Tag: wedding plans

Early night

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Busy day at work today.  Progress on some fronts, but more delays on others.  We stopped at the grocery store after work and picked up a few things, and when we got home, I made my apple, ale and cheddar soup again.  It was good, but not quite as good as the first time.  Too much apple cider this time.  And next time, some chopped apples would be good.

No writing tonight, but I think I have the gist of the first scene fully worked out.  Maybe tomorrow.  I’d been reading Uncertainty, but I no longer need it for where the story is going.  An interesting book, still, but I’m setting it aside of the time being.  I started Jack McDevitt’s Cauldron tonight and got through the first chapter.

Spoke with Mom today.  Also spoke with strausmouse  tonight, who called as promised.

We got our wedding pictures today.  The photographer is mailing us the DVDs, but in the meantime, she made the pictures available to us online.  I looked through some but there’s something like 700.  I’ll look through more when we get the DVDs.

Off to bed now.  I was practically falling asleep on the couch. 

Under pressure

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Boy, we had planned everything out so well for the wedding that I was certain that these last few days would be calm and relaxed; they are anything but.  Lots of last minute errands, lots of people in town, running around.  I can barely catch my breath.  Not in a bad way–it’s just busy.

Despite having 7 people stay at the house last night and most of the day today, we still managed to get a lot done.  Kelly and I were up early and took care of a few errands and chores.  Later in the morning, Doug, Rachel, me and the kids went over to one of the playgrounds here and let them play for a while.  I called the restaurant for the rehearsal and confirmed everything with them, so we are all set for tomorrow.

Kelly’s parents went to run some errands of their own and we headed over to Clarendon for lunch.  Chili!  Yum!  We took Kelly’s laptop to the Apple Store to have it looked at for a fan problem.  They couldn’t fix it under Apple Care because of some physical damage to the machine, and it’s not worth paying what they were asking for to fix it.  Oh well.  After that, we ran errands.  We picked up our tuxedoes and made sure they all fit.  (There was a minor issue with my jacket, but it was resolved quickly.)  We ran to Target to get an idea of price and availability of Rock Band.  (We didn’t buy anything.)  We went to Shoppers to get some beer.

By then, Mom and Dad had arrived into town so we headed home.  Doug and I headed up to Pentagon City to pick them up.  We got them back to the house and at that point, we really had a full house.  9 guests!

stubiebrother , Doug and I headed up to Lucky Strike for two hours of bowling and drinking.  It was a lot of fun.  I did good the first two games, two 114s.  Three strikes in one game.  But I tanked after that.  Jason ended up with the highest score of the night, breaking 170 (I think he finished with a 174).  We finished around 9 PM and headed back home to play Rock Band, which we borrowed from a friend for the evening.  (Thank you, Kevin!)  I played until about midnight, when I needed to call it quits.  Busy day tomorrow and I was tired.

Doug and Jason continued to play into the night.  I have no idea when they finally gave up.

We’re on vacation!

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Up and into work this morning.  It was one of those days that seemed to grow steadily more hectic as the day progressed.  I kept an eye on Doug’s flights, and I headed home around lunchtime to wait for him to arrive.  They got here shortly after noon, and it was really good to see them.  The kids had gotten sleep on the plane but Doug and Rachel hadn’t gotten much sleep.  I gave them a quick tour of the house and then showed them their room.   Doug was very happy to see that the kids had their own place to sleep and that he wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.

I headed back to work for a couple more hours and then around 3 PM, after my last meetings were over, I headed home.  I stopped at the library to return my "overdue" book, but as it turns out, I had my dates mixed up and the book was not overdue after all.  I also found out that I could return the book to my local branch, which is very convenient.

Kelly’s parents were out most of the day but were back before 4 PM.  Doug, Rachel and the kids were up shortly after 4 PM.  And were the kids ever hyper!  It was a lot of fun.  We gave them the gifts we got them.  Doug and I picked up Kelly from the metro station, stopped at Starbucks, and then headed back home.  We all walked up to Shirlington for dinner, where Kelly’s parents treated us to a nice meal at Capital City Brewery.  Both Carson and Ruby fell asleep at dinner.  I carried Carson back home the entire mile-plus walk.

I got an invitation to join Will’s writer’s group today, which I accepted happily.  I can’t do much there until I get back from vacation, but I’m looking forward to working with the group.

I got a card from a bunch of people at work today.  It was very nice and included an extremely generous gift.

We’re on vacation!  I still feel so busy with wedding stuff that it hasn’t sunk in yet.

stubiebrother  arrived tonight, as scheduled.  We picked him up around 10:15 PM.  Stopped at the grocery store on the way home.

Mom and Dad get into town tomorrow.

Where guests begin arriving

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We drove into work this morning and as we pulled toward the parking lot, I realized that we forgot the parking pass. We had to come home to get it. Fortunately, we live close by.

Busy work day today. Trying to wrap stuff up before I head off on vacation. I worked steadily until 2 PM (when I had to leave to run an errand) and then it was back to work from 9 – 11 PM to do some deployments. I just finished that up. (I watched the debate while I was working.)

After work today, I raced out to Annapolis to give the Inn a cashier’s check for the remaining balance for the wedding. Then I raced back home and was at the house at about 4:15 PM. Kelly’s parents arrived minutes later. After Kelly got home from work, we all drove out to Tyson’s Corner so that Kelly could pick up her wedding dress. We had dinner out there and then came back to the house.

I didn’t get a chance to return my library book today and so I will return it tomorrow, one day late. It cost me a quarter, but I still feel bad since someone has the book on hold, and I know I’d be annoyed if I were waiting and it was late.

Off to bed. Doug and family get here tomorrow morning.

Wedding prep

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We’re one week away from the Big Day, and this weekend is all about wedding prep.  We were both tired last night and went to bed around 10 AM.  We were up shortly after 7 AM, after a good night’s sleep.  I had an appointment at Saturn this morning to get the alignment on my car adjusted.  It had been pulling to the right ever since Williamsburg and it was about time to get it fixed.  We are both skeptical about major repairs to our cars these days, both cars being well over a decade old.  Nevertheless, the price was as reasonable as such things can be so I had the work done.   Part of the work involved getting 2 new tires, but my car is so old, they don’t make the size anymore.  I had to get larger tires and that meant 4 new tires.  Only 2 were sent over so I now have to pick the car up on Monday.  When all is said and done, it’s not a big deal.  I don’t drive the car that much anyway.  But $700 seems like a lot to pay for a car that is slowly on its way out.

Back home and Kelly went off to some spa appointments.  I climbed on my bike and road down to a park just south of the Wilson Bridge.  Since the bike computer is still not working, I checked Google Maps and my best estimate is 6.5 miles one way, or 13 miles round trip.  I took just over 1-1/2 hours.  It was a good ride, a good workout, and this time, it didn’t rain.

When I got home from the bike ride, I worked on wedding itineraries for the wedding party.  I called the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner and gave them the final count.  I called all of my credit card companies and the bank and let them know I would be traveling out of the country for 10 days so if they saw activity on my account in, say, Cartagena, Colombia, the would know it probably wasn’t fraudulent.  When Kelly got home we ate some lunch and then headed to the grocery store to stock up on groceries for the week.  We’ve got a lot of company coming into town beginning on Tuesday and we wanted to be prepared.

Kelly has been doing laundry all day and tonight or tomorrow, we are packing for our honeymoon.  We’re doing it now so that we don’t have to do it when we’ve got a houseful of people.

In two-and-a-half hours, we’re heading over to a friend’s house to play Rock Band, or Guitar Hero, or one of those games.  The fun never ends.

I sent the next draft of my story to the workshop.  It had a bunch of changes that were suggested by the group.  I got comments back today, and sure enough, the comments are helping.  We’ve got a good group, and I’m anxious to work in the comments and get a final draft before I head on vacation  I’d like to get the manuscript in the mail no later than a week from today, if I can.

Very little time for reading these last two weeks.

On the other hand, I’ll I’m looking forward to seeing Andy and kruppenheimer  and strausmouse  and rmstraus  and stubiebrother and he11o_sunshine  and everyone else coming into town for the wedding very soon.

First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys

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It’s hard to believe that it’s October already!  Harder to believe that we’re only 10 days away from our wedding.  Still lots of little things linger around to do, but we’re getting there; and at least there’s nothing major–at the moment–that’s overly stressing either of us.  I’m trying to dig up my travel checklists from the trip to Europe last year.  We’re sending in our meal counts today.  Little things like that.

Thunderstorms last night helped usher in October.  Kelly had a hair appointment after work.  It was just a trim.  She told me to pick her up at 6:30 PM and she was actually done at 7:15 PM.  Turns out it was, as she put it, "the longest haircut ever."  Her hair came out looking good.  The problem,apparently, was the combination of the facts that (a) the stylist was new and (b) Kelly mentioned she was getting married.  I think the guy was just being extra careful.  I’m getting a haircut Thursday or Friday and you can be sure I won’t mention the wedding part.  I don’t like it when my haircuts take more than 15 minutes.

I’ve got 6 full work days left (including today) before my vacation starts.  I’ll be on vacation from Thursday, October 9 through Sunday, October 27.  With all of the wedding plans we’ve been focusing on, I keep forgetting that there is a vacation that immediately follows.  That will be nice.

I started reading Robert Silverberg’s The Stochastic Man last night.  Hope to get through some more today.  There have been three workshop stories submitted so far, including mine.  I read one last night and should get my comments out by lunchtime today.  I’ll probably read the other during lunch today.

House elf

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We started the day with various errands and tasks.  We ran over to Home Depot to look at grills, but decided to wait until we got back from our vacation before buying anything.  We also wrapped up several wedding-related tasks.  (Only two weeks to go!)  Kelly made us grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.  Yum!

Then it became a lazy day.  I went to go read and instead, fell asleep on the living room couch for something like 1-1/2 hours.  Kelly, meanwhile, fell asleep in the family room.  When we had finally woken up, it was close to 5 PM.  We decided to walk over to Shirlington and make use of more of our "date night" goodies.  We had dinner at Capital City Brewery.  After that, we went to the 7:10 showing of Burn After Reading.  Very well written, funny, and well acted.  But it’s what you’d expect from the Coen Brother’s in terms of how it all ends.  We walked back home slowly after the movie and it was a very pleasant walk.

This evening I discovered that we do not, in fact, have a house elf.  It turns out that Kelly is the one who has been emptying the dishwasher, cleaning out the litter boxes, doing the laundry.  I had assumed it was the house elf.  I thought Avalon included that with all of their "luxury" rental town-homes.  Kelly said that I was mistaken.  I checked the lease, and sureenough, she’s right.  Section 7.2 specifically says that "even-numbered town-homes are equipped with fireplaces and ceiling fans, but do not include house elves."  You can imagine how bitterly disappointed I was.
 

Wrapping up

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Today marks the end of the fiscal year and I more or less finished my part of a multi-year project in which we developed a sophisticated, web-based project portfolio management system for our research units.  6 of our 8 units are in production as of today, and that’s what we needed to meet our goal.  Beginning next week, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be working full-time for our Facilities department, getting their applications (which have been sidelined due to other projects) moving forward.  Anyway, I feel really good about the work I did on this project.

I did about 500 words of the workshop story at lunch today.  It stands at 7,000 words now.  I’m really going to try and tackle the remainder of the first draft this weekend.  I’d like to send it out to the group Monday or Tuesday.  At this point, it’s looking to be somewhere between 10,000-12,000 words.

Kelly has her flex-day today.  She got to sleep in this morning.  We still have a few last minute wedding items to take care of.  Yesterday I reserved us a limo to the airport.  I also confirmed with the place we are having our rehearsal dinner, and found out when they needed the final count.  We have our seating arrangement essentially done.  And I have some text I need to send to he11o_sunshine  that will be included with our program.  (I requires just a little clean-up, Jen, I swear, and then I’ll have it out to you.)  We are trying to get as much wedding stuff done as possible this weekend so that we have it all wrapped up.  Next weekend we need to cleanup the place and pack for the honeymoon.  I can’t believe that we’re only 15 days away from the Big Day.

Had a lazy TV night last night.  Kelly made mushroom-stuffed ravioli and we sat down and watched essentially 4 hours of TV, including Smallville and the season premier of The Office.  Season premier of Dexter is on Sunday.  Tonight, I’m planning on watching the first presidential debate.

Washington Mutual collapsed today–or was taken over by JP Morgan, whatever that means.  This whole financial crisis is fascinating in the same way watching a train wreck is fascinating.  I wonder if it will come up in tonight’s debate on national security?

Financial “crisis”, part 1

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Yesterday was the last real crunch day at work.  Today and Friday will still be busy, but I think I got through my tough part yesterday.  I’ve been working steadily all morning, but the pressure feels somewhat off.  Two more days left in the fiscal year, and we may actually meet our project goal.

Kelly and I worked on the seating chart for the wedding yesterday.  We think we’ve got it more or less nailed down.

When I got home, I watched the most recent episode of The Shield, which was waiting for me on the DVR.  After Kelly went to the gym, we walked over to Shirlington for dinner.  We used part of our "date night" gift that he11o_sunshine  and stubiebrother  got for us.  We ate dinner at Guapo’s, and I had an amazing, bacon-wrapped shrimp fajita dish.  The shrimp was stuffed with cheese and jalepenos, wrapped in bacon, and there was an excellent garlic butter sauce to go along with it.  It was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.

Issues with my old Credit Union account.  I no longer use the account; we have our accounts at a local bank now.  I thought I’d had all my automatic payments moved to the new account, but I apparently missed on.  The account was overdrawn yesterday.  Fortunately, as a member in good standing, the credit union covered it, but it was an annoyance that had unintended side-effects.  And to add to the misery, I found out that I owe about $35 on the water bill for the old house.  The final bill was never sent to me.  It was sent to the new tenants who were justifiably confused by the whole thing.  I had a similar problem early in the week.  When I switched the gas service from the old house to the new house, I was told that I would not beassigned a new account number.  My BillPay kept paying the bills, but I received a statement saying that I owed two months worth of gas service.  Guess what?  They changed the account number.  The payments on the old bills were going into the ether.  I guess that’s the danger of automatic payments.  Nevertheless, I prefer these little snafus to having to remember to actually make the payments each month.

We’re supposed to get some rain today.

On all 8 cylinders

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Have you ever had one of those days where it seems you are running on all 8-cylinders?  Where everything moves smoothly and seamlessly, almost effortlessly?

Today was not one of those days.

It was, in fact, an incredibly busy, fragmented day at work.  It was one of those days where I was in two meetings at the same time (go ahead, ask me how that works, I dare you).  Lots of coding, lots of meetings, lots of coding while sitting in meetings.  We are crunching on impossible deadlines which is always fun.  Hopefully this doesn’t last more than a few more weeks.

Back at home, there was some good mail today:  the October issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN arrived–and I still haven’t cracked open the September issue.  My voter registration card came, too, which means I am all good to vote on November 4.  We received not one but two packages in the mail today.

I watched the most recent episode of The Shield which Tivo recorded for me.  When Kelly was finished with work, we headed up to Laurel, Maryland, where we met with our DJ.  We were back home around 8:30 PM, and we practiced our dance for a few minutes.  Kelly has some work to do, and I’m going to go read before bed.

Reading and writing

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Another busy day at work today.  I managed to find myself in meetings from 11 AM until 3 PM.  Looks like I’ve got the same schedule on the books for tomorrow, too.

I finished John Scalzi’s The Ghost Brigades at lunch today.  I loved it.  I was very tempted to rate it 4.5 stars, but in nearly 400 books, I’ve avoided half-star ratings, and I felt I couldn’t break my streak, so I gave it 4 stars.  Nevertheless, it was a great book, the rare sequel that I felt was even better than the original.  I took that and Rainbows End back to the library at lunch, only to find that the branch doesn’t open until 1 PM on Tuesday.   So after work, I dropped off those books, and then headed to the Central Branch library in order to pick up the next book in Scalzi’s series, The Last Colony.  (I’m nothing if no obsessive.)  I started it right when I got home, and so far, so good.

Lots of mail today, mostly junk, but more wedding gifts arrived today.  I forgot to mention that yesterday, Kelly’s wedding dress came in (as promised) and so she is all set for a fitting on Thursday.  (Maybe I did mention this.  I’m too lazy to go check right now.)

I paid a few bills this afternoon.  Kelly headed over to a friend’s house after work, and left me at home where I could do some writing.  I worked on what I think is a crucialflashback scene in my workshop story and managed to do a little more than 1,000 words this evening.  It probably needs some fine-tuning, but I think it’s capturing the tone and feel I am going for and I’m pleased with the results.

Incidentally, in this story, I’m naming characters after friends.  There’s a Norman, a-la vickyandnorm , as well as a Dr. Straus (strausmouse ) and Krupp (kruppenheimer).  I’ve never done this before, but I’m finding it amusing.  I certainly hope they will forgive how poorly I sometimes treat their characters.  Krupp and Straus, are, I must admit, redshirts.
 

Any given Sunday

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For such a productive day, I’ve felt pretty darn lazy today.  Maybe it’s the 95 degree temperatures and 95% humidity.

I slept in a little later than usual, but we didn’t got to bed until around midnight last night anyway, so time-wise, it was pretty standard.  But I did sleep well.

We had our dance lesson this morning at 10:30.  It was a private lesson and it went surprisingly well.  We brought with us our First Dance Song (yes, we narrowed our list down in time) and Lauren determined the best kind of dance to go along with the song.  She taught us the basic steps, and some basic dance principles, like how to lead, etc.  She showed us some additional moves we could throw in, showed us how some simple things could make it look more clean, and then showed us how to do a proper entrance and exit.  The whole thing took an hour, but we both felt more confident coming out.  We need to practice, but we have four weeks to clean things up and smooth the rough edges.  And you know what?  It was fun!

After the dance lesson, we headed over to the Men’s Wearhouse so that I could get a new suit.  See, my old dark suit no longer fits me properly.  Perhaps because it’s just over 7 years old.  I need a good formal (dark) suit for the honeymoon cruise, so we decided to go get a new one.  After looking at several options, I finally settled on a dark Calvin Kline Kenneth Cole suit.  I was fitted, and I should have the suit one week from Monday.

We stopped at Pet Smart to get a new scratching post for Zeke, and then we headed over to a nearby Mexican Restaurant, Don Pablo’s for lunch.  After lunch we came back home and since then, things have been incredibly lazy.  In fact, I ended up napping for a while this afternoon.  Kelly is at the gym at the moment, and I am going to do some more reading.  It’s really too hot to do anything else.