Rip Roaring Saturday Night

I can not WAIT until next Thursday. I get to see my mama and AK (Friday first thing) and my cousins and it will be such a nice break from... this. The 18 books, 27 articles and 250 notecards are all for a research paper due Monday afternoon. All that work for something that will end up meaning nothing to me a few years from now. Actually - I'm enjoying doing the research for this paper. It's on the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy on eating disorders. Since it sort of hits home I think I've done more work than necessary - but who knows these days??? I'm also in the process of editing some video of one of my little tutees for my thesis and that's really exciting.

Most likely I'll be holed up in the library all Sunday to get this paper finished (that I haven't actually started WRITING yet) and some other work accomplished so I can enjoy the weekend with all my favorite girls. Fingers crossed that all goes well and maybe, just maybe, I'll have time to blog about more exciting stuff soon enough. :-)

Paper Overload

It is crunch time, ladies and gentlemen. It is my 10th and FINAL semester of graduate school and I cannot graduate soon enough. My world has been overwhelmed with exams, papers, my thesis - and although in sight, the end is not as near as I would like. In fact, as I am writing this I am sitting at Joey's house pretending to write a paper on the effects of high-stakes testing that is due in 12 hours. And no, we have not started drinking...

So send those good thoughts by way of Virginia where Joey, Robin and myself will be painstakingly trying to finish our masters degrees. Graduation is May 17th!!! (Oh, and we're looking for jobs too). Thank you Mr. Jefferson, and good night - we need a BREAK.

100% Pure Love

Christopher and I met on January 24, 2008 for our first date. Less than a week later, Miss Robin Fox decided to go back to high school to determine our compatibility score. We were sitting at Java Java doing schoolwork (and of course gabbing about Chris) and all of a sudden she asks, "wait - what is his middle name???" Out comes a notebook and a Crayola marker and she goes to TOWN. I had never seen this type of "test" before, the only one I knew of was the MASH (mansion, apartment, shack, house).

When she hit that last addition problem, you would have thought she just won the lottery. She started screaming, "I have never seen 100% - I have done this sooo many times - I have never seen ONE.HUNDRED.PERCENT."

Well, folks - the math says we're 100% compatible, and we all know that math never lies. :-)

Happily Ever After

September 27, 1975
Photo: Favorite Uncle Paul

This is, by far, my favorite picture of all time. I recently posted it on Facebook and have gotten QUITE the reaction. Not only does my mother look GORGEOUS in this photo, but it's so descriptive of who my parents are as a couple.

My dad is normally the silly one - pestering mama by rearranging the light switches or saying things purposely to ruffle her feathers, and (the majority of the time), she laughs him off. Besides his amazing outfit (Christopher wants to borrow the platforms so he'll be taller than me), Daddy's expression is priceless. "Holy cow, what did I just get myself into?" And Mama just looks like she won the lottery. :-)

Mama and Daddy will be married almost 35 years when Christopher and I tie the knot. I can only dream of having a marriage like theirs. Not many people can love their parents the way I love mine -- hopefully we can be that to our children someday. :-)

Reality TV Brings Light to Wedding Dress Woes

My new favorite reality series is Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. It's about a HUGE bridal salon in New York that girls visit from the world over to find "The One." I love seeing all the different styles and beautiful dresses. And I'm always surprised when the girls start to cry... I wonder if that's something I'm supposed to do when I find the right dress. Hm...

Christopher is not thrilled that I try to watch Say Yes to the Dress as much as possible, but just like the amazing fiance he is, he tolerates it most of the time. There are two things about this show (and not the show, in particular, but more the people), that I'm not very fond of.

1. I HATE seeing how mean some of the family members get. These girls bring their closest loved ones with them to make this huge decision and get smacked across the face with laughter and mean comments. Yesterday, a girl tried on this dress she thought was pretty and her sisters were hysterical. They asked her what she planned to do about the "stomach area" and she sheepishly replied "lose 5 pounds?" The dress she ended up buying they told her was "plain" just like her. :-( Then there was a girl who brought her mom and her matron of honor. The mother was just terrible. "You think THAT'S the one? Well if you want to look like a giant white avocado on your wedding day, then by all means - buy it." Her mother never smiled once. Not once. And again, she laughed at the dress the girl ended up buying. I am so thankful that I have a mother who loves me and wants me to have the dress that I want, and friends that never laugh (unless I laugh first). :-) So thank you, thank you, thank you to mama and my girls for being supporting and loving. (Oh, and just good people in general).

2. I CRINGE when I see the price tag. I know that some people have an extraordinary amount of money, and I try very hard not to judge them in the way they choose to spend their assets. But this is... ridiculous. A girl purchased a $27,000 gown. TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. That could build two schoolhouses in Nepal. That could help provide someone with food and clothing who is living in a tent in California because they have lost everything. I know that this is "THE day" - but I feel pretty safe in the fact that my marriage isn't going to fail because I wore a $500 dress. So here, I thank my parents for not raising me to be spoiled and selfish (although it occasionally comes out - hehe).

Overall, the show is a lot of fun to watch. But most of all, it helps me stay grounded about the money aspect. As important as this day is to me, it is a wedding. I'm trying to build a marriage.

Previous White Dress & Veil

The blog has been pretty bare lately - due in part to midterms and my thesis, and also because nothing has happened recently on the wedding front. So I got Christopher to scan in a photo of the last time I wore a white dress and veil... First Communion. You gotta love that bowed right leg.

Beautiful. I'm thinking about scrapping the knee socks for this sacrament, but we can only wait and see... :-)

Updates on the Minsterman-Hartwell Front:

Yesterday Christopher started helping out at his friend Dave's restaurant on the downtown mall. He looks really cute in his all black outfit - especially when he pulls out a handful of tips that he can use to buy me presents. In all honesty, it's a nice way to earn a little extra cash while he gets his new design site up and running.

Graduation is rapidly approaching and I can not WAIT to finally be finished with graduate school (after five long years). Who knows if I'll go back for my doctorate in the future, but for now two masters degrees are MORE than enough.

The upstairs bathroom is put back together and looking beautiful. (Well, as beautiful as it can possibly look with the old school floor and fixtures). Daddy is coming down in just over a week (HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!! I LOVE MY DAD AND MISS HIM!!!) to help us paint the downstairs bedroom and bathroom. Our house will be a much happier place once all the painting is complete.

Until next time...

6 Reasons on the 6th

Although there are an infinite number of things that I love about Christopher, I'm going to use today to list 6 of them for your reading pleasure.

1. He knows how to charm the ladies.

Chris and Sadie at my graduation party - June '08

2. He respects the close relationship I have with my family and makes every effort to help me spend time with them.

At Mama and Daddy's for Christmas - December '08

3. He does things for no other reason than to make me happy.

Hanging with Tubby (even though he's stuffed) - New Years Eve '08

4. He puts up with my asinine behaviors without complaint.

At AK's - May '08

5. He loves kids and he is so good with them.

With his niece Maddie - November '08

6. He loves my friends and family and vice versa.
(Even the male ones!)

Joey, Matty, and Chris at Tom Petty - June '08

So for all of these reasons and so many more, I love you, CGH!! :)

Project No-Mo-Teal

For those of you who haven't visited our house, Christopher and I live in a sweet little cedar home. It's very cozy and we are surrounded by warm colors and beautiful hardwood floors. And then... the upstairs bathroom. Teal. The bathroom was bright teal. We asked when viewing the house that it be painted prior to our moving only to find out that this wasn't the case. Between my student teaching and classwork and Chris's insane job schedule, we just hadn't gotten around to painting. This week is my spring break and while Chris was building a new portfolio, I decided to take on a project. Project No-Mo-Teal. I forgot to take a shot of the walls before I started priming but I did snap one before the walls were completely covered. Here are some before and after photos (without the hardware put back up etc).

Before

After

Oh, speaking of - did I mention when the room was painted teal they didn't remove any hardware?? Yeah - that was fun to scrape off. And I look like a messy painter because they had gotten teal on the ceilings and baseboards so I had to do the same to cover it until I can get some off-white paint... Ok, ok - enough of the rambling and onto the show! (Hope everyone likes the new color better than the old!) :-) I think this color alone will help provide some Zen to our relationship. Hehe.

Empty Handed For Now

I came home from North Carolina empty-handed, but I had a lot of fun. I think I underestimated how difficult it would be to attend the show alone. Choosing dresses to try on was not the issue, I had a lot of help from the women that volunteered, and I tried on over 20 gowns. It was the purchasing aspect that I had not calculated into my decision. Spending that much money and making that big of a decision without a support person was just too difficult.

The free portion of the show started at 12:00, and by 2:00 most of the women were gone. Those two hours were a lot of fun though. As you can see by the "Ladies Only" sign above, there was one dressing room and it wasn't very big. There were a lot of brides, a lot of family and friends, and a lot of volunteers all trying to find "the perfect gown." It was a really nice experience though because even though I didn't know a single person there, I felt an odd connection with all the other brides. A lot of them benefited from my scouring of the racks and after I decided "no" on a gown they ended up trying it on and purchasing!

I also had the chance to become very close with the volunteers. When they found out that I was there alone, they really rallied behind me - especially when it came to trying on the gowns. No matter how many people you have helping you, these things are NOT easy to get into. At one point I had 3 volunteers trying to get me correctly into one gown, out of another, and all the while I was stuck in the lining of one of them. If I don't look exhausted in the picture, trust me, I was.

There was one gown I really liked and all the ladies were rooting for me (since I was the sole survivor at 3:30). But even those it was pre-owned, it was still way out of my budget and needed some work. It was such a hard decision, but with the wedding still 13 months away I decided to pass. Note to self: even though you can be autonomous in most wedding activities, the purchase of the dress is something in which assistance is a MUST.

All in all, I am SO happy I went. This was a big deal to me and I would have really regretted it had I not attended. This is a fabulous event and I hope they raised a ton of money for a fantastic cause!