princess pout to go with my gown.

The only thing I don't like is that my lips feel a bit dry, and look very matte. I'm going to wear the lipstain to work on Saturday (10am-5pm) and top it with cherry chapstick to see how it works.

I also might have to grab P and give him a kiss to see how the lipstain/chapstick combo works with him. I don't think he'll mind my research.

(the lipcolor!)

The lipcolor is slightly different. And when I say "slightly different," I mean "hardcore." First you must apply the color and let it dry for 60 seconds without your lips touching. It was kind of like applying a gloppy lip gloss that smells like vanilla frosting. So in other words, it was like middle school.

Once it dried, I applied the balm-like topcoat. It went on smoothly, and not a bit of color rubbed off on the topcoat stick. It looks sassy and deliciously retro, and doesn't make my teeth look nasty!

I got so excited by all this makeup goodness that I did a bad thing and did my hair. (Always do your hair before your makeup!) I pulled the top and sides back and fastened it with a a little tortoiseshell comb. Then I pulled out the Conair instant heat hot rollers that have been my steadfast sidekick through cheerleading and performances. I have three sizes, so I used the smallest around my face, the medium on the top, and the largest on the bottom. Once I was properly rolled, I sprayed it lightly and let it sit.

Once the rollers were cool, I took them out, schmeared a little Garnier anti-humidity smoothing milk on my fingers, and finger-combed the curls out. It's not precise in the slightest (ew, the ends!!), but it gives me a decent idea of what I might could possibly do if I have to do my own hair.

(tadaaaaa!)

And then I took the ultimate test- I took a picture in a dark room with flash just to see what the makeup looks like. The answer: awesome.

(I also took out the comb and added the headband I might wear with my second dress.)

(vampin' it up!)

So what do you think?

Fittings...are Awkward

2010-02-16T21:19:00.002-06:00

I have officially hit the one-week mark at my new job! It feels so odd to have a job that doesn't involve pixie dust and crowd control, but I'm just so happy to be working that I don't mind.

Today I spent more time on the floor observing fittings rather than in the back. I still sewed two and a half bustles, though. At the moment, I'd kind of like to sew than fit. I mean, I'm used to fittings. After all, I spent plenty of time wrangling college kids into ancient costumes and pinning them into submission. But a college kid in a costume is completely different from a bride in a gown! There's so many things to consider, plus they're bound to be eagle-eyed. One bride noticed the boning on the front of her dress. I wouldn't have noticed it, but she did!

I also learned how to ring people up after their alterations. And when I say "learned," I mean "was walked through it and remember about 30% of the process." Ouch.

But on the upside, one of the people I fitted today was Kat. Yay! And I don't mean to brag, but I think that, dress-wise, I'm on the list of awesome brides. That shade of blue is INCREDIBLY pretty.

(Just think...I could have made them all wear yellow...buttercup yellow...)

Once she was fitted, I put on my dress so she could see how to tie the bustle. I put the veil on and everything. She looked like she might possibly cry...which made me feel terribly validated. I felt like a bride for reals.

But do you know what made me feel giddy? I look EFFING TINY in my dress. Seriously. I have never felt so skinny in my life!

Musical Monday #21: "Drumming Song"

2010-02-15T22:35:00.003-06:00

I love love LOVE this song.

Wait...lemme explain.

One of my favorite singers is Kate Nash, but she hasn't come out with a new album in FOREVER. And a day.

So in the meantime I've been searching for super-awesome British indie-type singers. And Florence+the Machine is pretty dang epic. She's like Kate Nash's edgy older sister, who hangs out with Lady Gaga.

This song has become my favorite sing-along-while-driving number. I can belt it pretty fiercely now, dontcha know.

So in any case....here's "The Drumming Song" by Florence + the Machine. Brace yourself for the epic that is about to hit you in the face.

My new (grown up) job!

2010-02-15T20:59:00.002-06:00

I've had my new "big girl" job for about a week now, but I haven't gotten a chance to rectify it! And thus, this blog entry.

I wrote a little while back about getting a job at the shop where I bought my wedding gown. The job, exactly, is part-time alterations. Basically I'm working about 20-40 hours a week on wedding (and wedding-related) dresses and prom dresses.

Since I have sewing experience, but not alterations experience, they're starting me off on some lower-level stuff- tacking down lace, adding more beads, etc. I've helped with some fittings and called brides to confirm appointments.

I've also sewn bustles. Oh mah gah. Bustles.

I've had to explain this to a couple of men, but I'll toss it out here too. When a wedding dress is bustled, it doesn't mean the Victorian/Edwardian butt cages.

(source)

Wedding dress bustles are basically just fancy ways of pinning up the train. So far I've been trained to sew two of them- the American bustle and the French bustle.

The French is simple, but tedious. Sew a loop, sew the ribbons. There's at least three points, but usually five or seven. (My dress has thirteen! Gah!)

The American is harder because you have to hide the button-and-loop rigging on the outside of the dress. The tiny stitches on the French bustle are easy to hide, but not buttons and loops and hooks. Oy.

(To see what I'm blabbering about, look here.)

I guess, to sum everything up, I like my new job. I'm super awesomely incredibly grateful I have a job- it makes the whole getting married and leaving home thing a hecka ton easier! Is it what i want to spend the rest of my life doing? Nope. But it's all good. I like what I'm doing, the people I work with are really nice, and I'm getting PAID! Awesome times, y'all.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

2010-02-11T13:21:00.003-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a photographer!! It has been a long, long, lo-o-o-ong process!

Initially (re: two years ago) a photography major friend of ours was going to do the pictures. A few months ago she told me she had photographed a wedding and it didn't go as well as she planned, so in order to prevent us from getting not-so-great pictures, she backed out. She's still coming to the wedding (yay!) and she gave us plenty of time to find a replacement.

That being said, DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE PHOTOGRAPHY IS?!

(The answer is very.)

I hunted everywhere. I placed a Weddingbee classified that yielded only long-distance photogs that were willing to travel, but I wanted to meet in advance with them, and so that was a no-go. I did internet searches that yielded low price points with crappy pictures, and gorgeous pictures that cost more than my entire budget.

A friend of mine is a professional wedding photographer, so I emailed her. And emailed her. And a mutual friend emailed her. No such luck.

But as I was tooling around Facebook, I noticed one of my friends (who has GORGEOUS bridal portraits) had a link to a photographer on her profile. I followed the link...and got really, really excited. The photographer's work was beautiful, she was recommended by someone who had worked with her, she was in the area, and best of all her prices were FANTASTIC!

I emailed her, P and I met with her, and all looked good. Yesterday my father (aka keeper of the finances) gave the formal okay, and now we are very excited that Jenna from JHenderson Studios will be our photographer for our wedding.

Just take a gander at her blog. Go on, I'll wait.

...

Isn't she AWESOME?

So yeah. We officially will have someone visually documenting the coolest day of our lives so far.

I'm excited!

I Heart Faces

2010-02-09T21:35:00.003-06:00

About three and a half years ago, I was nineteen had just started dating my very first boyfriend. He was super cute and super nice and had a geeky laugh.

We were counselors at church camp that summer. On our last day, we were waiting to get on the bus with the rest of our friends. We were doing goofy things, and one of my friends was taking pictures. She had the two of us stand next to each, but at the last second I turned and kissed him on the cheek. His look of surprise still makes me giggle.

I'll be his wife in thirty-two days.

Musical Monday #20

2010-02-08T21:18:00.002-06:00

I've been a grumpy sort of rut for a while. Because seriously, wedding planning is KILLER. I'm terribly stressed. There's so many decisions to make, and everyone's harping on me to make decisions, and I am NOT looking forward to my only wedding shower...the hot mess has become even hotter and messier.

So I need stuff to cheer me up.

My favoritest band EVER is Bowling for Soup. They're a goofy, naughty punk-pop-rock band, and I just love them to absolute bits and pieces.

(My dream in life is to be the lead singer in a Bowling for Soup cover band. I shall call it Skeeball with Chowder.)

Anyways, one of the songs I love after their newest album is called "No Hablo Ingles," and it's hilarious. Basically it explains that if something happens that you don't want to say or do, just say "No Hablo Ingles."

Awesome.

So...enjoy. Have a good time. Giggle profusely.

I hope they cheer you up as much as they cheer me up!

(aren't they hilarious?)

I need something yummy...

2010-02-07T09:31:00.001-06:00

I'm making a dessert today....

...and I have a couple of ideas...

...but I don't know what to pick...

...and for some reason I want funfetti cupcakes.

That is all.

Suckerpunch

2010-02-05T22:22:00.003-06:00

Relationships are weird.

And I'm not talking about romantic. I'm talking friends, acquaintances, family...all that chiz.

I've had three revelations in the past few days, and it's been weird. So it's time for a little venting, a'ight?

STORY #1:
My cousin, whom I love dearly, is getting married...one month after me. I've known that for a while, but I was like meh. Whatevs. I can deal, right?

Well, I found out that she has changed her date at least half a dozen times before settling. She even made her sister, who's my favorite cousin, get married in October because her original date would have conflicted. She didn't want to get married in October, and I had to miss it because it was production week for Joseph.

Then I found out that she didn't know my wedding date until after she had announced her official one. And she wanted to have me change mine because she thought that I had just now picked it, and certainly I can change it?

Um, the answer is HECKA NO.

Luckily, my uncle not only stood up for me and my three-year engagement, but he also asked my other relatives if they would have to choose between the weddings. Luckily, none of them will.

All this happened a while ago, but it still makes me a bit sad that it had to happen in the first place.

STORY #2:
A family friend is throwing a wedding shower for us. Yay! It's very nice of her, and we appreciate it.

It's just been a little awkward. Because she's been asking me, and my mom, and P's mom for input (which is kind of a faux pas). And she was rather rude to my MOH, who had been trying to plan a shower. And she invited a lot of church ladies that, while I'm sure they're very nice, I don't know who they are. And...

...and for some reason the invitation included "mark you calendars for (wedding date and time)."

Um...wha?

Luckily all of us had that reaction, and I was elected to ask her as politely as possible if that could be taken off. Because...yeah. Yeah. Awkward.

STORY #3:
There's a guy that's been in my circle of friends for a while. He used to be super nice, but now...now, not quite so much. He's the master of passive-aggressive fighting.

Things have been strained between me and him for a while, but he's been a friend of P's since high school, so I'm like "Meh. Send him an invite."

Well, I found out that for the past (nearly) four years that I've been with P, he's been telling everyone that we'd never last and things would never work out. So either he's waiting to see us break up in the next thirty-six days, or he's waiting to hear news of our divorce.

UM, WHAT?

Yeah.

This is the face of a non-happy camper.

I've tried to get along with this dude, but no more. No more, my friends. I am done. Because there's so much more detail I could go into to explain this reaction, but this is not the best forum for it.

But yeah.

Three suckerpunches. Oy. No good, my friends. No good.

I feel famous!

2010-02-05T16:28:00.001-06:00

My bio was featured on Weddingbee!

Huzzah! I feel super special!! :)

Thrusday's 10: The One with the V-Day Presents

2010-02-04T23:53:00.004-06:00

Oh mah gah. Presents? Do you know how hard it is to shop for P?! He never really has any advice as to what I should get him, so instead I run around frantically trying to find presents for him that I'm never sure that he'll actually likes, but he promises he does.

On the other hand, P either gets me The Perfect Gift, which makes me feel like a horrible person for not getting him the perfect present, or he buys me...a video game. Love the man, but just because I play Sims and Harvest Moon doesn't mean that video games are a great de facto gift. :P

Also, my birthday's on Valentine's Day. MOAR PRESENTS, PLZ.

(Someone once suggested that we should get married on V-Day. His eyes got real big and he quickly said "NO. Oh, no. That's Valentine's Day and her birthday and her anniversary. I'd have to get her a massive present every year to cover all my bases. Like a pony.")

In any case...here's my Thursday's Ten variation: the five best gifts I've gotten P, and the five best gifts he's gotten me.

(because that makes ten.)

BEST PRESENTS I'VE GOTTEN P:
#1: a bright blue iPod mini. It was used, but in decent condition, and it lasted him a good while. He was pretty excited.

#2: The Marvel Superhero Encycolopedia. He's read it cover to cover on multiple occasion, and just loves it. There's a new edition out now...maybe I have found a good V-day present.

#3: A VIP Disney tour and a Jedi hat. That was for his birthday last summer, and he was so excited. And I was excited that he would finally know what I was babbling about...

#4: The Orange Box- a video game set that includes Portal. He was happy. Yay, I picked good...

#5: A box full of random wrapped presents and notes. I gave it to him when he started his first semester at MTSU. I told him to open them slowly...um, yeah. Didn't happen. He opened all of them at once. Well, as long as he's happy!

BEST PRESENTS P HAS GOTTEN ME:
#1: a box he filled with reasons he loves me. I melted. Although Emma opened it up and started reading them aloud without realizing what it was. I have never seen P lunge that fast...

#2: A Red vs. Blue shirt that says I HEART CABOOSE. I haven't worn it in a while (gaaaaained weeeeeight) but I'm turning it into something cuter. ;)

#3: The entire Shaman King series on DVD. Twice. He got me the dub version, then the sub version. And considering it's never been released in the States, that is quite a feat!

#4: A beautiful glass figurine of Ariel. They sell Arribas Brothers figures in Adventureland and Downtown Disney, and I've always ooh'd and aah'd over them. Last summer I went to go check Fastpass times, and when I came back P snuck a little brown box in my hand and said it was my welcome home present. I'm keeping him.

#5: Aerie clothes. I know, it sounds shallow, but a year or two ago I was feeling really depressed about my looks. He took me to Aerie and let me pick out a cute outfit and bought it for me. And I felt better.

So yeah! Ten presents! I made it! Woot!

Om nom nom

2010-02-04T23:46:00.002-06:00

I have been looking forward to this day for quite a while. What happened today, you ask?

Well, my friends, today was the catering tasting day.

Originally, we were going to go with a caterer that did a friend's wedding a while back, but she never returned my calls. So my dad used his Vandy connections to get names of great caterers, got proposals for a couple, and after debating the pros and cons, we scheduled the tasting.

P, my mom, and I met downtown to try the different appetizers we're going to serve for our after-lunch-before-dinner reception. We don't need anything terribly heavy, but we want plenty of variety and enough food for everyone to have something to nibble. We loved everything we tasted, and we now have this menu:

-Fried chicken skewers with honey mustard and green goddess dressings (everything's better when it's eaten on a stick)

-Crab cakes with smoked corn remoulade

-Grilled lime shrimp

-London broil with herb cream cheese

-A fruit and cheese display

SoooOOOooOOOoo good!

And guess who's serving this delightful meal?

Oh, yeah, baby.

If you live in Nashville, you're already craving mac and cheese, aren't you?

EMPLOOOOOYED!

2010-02-03T18:42:00.002-06:00

So I'm a WDW CM, but at the moment I'm living in Nashvegas. Can't really make the commute.

I've been applying for jobs all over the general area for a while, but got nothing- not even a retail job, much less in theater. Quite discouraging.

I went in a few weeks ago for the alterations on my wedding dress, and I struck up a conversation with the alterations manager. I mentioned that some people had suggested I make my own wedding dress, and she said "Well, if you ever need a job, you could always apply here."

"Um," I said. "I do need one, actually."

As soon as I was out of my gown she handed me an application and I filled it out right there. A week and a half later I did a sew test and an interview, and today I got a message saying "When can you start?"

Thank you, God!!!!!! I am gainfully employed!!!!!!!

Let's Get Some Shoes

2010-02-03T11:37:00.002-06:00

I am a shoe fiend.

P teases me often about my propensity for buying shoes. It's only exacerbated by the fact that I'm small enough to wear shoes from the children's department in Target, and they're cheaper, and so I justify my purchases by whining "But they were cheeeeaaaap."

But since that whole we-need-to-be-able-to-afford-rent thing is kind of sort of I don't know important, I haven't gotten any new shoes in a while.

However, unlike my cousin who got married barefoot, I want shoes for my wedding.

(Let me clarify a bit. Barefoot brides=awesome, but she got married indoors. In a church. In Pennsylvania. In winter. Wasn't she cold?)

So I made out a list of qualities that I wanted in my Dream Shoe.

-blue

-a decent heel

-an ankle strap

-a bow

Doesn't sound like too much, right?

But, oh yeah, I didn't want to spend too much.

Zappos, Piperlime, DSW, Baby Girl Boutique, Modcloth, and Ebay yielded nothing. NOTHING. I found some that I half-heartedly liked, but nothing that I really tremdously enjoyed.

But then I found it, like a beacon of light in a thick fog. The Dyeables' Christina!

Ankle strap. Three-inch (sturdy) heel. Bow. Even better: a retro look and a peep-toe!

I shopped around, since most people were selling my beauties for $80-$100, and found them on Ebay for $68 and free shipping. SOLD.

Only one problem: they're not blue. And I haven't found a place in Nashville that will dye shoes.

I hemmed and hawed about it. They need to be dyed, because my dress is ivory, and while I usually don't care about PERFECTLY MATCHING my shades, it's clear that these shoes are WHITE and the dress is NOT.

So I'm taking a page from one of my favorite heroines.

"Why, she wanted a pair of blue boots for Sallie's party, so she just painted her soiled white ones the loveliest shade of sky blue you ever saw, and they looked exactly like satin," added Jo, with an air of pride in her sister's accomplishments that exasperated Amy till she felt that it would be a relief to throw her cardcase at her.

If Amy March can paint her boots sky blue, surely I can paint my wedding shoes!

My painting is usually left to acrylics on paper, but last summer one of my coordinators on Sunset Boulevard asked me to paint tiger stripes on his neon orange Chuck Taylors. He gave me a bottle of Jaquard Textiles fabric dye, I spent a couple of days painting the stripes freehand, and bah-BAM. They turned out great, he loved them, and so far there's no sign of warping, streaking, or fading.

My Christinas came with a piece of test satin, so I pulled out the leftover bottle of dye and gave it a whirl.

The swatch on the top was the first part I did. See how sketchy it looks? It dried thick and cracked, and warped the edge of the sample. I realized I was painting against the grain. So I tried again.

The swatch on the right was painted with the grain. It didn't warp as much, but it still didn't cover as well as I liked.

The bottle says you can dilute the dye, so I added just a drop or two of water. The result? Perfection. That's the swatch in the middle. It dried smoothly, without streaking, and it didn't cake the surface or warp the fabric.

The swatch on the left was very diluted. That was more of an experiment than anything else. It made it very light, but the brush strokes and the edges are too distinct. It would be great if I was going for a tie-dyed effect...but alas, I am not.

So my plan is to buy a jar of Jacquard dye in a light blue and dilute it. I can't wait to see how my kick-awesome shoes turn out!

Your Attendance is Demanded...

2010-02-02T20:29:00.004-06:00

P and I never did Save the Dates. I mean, we were engaged for so long that people had March 13, 2010 blocked off on their calendars back in 2007.

But a lot of people make STDs. Usually they're just a nice picture of the couple and the date. But I saw this on Awkward Family Photos, and cracked up.

Yeah, that's a set of faces that says "We're getting married! Come and join our joyous celebration!"

Oh HECK no. Those faces say "YOU ARE COMING TO OUR WEDDING. YOU WILL ARRIVE EARLY. YOU WILL LEAVE AFTER WE LEAVE. YOU WILL BRING A GIFT- PREFERABLY SOMETHING FROM WILIAMS-SONOMA OR POTTERY BARN. AND YOU WILL LIKE IT."

That's a party I'd be thrilled to attend.

And on another Awkward Family Photos note, I would like to point out that as a first grader, I owned that hot pink windsuit.

Awesome.

Let The Mail Onslaught Begin!

2010-02-02T13:20:00.003-06:00

Are you ready for the most terrifying picture you've probably ever seen?

bah-BAM!
The first mailed RSVP arrived mere moments ago!

I got my first 'yes' from Kat, but she delivered it by hand. And I got my first 'no' from Ayla, but she told me via Facebook. Today, I opened the mailbox to discover that my favorite friend Keeton will be attending the wedding.

And there is much rejoicing.

(yaaaaaay.)

Musical Monday #19!

2010-02-02T00:59:00.002-06:00

In light of the fact that the wedding is coming up faster than a dinosaur in a Jeep's side mirror, I need a song that motivates me. And I've discovered that when I go for a run (which for me translates as "briskly paced walk that might could pass for a jog") the best song to motivate me is:

"Shut Up" by Simple Plan

So do you want to feel motivated? Plunk this in your iTunes, give a listen when you're running, and see if it doesn't ruffle your feathers to the point that you're bolting down the pavement.

Forty days to go!

2010-02-02T00:53:00.003-06:00

So here I am, with a brand-spanking-new blog layout! Isn't it marvelous?

I've been neglecting my blog, because I kind of went a little kamikaze with a wedding-only blog. But do you know what? I love this blog. I'm sad that I neglected it. And so now I have closed up shop on the wedding-only blog, and...um...you'll just have to see all my wedding junk here.

But just think of it this way- the wedding's in forty days, so it can't be that...

OH. MAH. GAH. FORTY DAYS.

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was whining to Patrick about how our engagement was going to last forever. "Engagement Purgatory," I called it. And it was most unpleasant. I don't recommend long engagements. Give yourself just enough time to plan, and then be DONE.

But in any case, there's forty days until the wedding. It's time for this sassy-pants'd girl to kick it into MAJOR HIGH GEAR!

BE PREPARED

2010-02-01T22:44:00.002-06:00

I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF A SUPER AWESOME OVERHAUL.

So, um, stay tuned.

A Yes and a No

2010-01-29T10:45:00.000-06:00

After mailing the invitations mere days ago, we have our first two RSVPs!! We have one yes, and one no.

The yes came from MOH Kat. She was so giddy about getting the official invitation that she filled out the card the minute she got it, and flapped it in my face when I went to her apartment for movie night. I believe her exact words were "LOOK WHAT I HAVE I'M SO EXCITED THIS INVITATION IS SO PRETTY I'M OFFICIALLY COMING THIS WEDDING IS GOING TO BE THE CHIZ."

(you see why I love her?)

The no came from a dear friend from my high school days. Not only did she send the card, but she sent me a Facebook message the very day she received the invitation apologizing for not coming and explaining that she'll be in France during the wedding.

I was a bit sad that she can't come, but hey, that's a pretty awesome reason to not come. Besides, she promised to bring me back something from France. Huzzah!

The Name Game

2010-01-27T11:46:00.001-06:00

I've seen a lot of debate about changing your last name to your husband's after the wedding. Everybody has their reasons for changing, or not changing, or hyphenating, or combining, and I think it's awesome. There's no good reason for following tradition blindly.

Personally, I will be changing my name. For me, it is a symbol that I am officially creating a new family with my new husband, and the name change goes hand in hand with the change in my life. I will be adding my maiden name as a third middle name (and seeing as how my maiden name is a fairly standard boy's name, it won't be too odd).

I also think that changing my last name to my husband's will make life easier for our children. We want at least three, and I don't really want to have to make them explain why their hyphenated last name is so terribly long, or why Mommy's last name is different from theirs.

That being said, P's very lovely Cornish last name has three drawbacks.

#1: It's impossible to pronounce.

#2: It's impossible to spell.

#3: It rhymes.

P's last name is Trevathan. Apparently in Cornwall it's as common as "Smith" or "Jones," but over here it just gets funny looks and hesitant "Trev...Trev...um..."

(For the record, it's pronounced tre-VAY-than.)

And while I am happy to take his last name, there's one thing holding me back. You know Julia Goolia in the Wedding Singer? Well, I'm going to be Caitlin Trevathan.

Yeah. Drink that in for a bit.

It's silly, but it's a little annoying at the same time. It sounds made-up.

On the other hand, it would look GREAT as a stage name!

And they're off!

2010-01-25T16:56:00.000-06:00

It's official!

I took the invitations to the post office today. They're typed, glued, stickered, addressed, and stamped. Now they're zipping across Tennessee and Pennsylvania and Texas and even California. It's for reals, y'all. This isn't just some event we're hypothetically planning. People will actually be coming.

The invitations weighed in for a normal 44-cent stamp, but I still wanted to hand-cancel. After all, I had heard that hand-canceling was an important part of sending fancy-pantsy invitations. There was just one problem.

What exactly is hand-canceling? And why is it so important to do it?

Well, kiddos, this is how it rolls. An envelope is canceled when they stamp the round date and location logo over the postage. Usually this is done by feeding it through a machine, but that can crumple or tear an envelope. So when you have delicate wedding invitations, it's better to do it by hand rather than letting the machine do it.

I went into the post office in the early afternoon with a big plastic bag full of invitations. I got some funny looks, until I explained that I had wedding invitations and I wanted to hand-cancel them. The very nice postman handed me a red self-inking stamp and pointed me to a table where I could stamp away. Five minutes later, I popped back up to the counter, handed him the bag of invitations (and the stamper), and off they went!

A Room of One's Own

2010-01-22T00:07:00.005-06:00

I hope you're ready for the LAZIEST THURSDAY'S TEN EVER.

Like seriously.

The theme for today is things around your house, and I was too lazy to leave my bedroom. So...here's a handful of random things that I like that just so happen to lurk in my room.

#1: My bed and

#2: COLORS!

I love my bed. It's so squishy and comfy. And, um, cluttered at the moment.

Also, I love my room's color scheme. I designed it back when I was in high school and I was obsessed with Trading Spaces.

The conversation when I tried to explain the colors to my dad was PRICELESS. "You want...you want blue and green? And orange and purple? And red? Are you...are you sure?"

#3: My movie tie-in collection

and

#4: My book collection

I love movies, and these are all souvenirs from some of my favorites. (They're not in the picture, but I have a cluster of action figures to the left.)

I am an absolutely VORACIOUS reader. You can't really tell, but the shelves run pretty much all around my room. I have so many books that I had to move the nonfiction books and my scripts to a different spot.

#5: My ipod/stereo/alarm clock

and

#6: Hello Kitty

I would die without my iPod alarm clock. For serious.

That Hello Kitty is actually my sister's. She dragged that little toy around with her everywhere throughout her childhood, and she's sort of the family mascot now. We joke about who gets to have "custody" of Kitty.

#7: My Disney pins

(This is the part where I start grasping at straws as to what I have in my room that's actually interesting.)

I have a huge collection of Disney pins after working in the parks for so long. I refer to it as my retirement fund.

(Seriously, some of these babies go for about $50-$150 on ebay.)

#8: My manuscript

(Whoa, old picture! Back when I was still blondish!)

Yup. I wrote that shiz. All 360+ pages of it.

Now to find a publisher...

#9: Zac Efron!

Yeah. My sewing machine. Love that thing.

The Zac Efron sticker makes it over 9,000 times cooler.

aaaaaaand finally...

#10: MY DRESSFORM!

GUESS WHAT ARRIVED YESTERDAY?!

Yup. My dressform. Still debating about what to name her. Probably going to go with Giselle. Since Giselle sews and all.

But yeah. I think I win for LAZIEST THURSDAY'S TEN EVER.

...

EVER.

YOWZAS!

2010-01-20T12:31:00.003-06:00

To quote one of my best friends...HOLY SPAM!

I've been sadly neglecting my blog lately (a wedding in 54 days can do that to ya), but imagine my delight and astonishment when I open up my inbox to 16 glorious comments!

Literally, folks, my eyes are boggling.

It's all thanks to the wonderful Lynnette Kraft. I signed up for her fabulous "Getting to Know YOU!" thingamabob...and then, like the daydreamy gal I am, promptly forgot all about it.

Gah. Gotta work on that.

But it has been so encouraging to get all those fun and funny comments. I've been rather stressed lately, and this has perked me right up!

So thank you so much, everybody!! I'm going to do my best to write back to each and every one of you lovely people!!

Playing Dress-Up

2010-01-19T15:42:00.000-06:00

Today I took my pretty, pretty princess dress in for alterations. It was so nice to put it on again, in all of it satiny, sparkly, pick-uppy glory.

I wasn't quite prepared, though, for how much will have to be changed. It's going to be gorgeous, but still. So much tweaking!

So what's going to happen to my princess dress?

-Altering the straight-across neckline to a sweetheart neckline

-Tweaking the straps so they'll lie more off-the-shoulder.

-Letting the sides out a little. :(

(I'm definitely going to up the ante on the whole working-out-and-eating-better thing. And definitely more work on my back squish!)

-hemmmmmmms. Because I'm shoooooooort.

-A delicious 13-point French bustle. It looks like somebody tossed a handful of whipped cream on me. In a good, yummy sort of way.

And here's what my pretty dress looks like:

I'm starting to debate my hairstyle, though. I know I definitely want it down, with loose curls, but I don't know if I want it in a half-back. Maybe I can just pin the sides back or something. I don't know.

In the meantime, my dress will be in surgery until the middle of February. I can't wait to see what it looks like then!

I waaaaaant it!

2010-01-14T22:54:00.002-06:00

I'm taking a break from the relentless terror that is my sewing collection- or, rather, the organization thereof. It's rather terrifying to see how many unfinished projects I have...

So now, without further ado, here are my top ten items on my wishlist!

#1: An adjustable dressform

My parents promised to get me one for my graduation present. So hopefully I'll be bringing one home soon!

#2: a sunshine yellow mixer

Lora has this on her list too...and I totally agree! My mom got a Kitchenaid last year, and it's super fantastic.

#3: A teacup Yorkshire terrier

I've never had a pet, but I've wanted a Yorkshire terrier since I was seven years old. I shall name him Theodore Laurence. And he shall be AWESOME.

#4: dresses from Modcloth

Gah. That whole website is full of gorgeous dresses. I'll take one of each, please...

#5: A purple Victorian house (with a tower)

I love Victorian houses. And I need a house. And the main character in my book lives in a purple Victorian house. Speaking of which...

#6: My book in published format

(An artist on Deviantart did this drawing of my main character for me.)

I wrote a whole 100,000+ word book all on my lonesome. I'm currently working on the sequel (with ten more books planned after that), and I really want to see them all published.

#7: A new Artemis Fowl book

Dear Mr. Colfer,

I have followed your series from the first book. I love them. So please publish The Atlantis Complex soon.

kthanxbai

#8: Tiana and Naveen dolls

Go on, laugh. But I collect movie dolls- I have Tinkerbell, Jessie, Anya, Ariel, Belle, Giselle, Ron Stoppable, etc. And I luuuuuuurrrrrvvvv The Princess and the Frog. So...yeah. Want them.

(I still regret not buying the Dimitri and Anya wedding set...)

#9: Peppermint ice cream

Mm...there might be some in the freezer..

and, last but not least...

#10: I want to be married to this guy.

I'll be Mrs. Trevathan in two months.

But that's going to be weird. Because I'll be all like "Whoa, that's his mom...oh, wait, they mean me."

I'll be...little Mrs. Trevathan? I don't know.

But yeah.

That's what I want.

I want the world! I want the whole world! Give it to me noooooowwww...

(And that has been your Veruca Salt moment for the evening.)

A Little Bit of Flower Power

2010-01-13T22:42:00.000-06:00

If someone made a cartoon about me and P, it would be about Allergy Girl and Captain Dehydration the Colonless Wonder. Because he has, well, no colon, and I have forty-seven allergies.

And because flowers make my eyes swell up and my nose run like a faucet, there's no way that I can carry around a real bouquet and come out unscathed. Hence, I'm making my bouquet and the guys' bouts myself. The bouts are for another day, but I got a running start on my flowers.

I bought a slew of silk flowers from Michaels. If you're going the silk route, just wait a bit for sales. When I went, they had all flowers on sale for half off or more! Frickin' sweet.

I started off with this:

Kind of a hot mess, isn't it?

I started off by trimming the length on the longest stems and taking off excess leaves. And I discovered something very, very important.

OH MY LANDS, I NEED BETTER SCISSORS!

I pulled out the scissors I use to cut patterns when I sew- they're nice and sturdy, so they should work, right? WRONG. My poor hands are aching. There was no way on earth that those scissors could get through those stems. Under that innocent vinyl facade is a monstrous thick cord of steel.

Ouch.

I started a system of making a small cut, bending, and twisting until it snapped off. It still took me the better part of an hour to hack away at those things. Eventually it came down to three piles: the bigger flowers with the longer stems, the smaller flowers with the shorter stems, and a Jonas Brothers popcorn bucket filled with fake leaves.

I just sort of stared at it for a moment, like "Uh...what happens next?"

I resolved my blank stare by gathering the larger flowers into one large bundle, and then dividing the shorter flowers into four small bundles. So it came out to this:

Then I gathered the four little bunches on the fringe of the large bunch. Easy, eh?

This is only a rough mockup- I haven't taped them together or added the ribbon and string of vintage pearls. But it gave me a pretty good look at what it's going to end up like.

(Please excuse the highschooler Myspace picture. But isn't it nice that the colors of my bathroom coordinate with the flowers?)

I'm not a fan of the stripe of blue flowers in the middle, and overall it might be a little bit too big. I still like the overall look, though. It has that fresh, pretty just-picked-from-an-English-garden look that I like.

The best part: they don't look like cheap silk! Huzzah!

The worst part: I have to clip at least six more inches off the longer stems.

Gah. I need to track down a bear trap or something to cut these silly things.

Adventures of a Child Bride

2010-01-09T09:08:00.001-06:00

All right, so I'm not really a child bride. (Although P gets plenty of robbing the cradle jokes. I mean, seriously. I'll be twenty-three next month and I still have people ask me "So, when are you starting college, honey?" It's a bit ridic. I mean, take a look at this:)

(Also, please disregard my terrible, terrible tan lines. That's what happens when you work in Disney World...)

I was only nineteen years old when P and I decided to get married. We met in 2004, we started dating in March of '06, and by September of that year he gave me his purity ring on a necklace to wear until he could formally propose. We wanted to keep it a secret- so naturally, everyone knew. And we got a lot of flack for it.

One very dear high school friend sent me an email begging me to reconsider. She had a good point- after all, P was my first boyfriend. And I was a freakin' teenager! She made an analogy about ice cream- sure, if I've only had vanilla, it'll be my favorite. But if I try chocolate and strawberry and chocolate chip cookie dough, maybe I'll realize that one of them is my favorite instead.

Basically, she thought I should date around. But I'm as stubborn as the day is long, and I stuck by my decision. It's been three years since we made that choice on a warm September night, and I've never regretted it.

Getting engaged as a teenager certainly doesn't work for everyone, but it worked for me. It worked for us. We've had the last four years to mature and form our future together. I'm not the same starry-eyed kid I was at nineteen, but growing up hasn't made me love him less or grow so accustomed to him that I forget to value and work on our relationship.

And surprisingly, I think one of the key reasons we've made it work is that we still had vibrant lives outside of each other. He went to school in Murfreesboro while I went to school in Green Hills (about an hour apart). He worked at the mall and lived with his guy friends in an apartment decked out with anime posters and every video game console known to man (and a couple known only to monkeys) while I spent hours and hours in rehearsals and went out with my girlfriends for midnight snack runs and afternoon pottery painting sessions. Granted, when we did see each other, we made the most of it. But we continued to build independent lives and independent friendships.

Sure, we were eligible for Engaged and Underaged on MTV, and sure, we agonized over the years and years of engagement (I called it Engagement Purgatory). And it didn't make it any easier that we decided to not have sex until our wedding night. (We've held to that, but it wasn't easy in the slightest!) I'm still glad that I said yes before I was old enough to drink. He is the right man for me, and age won't ever change that.

65 days till I'm a Mrs.!

2010-01-07T21:47:00.003-06:00

Yikes...only SIXTY-FIVE days?! I remember when we would look at each other and say "Gosh...we're getting married in twenty months! It's so soon!"

We had our second premarital counseling session today. It went really well. We're really going through our stories and seeing how we got to be the people we are now. We have two more sessions, and I'm really looking forward to them.

Afterwards, we came back to my house and sorted through the to-do list. Top of the list for tomorrow? Invitations, baby. It's just about time to send them out.

But in the meantime, it is absolute freezation out here in Nashvegas. I almost didn't want to leave the house today, it was so cold! So I was excited that Lora's ten things was all about staying warm.

So here's my list of things that keep me warm!

#1: Patrick. :)

#2: Going down to Orlando. Mm, I miss that place. Well, mostly Disney, but you know what I mean.

#3: Hot tea. And I mean the good British stuff.

#4: A hearty round of Dance Dance Revolution. Burns calories and it burns you up!

#5: Huddling under the covers in flannel pajamas.

#6: Watching the movie Holes. Have you ever seen that thing? Just watching those boys run through the Texas heat warms me up.

#7: Sewing summer dresses and imagining how awesome it'll be to wear them in the sunshine.

#8: Hot bubble baths. Mmm...

#9: My yellow vintage Mom cardigan.

#10: Sitting by the fireplace.

I think I'm going to participate in #5 right now...cold and sleepy is not a good combination!

It's 2010!

2010-01-01T22:48:00.003-06:00

Well, 2009 is over. And it was...eventful. Extremely eventful.

What did you do in 2009 that you've never done before?
-Directed an entire show
-Turned 22
-Celebrated three years together, two years of engagement, and one year till the wedding
-Dragged Patrick around Disney World!
-Had four big onstage roles

Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Well, let's see. Last year I vowed to...

-Write a page in my second novel every day. HA! That didn't happen. But I'm at least on chapter seven, so that's progress.

-Practice voice more often. Eh, hit or miss. I definitely practice more than I used to.

-Exercise more regularly. Definitely more, but still not consistent.

-Watch less television. LAWLZ. I think I watched more TV this year than I did the year before...but that's mostly because I have to have something on when I'm sewing or writing.

As for this year's resolutions...yeah, they're happening.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope. I have a feeling I'm going to be the first person in my circle of friends to have a baby...so...wait a few years...and there will probably be a little Trevathan around.

Did anyone close to you die?
My grandfather passed away in September from pancreatic cancer.

What countries did you spend time in this year?
Just this one!

What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A husband, a decent apartment, and a job. At least one of those is taken care of...

What dates from 2009 will remain etched on your memory, and why?
September 28th. See three questions higher.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Probably playing Miriam Goldman in Beau Jest. I worked so hard for that show, and it paid off in a major way. And I found out that the show was cast around me, so that was nice for my poor little bruised ego (see the majority of theater-related blog entries from 2008 and early 2009.)

What was your biggest failure?
Not doing as well in my classes as I would have liked.

Did you suffer any serious illness or injury?
No, thank goodness. I did my time in 2007-2008. Shingles in the fall, mono in the spring. It was terrible.

What was the best thing you bought?
My new laptop, Spock. And my car, the Mach 5.

Where did most of your money go?
Well, I made very little money in the spring, made a lot of money in the summer, and then spent it slowly in the fall. So basically...living expenses. That sucks.

Compared to last year, are you...

...happier or sadder?
Happier. Mostly due to the fact that I finally regained the confidence that I lost throughout 2007-2008.

...thinner or fatter?
I'm fatter than I was in the summer, but thinner than I was this time last year. So...yay?

...richer or poorer?
About the same.

What did you get really excited about?
Working at Disney again!

What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I had more time to hang out with friends, but I was working in the Happiest Place on Earth and doing SEVEN shows. So...now that I have too much free time on my hands, I'm glad things worked out the way they did.

Did you fall in love in 2009?
I fell in love four years ago, but I will say that Patrick and I are more than "in" love. We love each other.

(and everyone just threw up a little bit. At least I'm not proclaiming "Welcome to 2010, the year of our wedding! EVERYONE MUST CELEBRATE WITH US BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER BE AS ROMANTIC AS WE ARE, SO YOU BETTER BE ENJOYING THIS VICARIOUSLY.")

How many one-night stands?
Um...doesn't this question sort of negate the previous one? But in any case, the answer is no.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Not that I can think of. I don't really have a hit list or anything.

What was the best book you read?
Oh, wow. Um...I read my favorite book, Little Women, four times this year. Does that count? Honestly, though, I can't think of a new book I read that I really, really adored.

What did you get and not get?
Nothing, really. I'm quite satisfied.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 22 this year. I spent my birthday in the theater- we had a matinee and an evening performance of Enchanted Attic.

What one thing could have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting married in 2009 instead of 2010. But we're down to 70 days, and I can do that.

Who do you miss?
My Disney family!

Who was the best new person you met?
My Disney apartment mates- Shana, Sam, and Carissa. And Adriana totally counts too. Love them!

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009?
Sometimes it's exhausting to work your ass off, but it pays off in the end.

What sums up this year in a quote?
"Isn't that niiiiice?" (the Beau Jest catchphrase)

And to close...my 2010 resolutions!
-Get married.

-Lose weight.

-Actually try to get Beatrice published.

-Finish ALL my half-finished sewing projects.

Happy New Year, everybody!

Now that I have time to blog! (and Musical Monday)

2009-12-07T21:39:00.002-06:00

OH MY GOSH I HAVE NOT BLOGGED IN DECADES.

Seriously.

In all fairness, though, life has been terribly busy. Guys and Dolls wrapped, we went through Wolf Calls and Pig Tails, and oh, yeah, I had to make twelve dresses and four pairs of knee britches in the span of two and a half weeks. I just about exploded.

But I'm back now, happily celebrating the one-year anniversary of my blog! But right now, I'm too sleepy to really talk much. So I leave you with my Musical Monday, which brings back memories of my parents on Christmas. I hope it makes you giggle like a small precocious schoolgirl.

NaNoWriMo: Day #10

2009-11-11T00:27:00.003-06:00

(Whew, I haven't blogged in decades!)

Chapter 3: 3,156

Chapter 4: 2,766

Chapter 5: 2,717

Chapter six has been handwritten, but not typed (2,704 words).

Total words (not including chapter 6): 16,033

I took my books off of Fictionpress, though. Another Wrimo pointed out that posting the stories online constitutes as publication, which can make actually publishing the book a bit hairy. And seeing as I desperately want to see Beatrice (all twelve books of her) published, I took them off. :(

Oh, well.

NaNoWriMo 2009: Wordle

2009-11-08T01:12:00.002-06:00

This is what I have been up to.

My favorite part is "little hand chicken" on the far right side. And the fact that Chrysanthemum's name doesn't fit anywhere.

NaNoWriMo: Day #2

2009-11-02T23:43:00.002-06:00

Chapter 2: 3,517

Total words today: 3,517

Total words: 7,394

NaNoWriMo: Day #1

2009-11-01T21:08:00.004-06:00

Prologue: 1,057 words

Chapter 1: 2,820 words

Total words today: 3,877

Total words: 3,877

NaNoWriMo!

2009-11-01T11:42:00.003-06:00

It's that time again, folks! National Novel Writing Month! I am SO determined to not only participate, but also complete a book this time. I've tried and tried and never succeeded, but that's all going to change.

I totally forgot about it until October 30...and I was like "aw crap! What am I going to write about?" And then I thought, "Oh, screw it. This is as good a time as any to write the sequel to my first book."

So I pulled out my notes and outlines and got cracking.

Just to explain how I roll, the book is outlined into thirty chapters, plus an epilogue and a prologue. I handwrite everything. Once I've handwritten a chapter, I type it. So yeah.

Stay tuned!

Why I Am Going to Die a Slow and Painful Death This Week

2009-11-01T10:50:00.002-06:00

Last Monday
Rehearsal from 7-11

Last Tuesday
Rehearsal for Jake's scene from 5:30 to 6:45
Rehearsal from 7-11

Last Wednesday
Rehearsal from 7-11

Last Thursday
Rehearsal from 7-11

Last Friday
Rehearsal from 7-11

Last Saturday (yesterday)
Dance class at 9am
Costume fitting at 10:30
Rehearsal from 6-11

Sunday (today)
Rehearsal from 9am-3pm

Monday
Rehearsal from 5-11

Tuesday
Rehearsal for Jake's scene
Rehearsal from 5-11

Wednesday
Rehearsal from 5-11

Thursday
Performance

Friday
Performance

Saturday
Performance

Sunday
Final performance
Set strike

Monday
Rehearsal for Jake's scene
Rehearsal for the children's play

I love theater, don't get me wrong, but I am just so dad-blamed tired.

Also, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month. Stay tuned!

When Musicals Eat Your Life (and a Musical Monday!)

2009-10-26T19:54:00.004-05:00

Seriously, there is no life but Guys and Dolls. I'm in rehearsals every night- last week it was three hours a night, now it's bumped to four. Gah.

Trunk or Treat was tons of fun. The Swiper costume was a hit!

P made a fabulous nerd. No one was surprised.

Kat and Emma and I also ventured forth to find their bridesmaids dresses, and yea and verily, we were victorious! My five lovely ladies shall be clad accordingly:

Kat:

Lindsay:

Rebecca:
Rose:

Emma:

So now no one will be naked! Huzzah!

And now I am at Guys and Dolls rehearsal. Where I shall be for the next three hours. Please, someone come to Alumni Auditorium and shoot. me. now.

But on the other hand, I've been listening to this song a lot while driving, and I thought I would share the joy. So here is my Musical Monday contribution!

And that concludes today's sporadic and spazzy blog entry. Carry on.

The story of a costume

2009-10-24T16:18:00.007-05:00

Sunday, October 17: Find out I need to make a costume so I can be Swiper from Dora the Explorer for Trunk or Treat at church. I immediately run out and buy $15 worth of costume velvet and thread.

Over the next week: I deliberate over the design of the costume before deciding to dig out good ol' Simplicity 2942 from my stash. However, because of a STUPID REGENCY DRESS and nightly rehearsals, I don't get around to it.

Saturday, October 24: I finally get started.

4:21 pm: I dig out the pattern (no, literally, I have to dig) and sort the pieces while watching an umpteenth episode of Wizards of Waverly Place.

4:34 pm: After finding all the pieces, I lay out the fabric, pin, and cut. (This is my least favorite part of sewing...)

5:10 pm: Gah, I hate pinning and cutting. It took me this long!! But c'est la vie. The rest of this dress should go a lot faster. I'll check back in an hour... (Also, I switched to watching Hocus Pocus on ABC Family.)

6:10 pm: The bodice is complete, and I've started working on the pockets. I'm thinking about eliminating them, though, because I think it's going to make the skirt sag too much. I think I'll just skip ahead to the next step.

7:49 pm: The front skirt is doing just fine...but I took a break to eat dinner. Because food is awesome and stuff. Also, the Wizards of Waverly Place movie is on...

9:04 pm: A lot more progress. The back is faced, the ties are sewn, and both hem ruffles are pinned (but only one is sewn). The Wizards movie is over; now I'm watching the end of The Goonies.

10:01 pm: STUPID SEWING MACHINE. I have made little progress. But I went from the Goonies to King of the Hill to Project Runway.

11:02 pm: The dress is almost done- it's just a matter of attaching the sleeves. Looking for something else to watch. Snacking on a mini KitKat bar to stay awake. Also waiting for P to call.

11:37 pm: Both sleeves are attached and the dress is complete! On to the mask and gloves. (Also, P called.)

12:06 am: I realized that I have no pattern, nor any clue as to how to construct a mask. I dug around through some boxes and unearthed a pair of goggles.

12:32 am: The mask is okay. I'm not thrilled about it, but it'll work. However, I'm completely daunted by the idea of sewing a pair of gloves.

12:40 am: I gave up on the mask for the moment and went searching through the downstairs hall closet for a pair of purple gloves. I found one. As in one glove.

12:55 am: I said "screw it, I'm going to bed."

Thursday's Ten!

2009-10-22T22:18:00.005-05:00

Before I get started, I guess I should say that the Regency dress is done, done, done! I finished it this morning, a few hours before class, and it fit perfectly and was incredibly comfortable. Success! The presentation also went very well, which pleases me. Now I just have to make a Swiper costume before Sunday and a zombie coat before Halloween...

I have also been named an honorary man in the theater department. When I have my official christening, I shall report the tale (as much as I am permitted).

Other than that...nothing has really been thrilling. Basically life=Guys and Dolls rehearsal.

Wedding stuff has hit a minor plateau. Things have changed a little bit when it comes to vendors- we've decided to have a local bakery do the cake. It's getting a little stressful to balance school/rehearsal/wedding/graduating/life, so I've delegated the vendor search for the big three (cake, photography, and catering) to my dad. He loves that sort of contract stuff. And I...do not. But I'm trying to keep wedding stuff in my wedding blog, so I'll move on. (Although it's been a month since I applied to Weddingbee...and they still haven't answered me! Gah!).

And now on to the Thursday's Ten!

I love what Lora picked for this week. It's all stuff that we would absolutely have to take with us to the next house if we were moving. And since I'm going to be moving with P in five months (finally!), I suppose I should actually think about that.

So here's my list!
#1: My baby blanket. I know, stupid. But I've always had it, for every move, every dorm, every internship. And I'm holding onto it so I can sew it into a coat for my first child. So there.

#2: My Disney box. I have a box filled with all sorts of important things from my two Disney internships- a genuine Great Movie Ride newsie cap, an original Fantasmic! shirt, a handful of 3D glasses, photographs...even a piece of Great Movie Ride carpet. (Is that weird? Yep, that's weird.)

#3: My library. You know how the Beast gives Belle that massive library?

Yeah. I have this.

(This pictures was taken when I was in high school...there are fewer dolls now.)

I actually have shelves that wrap around my room, and they're sagging under the weight of my book collection. I also inherited a complete collection of Shakespeare's works from my grandfather, but I can't put them up because I ran out of room. But I'm already warning P that we have to get a lot of Ikea bookshelves for our apartment, because these babies are coming with me.

(And yes, my room is blue with a red stripe, a purple stripe, and orange shelves. My comforter is sage green, and I have curtains striped in all of those colors. Gotta love it.)

#4: My vintage Alice magazine ad. It's decorated my walls since I was five or six years old.

#5: My reminder box. For my twentieth birthday, P gave me a Willow Creek box filled with tiny pieces of paper. That tiny box is crammed full of reasons that he loves me, and he wrote it so that if I ever doubted that he loved me, I could read it and be assured.

#6: My Beatrice manuscript. When I wrote my novel, I wrote it by hand. Those three hundred sacred pages are coming with me EVERYWHERE, fo' sho'.

#7: My Alice in Wonderland costume. It's the first thing I ever sewed, and I love it. Plus, it's always nice to have a default costume lying around in case, you know, you have to dress up.

#8: A little glass Ariel figure. P bought her for me as a surprise from the Arribas Brothers kiosk in Magic Kingdom, right outside Pirates of the Caribbean. I had been drooling over her for months! She's a nice little mascot.

#9:My sewing machine. I have to downsize my sewing stuff when I move, but Zac Efron has to come with me.

#10: My little television. Because a girl has got to get her CSI fix while the guy plays his video games.

Rush into Regency Part Something-or-Other: It Looks Like a Dress!

2009-10-19T20:16:00.003-05:00

Last night I dragged Zac Efron out and started chugging away. The bodices went together surprisingly well, despite how thin the front looks. I lengthened it by about three inches, and ended up cutting off two of them. Most of the reviews of the pattern I've read despair about how this dress doesn't look flattering on curvier girls. I completely disagree. If you look at paintings of women from the time period, they were definitely curvy, and they rocked out those long empire dresses.

(see? see?)

I also sewed the top layer together and hemmed, then pinned it to the bodice. Then I got tired and went to bed, for yea and verily, I am lazy.

So when I got home from classes today, I got back to work (despite the fact that all I wanted to do was take a nap after rehearsal). I finished the lining- including the process of sewing wide pregathered eyelet trim to the hem- and sewed it to the bodice. I also managed to assemble a sleeve (yes, just one sleeve) before I realized it was 6:03 and I hadn't eaten dinner and rehearsal started in less than an hour and AUGH.

So now I'm sitting in the hallway at Guys and Dolls rehearsal, super sleepy and even more super bored, wishing I was asleep. Maybe I'll take a nap after my scene...

Rush into Regency Part III: Mm, muslin!

2009-10-17T22:20:00.002-05:00

Who knew muslin was this amazing? I'm really happy with it. I've sewed with some crappy cheap fabrics before, but this muslin has such a delicious weight to it. It's going to be just the right fabric for this project. Very happy about that.

I'm not so happy about the fact that I forgot to compensate for the fabric I would need for the lining. I didn't get nearly enough muslin for the dress and the lining. So I'm compensating by making the lining about six inches shorter than the gown. I'll probably trim it with eyelet, just to make it longer (and make it secretly prettier).

I need to cut the skirt lining panels (two back and two side back), one more bodice, and the sleeves. But I am just way too tired to deal with it right now. So I shan't.

Rush into Regency Part II: Why so many pieces?

2009-10-16T16:48:00.002-05:00

I have finally cut out all of the pattern pieces. I think I'm going to die.

It took about an hour and a half just to cut the paper pieces. Now I have to align them properly on my (very narrow) cut of muslin and pray I have enough. I have to cut:

-2 bodice fronts
-4 bodice backs
-4 bodice side backs
-2 sleeves
-1 skirt front
-2 skirt backs
-2 skirt side backs

And that doesn't even include the underskirt. I seriously doubt I have enough muslin to do the job, and I have no desire to purchase more. I do have a vast quantity of a dusky lavender sheer, which might do the trick, especially if I lace the back of the dress with lavender ribbon.

Also, I think I know what I'm going to be for Halloween, since now I can't dye my hair back to red and be Ariel until after Guys and Dolls is over.

Um, yes. Hilarity.

Rush Into Regency Part I: AUGH.

2009-10-16T11:47:00.005-05:00

While I have several projects going on right now that are nearly done (red corduroy coat, navy Kate Nash dress, plaid open-back dress), everything is going on hold. Why? Because I have ONE WEEK to make a Regency dress.

I've been planning this dress for a while, because this is going to be my prototype for my Giselle dress.

I 've done a lot of dresses with sweetheart necklines (I have been, um, well-blessed), so I was going to do the bodice on my own by building it around a bra. The skirts were confusing me, though. It requires four layers- one pink, two cream, one aqua- but when she stands still, there's very little volume. Yet when she spins, it flares like a mofo. It also, inexplicably, has a train.

I theorized that the skirts were gored (in a pie shape, if you will) and most likely cut on the bias. In order to find the right pattern piece, I purchased Butterick 6630 off of good ol' Ebay.

The skirt is just right, so I'm just going to modify it. But I wanted to do a dry run by sticking exactly to the pattern, because I've never done a skirt quite like this before.

Last week I purchased five or six yards of a nice white muslin (yay for sales!), and the other night I started leisurely cutting out pattern pieces. I figured I have plenty of time. I wanted to wear it for an English novel project (since we're doing it on Emma), but I thought there would be time.

Oh, no. That's due in a week. And since I'm dressing up as Jane Austen, and naked is not an option, I have to start and complete this project by Thursday.

Oy.

When I get home from rehearsal, I'm breaking out the scissors. I expect it'll take about two to three hours just to cut the pattern and the fabric for this son of a biscuit eater.

Double oy.

When stuff changes

2009-10-15T10:32:00.004-05:00

After all my bemoaning about skipping a day of blogging, I didn't blog yesterday either! I need to fix this. Now that I have my wedding-only blog, I got a little distracted...

I've been sending out a lot of Facebook messages, getting other people on the same page as me when it comes to wedding stuff. Especially the bridesmaids dresses! Naked is not a good option. I'm secretly hoping that all of them will fall in love with this dress as much as I have:

Gah. I love that dress. And it fits the feel of the wedding really really well!

Oh, well. We'll figure something out.

In other dress-related news, I've think I'm going to go with a different dress for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Originally, I picked out this one:
I picked it for the sole reason of the pickups. I thought "Hey, I'm too short for a gown with pickups. I'll just put them on my rehearsal dress!"

Lo and behold, my dress has pickups! And in the meantime, I have a new dress on my "if-I-could-afford-any-wedding-gown-ever" list: Christos's Bella.

Oh mah gah. It's gorgeous. I could eat it.

(Not really. I'm probably allergic.)

I think I'm just going to recreate a shorter version of this dress for the rehearsal, probably by Frankensteining. My sister has this pattern, so I'll use this for the bodice:
Form the looks of it, the dress is simply layered square skirts, to create the handkerchief hems. It'll take a heck of a lot of organza, but it'll be gorgeous! Pair it with pretty ballet flats and a flower in my hair, and I will be a happy camper.

I've also been considering the weather. I mean, March in Nashville can be either gorgeous and sunny, or freezing and gross! I'll need a coat. But not just any coat. This coat has to go over my wedding dress (and probably my rehearsal dress as well). So to cover up, stay warm, and match my theme, I'm going to make this:
"But how does it match the theme?" you ask.

This is from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film, which (coincidentally) is coming out a week before the wedding.

Nerdy, isn't it? But it's a pretty, classy coat, and it's an Alice reference that most people probably won't get. But I will, and I will be happy.

My version will probably fasten with pearl buttons rather than self-fabric, and it'll be shorter, most likely based off of this pattern:
I can manage that, I think.

In real life news...well, life goes on. Guys and Dolls is crawling along at a snail's pace. I'm actually kind of relieved to have a smaller featured part rather than to be an ensemble member. Everyone else has to be at rehearsal every day...but tonight is my first rehearsal for the week! It's nice to have time to work on wedding stuff, rather than killing myself in the theater every night.

Fall break is this weekend. Will I be there? Nope. Rehearsal on Friday, load-in on Saturday. But hopefully on Saturday afternoon, P and I can go see the Toy Story double feature. Because I love those movies, for serious. And I wouldn't feel like a real cast member if I didn't go to see it.

Bad blogger! Bad blogger!

2009-10-13T23:22:00.003-05:00

I didn't blog yesterday. Sad day. It's the first day I've missed in a long time.

But in my defense, I spent a lot of time working on a separate wedding blog. My poor little blog is getting completely overwhelmed by wedding stuff, so I made a blog juuuust for that purpose. Let me know what you think of it!

I'm still mysteriously sick. No clue as to what's wrong with me. But it seems to be fading away. At least I hope it's fading away. I really don't want to deal with this any more...

But that does explain why I'm so tired. And why I'm going to crash....now.

Just an everyday bride

2009-10-11T19:42:00.004-05:00

If all had gone as planned, I would be rocking out at a Relient K concert with Kat. But I have a mild but nevertheless obnoxious case of the flu. So instead of shouting the lyrics of "Sadie Hawkins Dance" at the top of my lungs (do they even still play that one? I feel so old...), I am curled up in my bed with a Sprite-and-cranberry juice cocktail, watching Fox's Animation Domination block and cruising Weddingbee.

Despite my blah-ness, P came over after church so we could work on wedding-related stuff. I wasn't terribly up for it, but P was willing to drive and carry all the stuff I pointed out.

We went on a field trip. Not a very exciting one, but first we traveled to Michaels to pick up two more boxes of invitations. Not only were the invitations marked down to $29.99 from $39.99, but I got one of the boxes for 50% off with a coupon! Fifteen dollars for thirty invitations? Yes, please.

I also picked up ribbon to wrap around the stems of my bouquet. Originally I wanted to get velvet ribbon, just because I am totally in love with texture, but it's just not practical. Light blue velvet ribbon with a 2" width is just not malleable enough to wrap around stems, and it's hard to find it in a wide width, anyways. The ribbon I picked up is a satin stripe- so there's still texture, just different.

After Michaels in 100 Oaks, we headed over to JoAnn's. I had picked out the lace fabric that I wanted to use for my going-away dress the last time I was there, but I wanted to wait until it was A) on sale, or B) I could use my 50% off coupon. Turns out the fabric was on sale, so I picked up four yards for $9.09 instead of $12.99 per yard. It's an absolutely beautiful diamond white organza striped in a floral lace pattern. It also fulfills one of my big critera- instead of selvage edges, it's finished in a lace pattern. Sold!

I still need to buy everything else to create the dress, but I have plenty of time, since I'm not planning to actually sew it until February. I'm still losing weight, and I don't want to start now, lose a lot of weight, and then drag around an ill-fitting dress during the reception. Besides, I have to make a muslin mockup of the bodice. So yeah. Plenty of time to buy the rest of the supplies.

Then I splurged.

P told me I was fine, that I've been planning for this for a super long time and he was fine with me spending the money. And as much as I dislike spending money, I'm super excited about this, my newest large-scale costuming project.

*drool*

I have been in LOVE with that dress since Enchanted first premiered, and it took me almost two years to find just the right fabric. It's still not perfect, but I definitely won't find anything better. I snatched up five yards of the stuff back in the spring. Today I splurged and bought the rest of the supplies (except for the four yards of cream organza I need for the two underskirts).

I felt as guilty as sin as I slunk away from JoAnn's with my bags of loot. (Did I also mention I bought five yards of white muslin? It was only $1.49 a yard...). P kept telling me it was all right, but I still wasn't confident.

Oh, well. The purchase was made and P took me home. (And he picked up a peanut butter fudge milkshake from Sonic for me too...I love that man.) We were going to hash out a whole bunch of wedding stuff, but I just wasn't up to it. Instead, we had a laptop party. Basically, we sat on my bed and watched Nickelodeon and worked on our laptops. He worked on some Microsoft 7 training stuff, I worked on wedding stuff.

I know, right? We're so boring. But hey, that's what happens.

Before he left, we went over our rough guest list. It's changed a bit over the past few years of our engagement (beginning with the fact that he couldn't remember the last names of several of his relatives!) and I wanted to make sure everything was still good on his end. He studied it for a bit, and declared that it looked good to him.

So now I've been recalibrating the guest list. Not terribly exciting, but it needs to be done. And when it's done, we can work on actually printing those pretty invitations!

But now it's bedtime. Just another end to another day in the life of an everyday bride.

It's 8:27pm...and it's bedtime

2009-10-10T20:26:00.002-05:00

So I have the flu.

I've been feeling sickish since the final weekend of Beau Jest, but it's been hitting me harder and harder. My bestie Kat got the flu...and I think that's what I have.

Ick.

I feel rather dreadful. P came over this morning we would could do some wedding related things, and I was just not feeling great. After he left I climbed into bed, and I've been there ever since.

On the upside, our trip to Michaels went well. I found a lovely collection of silk flowers to use for my bouquet, so expect some mock-up to show up soon!

And even better, we bought two kits' worth of invitations. They've just been put on clearance, so we bought up two kits. We'll need a total of four or five, but my coupons won't be valid until tomorrow at the earliest. And now, prepare yourself for some of the most terrible cell phone pictures taken from a bed EVAR. But I really want to show off my (unassembled) invitations.

Here's (a terribly shadowed picture of) the invitation kit. It comes with the pocketfolds, invitations cards, response cards and envelopes, precut ribbons, cards for driving instructions, printable address labels, and envelope seals.

And that's a terrible picture of what they look like in person.

I'm really excited. The blue is just the right shade, and even though it's technically supposed to be ivory, in person they look more like a super pale yellow.

This invitation is actually a lot prettier and elaborate than the initial ones we picked out, and I'm actually kind of glad that we had to go with this instead.

We're going to personalize it with really fun fonts. And I'm thinking about getting black and white photo stickers to stick on the right hand inside flap, because it looks slightly naked compared to the rest of the invitation. But I don't know; it'll depend on what a completely assembled invite looks like.

And now it's time for bed, fo' shizzle.

Same idea...two different outcomes!

2009-10-09T20:16:00.009-05:00

I'm really interested in Miss Rainbow's wedding. Like seriously fascinated. I've been planning my retro-inspired Alice in Wonderland wedding for three years now...and she just started planning her retro-inspired Alice in Wonderland wedding! I'm really surprised that someone would hit upon the exact same idea...yet we are completely different.

Her wedding (from the handful of posts she has put up) looks like Art Nouveau. Like this:

And this:

It's very Great Gatsby, very sunny garden party. I'm really excited to see how she incorporates Alice in Wonderland too- and why she chose Alice.

I chose Alice because she's been my favorite Disney character since I was but a wee lassie. My mother used to put the VHS tape in for me on Sunday afternoons when I was a toddler and I would fall asleep, mesmerized by Alice's adventures. When I was seven or eight I read the book, and was fascinated by it. Alice remained one of my all-time favorite literary and Disney characters.

When I was eighteen years old, I had the amazing opportunity to become a Walt Disney World cast member. Even better, I was selected for one of my dream jobs: I was made a Tour Guide on the Great Movie Ride. I spent six wonderful months getting held up by gangsters, running from bandits blowing up banks, driving cranky old trams, and basically having a merry old time in the Happiest Place on Earth.

(that's right, I photobombed Bogart and Bergman!!)

It was during my time on the Disney College Program that I rediscovered my admiration for Alice. I also discovered I was just the right height to play her. I was even extended an offer to play her, but turned it down in order to spend time with my brand new boyfriend, who was back home in good ol' Nashvegas. Although it was a bittersweet decision, it was the best choice I ever made: that boyfriend was Patrick, and he proposed just a year after we started dating.

I knew from the start that Alice in Wonderland was going to make a big impact on our wedding. Originally the colors were going to be pale blue and black- perfect for a classy, glamorous wedding. But the idea evolved...and evolved...and evolved.

The first thing I realized was that while many brides have lovely black-and-bright-color weddings, it didn't suit me. The elegant black slowly faded away to be replaced by sunshiny yellow. Now there were yellow roses (my grandfather's favorite flower) and daisies, and the whole mood of the wedding changed from a glamorous event to a hyper-happy party!

Fabric slowly wormed its way in as well. I have an almost unhealthy addiction to cloth. I started adding in two of my favorite fabrics: gingham and eyelet. Now there were bows everywhere (I also have a brilliant love affair with bows, btw) and ribbons and all sorts of charmingly mismatched patterns.

I still felt like something was missing. And then I realized it...the retro element!

I started getting into retro stuff a couple of years ago. I discovered a band called the Pipettes, and FELL IN LOVE WITH THEM. Seriously. Girl crush. Right there.

(They're typically not animated, by the way. They're usually real people.)

Once I started getting into music influenced by the '50s and early '60s, I started falling in love with clothes influenced by the time period. After that, it was only a matter of time.

Granted, the retro flair on the wedding is still subtle, but it's there. It's mostly in, well, the music and clothes. But it's a special touch that I'm simply in love with. It also tied it in surprisingly well with Alice in Wonderland. You see, Disneyland opened in 1955, and when it opened, women wore their pretty full-skirted frocks and pearls and gloves and heels (which sunk into the still-soft asphalt on opening day!). I really want to evoke that feeling.

(and no, I have no earthly clue why there's a can of black beans on the railing...)I still felt like something was missing, something that would finalize the vision that I had, the whimsical party I wanted to throw to celebrate FINALLY marrying the guy I've totally been in love with for the past three and a half years. And on Christmas, I found it in the form of a present. It was a storybook version of Alice illustrated by Mary Blair.

Mary Blair was a prominent Disney concept artist in the '40s and '50s. She was one of the artists Walt sent to South America, she created beautiful work for Song of the South, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan (as well as some early early early images for Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast!), and she completely designed the whole look for it's a small world. Her illustrations completely summed up the look and feel I was going for: nostalgic, sweet, full of whimsy, and super playful. Add Alice in Wonderland, the '50s (Alice premiered in 1951), and a blue-and-yellow color scheme, and there you have it!

"But how," you may ask, "IN HOLY BLAZING HECK are you managing to incorporate all of this?"

Well, let me explain.

Wait, there is too much to explain. Let me sum up.

-A color scheme of blue and yellow (Alice's hair color and her dress color)

-The flower girl will be dressed as Alice

-The ringbearer will wear a vest with a pocketwatch (the White Rabbit...but suuuubtllle...)

-Topiary trees by the doors with white roses painted red (get it? Painting the roses red?)

-The flowers are inspired by the Garden of Live Flowers scene in the movie (lots of roses and daisies and bluebells)

-The guestbook is a copy of the aforementioned Alice in Wonderland storybook

-Playing cards as table numbers

-Lots of hanging pomanders and hanging Chinese lanterns (like the Mad Tea Party)

-The centerpieces are mismatched teapots filled with flowers and surrounded by floating candles in mini mason jars

-Instead of a cocktail hour, there's going to be a tea party

-Using a vintage Alice in Wonderland magazine ad from 1951 as the basis for our "hey, the wedding's here!" sign

And a bunch of other stuff that I'm too tired to think about right now...

So why am I babbling about this, you ask? Well, a couple of reasons. A lot of it is because I've explained what I'm going for, and really, telling people about your retro fabric-inspired Alice in Wonderland Disneyland on opening day wedding causes a LOT of raised eyebrows. It's nice to have my whole idea laid out and step back and see what it looks like. (And I'd like to hear what people think of it. Too crazy? Possibly...)

I also really want to be a Bee. (Seriously...someone tell me if I'm allowed to blog about the fact that I'm applying. Is this frowned upon? Or am I allowed to blog out my worrywart-ness? I don't know! So I shall keep writing!) And I don't know if I'm automatically out of the running because my wedding is potentially so similiar to a new Bee. I feel like I have a unique voice and a lot of quirkiness and a great wedding to blog about. Am I still being considered? I just don't know.

Oy.

Well, they haven't turned me down quite yet. And if I get rejected again, I'll try one last time. (I mean, if Mrs. Bunny got rejected twice, there's still hope for me!).

Gargh. This is like audition purgatory all over again. Except that instead of a pool of local actresses, I'm against a bajillion awesome brides all over the internetz.

Double gargh!

aaaaaaand rant is done. (And Guys and Dolls rehearsal!). Time for sleep. Tomorrow P and I shall purchase our invitations! That will be an adventure. I shall photograph it and be happy.

(But after sleep. After this SUPER LONG rant, I most def need the sleep.)

Eeeeeeek! Engagement pictures!

2009-10-08T22:28:00.002-05:00

Our engagement pictures are totally here!!

A friend of mine took them for us. We were a bit rushed because we didn't have much time. The pictures were taken on the set of Barefoot in the Park, and we had to get out before they set up for the show! Nevertheless, they're pretty cute.

Hopefully we can take some more pictures together. Not only because it's fun, but because P needs to practice making picture-faces!! He's still adorable, and I love him to death...but boy needs to learn how to smile properly for a picture.

I thought I would post some of my favorites here. :)

(See what I mean about him making awkward faces?)

(I wanted the vintage fridge. But we borrowed the appliances from Tennessee Rep. And they were HEAVY! I know...I helped carry them to the truck.)

Wardrobe Overhaul: the Case Against Pants

2009-10-08T12:22:00.003-05:00

A while back I decided to overhaul my wardrobe. And recently I purged through my whole closet. It was an interesting experience. I've sorted through my wardrobe before, but I did this time with two ideas branded into my brain.

#1: I'm about to be a married lady instead of a little college girl, and I need to dress like one!

and

#2: I want to have a distinct style rather than my current one...which can basically be described as "whatever is on sale right now."

I pitched several pieces that I was holding on for no real reason. Like my button up shirts. After being forced to wear collared shirts for all four years of high school, I pitched my polos as soon as I graduated, but I held on to the blouses as a sort of safety net. I realized, thought, that I haven't worn them in forever. So out they went!

I went through a phase where I felt I needed a lot of "business professional" blazers. I had a couple...and hated them. They made me look top heavy and awkward and overdressed, no matter how or where I wore them. Out they went!

I also finally got rid of some pairs of hand-me-up shoes. That's what happens when your little sister is taller than you...she gives you her outgrown shoes. Some of them (like the gray plaid flats!) are terrific; some of them (like the kitten heel slingbacks with the awful velvet bows) needed to go.

The big thing I got rid of, though, are my skirts. I had a profound realization: I hate skirts.

Weird, right? I'm such a girly girl. You would think I would love skirts. But no.

Well, I guess to make this completely correct, I should say that I hate my skirts. I got rid of most of them- the ill-fitting khaki corduroy skirt, the ill-fitting denim skirt, the ill-fitting pink corduroy skirt (see the pattern here?) I also released my light blue peasant skirt and a hot pink floral skirt.

I like skirts, but I like mine with a vintage shape and vivid patterns. None of mine measured up (except for a brown and pink silk skirt that P lurrrvs), so I got rid of them.

My final realization was something that had been nagging at me for a while.

I dislike pants.

I own two pairs of jeans, a pair of khakis, a pair of brown pinstriped pants, and a pair of black pinstriped pants. And I dislike them all.

In previous years, I have worn these items in glorious abandon, pairing them with inexpensive knit fashion tops purchased from the clearance rack in the junior's department. Now that colder weather is upon us, I dread putting on these staples. They're just so dull and bland. Plus, the cheap knits are pilling and worn and faded. It is most disappointing.

I think I'm going to write out a game plan on how I'm going to go about this. I'm determined to start my new life as a wife (hey look, rhyming!) looking like a grown-up pretty girl, not an overexcited six-year-old who just learned to dress herself.

(Case in point: this is what I wore for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince midnight show...)
(but this is what I would like to dress like, feminine and retro but not childish:)
(and just for poops and giggles, my work uniform:)
(lawlz polyester mom pants!)

Oh, sad day...

2009-10-08T10:19:00.003-05:00

So I really want to be a Bee.

I opened Weddingbee to see this morning that Miss Rainbow has been claimed.

She is also twenty-two.

She is also having an Alice in Wonderland wedding.

Crap.

Oh, well. I'm still going to hold out hope. My wedding has slowly become more retro than Alice, anyways. And I still feel like I have something unique to offer the Hive. Plus I'm a reliable blogger, and I feel like I have a good writing style.

I'm also pulling for the fact that I'm a March bride, and right now there is neither a March bride nor a February bride. That's a two month lull with no weddings, y'all! Maybe they'll be like, "Uh...no March brides...um...oh, well, let's just take her!". And I would rejoice.

I'm also hopeful because I sent my application in September...and haven't heard anything back yet. I mean, they didn't send my rejection letter right away. That's a good sign, right?

When I applied the first time (because yes, I've been rejected before), they waited about a month to very gently turn me down. I deleted the email because it made me sad, but I recall them saying that they did like my blog and asked me to apply again. So that's another good sign, right?

Since my first application, I've changed my blog layout, worked on updating regularly, and tried to make my voice as distinct as possible. And I've tried to make it very personal. My competitive nature has driven me on more than one occasion to check out blogs of other brides who applied and were rejected from being a Bee, and I've noticed that most of the girls who are rejected have lovely blogs full of lovely wedding-related entries, but there's just not much personal material. Hopefully that'll help me. Unless I'm too personal...and are you even allowed to blog about applying to Weddingbee? I don't know. I might have broken a taboo. But I neeeed to blooooog. It cheers me up to write.

I think the Bees are still checking out my blog. (At least I hope they are.) I hope they don't judge me too much for writing an entry about applying. I hope they like me. I hope they pick me. (I really really do!)

So yeah. I'm rather mopey at the moment. But I shall still hold out hope! I think I have a shot.

And if I get rejected again, I can always apply again. :)

2009-10-07T21:40:00.003-05:00

I was going to write a mopey blog entry from Guys and Dolls rehearsals, about how I was languishing in the theater, but they let me go after we finished "Sit Down, You're Rockin' The Boat." So I went home and ate chocolate ice cream instead.

I bet a lot of other people have discovered MakeMeBabies.com, but I find it absolutely hilarious. P and I will apparently procreate a new Anne Shirley:

What do you think about my little new baby Anna Victoria Lily?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?

And our son is a pirate. Piratepants, Jr. But I love his curls.

What do you think about my little new baby Gabriel Charles Brent?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?

(and if Zac Efron and I had a baby.)

What do you think about my little new baby Sparkles McGee?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?

In P's favorite quote: "Whoa, uglay baby! Can't give those away!". It's slightly gratifying to know that even CyberLand, P and I will have cute babies. Of course, we've known that from the start. Kat was the first person I ever told about my crush on P (waaay back in the day, which was a Wednesday, by the way, in December 2005). The first words out of her mouth?

"You'll have cute babies! Don't tell Rose."

Of course, I didn't know why I couldn't tell Rose. I found out later that she dated P in high school and it, uh, didn't end well. Luckily, Rose knows, everyone's friends again, and she is tickled pink to inform people that she's a bridesmaid in her ex-boyfriend's wedding.

As silly as it is, seeing those goofy composite pictures makes me wonder what our real babies will look like. I'll admit it: I have babies on the brain.

P and I both want children. We really want children. As in five of them. But, like our wedding, we know we have to wait.

-We're really really young. We have plenty of time to start a family.

-I want him to be out of school and working full-time before we start adding babies to our lives. That's going to take a while for him to graduate.

-For pete's sake, we've waited nearly three years to get married! Let's enjoy it!

A lot of the wedding blogs I've browsed recently talk about life after the wedding, which inevitably leads to babies. There are so many brides who go right from planning their wedding to painting their nursery, and truth be told I'm a little jealous. It makes me think of the line in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: "I've always wanted to be a June bride, and have a baby right off...in the spring, maybe."

P will be an absolutely amazing father. If we walk past a baby he has to stop and admire and make cute faces. He also confessed shortly before he proposed that one of his most important criteria for a future wife was that she would be a good mother, and that I won that battle hands down (which I am quite glad about).

Man, everything is baby-related. I'm watching frickin' Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and even Meatwad is pregnant. Oy.

For some brides, the timing works for them to go from a couple to a family right away. It's not going to work for us. We'll enjoy the heck out of our new marriage, don't get me wrong, but as soon as we're at a point that we can start trying for a baby, we are going to start!

That is, if we're able to get pregnant. When P was sixteen, he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, and there's a possibility because of medications he took then that we won't be able to have babies. But that, my friends, is a bridge we shall cross when we come to it.

On a lighter note, has anyone else watched I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT? (It must be written in all caps.) It's just like it sounds- women DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE PREGNANT and gave birth in cars and bathrooms and emergency rooms and they DIDN'T HAVE ANY PRENATAL CARE. The show is full of cheesy reenactments and a foreboding announcer. It gets to the point that everyone thinks they might be pregnant. I'm like, "Gaugh! Maybe I'm pregnant! Maybe I'm going to go into labor RIGHT NOW! Maybe I'm...oh, wait. Virgin. Never mind."

And with that, I shall close this slightly loopy, slightly emo entry. I guess I just want to let off a little steam about going from one waiting game to the next. But hey, at least once my wedding is taken care of, I'll be married to Patrick for good! And that, my friends, is worth the wait.

Bluebird of happiness nightgown (and skivvies!)

2009-10-07T09:22:00.003-05:00

FRANNIE
Pattern: None
Fabrics Used: knit print, knit cream solid
Made: September 2009
Time: About three or four hours (including embroidery)
Cost: Free!
Made for: Fabric scrap recycling

When I finished my yoga bag, I still had plenty of fabric left. I knew a dress was out, because P hates the fabric and he would tease me unmercifully if I wore it out in public. Ergo, I made a nightgown. Because then I can wear (in five months) in the privacy of our apartment and tease him about "Ha ha, I'm wearing the fabric you hate!".

There wasn't enough bird fabric to make the entire nightie out of it, so I dug a length of cream knit out of my stash for the skirt.

The bodice was shaped from an old tee shirt that I sacrificed for the express purpose of making a pattern. The buttons came from the tab tops of an old set of P's curtains. And it was supposed to have cap sleeves and a patch pocket, but El Padre "helped" me clean and threw away the pieces.

"But wait," you say, "you mentioned skivvies! Where are the skivvies?"

They look rather awkward in this picture, but I can't help but love them. But wait! There's more!
Who doesn't want to have precious embroidery on their bums? Certainly not me!

This was my first attempt at skivvies. I cut apart a pair of Hanes to make the pattern. They're a pretty comfy fit, but all the same, I don't think I'll ever make a habit of making all my skivvies.

imma stalker...

2009-10-06T13:40:00.003-05:00

P and I are still doing our level best to figure out who gave us a diamond wedding band. We have some theories, but no definite leads. I think we should call in Grissom. He could figure it out. Because he's awesome like that.

I spent way too much time on wedding websites. Way too much. But I revisited my all-time favorite wedding-blog-saga: Ms. Candy Corn on Weddingbee. Her wedding is amazing. Besides, I think we could be friends in real life. Granted, I don't talk about poop quite as much and my home-decor stylings aren't nearly as amazing, but I think we could have a great Facial-Expression-Off. (Like the Walk Off in Zoolander, only with faces.) My Pirate!Face vs. her Muppet!Face? It's a close one.

(I'm the one on the right. We had Little Kid Field Trip Day to the science museum last winter. Was it amazing? I should say so! And my facial expression over the top? I would be disappointed if it wasn't.)

(That's one of my besties/BMs, Ary Roses, by the way.)

I got my coupons for Michaels, so I can get invitation gear! I was going to do that tonight...but I forgot. Maybe I can run out and do it super fast. At least I can get one kit...I can examine it closely and admire its various part and figure out how, in the name of all that is holy am I going to print all of these, and personalize them.

I'm trying to beef up my Project Wedding blog. It's rather sparse at the moment. Hopefully it'll be up and running and looking lovely...as soon as I find a picture of our church.

Already Prettypoll

2009-10-06T09:15:00.002-05:00

(I really ought to be hard at work on cleaning and finishing my red coat that I started two weeks ago. But this is more fun!)

Sally at Already Pretty posted this on her blog, and as I love polls, shopping, and doing things other than chores, I decided to do it.

1. How often do you think about shopping?
It depends. I usually think about shopping when an occasion is coming up- back to school, a holiday, etc. I also get into moods when I just really hate my wardrobe and want to spruce it up.

But clothes? I think about clothes ALL THE TIME. Yes.

2. About how often do you shop for clothing, shoes, or accessories for yourself?
If I purposefully go shopping, it's usually only when one of the above circumstances pop up. But many a time I'll pick up something that I simply cannot say no to. For instance, last month I went to the mall to get a pair of brown heels for Beau Jest. I came home with brown heels, red patent leather flats, and a deliciously wonderful Danny Phantom tee shirt.

3. How LONG can you shop without tiring?
I can shop all day, dude. Seriously. I am the queen of window shopping. I am always searching and perusing, but I can go all day without buying anything. If I'm going to Opry Mills or an outlet mall, I come prepared for a journey. The only caveat? I must be fed, or I get grumpy. Luckily, P has learned this and doesn't take my grumpiness personally.

4. Do you prefer to shop at brick and mortar stores, or online?
I usually stick to real-life stores, just because I like the security of knowing something fits. Plus, I've learned the hard way that what looks super cute in a picture often makes me look like either a six-year-old or dumpy. I prefer trying everything to make sure it looks all right.

5. What is your favorite fashion-y thing to shop for?
#1: Fabric

#2: Dresses

#3: Shoes

I love fabric. I lust after fabric. I am a fabric WHORE. I run through the aisles of JoAnn's and Textiles petting everything I come in contact with. P follows close behind with the cart, offering his input, which consists of three basic phrases:

"What will you make out of it?"

"Where will you wear it?"

"Put it back."

Despite curtailing my fabric purchases, I still collect a lot more than I should. But I love sewing, and I love the complete customization it affords me. I collect pictures from Modcloth and Kate Nash's blog and copy them. Plus, it tends to be a lot cheaper to sew things myself.

That being said, if I find a dress in a store that I like, I buy it. I am a dress girl, and I shall not deny it any longer. (Also, if the dress comes with a cardigan, it gets bonus points.)

The last thing I shop for voraciously is shoes. My parents nicknamed Imelda Marcos when I was about twelve. I just love shoes! They're mostly a wide selection of cheap canvas ballet flats, but I'm working on upgrading them. (Part of that whole "graduating-and-getting-married-and-growing-up thing".)

So that's how I approach shopping! Now I want to shop. But I have wedding invitations to purchase...not really room in the budget for a spree.

Maybe I'll just finish my red coat.

Musical Monday #17

2009-10-05T23:28:00.002-05:00

I ALMOST FORGOT IT WAS MUSICAL MONDAY! AUGH!

But don't worry. I remembered. At the last second. For yea and verily, that is how I roll.

With the exhilaration of the past weekend, there is only one song that can sum up my joy.

Glee - Don't Stop Believe
Uploaded by Bugabookas. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

(And if you haven't watched Glee yet, you should. It's awesome. Be a Gleek.)

When miracles happen

2009-10-05T21:28:00.006-05:00

This story is just so amazing that it deserves an entry of its own. Seriously.

On Saturday night, I was in the dressing room getting ready for our very last performance. My head was halfway covered in curlers and Erin and I were rocking out to some energizing music. Just then my sister (who was a dresser) popped in and said, "Hey...there's a note and a box for you outside the door."

So I peeked out, and sure enough, there was an aqua envelope and a little black box waiting for me.

(it says Caitlyn & Pat on the front)

I was pretty confused. After all, my name is "Caitlin," not "Caitlyn." And I didn't recognize the handwriting. But I opened up the note first.

In case you can't read it, here's what it says:

"Caitlyn & Pat,

"I have heard so much about the relationship you two share and the endless love between you. I know times can be hard for a beginning set, with the responsibilities that a husband and wife have. I heard that you were looking for a wedding band and when Caitlyn describe the ones she liked [sic] my heart swelled. I offer you this with nothing expected. If it is not what you are looking for then I will find someone else to bless with it. But if you do find it favorable, then I beg that you use it. To the two of you, who I love, please accept this humble gift that is given from love for love. God has a blessed life planned for you both. May He continue to shower you in multitudes. God Bless and don't consider the cost, consider the price that Christ paid. Love and Grace to you."

And it is signed only with a heart.

By now, I was terribly confused, but starting to get excited. So I opened the box.

Inside was a diamond wedding band.

Someone gave me a beautiful, beautiful ring. It's white gold, just like my engagement ring. The band is the exact same width too. Half of the ring is covered in tiny rows of tiny diamonds. It definitely has a vintage feel to it. It fits perfectly on my finger and looks beautiful with my engagement ring.

and someone just gave it to me.

I couldn't help it. I just started bawling. I texted P and told him to come backstage as soon as he got to the theater. I showed him the ring, and he was flabbergasted.

I just can't believe that someone would do this for us. It's just amazing.

We can't figure out who on earth did this. We don't recognize the handwriting. If they came in through the front, they had to get past Mindy and Shannon. If they came in through the back, they had to get past Stephen. It's obviously a girl's writing. They know both of us, enough to know that P goes by Pat sometimes but not enough to know my name is spelled with two 'i's. And they somehow knew exactly what kind of ring I wanted.

It's a mystery- a wonderful, exciting mystery!

So much to talk about!

2009-10-05T10:06:00.004-05:00

This has been a crazy wonderful weekend! So much has happened...and I haven't had any time to blog! And because there's been so much, I'm going to do several entries today. Just because I can.

The last time I blogged was Friday night, right? Right before the second-to-last show? All right, picking up where I left off.

The Friday night show was AMAZING. We were completely sold out, and the audience loved us. There's four points in the show where I have what I call my "ego laughs": when I enter, when I say "oh" after Bob's story about the Gentile children, my overexaggerated eye roll during the "Monday night, we're watching Conan" bit, and my pause during the "who's your aunt?" "Sylvia Klein" bit. Typically the audience would laugh at a couple of them. On Friday, they laughed at all of them. I was exhilarated. (To use a quote: "my aura has never been pinker!")

On Saturday morning I had to get up early for my 9am dance class. Although it's exhausting, I really enjoy it. I was put in the advanced class, which I originally thought must be some kind of mistake, but Emily, the teacher (who has the world's most delightful British accent) said I belonged in the class, and after Saturday, I think I believe her. We do the greatest routines in the class too- this one was to "Old Time Rock and Roll"; the class before was to "Footloose."

Afterwards P picked me up and we zoomed back to the house so I could get everything ready for the cast party. He set up Rock Band while I made dill dip, lemon pound cake...and lukshen kugel.

I spent a lot of the show discussing how "for a special occasion, I make my special lukshen kugel." I decided to make some myself, just to see what it's like. Well, it's DISGUSTING. One pound of egg noodles, two pounds of cottage cheese, four tablespoons of butter, half a cup of sugar, eight eggs, and a dash of cinnamon. And it's gross. I couldn't even swallow it. I have never been more grateful for lemon cake in my life.

After several hours of eating, Rock Band-ing, and DDR-ing, we headed back to the theater to prepare for the final performance. And that's when something absolutely amazing happened, but it's so amazing that it deserves its own blog entry. And so it shall.

The final show of Beau Jest was fantastic. We finished at 9:30...set strike began at 9:50. By midnight the set was completely disassembled and the theater was spotless! It was really sad to see the "living room" we'd been playing in for the past month completely vanish, but it's necessary.

Needless to say, after such a long weekend (and with a sore throat coming on...), I slept in super late on Sunday. P picked me up afterwards and we had Super Wedding Field Trip Day.

Our big goal was to find a new set of invitations. We started at the Michaels in 100 Oaks, because I was hoping to find those pretty eyelet invitations that I found on the Michaels website. Unfortunately, they were nowhere to be found. We did find a couple of other options, though, so we took pictures with my camera phone to mentally file away.

We also looked at silk flowers. I found some possibilities, but P was decidedly unimpressed. He pointed out that because of recent advances in our budget (which shall be explained in the next blog entry), we might be able to afford real flowers for my bouquet and the boutonnieres. I'm still a little skeptical (you know, that whole allergies thing...), but I have to say that I was rather disappointed in the selection at Michaels.

After Michaels we checked Walmart, just to see if, by some remote chance, they had the eyelet invitations. They did not. I was sad.

(also, their flower selection was even more dismal than the 100 Oaks Michaels.)

Our final stop was JoAnn's, one of my favoritest places in the whole wide world. We looked at the wedding aisle first, where we were once again nonplussed with their invitation selection. We quickly moved on to familiar territory, where I purchased a length of old-gold rose print velvet for my colonial gown for History of Costume class, a cut of white knit with a pretty green floral print, and Vogue 8360. (The pattern's going to be used to make my dress for my lingerie shower.)

(Isn't it pretty?)

After our Super Wedding Field Trip, P and I discussed wedding things on our way to small group. We decided on a pretty blue invitation kit that we saw at Michaels, but we're going to wait until we get a coupon. But not wait too long...we learned our lesson. We're also still discussing the flower situation. No resolve on that yet...but at least we have invitations!

So that's basically how the final weekend of Beau Jest went down. But I have to tell the SUPER AMAZING STORY that deserves its very own post, just because of its sheer epicness. So...stay tuned.

The theater life

2009-10-02T17:07:00.004-05:00

As I write this, I am sitting on the floor in front of my dressing room, sipping a Juice RockStar and reading MLIA (and blogging, obviously). Why, do you ask? My dressing room is locked. I need to curl my hair, but it's locked. Sadness.

It's the second-to-last show of Beau Jest, and I'm terribly bummed. It's been such a great show that I hate to say goodbye to it and all the people I got to hang out with for the last two months. I almost wish we would add more shows just so I could keep going. But alas, we cannot.

Kat (my bestie/roomie/MOH) is coming to see me tonight!! I am thrilled beyond words. I was so afraid that none of my close friends were going to see me. But she's coming! I have to sneak her in because the show is SOLD OUT for tonight, but it shall be a successful mission. Mostly because my director okayed it. (Not nearly as cool as a devious ninja mission, but still, I'm happy.)

Tomorrow is the cast party at my house. There shall be Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and lukshen kugel, which looks like it's going to be disgusting. But I spend the whole show talking about how I make amazing lukshen kugel, and I figured I'd better make it at some point. What better time than the cast party?

P is spending the day with me tomorrow (cast party, final show, and all!), and then on Sunday afternoon we are Weddinging It Up. This means several things:

-sorting through wedding files

-purchasing our invitations

-perusing artificial flowers

-and monitoring my fabric purchases

All right, so the fabric is actually going to be for my colonial gown project for History of Costume, my Regency-era protoype, and most likely some of the supplies for my Giselle dress, but I'm also going to get what I need for the dress I'm going to wear at my lingerie shower. It's Vogue 8360, and it's typically used for a prom or wedding dress, apparently, but I'm going to make it out a super soft pale blue knit, trim it with lace, and wear it for day #2 of the party.

But it's time to go get ready. Time for the second-to-last show!

Thursday's Ten: TV!

2009-10-01T16:56:00.002-05:00

So today's Thursday's Ten is television shows. I have to admit, I usually don't get into television shows until it's been canceled, and I see it in a rerun or on DVD, and then I get hooked. Sadness. And when I do watch a television show when it's actually still on the air, it tends to be of the animated variety.

Oh, well.

I probably watch a little more TV than I should, but I can't help it. I have to have something on when I'm cooking or sewing, otherwise I go crazy!

In any case, here are my top favorite TV shows:

#1: CSI: I love this show and I don't even know why. My freshman-year roommate used to watch it, and I was both grossed out and fascinated by it. Now I discovered that Spike airs marathons pretty much all day long. Love it!

#2: Arrested Development: This show is hilarious. Seriously. Not a week goes by wherein I do not hang my head and mournfully hum "Christmas time is here."

#3: Avatar: The Last Airbender: I watched this show starting on day one and I was there when it ended. A truly epic series. It's the only serie I've ever watched, actually, where every episode developed the plot rather than added filler.

#4: Family Guy: If you haven't watched it, you're missing out. On life.

#5: Glee: This is a new guilty pleasure, but it's hysterical. And the music is AMAZING. It's like Arrested Development (see #2 above) and High School Musical had a baby.

#6: iCarly: I shall not lie. I adore iCarly. I've only missed two episodes so far. My mother and I watch it all the time.

#7: America's Funniest Home Videos: A classic! My roomie/bestie/MOH Kat and I used to watch it every single night.

#8: Shaman King: So it's Japanese anime. I can't help it. I read my first chapter of the manga when I was only about fifteen, and I've followed the manga and the anime religiously. It has the absolute most compelling romantic storyline I've ever read. Ever. (take that, Twilight!)

#9: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant: Basically TLC reenacts situations in which women Didn't Know They Were Pregnant? The best part of the show (besides the reenactments)? When the announcer declares in a deep voice that they "DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY WERE PREGNANT." I crack up every time.

#10: Golden Girls: I didn't start watching it until the past year, but it's so funny. I think I'm the most like Rose.

So there's my ten television shows! What do you think of them?

Flowers, flowers, flowers!

2009-10-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

I love flowers. I love getting bouquets after performances. I love studying packets of seeds at Home Depot. I love the look and feel and scent of flowers. P gave me two dozen roses when he proposed, for heaven's sake.

The problem?

I'm allergic.

It's so depressing. I love flowers, but they make me sneeze. And the last thing I want is to sneeze all the way through my wedding...especially when my sneeze sounds like a cat getting kicked. I have been the cause of many a classroom disruption. Ergo, I am going the route of silk flowers...even though I swore I would never ever use them. I thought they were tacky. But I'd rather carry fake flowers than have snot dripping onto my wedding dress during the ceremony. Gross.

(Besides, silk flowers are cheaper!)

So I'm going with silk flowers. I need to go purchase them...there's so many options that I don't know what to do! Luckily, I found an awesome website, Afloral.com. I sent them an email about my wedding colors, theme, and the flowers I liked, and they made me a super spiffy inspiration board of my very own!

Isn't it lovely? It's so soft and pretty. And these are actually all items I can order from the website.

There's only one trick. I don't know how I feel about blue roses. I think they're pretty, but I don't know if they're too much. I mean, blue roses=obviously fake. At the same time, I like them. What do you think? Could I get away with them?

Oh, well. What I know for sure is that I want roses and daisies, and probably lilies of the valley. Maybe something like this:

(minus the smiley face mug, of course...)

I want to wrap the stems with blue velvet ribbon and eyelet and drape a vintage strand of faux pearls around it. Maybe even tie a cameo or a locket to it. I don't know...it may be too much!

I'm going to make runs to JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby, and Michaels and see what flowers I can dig up that look nice and match what I'm looking for. If I can't find enough there, I'm so hitting up Afloral.

When things don't always go as planned

2009-09-30T23:07:00.004-05:00

I thought I would write a rather jolly post about my floral inspiration board from Afloral.com, but right now, it's the last thing on my mind. It's been a really, really rough day.

Today began with an argument with my father, followed by a World Lit II exam I wasn't properly prepared for and two hours' worth of shop practicum, where I had to use a radial saw and build a 14' tall flat with curved edges. (Which is a pain.) Then I had to sit around and wait for rehearsal until 8:30, and I just now got home.

On top of that, this weekend heralds the end of Beau Jest. We perform Friday and Saturday, then strike the set on Saturday night. I've worked so hard on this show, and finally got a lead, and now none of my best friends (and BMs) are coming to see it.

The worst part is that today marks one week since my grandfather passed away. Some of my friends have been really sweet about it, making sure I'm okay and asking how my family's doing. Some of my friends- suprisingly, some of my long-term friends- haven't even mentioned it.

There are some days where it just seems like nothing goes right. I hate it, but it's inevitable.

So I called P and talked his ear off. I had a little bit of a cry (more of a tearing-up). And I drank a hot cup of peach black tea. So life is looking up.

Besides, tomorrow will be better.

Well, how about that?!

2009-09-29T20:05:00.002-05:00

With my mini invitation crisis yesterday, I thought I would check up on some other key wedding items that I picked out early in my engagement to see if they were still there. For a while it looked like I was all right; there weren't too many things that I was terribly specific about. But then I made a horrifying discovery...

...the Juliana Coloriffics were discontinued!

I mean, just two days I ago I blogged about my debate with all these different shoe styles that I loved. I narrowed it down ("narrowed" being a relative term) to a handful of shoes that I really liked, but in the end I realized what I was truly looking for in my dream wedding shoe.

#1: a fairly substantial heel (I am under five feet tall, after all!), but not so tall that I would be tottering down the aisle, or worse yet, on the dance floor.

#2: an ankle strap

and

#3: a cute bow

And if it came in blue, I would not say no.

But the Julianas! The Juliana was gone! I searched high and low, but to no avail. The only pair I found was on Ebay, and it was a size 8 1/2...and I typically can wear only up to a seven.

So with a heavy and panicking heart, I turned to the internet, hoping to find my dream shoe. My search continued for several hours, as I searched frantically for some kind of wedding shoes. I don't know why I felt the need to find the PERFECT shoe RIGHT now...but I did. Maybe because I'm afraid the elusive Dream Shoe will be discontinued before I order them!

And I know what you might be thinking. "You had a whole list of shoes! Why not just pick one of them?"

Well, I thought about it. But I realized that while I love love love the idea of a retro-inspired shoe, I just haven't found a good one. They're all super pretty and I love them, but for each one there's something that holds me back from being completely sold.

(It's mostly height or the presence of anchors. Why so many anchors? I want to know.)

After a great deal of searching, I finally turned up a FANTASTIC shoe. It's a 3" heel, it has an ankle strap, and it has a bow! Plus, it's dyeable...so I can make it blue!

I now present the Christina by Dyeables!

As much as I love the Juliana, I adore this shoe just as much, if not more. The heel is a little chunkier than I originally wanted, but it fits all the other requirements I have. Plus it's super cute. I have a big love for the cute stuff.

I'm going to have them dyed light blue and add something to the center of the bow: a blue and white cameo button, maybe. I know JoAnn's has them...

But I just purchased them in a size 6 1/2. They should be here in 2-3 weeks. And now I'm so excited! I never get mail, and this is my first WEDDING MAIL. Let the anticipation begin!

In the meantime, I've started looking for a good place in Nashville to get these babies dyed. And that's when I found it. It being the article about Franklin Bridal Gallery. It closed.

I was flabbergasted. Bridal Gallery was fairly high on my list of places to look for my dress. After all, they were the only store in Tennessee to carry the Disney wedding dresses. And I love me some Disney wedding dresses. Alas, they were way, way, way out of my price range, so I didn't even bother trying them on. (I was deathly afraid of trying on the Snow White ballgown, falling madly in love with it, and then hating the cheaper dress I would inevitably have to settle with).

Now I'm incredibly grateful that I didn't go there. Now brides have paid for expensive dresses that they had their hearts set on, and they can't get them. That's terrible! I'm sad for those girls...yet relieved I'm not one of them.

I don't know what I would do if my dress shop went of business. What would you do? Or did you have to deal with that?

What happens when you're engaged too long?

2009-09-28T21:07:00.003-05:00

I'll tell you what happens when you're engaged too long. Your wedding invitations get discontinued, that's what happens.

*sigh*

I thought they were so cute and easy to customize. And inexpensive! I'm a big fan of inexpensive. I thought I would put a bow of embroidered yellow and blue ribbon at the top, maybe back it in light blue or yellow paper. Maybe even gingham paper! But alas, unless someone can procure four boxes of these darling printable kits, I must find a different option.

And so I offer:

They're going to be a bit more expensive, but they're SO pretty I don't mind. It's eyelet, which was the most important part for me. I love the rounded edges. And I think that instead of buying ribbon, I'll use a pretty graphic or stamp or something. A font. A gorgeous font. Because I'm in love with pretty fonts.

So there. Crisis averted.

(or at least not as dire as I thought it was.)

Musical Monday #16! (I'm baaaack!)

2009-09-28T09:27:00.002-05:00

With my summer lapse in blogging, I missed out on Musical Monday goodness. :( But now I'm back, chock full of new songs and sadness that I missed a fantastic theme series! Oh, well.

So. The theme is "my first concert."

Rewind to the late '90s. I was a seventh grader, and my absolute all time most favoritest band was Five Iron Frenzy. They were a Christian ska group that balanced super silly pop culture songs with really deep stuff- pretty much the precursor to Reliant K. (They also did the occasional Tom Jones or ELO cover).

Well, I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, mere minutes from the tiny college town of Wilmore. Wilmore has been the home of the Christian edition of Woodstock, the Ichthus music festival, pretty much since the beginning of Woodstock. And Five Iron Frenzy played opening night there every year. And I finally got to go!

They were amazing and fantastic and hilarious. I screamed out all the lyrics to "Suckerpunch" and "Dandelions" and "RIOT Gear" with all the power in my little middle schooler body. And then I got their autographs afterwards! They signed this super dorky denim hat that I decorated with stripes of gold fabric paint. Even Jeff the Girl! (She was my favorite. Her real name is Lenore, but she's the only girl in the band. She played the saxophone.)

My favorite silly song by them was "Pants: The Rock Opera." It's hilarious. It never fails to make me giggle in the (gasp!) ten years I've loved FIF. And these goofy college guys apparently love them as much as I do, because they made this video, reenacting the tale of the pants.

Ah. Classic middle school humor. Love it.

A shoe situation

2009-09-27T13:23:00.017-05:00

Now that I have the dress and veil taken care of, it's on to the next crucial part of my wedding-day ensemble: the shoes. I'm not quite five feet tall, so I can wear heels no problem. And if I have a fairly substantial heel, I probably don't need to get my dress hemmed at all (it's a miracle!).

The trouble is, I don't know how precisely to proceed. My dream shoe is blue, with a bit of retro flair. I'd prefer it to have an ankle strap and a bow. But finding that elusive bit of footwear is proving harder than I thought. So, for your consideration, I offer this conundrum (and a handy-dandy poll at the top of the page.)

#1: Coloriffics Juliana ($55)
I can always get it dyed and add a pretty brooch or button to the bow. It meets all my basic requirements...I just don't know if I want to go through the hassle of getting it dyed.

#2: Sexy Blue Anchor Ellie Shoes ($46.95)
I love love love these. The bow, the peep toe, the blue stripe...so precious! But the anchor throws me for a bit of a loop. There's not a single bit of nautical in the wedding at all, and I don't know if that's a little too much. The heels are also 5". FIVE INCHES! I don't know if I'll be able to walk in them...

#3: Navy Mary Jane Pump with Chrome Heel ($44)

This one is only a 4.5" tall heel. But it's got an ankle strap, which makes me feel like it balances out the height. However, I'm not sold on the chrome heel. Not sold at all.

#4: Blue Patent Leather Peep-Toes ($44)
Again, what's with the anchors? I feel like I could take these off, though, and add a pretty button or brooch or something. These are 4.5" tall as well...and I'm not sure if that will work.

#5: White Patent Leather Mary Janes ($42)
They're very basic, but they have a nice retro flair. And again, a 4.5" heel.

#6: Gold Pleated Pumps ($42)
So they're not the blue shoes that I love, but they're pretty. I also feel like the gold would look nice with my ivory gown. And they're only a 4" heel! How about that?

Ugh. So hard to decide!

So that's why I have a poll. I need a second opinion. Or third. Or fourth. Or ninth....

When sleep is not an option

2009-09-26T17:09:00.000-05:00

My sleep patterns are totally and completely off. It's dreadful. I have to get to the theater to get ready for tonight's performance of Beau Jest, and I simply can't fall asleep. I was going to take a nap, but I was in that "tired-but-not-sleepy" stage.

Oy.

Guys and Dolls rehearsal this morning went well. I got the blocking for "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" pretty quickly, so that was nice. I managed to get through this morning without too much turmoil, but right afterwards my friend Lindsey asked how I was doing and I just broke down and bawled. My grandfather's funeral is tonight, and I can't be there, and it hurts. But Lindsey and Carter hugged me and prayed over me and reassured me, and I felt better. I'm still not fantastic, but I'm better.

But it's time to go tease my hair, slip on my bangle bracelets, and yammer in a Yiddish accent while patting everyone on the cheek. I need to bring the energy for tonight's performance!

The all-important dress!

2009-09-25T08:37:00.004-05:00

(Before I start this, I just have to say that I've gotten a lot of comments on the '50s retro dinner party I mentioned on my Thursday's Ten...so I think that as soon as P and I have moved into our apartment and are satisifactorily settled...there shall be a retro dinner party! But I digress...)

I just realized that I've had my wedding dress for almost a month, and I've yet to blog about it! But first, before I proceed...

IF YOUR NAME IS PATRICK BRENT TREVATHAN, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PROCEED! I SHALL KICK YOU IN THE KNEECAPS IF YOU DO! SO HA! GO PLAY SOME VIDEO GAMES AND FORGET ABOUT THIS!

And now that he's taken care of...

I knew that once I got home from Disney, I needed to find a dress rather quickly, so I could have enough time to get it in and get it altered. My original plan was to take Kat and Emma and go to Jacqueline's Bridal out by Opry Mills, because they were having massive sales. I emailed and called the shop, but they never got back to me. Through a long series of circumstances, we weren't able to go there.

(Seriously. I don't feel like telling the whole story, but I don't recommend going to Jacqueline's Bridal.)

So we went with another shop on my list, Bridal Warehouse. I wasn't completely pumped about going there- after all, it sounds like the Walmart of the wedding world- but I knew they carried Alfred Angelo bridesmaid dresses, and they sounded more inexpensive than other shops. I called them, fingers crossed that they would have an opening for that afternoon, and they did!

We got to the shop in the late afternoon and were greeted by several very nice ladies. They assigned Leslie to help me. She asked me a few questions about the kinds of dresses that I liked and some details about the wedding, told us how the shop worked, and then let us descend upon the dresses!

Kat and Emma leaped right into perusing the racks. Before I knew what was going on, we had about ten dresses picked out! Leslie helped too, offering suggestions and picking a couple that she recommended. And then we descended upon the dressing room.

We all liked the first dress I tried on. It was poofy and princessy, which I always dreamed about wearing for my wedding but I didn't think I could pull off because I'm short. But it was surprisingly flattering!

I also tried on two dresses in the style that I figured out I would wear- A-line, no poof, lace overlay, empire waist. But when I tried them on, we all had the same reaction. They were nice dresses, but they just weren't the "OMG I'm a bride!" excitement that I was looking for. So we continued!

The next dress was very structured, with a little poof. And it had a corset back, which we all lurrrrved.

The bodice was very pretty and slimming, but the skirt was a little too...I don't know. Too much like a deflated pillow top for my taste. I also didn't really like the line of beading so low on my waist. It made my torso look long and blocky.

So on to the next one!

As you can probably tell from my face, I loved this one. I tried it on as a total whim. I thought it looked like a Victorian-princess-circus-performer-ballerina. The bodice looked like a corset, and the skirt was all tulle and striped with lace.

Love love love!!...but....

This made me not love it quite as much.

It had straps. Big lace straps. It made a beautiful criss-cross pattern that blended into a low back, but the front...well, Emma summed it up best:

"This would look so much better if you were thirty-five!"

At first Kat and I were like "huh?", but then I caught on. It is a very princess-like, romantic dress, but the straps made it too modest and demure. And there was actually another woman in her mid-thirties who tried on the dress, and it suited her much better!

Leslie, seeing me caught in such a quandry, actually went out and got one of the alterations ladies out to help me. She asked me how I would want the dress, and she explained that because of the details of the bodice, it would be impossible to convert it to a strapless neckline because of the low back. She also explained that because of the lace detailing on the hem, the skirt would have to be hemmed from the top. So she held it up to demonstrate how much it would have to be hemmed...and instantly my love for the dress drooped. The lovely lace looked far too busy the closer it got to the lace-bedecked bodice, and I started to look more like an overembroidered doily than a princess bride.

So that dress, sadly, was eliminated. Sensing my dismay, my loyal team suggested that I try on the first dress. And the second I put it back on I knew it was the one. First of all, it zipped. The first time I tried it on, it didn't quite zip all the way, but this time it did. Leslie joked that I must've lost weight in the hour I'd been there! I walked back out so Kat and Emma could see me, and we all knew it was the one. Leslie pulled shoes, a veil, and a tiara so I could try the whole look, and it was perfect.

The big thing is that this dress is discontinued, and so I would have to buy the sample. So I'm quite glad it fits! Leslie also said that either I could get the zipper replaced for free (because it's a sample) or they can put in lacing in the back. She also said I could get the neckline altered to a sweetheart (which flatters me more than the straight line) and the sheer beaded cap sleeves can be made off the shoulder. And best of all, it requires very little hemming!

The dress is ivory, which I wasn't 100% sure about at first, but it turns out that it flatters my skin tone very well. Which is fantastic, because I really don't have a choice.

I bought my dress that day...well, put it on layaway that day. It was only...get this...$689! That's half the price than the Mikaella dresses I tried on at Arzelle's, and 1/6 of the price of the Snow White dress I loved! And I adore this dress. It's not what I imagined, but I love it. Also, because of a promotion at the store that day, I bought the perfect veil for 50% off. It has all this lovely beading on the edges that matches the dress.

Oh, wait...you wanted to see a picture of the dress? Well, here it is!

As you can see, I love it.

It has beading. Beading. I swore up one street and down the other that I wouldn't have beading. But what am I rocking out? Beading. But it's just so lovely and subtle that I don't care!

A lot of the elements that I love didn't make it on this dress: buttons on the back, a blue sash, soft lace. But that's okay...I have plans for that...maniacal plans...

(Don't worry. I'm not adding any aforementioned notions on the current dress. But you know how I swore I would never have beading? I also swore I would never be a two-dress bride. But that's another story...)

Thursday's Ten: Bucket List

2009-09-24T17:11:00.002-05:00

This seems especially poignant today...but at the same time it's nice to think about something else for a little while.

My Bucket List:
#1: Get married and have children.

#2: See one of my books in print.

#3: Provide a voice for a big-name production (Disney, Funimation, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon)...it doesn't matter if I'm the lead or the ADR loop!

#4: Learn ballet.

#5: Get my MFA.

#6: Throw a 1950s-style dinner party- pearls, petticoat, apron, Betty Crocker recipes, Fiestaware, the works!

#7: Grow a garden.

#8: Sing in public.

#9: Get down to my target weight...and stay there.

#10: Win a sewing competition.

Want to participate? Go here!

Prayers

2009-09-24T09:26:00.003-05:00

My grandfather passed away yesterday. His health has been failing over the past several years, and he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this summer.

My parents were going to wait until I got home from classes to tell me, but I found out via my cousin's Facebook status right before my noon class.

Please pray for my family, especially my mother.

And if you could keep me in your prayers on Saturday, that would definitely be appreciated. Because of my commitment to the show, I will not be able to attend my grandpa's funeral. It's going to be difficult.

Wardrobe Overhaul

2009-09-22T16:37:00.002-05:00

I've decided to go through my entire wardrobe and purge it mercilessly.

(What a way to begin an entry, eh?)

My wardrobe is just so weird. I mean, my clothes fall into five different categories:

-Items I've had since middle school and high school and I've kept just because I haven't outgrown them.

-Items I bought on the spur of the moment, and I've never had the chance to wear.

-Items I bought because they were cheap. And only because they were cheap.

-Items I made.

-Items that I wear to death, and they're now falling apart and pilling and gross.

Plus, most of the stuff I wear either A) makes my boobs look huge, or B) makes me look like a six-year-old. Or a six-year-old with big boobs, which is very unsettling and I don't want to think about it at all.

P tends to give me very sensible fashion advice, but sometimes I just don't pay any heed to it. My mom isn't that great giving me tips (they mostly say something like "cover up your boobs!") and my sister is in her "artsy college freshman" stage, so I can't really get much fashion tippage there.

So, I mostly look online for my inspiration.

Sally at Already Pretty:
She has a lot of really good advice, both about your clothing and how it relates to you as a person. Plus, she's funny!

Zooey Deschanel:
She's very retro and fun and quirky. Have you seen the coat she wears in Yes Man? The movie's just all right, but that coat...that coat trimmed in bias tape...it's glorious! And I'd love to have her hair. At the moment I've got the color (just not for much longer).

Kate Nash:
She's my all-time favorite singer. And she's British. And she plays the guitar, plays the piano, and writes her own music. So in short, she's fantastic. That, and I don't know if I've ever seen that girl wear pants. She wears the absolute cutest dresses!

She's also really close to my body type, so I can definitely copy her styles without too much trepidation. And I've actually had her haircut before, and it looks really cute on me. I just don't have a picture of it...

The Pipettes:
It's another awesome British singer!...er, group. The three girls- RiotBecki, Rosay, and Gwenno- wear supercute retro clothes. And again, I want Rosay's hair (she's the brunette in the middle). Sadly, Riotbecki and Rosay left the group for solo careers, but they're still amazingly awesome. (And their backup dancers are three guys called the Casettes. I want one.)

Modcloth/Modlife:
It's an absolutely great website with classy retro clothing...and they show you how real people have put it together!

So this is rather rambly post, but I hope it makes sense. I'm ready to be a married lady instead of a little college girl, and I need to dress like one.

Hopefully I'll succeed. :)

Hair Dramaz Part III and Opening Weekend

2009-09-21T23:01:00.003-05:00

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture, but my hair is...well, decent. I dyed it Natural Medium Brown (or Truffle, in Garnier language)...but it still came out really dark. Darker than I would like, to be honest. That first morning after I dyed it, I was a bit shell-shocked when I looked in the mirror. I was so shell-shocked, in fact, that I scrubbed it twenty times with Pantene that morning.

Twenty. I counted.

The color has softened a little bit, but it's still quite dark. A lot of people have told me they like it, but I just don't think it's flattering on me. Maybe if I had a warmer shade of brown, so it didn't make me quite as gothicky-pale. It's all good, though. I'm going to dye it red again as soon as possible.

Also, you might have noticed that my blog got revamped. Again. I just felt that the new layout was too cluttered, and I like this one a lot better. It just looks cleaner and prettier.

And now for the big story...

Beau Jest opened on Friday night, and it was fabulous! Dress rehearsal on Thursday night was rough, unforgivably rough. We had done well on Wednesday night, and I think we allowed ourselves to coast on Thursday, instead of focusing and bringing up the energy. So we were all nervous on Friday night. But it turned out to be great! The audience loved it and we had a blast playing off of each other. Of course, we had the requisite bloopers- parsley didn't make to the stage, lines were dropped, lines were swapped ("Can you get impersonated for arresting a Jew in this state?"), stuff fell over, an earring got stuck in my hair...you get the picture. But it was still great.

The greatest moment happened on Saturday night. Jake, our TD, came backstage to check up on us. I asked him how I was doing, as he's been the most forthright about my performance. He told me I was doing great and that I didn't need to worry. Then he turned to the others and said, "You need to focus more and be careful. She's stealing the show from the rest of you."

High praise!!!! Especially from Jake!!! I was incredibly excited.

I think it's my hair, though. Seriously. On Saturday night, I got a laugh on my entrance. My hair is absolutely enormous. It's teased within an inch of its life and shellacked with enough hairspray to prevent it from moving in a hurricane.

But now it is late. And I have to sleep, so I can finish my red coat tomorrow morning. And clean my room. And clean my bathroom.

Oy.

Hair Dramaz Part II: In which my true hair color is revealed

2009-09-17T02:01:00.003-05:00

The Color Oops! worked wonders. The black is goooone! Huzzah!

So it turns out my real hair color is an ash brown with a reddish tint to it. Rather nice! If I didn't need to have dark brown for Beau Jest, I'd probably keep it. At least for a while.

Now I have dark brown dye smeared over my head, and I'm fervently praying that it turns out nice. And that my scalp will stop burning.

But if you wanted to see what my hair really looks like, here it is:

And now I'm tired. I just want to rinse this dang dye out and CRASH.

Hair Dramaz Part I: In which I had black hair for twenty minutes

2009-09-17T01:03:00.003-05:00

Beau Jest opens tomorrow. And I have reddish-blondish hair. That doesn't fly. Ergo, I must dye my hair a rather dark shade.

I purchased Garnier hair dye, as that's my usual, but instead of my typical Chocolate Caramel color, I selected Sweet Cola, as it was also labeled as "darkest brown." I was going to pick a different shade, but Rebecca thought that this one would work.

At 11pm, I began dying my hair. It was great. It was fantastic. I've done this a million times. I even chatted with P while the goo sat on my locks. And then I rinsed and shampoo'd...all that good jazz.

Imagine my horror when I realized that "darkest brown," in Garnier-language, translates as "GUESS WHO LOOKS LIKE WEDNESDAY ADDAMS?! YOU, BEEYOTCH!"

Terrible. Simply terrible.

I washed it several times and blew it dry. Still terrible. I hopped back in the shower and washed it about four more times, this time with dish soap. Nothin'. Still black. And there ain't no fixin' it.

And the show opens in less than 24 hours.

Fantastic.

By now, it's midnight. I alerted my father, and an emergency run to a 24-hour Walgreens ensued. Thus armed with Color Oops! and Garnier in "Truffle" (or "medium natural brown," as they're claiming at the moment) I returned home and immediately set to work.

So now I'm sitting around with Color Oops! soaking into my poor hair. It smells like someone mixed fertilizer with industrial bleach, but at least this should save my color. In about five more minutes, I'll rinse it out. Then I'll blow it dry. Then it's time for color round #2.

I'm just scared that my hair will freak out. I mean, after all, it's pretty fine. I have a lot of it, but it's really fine.

But before I leave to rinse out my hair, I offer a picture (captured via my cell phone camera) of my gothic princess hairstyle.

It's just awful. It just soaks up all the light, like it's some kind of parasite.

Parasite hair. Great.

Two days left!

2009-09-16T08:31:00.003-05:00

Rehearsal last night went...decently well. It was kind of rough, because we now have all tech and all costumes and all transitions, and we don't have them all down yet. The other main problem is our energy levels. They keep tanking. It's easy to enter with energy, but it's hard to keep it up when the rest of the cast is lost in self-consciousness.

Also, I was relieved that Vali didn't come observe. I love Vali, but I know that I'm not a very good practitioner of the acting technique she teaches. But instead of Vali, Chris came. He came, he gave excellent notes, he didn't pull any punches. Marvelous.

I think tonight is going to go well. I feel like Erin and Caleb are really going to take it up, and once they're on the right track, the rest of the show will follow.

Today is my last day as a redhead...for the moment. Tomorrow morning, I shall be a brunette. The color is Garnier Sweet Cola. So basically, as close to black as possible. It's going to freak me out, but I'll rock it hardcore. I know I shall.

In other news...I don't really have any other news. Right now, Beau Jest is EATING MY LIFE.

And I love it.

Ever'body better come see it. Or I will weep copiously.

No, seriously. I will.

I feel like I talk all the time about my acting experience, but this is the first time that I've gotten a big part at Lipscomb. I feel like I have to prove to everybody that I'm not a poser and I really can act.

And it makes me sad that a lot of people aren't coming. We run for three different weekends, and apparently none of them fit in their busy schedules. And yea and verily, I do weep.

But right now I have to look over that dang Sylvia Klein argument. It's gonna kill me.

2009-09-15T16:50:00.004-05:00

It is so fracking cold in Shamblin it's not even funny.

But the set is gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. And Patrick and I might buy the table and chair set. Because it's awesome. And we need a table and chair set.

And we open on Friday.

*a;lefdsklfdshyfioewjfkldsnfnaeyroiwejioewuof*

That is the sound of my spazzing.

Like seriously.

I'm terribly excited about it, don't get me wrong. But it's been so long since I had a sizeable part that it kind of makes me nervous. I know my lines, the part works for me, I love the show...I'm just anxious. Especially since Vali is observing tonight. As in the teacher who taught Advanced Acting last year. And we all know how well I handled that...

So yeah.

I'm going to post more later. But now I have to be prepared for makeup. Yayyyyyy!

Yoga Bag

2009-09-14T08:28:00.006-05:00

YOGA BAG
Pattern: McCall's 4261
Fabrics Used: knit print, light green fleece
Made: September 2009
Time: About an hour and a half
Cost: About $12.00
Made for: Fitness Yoga class

I'm taking Fitness Yoga at school, and I needed a yoga mat. Did you know how expensive yoga gear can be? I found a cheap bright pink mat, but I wasn't about to pay $25 for a canvas bag...especially when I knew I had a pattern lying around that I could use.

The fabric was on sale at JoAnn's. I love love love this print...even though Patrick hates it. I also purchased cording and a button (well, two buttons, but I only used one). When I got home, however, I realized that I didn't like how thin the bag would end up. I wanted something a bit sturdier. Luckily, I remembered that I had a vast quantity of light green fleece lying around, so I used it to make a backing.

The main modification I did (besides the backing) was to make a strap using the knit on one side and the fleece on the other rather than using a length of webbing. I thought it was prettier...plus I forgot to buy the webbing. But it worked.

I also didn't add the velcro closure on the pocket. I'm not a fan of velcro, plus I don't feel like I'll be putting enough stuff in the pocket to merit adding it. So the button is just there to be pretty.

Something you'll discover as I post more sewing projects is that I hate interfacing. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I avoid it as much as possible. Therefore, there was no interfacing used in this project. I just used the fleece backing to stiffen the bottom of the bag.

Also, I sewed it with pink thread. I thought that pink topstitching added a nice touch.

What I should have done was measure the length of my mat. There's a good four to six inches of bag that closes over the mat. If I make this pattern again, I'll measure the bag so that it just closes over the top, rather than having all that extra.

So far, it works really well. It's sturdy but lightweight, and super soft. Plus I think that print is super cute.

Aaaand...things are looking up.

2009-09-05T15:10:00.004-05:00

So yeah. Gap in blogging.

It's all good, though. 'Sall good.

As you've probably noticed, there's been a revamp of the blog layout. I got tired of the old one...and the old name. Thus, my blog has received its fourth name change. Good job, blog. Good job. I'm still working the bugs out, though, so bear with me.

I'm working on transferring the meager contents of my sewing blog onto this one. Goodness knows I have enough trouble updating one blog, much less two. So be prepared for blathering about sewing projects showing up on here.

Rehearsals for Beau Jest are progressing really nicely...which is a good thing, because the show opens in two weeks. Two weeks! Yikes. Oh, well. It's going to be fun. And do you know what else is fun? Dying my hair super super dark chocolatey brown for the show, because I need to look like Erin's mother, and goodness knows my hair isn't nearly as dark as hers.

(I've used the phrase "goodness knows" twice in the past two paragraphs. How old school am I?)

Oh, well.

I've got some sewing projects to work on, so get ready! I'll post them as soon as I can.

Whuch means that could be anytime in the next three months. Who knows?

So guess who forgot she had a blog?

2009-08-23T21:57:00.005-05:00

*sigh*

I meant to update. I really did. But Disney World is so crazy...and I was so tired...that...well, things didn't go quite as well as I had planned when it came from the blog-writing-front.

So yeah.

Now I'm going to work harder on blogging. Because I like blogging. And I really ought to keep up with it.

I'm going to do a big revamp of the blog layout too. It's time for a change.

In the meantime, here's what I've been up too:

-I got seasonal status at Disney World!

-Patrick came with the rest of my family to pick me up from Orlando, and I had a deliriously happy time dragging him around the parks.

-On a side note, P has a job! He's working at Target full time in the electronics department. He lurves it, and he gets good hours. So yay!

-We drove home last Sunday. Thirteen hours. In the minivan. Whole family. Yeah. It was great.

-I arrived home...to discover a car! I am now the proud and pleased owner of a 2006 PT Cruiser. The color is called "cool vanilla." I named it the Mach 5, even though El Padre calls it the Mach 2 1/2.

-I've lost around twelve pounds. Well, somewhere between ten and fifteen. I feel like I look a lot thinner.

-I'm all set for my very last semester of school. I'm really excited about graduating. Like seriously. Ready to get out of here.

-I started rehearsal for Beau Jest. It's marvelous. Simply marvelous. I'm having a ball already!

So yeah. Hopefully this semester will go well.

Lucky, lucky girl!

2009-07-11T08:16:00.003-05:00

I got to witness the absolute cutest proposal ever. Seriously, it was adorable.

A guy made arrangements for himself, his girlfriend, and two friends to get VIP seats for Beauty and the Beast. (At least, that's all she knew.) They watched the show from the VIP row, and then at the end the cast member at special right (I think it was Christine) strolled up and said, "Oh, by the way, you have an on stage meet 'n' greet with the whole cast." That's rare; meet 'n' greets are usually only with Belle and the Prince (sometimes Gaston) and on the special left side.

Needless to say, the girl was ecstatic. She ran up on the stage and started taking pictures. But when she turned around to say something to her boyfriend he was down on one knee. She was so shocked she literally dropped her camera.

One of the friends they had brought with them took pictures, and the other friend pulled a guitar out of nowhere (we still don't know how he got it into the theater!) and played while the proposer sang. And finally she had a chance to get a word in edgewise and she said yes. (We were all a little concerned for a while...it wouldn't have ended well if she said no!). And the second the newly engaged couple kissed the sound techs turned on the Celine Dion version of "Tale as Old as Time." It was an absolute perfect proposal.

It kind of made me a little nostalgic for when P proposed. After all, it was a really long time ago...as in two and a half years ago. I told him about the proposal last night and how I feel like I lost that newly-engaged bloom and sighed "Maybe you should just propose again."

He just said "Um...I don't know how I would do that." And I could tell he was making his Awkward!Patrick face. Which is a fabulously hilarious face, if you ever get to see it. Maybe I'll say something awkward to him and take a picture.

Oh, well. His proposal was really sweet, and I'm glad the Beauty and the Beast girl accepted. Not everyone accepted Disney proposals, however magical they may be. My friend Susie was "friends" with Pooh Bear, and a guy at Wilderness Lodge wanted Pooh there when he proposed to his girlfriend because that was her favorite character. Well, Pooh was there, the cast members were assembled, there was a cake and balloons, the guy was on one knee with the ring...and the girl stormed in. Apparently she was pissed off at something, and the guy didn't even notice. He just blissfully offered his proposal.

He was the only one who was shocked when the girl screamed, "No! I hate you! I don't want to marry you! I want to go home!". Then she stormed away.

Needless to say, the guy burst into tears. And Pooh didn't know what to do, so he awkwardly patted the guy on the head and booked it out of there.

I told my coordinator that story, and Max spent the rest of the day running up, patting me awkwardly on the shoulder, and running away. I think he thought it was a hysterical story.

True Life: I'm a Disney World Cast Member

2009-07-08T22:31:00.003-05:00

So I'm standing in front of the big blue sorcerer's hat (stupid monstrosity). The third High School Musical show is coming out in about ten minutes. I'm working the wheelchair position, so I'm standing by my silver cones, chatting with guests and answering questions.

Up walks an older couple with a map in hand. This is not an uncommon sight. I stroll up to them, flash my "I'm a Disney Princess" smile, and inquire, "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

The gentleman looks at the big blue hat in confusion. Then he looks at his map. Then he looks at me. Then he says...

"Where's the Epcot gate?"

It is only then that I realize that the map he holds, unfurled, has EPCOT written in big letters across the top, and only then that I realize that his wife is looking around for the big white golf ball.

Maintaining my princessy smile with the greatest of struggles, I gravely inform the gentleman that he is in the wrong park. He's in Disney's Hollywood Studios. I explain to the bewildered couple that they need to go to a different location.

I thought that was all.

As they turn to leave, the gentleman asks, "But before we go, where's the restaurant with food from around the world?"

Beaming to the point that my smile's width could rival Demi Lovato's, I inform him that, "No, sir...that's in Epcot."

Once they were safely out of earshot I howled. Because really, that was fricking hilarious.

Bother bother bother...

2009-07-08T08:06:00.003-05:00

Guess who has been a bad blogger?

*sighs*

That would be me.

I was getting so good at it too!

Oh, well. I'm not going to kick myself too much about it. After all, I've been working full time at a crazily hectic job that involves running around in the blazing Florida sun all day. By the time I get home, blogging is the last thing on my mind.

("Dinner" comes first, followed by "vegging out" at a close second, with "collapsing into bed" completing the trifecta.)

(Also, spellcheck is trying to tell me that "trifecta" is not a word. It so is...)

I love working at Disney, but sometimes I just need a break to sit around and do absolutely nothing. Which is precisely what I did the past two days. Literally. I sat on the couch and watched Golden Girls, Bridezilla, and Total Drama Action while playing Sims 2 for most of my weekend. It was pretty funny because every time Carissa and her boyfriend walked in or out of the apartment I would be sitting in the same spot, but usually wearing different clothes.

But yeah. Things are settling. I'm applying for seasonal status soon, so I can go back to the Great Movie Ride. (I was going to do it this week, but I didn't. See above paragraph). Patrick has a full-time job, FINALLY! He's working in the electronics department at Target. And he's probably going to get enough time off to go to Drew's wedding and come visit me, which makes me so happy I could probably explode. Wedding plans are coming along swimmingly, now that we have permission to flip the Great Hall for the reception. And I'm losing weight, which is fantastic. I've now hit the 20-lbs-lost mark (from my heaviest documented weight), plus I had to buy a new belt, which is a size SMALL.

So yeah. Things are going well. I'll try to update more often now, especially since I have some great guest stories: bad ones, good ones, and high-larious ones.

What I did over summer vacation...er, the past couple of weeks (plus Musical Monday #15!)

2009-06-01T10:41:00.002-05:00

So...things have been crazy. Incredibly crazy. Now I'll catch up!

I had one week after school ended to get ready for Disney. My little sister graduated on the 16th (of May) and we left early early early the next day for Orlando. And it was a long drive, to say the least. We stopped that night at a hotel in Gainesville, then drove the rest of the way the next morning.

The first day of orientation for the Disney College Program is a maze. Seriously. You start at a certain point and then weave your way through all these different stations to get your housing ID, fill out paperwork, etc. The part that made me the most nervous was picking the apartment. They ask what size apartment you want, and then randomly assign you one. I knew this part was coming, and it made me anxious. I even briefly considered asking for a wellness apartment (one where alcohol wasn't allowed) just to lessen my chances of rooming with partiers, but all I came out was a timid "could I get a three-bedroom?".

I ended up in building #1, on the third floor. I moved in as quickly as possible, hoping to be unobtrusive. But it turned out it was all okay. My roommate, Michelle, and I are incredibly compatible as roommates. No problems whatsoever. I also found out that none of the girls in my apartment are partiers, so yay! They're all like me: they enjoy the occasional beverage, but they neither get drunk on a regular basis nor plan to host parties in our apartment. Thank goodness.

The apartment goes like this:

Michelle is from Wisconsin and works at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain in Magic Kingdom.

Kim is from New York and works at the American Adventure quick service food location at Epcot.

Carissa is from New York and works merchandice down Sunset Boulevard in Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Shana is from South Carolina and works at the Great Movie Ride in Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Sam is from South Carolina and works at Toy Story Midway Mania in Disney's Hollywood Studios.

And me? I'm getting to that. (Lawlz, making you wait.)

After the morning orientation and starting to unpack, it was time for afternoon orientation at Disney casting. That was a huge pain in the you-know-what. Seriously. Exhausting. That was also when I found out that while I was returning to Studios, I was not returning to the Great Movie Ride. I was placed in Sunset Attractions: Tower of Terror, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Beauty and the Beast (the stage show), and Fantasmic!.

I didn't find out until the end of the week that I was placed at Beauty and the Beast (also known as Theater of the Stars, also known as ToTS) and Fantasmic!. And I didn't know until I was in training that working Fantasmic! also meant I was trained for the Pixar Block Party Bash parade and the High School Musical 3: School's Out! pep rally.

So yeah. Lots of training. I've got some interesting stories about that, but I don't want to get into it at the moment. It would take too long.

But now I'm fully trained at all four work locations, plus I'm in line for recertification training at the Great Movie Ride, so I can work there too...maybe even transfer there.

And now you're all caught up! Now you know what I'm up to, and where I'm working, and all that good stuff. I'll post some pictures...once I take them. I'm so bad about that.

And until I post again (which shall be soon, I promise!), here's my Musical Monday entry. What better music than the show that I work at?!

Yeah, guess who gets to see this three nights a week. ME!

Whose Powerade was that?!

2009-05-30T10:00:00.003-05:00

OMG. I love having days off to play in Disney World. I went to Typhoon Lagoon (for the first time), then Fantasia Gardens, then Downtown Disney with Carissa. So much fun!

Lowlights:
-Um...none, really. The weather was nice and everything was a lot of fun.

Highlights:
-I went to Typhoon Lagoon with Carissa, one of my roommates. I rode the raft slides- Mayday Falls, Keelhaul Falls, and...uh...the Something-Or-Other Falls. I skipped out on the Crush 'n' Gusher, though. Not quite ready for that one.

-Carissa and I headed out to the Fantasia Gardens mini-golf course...$6 for cast members! We met her old roommate Krystina there, who's a seasonal CM...she's friends with Minnie Mouse, among others. We sucked, but we had so much fun.

-We went to DTD and grabbed dinner at Earl of Sandwich, then shopped around. I traded for a super rare Meet the Robinsons pin, and bought some killer Alice in Wonderland pajamas. "Killer" and "pajamas" don't really seem to belong in the same sentence, but seriously. They're awesome.

-Krystina had to head out, but Carissa and I went to see Up at the 11:30 showing. I love being a cast member...where else can you pay $6 for a nighttime movie ticket?! The movie was amazing. It's definitely the most emotional of all of Pixar's films, which is saying something. The montage in the beginning with Carl and Ellie is just heartrending. And then it's hysterical at the same time. The parks are selling a shirt with Dug the dog on it that say "I have just met you and I love you" and I'm so going to buy it.

On Thursday, though. When I get my paycheck. Money's awesome.

You may have heard that EPCOT stands for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow." Which it does. But it also stands for "Every Paycheck Comes On Thursday."

Or "Every Person Comes Out Tired."

Or. "Excruciating Polyester Costumes of Torture."

Take your pick.

Highlights and lowlights...of yesterday

2009-05-29T08:57:00.002-05:00

I was too tired to do this last night...Fantasmic! training was super taxing last night. So I'm doing it now.

Lowlights:
-I showed up early to meet my trainer, only to discover that my trainer had been scheduled somewhere else. So I did all my parade and HSM training...by myself!

-I worked the redirect position for HSM: basically I held the rope closed, opened it for the float, closed it back up, then reopened it when it was safe. And those ropes are FRIGGING SHARP. I not only gouged my pointer finger and thumb open, but I projectile bled! Luckily, I realized fast enough to hide that hand behind my back until the guests went by.

-The first show of Fantasmic! was canceled because of the weather...people were unhappy.

Highlights:
-I was supergreeting with a guy named Rian, and he mentioned how great it was that I could recognize the people I had talked to earlier. It can be hard to do that sometimes...

-Because Fantasmic! was canceled, I got to see the 6-minute rain show version, called "A Taste of Fantasmic!". It rarely plays, so I was actually pretty pumped about it.

-My trainer met up with me before Fantasmic!, and she was the best trainer I've had all week.

-I am officially checked out to work Fantasmic! Yay!

Don't wear polyester in Orlando...

2009-05-27T18:39:00.002-05:00

So...I'm eventually going to blog about the past week and a half. It'll take awhile.

In the meantime, enjoy the highlights and lowlights of my shift at ToTS today.

Lowlights:
-A woman getting angry that I put in her in the bleachers (as the theater was completely full) that she left (ducking under several ropes in the process) and sat in the handicapped section. Even though she was completely able-bodied. She told me she was mad because the row was empty and the handicapped people wouldn't need it.

Highlights:
-A family with "I'm celebrating" pins walked by. I asked what they were celebrating, and the mom happily said "Dad's not getting deployed!".

-A darling little boy with dimples not only waved back at me (some kids are too shy) but when I blew him a kiss, he blew it right back!

-Chatting with a lovely older couple about their plans in the park, and helping them find other attractions.

-A little girl came up in a Cinderella gown and tiara. I said "Hello, Princess Cinderella" and curtsied, and she was so happy her cheeks went pink.

-A guy asked me about where he could see "Fanastasia." Seriously. Hilarious.

More?

2009-05-14T10:08:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago my sister messaged me on Facebook. "You need to check out Hazel's page," she said. "She looks just like you now. She even has a boyfriend with a goofy smile like P's. It's like she's trying to be you."

(Please note that the individual's name is not really Hazel.)

I didn't really believe her. But I wrote on the wall of a friend who is friends with Hazel (Hazel and I no longer speak for a myriad of reasons) and there was her picture.

It was creepy. Her hair was the same length as mine. The same shade of red as mine. Her bangs are even cut the same and parted to the same side.

I couldn't resist. I checked out her page.

Sure enough, she's dating a guy who is faintly reminiscent of P. She's still a theater major and English minor, just like me. And then the thing that killed me...she's studying voice-over acting.

I will never get out from under her shadow. Never. I will always be a lesser person than her. She's always going to be prettier than me, more talented than me, more well-liked than me.

And she thinks I'm a selfish, self-centered, hysterical diva. I'm not even kidding. When we lived together (we lived in the same suite at school), she made it quite clear that I was just an over-emotional baby who needed to grow up. I freely admit that I am emotionally high-strung. Sixteen years of clinical depression will do that to a person. I have worked hard to grow up and mature and learn how to function like normal people do, and while I don't always succeed, I really do try.

But then I read this on her page:

"And I know, even a few of you smart guys are like, 'Everyone's equal, everyone's opinion is equal; everyone matters.' No. Everyone is equal, until the point they decide to open up and show the world how stupid and ignorant they actually are."

The mutual friend I mentioned above has the exact same quote on her wall. And it was put up about this time last year. Because, you see, there was a debacle last May. I had spent so long in emotional turmoil that the deterioration of my strongest relationship (which Hazel was a factor in) was, to put it bluntly, killing me. I had gotten two separate stress-related illnesses, my hair was falling out, I was constantly crying or hyperventilating over something...it was just a bad situation, and I needed to get out of it. I needed the time and space to heal. And part of this healing process involved telling exactly what I felt, instead of hedging around the issues and lying in order to preserve the shaky peace and then calling P in hysterical tears because I couldn't function anymore. So I wrote my friend a long and painful letter, slept on it, and emailed it the next day.

It was incredibly rough, but once the initial tsunami of emotion was over, things got better. I was actually terrified to face her at church the next Sunday, but she actually hugged me...for the first time in a long time. Things were still very risky for a while. I still remember the time P called me when he was over at her brother's house, and I could hear her laughing in the background, and I broke down and sobbed. He tried to make me feel better by pointing out that I was making friends with other people, and maybe one of them would be a suitable best friend. I surprised both of us by blurting out, "I don't want a new best friend, I just want her!"

I don't know if P ever told her about that, or if she just went through her own mental processes, but we're friends again. I would even hesitate to say best friends. She chose to live down the hall instead of in the same suite, and it was the best decision for our friendship. We made time to see each other, we had special sushi-and-movie nights, we watched TV shows together. We even had a night during exam week where she was on her laptop and I read Cosmo while we watched adult swim, and she grinned at me and said "This is just like old times!" I'm so glad that we're back to being major players in each others' lives. It was one of the greatest terrors of my life that she would fade out of my life like so many other friends have, and I would, yet again, be all alone.

At the same time, damage has been done. When my friend and I had our initial falling-out at the beginning of last summer, both Hazel and another mutual friend dropped me from their lives. For the past year they've acted like I don't exist. And it hurts.

I want people to hate me or to love me. It's great when people love me. It makes life easier. When people hate me, I either win them over (like P's best friend and his sister) or I just learn to move on with my life (like with P's best friend's ex-girlfriend, which is another story for another emo-day). What hurts the most is when I don't matter enough to be loved or hated.

Hazel didn't love me. She didn't hate me. We were simply two people in the same circles.

To this day, I don't think she knows how much she's affected me, and to be honest, I don't think she would really care to know. She hates over-emotion. It would never matter to her what I say or what I do. Even if I called her up and said "Look, I know we've had our differences. I know we were such passive-aggressive rivals. I'm sorry for my part in it. I'm sorry what I've done," she wouldn't care. I don't think she would even acknowledged that she hurt me in any way, that it was just me being hypersensitive.

I hate living my life to beat her, but that's how I've been stuck for so long. I've tried to be a better friend than her. I've tried to be a better actress than her. I've tried to be prettier than her. I've tried to get people to love me more than her.

It's a poisonous way to live.

It didn't really start until I invited her to visit my church. And afterwards, people came up to me and said, "Oh my gosh, Hazel is just like you, only more."

More what?

More attractive?

More likeable?

More talented?

More socially adjusted?

Nothing hurts worse than being told that a fellow human being is "more" than you. It means you're not enough, and you'll never be enough, so you'll be replaced.

And I was replaced.

She's been out of my life for a while, but I still don't feel like myself. I feel that I am overly defensive. I feel that I am bitter. I feel that I am always looking for a fight. I feel that I am lost.

I just need to know that there is a place for me, and that there will always be a place for me. That no one will ever feel the need to replace me, because I am enough.

All I want is to be enough.

I've struggled with this for a long time, even before Hazel sauntered into my life. A lot of people talk about friends they've had since kindergarten or elementary school or even middle school. I don't have any of those. In fact, the only friends who have stuck by me for any stretch of time are people I met as a senior in high school.

I'm kind of a ding-dong-ditch friend. Even now, I get that. It's a vicious cycle. At first, I'm super close with the person. We're completely attached at the hip. Then something happens: they meet a newer, more exciting friend or we squabble over something or drama happens or something. Then they reject me...either by slowly drifting away, rebuffing my attempts to hang out or talk, or spectacularly, with public accusations and derisions.

The strongest memory I have is from my sophomore year of high school. My best friend at the time invited me and three of our mutual friends to a sleepover. I was excited- I was finally getting invited places. But then she sat all of us down, and with the three other girls present, she proceeded to spend an hour detailing all of my faults and how I could fix them. At the end of it, she had the audacity to pat me on the shoulder and say, "Oh, I'm so glad you didn't cry."

I couldn't cry. I was too shocked.

A few years later, one of the three witnesses emailed me and, on behalf of the two other girls, apologized for not saying anything. They knew that this was wrong, but they were too scared of the other girl to stop her.

I have closure now, and the girl and I have since made our peace, but that is a pattern that has followed me all my life- getting mocked and getting rejected, while everyone stands around with their mouth agape, watching me crumble and apologizing when it's all over.

Remember when I mentioned P's best friend's ex-girlfriend (whose codename is Gladys)? There was a big blow-up about her, and two of my closest friends bailed out on me. One of them chose not to get involved because Gladys had always been nice to her, and the other one had been emailing Gladys back-and-forth for two months, hearing all the lies that Gladys had to say about me without getting my side of the story. It hurt so badly that I lost my temper over it...and I'm still apologizing over that. (It was more than just losing my cool, I let my full-blown temper fly for a good hour, and it was totally uncalled-for). At the same time, I felt I was getting rejected again, and I felt like I had to fight.

Unfortunately, I fight too much. In the past year I've become a person I don't like, and I hope that going away for a while will allow me to get back to the person I used to be, a person I liked a whole lot better.

I'm sorry for all the angst. This has just been bottled up for a long time, and I need to let it out. I feel like I can never get past this if I never talk about it, and there just hasn't been a good time or place or uninvolved sounding board. So yeah. Thanks, internetz.

And if there is only one thing you take from all this: never, ever, under pain of death, tell another living, breathing, human being, that someone is "more" than they are.