Obsession.

Almost two months ago, to the day, I picked up Harry Potter #1 on the recommendation of a very smart friend. Right now I can't decide if she was that smart after all (just kidding Melissa!!). I just finished Harry Potter #6 - the entire series to date (#7 comes out a month from tomorrow) - and am seriously floored. I can NOT believe what the author has done! Right now I HATE Ms. Rowling!!! Honestly I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through the next month until #7 comes out - all my friends are probably going to want to kill me because that's all I can think about is what will happen in #7. These books are absolutely addicting. I'm obsessed. Maybe I just needed something to fill the empty time now that wedding planning is over (What? I'm married? When did that happen?), but I have read more in the past 2 months then I have in ages - and I'm a pretty big reader. Keep in mind one of those books was close to or at 900 pages long.

Anyway, this author is amazing - I had serious serious doubts when I started the series as to the legitimacy of the popularity, but it's been proven more then I could have imagined. She can write in such a way that makes you feel what the characters are going through - she writes awkward teenage boy in a way that makes you feel awkward for him - she writes joy that makes you smile - she writes sadness that seriously will make you cry. As you read through the book you scream "NO! Don't let that happen!" and then it does and you're floored. How can she do that to her characters? But her response, from the little I've read online, is "that's life."

The only other author that has come close to transferring the emotion that Rowling does (I'm talking modern fiction here) is Anna Quindlen - at the end of the book you just sit there floored. Dumbfounded. But still nothing compared to Ms. Rowling who I hate right now (did I already mention my intense frustration at her?). I can't believe she has put this kid through so much!!! The countdown is on! July 21st is only 1 month away!

p.s. Thanks Cody's folks for getting me the series for my birthday - otherwise I would have had to continue to stalk every branch of the St. Louis Public Library (and all surrounding cities, counties and townships) until I found #5 - thankfully when I finished #4 at 1am one night I could just run downstairs and grab #5 off the shelf already! :)

p.p.s. For those who follow the series - a few thoughts from Cody (who has not read any of the books but watched parts of the movies #1-3): He calls Dumbeldore, "Dumble Snore" and Harry either Harry Pot-Nuts or Harry Pot-Head - creative, huh? :) He's convinced that Lord Voldemort is really Harry's dad (If you know the series you know how crazy this is.) His favorite character so far (in the movies) is Dobby, who I find annoying. And he thinks what happens to Dumbeldore in #6 doesn't really happen (I won't give it away for those who haven't read it).

Family

If you live within an afternoon's drive of your family - give a little thanks today. If you can pick up and drive to see them in a few hours for birthdays, graduations, holidays, or just Sunday dinners, be thankful. While we have been blessed with such a wonderful St. Louis "family" - friends who we can call at 4 am to pick us up from a party or 4pm to help us move a piece of furniture or give up their Saturday to help us move several pieces of furniture (thanks Glenn!!) or just come over anytime for dinner or go to a play, a movie, or grab a drink/some food - it's still hard to miss your real family sometimes.
It was so nice to have my mom here this past week to really get to spend some time together - normally when we're in Florida we're so rushed and so stressed we hardly get to see anyone, much less spend any "quality" time together. We sort of plan out everything and then run here and there and are always thinking of the long drive home, the lack of sleep, how we don't really get to see anyone at all. But this past week Mommy and I got to play in the yard and talk and talk and talk - about all sorts of things that mothers and their grown daughters talk about. It was nice to catch up and spend some time together without the stresses of the rest of life around. But then when she left and got on the plane it made me realize (for the 639th time) how really far away they all are.
Our nephew (our only one, while we have FOUR nieces now!) turns two this Friday and boy would we give anything to be there for his birthday (and for all the other birthday's we'll miss this year). Not only does he have a rockin' party planned (they rented a huge slip-n-slide from my understanding - how fun!) but it would just be cool to see him celebrate with everyone and see him eat cake and slide and enjoy his birthday. But for now at least, we resign ourselves to enjoying our lives here and living off the support of our St. Louis "family." Right now in our lives, while the sacrifices being so far from family are high, the benefits of living here outweighs the sacrifices. Right now we the pros of our life here outweigh the cons of being away from family, living in Missouri and dealing with the cold (I just had to add that part since I HATE the cold). Will it always be like that? Who knows. But for right now, everyone who doesn't have to face that feeling of watching a parent get on a plane or drive off from your front yard knowing that you won't see them again for months, knowing you can't just run to them when you have a problem, be thankful - it's quite a blessing. I know one of the hardest things in the world has to be watching your kid leave (my poor mom has had to watch me leave so many times moving to different places that I figured she would kill me by now for all that torment), but a close second must be to watch your parent leave. So thanks parents, we miss you all and we're thankful you're only 13 hours by car instead of by plane. :)

And we're back to "normal"

Well, mommy's now gone and life is returning to "normal" - that is, if we even have a "normal" in our lives. :) A quick run-down from the rest of her trip: Wednesday we went to my favorite Greek place (love the feta and spinach!), Thursday she and I went to the Science Center and The Zoo (saw babies - the baby elephant, three baby cheetas and a baby kangaroo) and then made one of the only meals I can make and luckily she likes it - enchilladas. I only make it when she is here because Cody doesn't really like them. Friday we went on the Budweiser Brewery Tour and then spent the evening (8pm until 1am) at the City Museum - quite possibly the coolest place in St. Louis. Saturday we sort of hung out, ran some errands and worked in my yard some more and then Sunday she flew out. We, of course, spent the rest of the day resting, cleaning the house and running errands.
Now life is returning to normal - Cody is hard at work studying for the GMAT which he takes on Saturday. He's applying for the MBA program at Wash U so that is quite exciting - that will be really great for him. Then we'll be one over-educated family! I'll just have to go back to school again to see if I can find another degree so I can stay ahead of him. :)
I've been hard at work on the yard - totally redid my front "yard" (we live in the city so the "yard" is about as big as my bathroom). I took out all the grass so we don't look so trashy when we don't mow often enough and replaced it with tons of plants - now I suppose I just have to water more. But it looks really nice and I'm happy with it. I also got the deck staining done and really like the colour - now we just have to paint hte porch and we'll be done in the front. Then on to the back. People in the south don't understand the urgency in which we have to do yard work in the summer - because once September hits you're not very likely to be working in the yard again until May so better do as much as possible while you can!
That's pretty much it for now. More to come later.

Life is good.

Really good. Life is happy. Life is good. Life is grand. So many good things going on right now - like summer for one. Second, I'm already on Book #6 of Harry Potter and the seventh comes out in a bit more then a month - I must admit - I haven't been this obsessed about anything for a long long time. There are certainly bands I was obsessed with but there's only so many times you can realistically see the bands you love at any given time - Harry Potter on the other hand - I can read about him any time I am not forced to be doing something else (like work or sleep). I'm debating picking back up at #1 and re-reading them all (after I finish #6) before #7 comes out just in case I might have missed something - though I'm sure if I had my friend Melissa would have kindly clued me in on it since I go to her office every day to update her on where I am in my Harry Potter adventures (she's read them all and is now re-reading #6 in anticipation of #7). I can't believe little Harry is getting so old already - it seems like just yesterday he was little and 11 - but I guess to me he was since I started Book #1 on our honeymoon at the end of April. :)
Other then that, life is just good. My mom is here, we're having a good time - walked to the Science Center and The Zoo today - saw all the newest baby animals at The Zoo - the baby elephant (adorable), the three baby cheetas (they look like overgrown kitties), and the baby kangaroo - super cute and fun. Then we made these Rock Star enchilladas that we both love that Cody hates so we can only make them when he works late or has class - he had both tonight. Then we had a great evening hanging out with Dude and Cody and just chit chatting - all sorts of stupid stuff - yesterday we argued grammar for at least an hour. Super fun. I'm just really loving life right now so all is good.

Cody's First Invention and I Think He's Pregnant

Cody has great dreams. I admire him for that. One of his biggest is to invent something - or open some kind of entrepreneurial enterprise. He wants to make the next Velcro or something like that. And it's not just some flighty thing - he actually spends time pondering things to invent or a business to open.
So his first is a new smoothie. I personally hate smoothies - while they may be "healthy" they are ridiculously high in calories and don't fill me up so they are useless to me. But Cody has the metabolism of a pack of horses so he can eat anything he wants. So he's been craving a new smoothie idea of his - strawberry, banana and jalepeno smoothie. My first thought was my husband was pregnant. But he insists he's not. So he made one the other day and actually liked it. I was mortally disgusted. So he was hooked.
Today he wanted to make a variation - strawberry, banana, blueberry, jalepeno, dried cayenne pepper and vodka. If you're not disgusted by now something is seriously wrong with you. So he made it. Luckily I found he was still human as he also found it gross - he blames it on the vodka. Anyway, I don't think this is going to be our big money maker - I guess I still have to go to work tomorrow.

Summer Fun with Mommy.

My mommy is currently visiting from Florida (so if you're in STL and I've been bad about returning your calls and/or emails - that's why)! She was supposed to come in on Friday night but due to the wonders of our air travel industry she didn't actually get in until Saturday morning. Basically she showed up at the airport, they told her one thing (me another on the phone), said no flights were going out that night and they booked her on a flight the next morning - BOO airline industry! Anyway, she finally arrived and we all went to one of St. Louis's many fun summer events - the beer festival. This was a micro-beer festival and tons of fun - for $25 you get a glass and get to sample as many beers as you want all day - and there were TONS of beer - and no Bud Light - all micro-brews. Very fun. We planned to go to City Museum that evening but we all pretty much passed out after Brew Fest.
Sunday we planned to go on a "float trip" but the weather was crappy so we checked out Grant's Farm - Cody's favorite part, of course, is feeding the goats - I got some great photos of that. :)
Today I went to work, came home early, shopped for garden supplies at Home Depot and then went to the Shakespere Festival in Forest Park - Much Ado About Nothing. It was an amazing rendition of it and we all had a great time, sans Cody - I think he slept through most of it. He's not real big on the whole play thing.
So far that's it - having a good time, enjoying St. Louis festivities and summer!

Picture Page

Some recent photos.
Mr. Pickles looking silly.

I love ducks. Cody and I saw these on a recent bike ride in the park.

Cody and Dude on the blanket in Forest Park for "Tuesday Night Music at the History Museum"

Cuteness in Wisconsin - Alexius.

It was good though.

Aside from the ranting and hating of my birthday, I ended up enjoying it. It was my first birthday as a Raffensperger actually. Cody had school so when he got home he picked me up all dressed fancy and stuff (this does not happen often) because we were going to a surprise dinner. It wasn't as much as a surprise as he had wanted because the restaurant was downtown and a ton of the exits were closed (road work - the second season in the north - we have winter and road construction) so I had to tell him how to get there with all the closures. We went to The Top of the Met - this cool circular building with a rotating restaurant on the top floor - very cool. We really had a great time watching the baseball game, checking out the skyline and watching the Arch pass by - we got to really relax and talk and stuff so that was really nice. Then he really did good in the present category - at this point in the game it's the thought that counts way more then money - if I really want something I can really go buy it but it's those thoughtful things that really matter. For instance, Cody's parents -my bonus parents - got me the set of Harry Potter!!! How cool is that?!?!?!?!? That was thoughtful - and that means so much more then any money. I love them!!!
Short Harry Potter rant: I'm in LOVE with him! I'm in the middle of book 5, which is like 400 pages in. Harry is going through some major adolescent angst because he is super crappy at times, but it's such a good story. I can't put it down. I have a new, instituted specially for Mr. Potter (as Snape calls him), rule: no reading past 1 am. This is because on Book 3 I sat up until 3 am one night to finish it and was DEAD tired at work the next day - and I cannot do my job at all dead tired. Anyway, I love him, he's my new hero and I wish he were real. My goal is to finish Book 6 by July 20th (the day before Book 7 comes out) so I can go right into #7. If I'm not done with #6 by the 20th, I won't be at work that day - I'm not kidding.
Okay, so I love Harry Potter but I ended up enjoying my birthday day - I still hate the whole "birthday" thing. It's really all about getting older and realizing that I have to give up some of my hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations, etc. - you're always told to dream big, have goals, etc. but they don't ever tell you that one day you're going to be really upset when you run out of time because it's just not feasible to do it all. But I guess in the grand scheme of things, at least I had goals, unlike much of the world today - even if I never did get around to them. For instance, I can never "backpack" around Europe like I always wanted - I've done it some but not to the extent I would like - and now I'm too old for "youth hostels." Some things just have to be said farewell to but I suppose there will always be other dreams and goals to take their place.

Quick Update

So it's been a while since I wrote about what's been going on so here's a quick update:
Memorial Day weekend: We went to Wisconsin for Cody's cousin's wedding.
But first we bought fish. Friday night Cody, Dude and I were all hanging out - we do that often now that Dude lives with us (until he can move into his apartment) and I really wanted to get fish for my big tank (the big mean fish finally died so I cleaned the whole tank out and was going to start over). So we took a field trip to Petsmart - everyone picked a fish - or two - sort of. Dude picked the uglist catfish I've ever seen -then the fish dude said they are "schooling" fish and need to be in at least a pair - so we got two of the uglist fish I've ever seen. Cody got the biggest ugliest snail he could fine. Sounds like a great tank, huh? To balance out their ugly selections, I got two platys and two guppies - so far they all seem pretty happy - one of the platys has already had babies - but all but two of them were eaten. :(
Saturday we woke up bright and early (as in 3am) and drove to Wisconsin - land of cheese and cows. Yes, I did see lots of cows - and some cheese. We picked Cody's folks up from the airport as they had flown in from Florida. Then we went to the Children's Hospital to visit the cutest little (and I mean little) twins you've ever seen. Kennedy and Preston are so cute - but still so little - though Preston is getting big and has already hit 5 lbs. They can go home as soon as they can suck, swallow and breathe at the same time - I can barely talk and walk at the same time so good luck to them.
After the hospital we drove to the middle of nowhere (literally) to Uncle Bob's house. Uncle Bob is awesome and I used to really like him until he tried to convince Cody to purchase a pig smoker - yes, it is a grill/smoker that is built to look like a HUGE PINK PIG - the steam actually comes out of this "pig's" snout. Apparently it was on sale and Uncle Bob was trying to convince Cody who tried to convince me to buy it - I, as the sane and sensible wife, had to put my foot down and say no. But Cody's mom really loves pigs so she'd better watch out! We had a great time grilling at Uncle Bob's with family - got to play with Alexius and Jabob - two really cool kids. Then it was back to the hotel to crash.
Sunday we hung around and then went to Matt and Jessica's wedding. Funny thing about it being Matt and Jessisca's wedding because my friend since middle school, Jessica, was also marrying a Matt - on the same day! Even funnier is that we got both of their invitiations on the same day - so we got two invitations on the same day, both for a wedding of a Matt and a Jessica - creapy. I really wish we could have gone to both but one was (1) family and (2) closer so we had to do that one. It was a great time and got to see a lot of the family we don't see often - weddings up north are always so much more fun then those down south.
Monday - we drove back to STL and cleaned.
The next week we spent a lot of time on bikes - Tuesday we all rode bikes up to the History Museum in Forest Park, took a picnic, listened to the band playing outside and played Frisbee - it was one of those just really cool days (except I landed on my knee wrong in frisbee and it's hurt since - messes up my running!). We also started my grand deck/porch project. You see, our neighbors were always the crummy ones on the block - making us look good. And then they redid their porch and front yard - so now we look like the crummy ones. So we have taken on a task to do the whole "Curb Appeal" thing - I know about "Curb Appeal" because I have internet, not cable -- because I have never actually seen the show. Anyway, so I spent last week bleaching the deck (to get mold, mildew, etc. off) and then brightening it. Then over the weekend we continued that project and ended up building new stairs. The old stairs were very crummy looking so I decided it would just be easier to rip them off and build new ones - when I mentioned this to Cody I got a look of "Are you kidding me, Woman?" But as the wonderful husband he is, he stayed home ripping off wood while I went to Home Depot, bought new wood and then cut it to size. The new stairs rock, they don't get slippery in the rain, and they don't wobble. So now we only have to wait until we have three days with no rain and I can paint the porch part a new white and stain the deck a pretty wood colour. Yipee for home improvement and no more wedding planning!!!
So that's about it - I'm in the process of cleaning the house tonight because my mom comes to visit on Friday and while it was raining on Saturday I decided it would be a good idea to finish painting all the trim downstairs (two projects is always better then one, right?). So now there is painting stuff EVERYWHERE - though the trim totally looks better - not that she'll notice because I doubt (hopefully) she'll remember how bad it looked before I spent all this time painting it.

I hate birthdays.

Specifically mine. I love other people's birthdays - I really do - I find it a time to reach out to those you don't keep in good enough contact and celebrate those who you do keep in good contact with. I love throwing birthday parties - we throw Cody one every year and it's a blast - I love planning it - I love being there - I love celebrating his birthday. But not mine. There are lots of reasons.
First, the older I get the faster the years seem to go by. No kidding - the gap between 9 and 10 was HUGE - it seemed like I waited an eternity to finally reach those double digits. But this last year has just flown by. I feel like I barely even got used to last year's age before this one snuck up on me.
Because of the years going faster, I feel more and more anxiety about how much I still have to do. I can't be getting old - there is so much I still want to do while I'm young!! But I can never do things "young" anymore - never marry "young" - never have kids "young" - never make a million dollars "young" - I'm too old to be "young" anymore. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm ancient here - Cody's great-grandma is in her upper 90's - that's really old - I'm not there - yet. :) But I feel like I have so much I want to do, so much to see, so much to accomplish and I just feel like I'm running out of time already.
Then there's this feeling as I look over the last year of feeling like there's so much I should have done - should have gone to this, or should have enjoyed that more, or should have visited here or should have made better use of this. Every year I think of how much I need to do more - which is impossible for me given all we do already.
I don't mean to be so pessimistic on life - I'm really not - I love life and I love my life in particular- I do a lot and I enjoy most of what I do - I just feel like I have all these goals and dreams and that at some point I'm going to have to give up on a lot of them. And my birthday reminds me of those. Sooner or later, especially as I get older, I'm going to have to learn to let go of some of those aspirations and just enjoy what I have. And while that's great and life goes on, there is still a sadness in giving up on something because you just ran out of time - if only I had more time.
This sort of ties into another post I was planning to write about kids - I'll write more on it later - but I feel like we should have kids before we get too "old" so we're not the "old parents" and we're not too "old" to have the energy to enjoy their energy and we're not dead by the time we have the opportunity to have grandkids, but damn is there so much to do before we are ready to have kids. It's almost as if we had had them years ago we wouldn't even have experienced all that we have so we almost wouldn't have known the extent of what you give up - sort of a youthful ignorance that makes for happy parents. But at this point, we've seen more and more of the realities of what being a parent really takes and the true sacrifies that only age can impart upon you. We know so much more now then we even did three years ago about what there is out there and we think where we would be if we had kids three years ago - we'd be happy, loving parents who never got to see and do what we've been able to do the past few years. We'd have been happily and blissfully unaware of the sacrifices that we see now. So now that we're married folks ask the next logical question - when are the babies coming? Who knows? I question almost every day if we'll EVER be ready - when will we EVER be ready to just give it all up for kids? I don't mean to sound selfish - but that's sort of what it is - it's just too confusing. A friend's mom (my STL bonus mom) put it well when she told me that at some point once you decide that you are going to have children, you have to start putting their future well-being in front of yours - and that means having them young enough to be around for them for a long long time. I know I'm not to old to have kids now - will I be in a few years? Not sure. What if we decide to have three? Then we'll be having #3 in the late 30's - can we do that? Not sure. All these questions swirling in my head - right now we're at a point of being paralyzed by choices- more on that in another post.
Happy Birthday.

Modern Miracle.

Seriously. No kidding. For the first time since we moved our stuff into our house (about 2 years ago), the entire house is clean. Wow. This is seriously a modern miracle. The entire house! You may think "Oh my Gawd! How can you never have a clean house in TWO YEARS?!" Well, to be fair the only reason the entire house was never clean at one time was the "junk room" aka our spare room. Since the day we moved in the spare room is where we've collected junk, deposited things we didn't have place for and just generally shoved things when guests were coming. So the rest of the house has been clean before, but never at the same time as that room. Well, when Cody went to Detroit a few weekends ago I decided we had to do something about that room so I literally spent an entire weekend - and then most of the next week - cleaning out and organizing that room. So then that room was done but the rest of the house was a wreck from all the stuff I emptied from that room. So this week I have seriously come home from work every day and worked non-stop cleaning the rest of the house. The living room, boy room, boy bathroom, dining room, kitchen (twice - I cleaned it once but then in the intervening days of cleaning other rooms it got messy again so I had to clean it again) and then I moved upstairs to the spare room, bathroom and our bedroom! And POOF, it's done! I did a little bit on the basement, but that's an entire week's project in itself. :) It's nice to finally have a place for everything - for the first time. Everything now officially has a "home" - now let's see how long we can keep it that way - my guess is about 8 hours (so about 30 minutes after we wake up).

Forgot the link.

So suppose you were one of the people whom my camera was recently lodged in your face, here's the link to find your mug: http://picasaweb.google.com/melissa.flynn

Have you seen my camera?

Has my camera been in your face lately? If so, there are likely pictures of you now on the internet - my internet, but still the internet. Yeah, I'm copping out for the moment and uploading pictures to my super cool picasaweb page instead of taking the time to upload them to my acutal website (which I still swear I will update when I get a few seconds of free time). Call it convenience (which without the help of spellcheck I would NEVER be able to spell) or laziness, but it's the state of my world right now. Speaking of my world, people wonder why I'm busy - here's how:
6 am: Wake up because Cody wanted to go to work early
6 am - 7 am: Clean house because I found I was too weak to work out in the morning - I am NOT a morning person
7 -7.30 am: Get ready for work
8 am: Arrive at work.
6 pm: Leave work.
6:30-7:30 pm: Work out - run 5.65 miles.
7:30 - 10:30 pm: Run errands - Sports Authority (returns), Container Store (returns), Bed Bath and Beyond (exchange broken lotion dispenser, buy canvas box thing and clothes hanger storage thing), Target (returns and look at shoes - need some flats for work), Wal-Mart (I know I swear I would never go back again but I had too much cheap stuff to buy - laundry soap, fabric softner, cat litter, cat food, tissues, granola bars, condolence cards (my Aunt Dorothy died), etc.), Grocery Store (apples, salad dressing, sandwich meat, produce (we were out), bread, yogurt).
10:30 - 11:15 pm: Put together package for really really good friend's wedding that I am going to have to miss very regretably
11:15- now: check email, no time to respond to it; write email confirming friend's parents' address to mail above mentioned package
now - whenever: finish putting up groceries and Wal-Mart stuff, bathe (since I haven't since I worked out HOURS ago - smelly Missy), possibly read a few pages of Harry Potter before nodding off

p.s. I do take time to smell the roses. I've been told by at least 3 people recently that I need to smell the roses. First, I'm not the hugest fan of roses - they're not THAT pretty and they're overpriced. But were we to assume there are these metaphorical roses that for some reason I "needed" to smell, my response would be:
Not only do I smell the roses in life, but I go to the store, find the prettiest roses I can find, buy it, bring it home, dig it a nice big hole, plant the damn roses, fertilize and water the roses, prune them as they grow, pick off their annoying thorns, take hundreds of pictures of said roses, pick them when they bloom, bring them inside, find a nice vase for them, put them in water (changing it daily of course to make them last), and smell them until they die and I go get more off the bush, then when they're all gone, I prune again for the winter so they will grow back pretty next year too. In summary, I'm not built to just sit and stare at some damn plant and smell it (plus I'm likely allergic to it as I am everything else in STL right now) - I not only take time to smell the roses but am intricately involved in all the details of those roses that others who may just sit and smell them might never even know about - I bet they never even knew how those thorns magically disappeared (because I cut them off) or why there are so many blooms (because I watered and fertilized weekly).
So there's my tirade on people telling me to stop and smell some stupid roses. :) Take care everyone! :)

Weekend.

So to update the rest of the weekend -
Friday we had dinner for Mina's graduation (congrats!) with the crew. Then we headed to Dude's for the Pack My House Party - fun as always.
Saturday we had International Gator Day which was a blast but I had the worst allergy attack I've had in ages because of the dust- good thing Dianne had some medicine but then I was off in la la land. :) Then we went and picked up my new dining room set!!! It's wonderful - though much bigger then it looked. :) There's a dining room table (with an extra leaf), four regular chairs, two captain's chairs, a hutch/china cabinet and a server. It's really really really nice dark wood with a cool design. I'm in love with it - though it fills our dining room up more then I thought. Because we have a really old house with a formal dining room, we wanted a formal dining set - well now we finally have one! I'll post pictures later.
After the table we hung out with friends - went out to eat at an Afghan restaurant (which Cody thought was referring to afghan blankets like my grandma makes) on Grand, then went to Ted Drewes (a gift from God - my favorite place in STL - custard, custard and more custard), walked around the Shaw neighborhood looking around, talking, enjoying the gorgeous evening and hit up a corner cafe there, had a few beers and enjoyed the live Jazz/harmonica dude. It was an absolutely perfect evening.
Today we cleaned cleaned and cleaned. And I ran. And cleaned some more. Oh, and Dude moved in - he's going to be hanging out here until he can move into his apartment. Fun times! BAck to the grind tomorrow. :(

Another Bonus Mom.

Everyone knows that I call Cody's mom my "Bonus Mom" instead of "Mother-in-Law." One, because I think it fits better and two, because it just sounds nicer. I also call my step-family my "bonus family." So I have a lot of "bonus people" in my life. Well, this weekend I found myself a "St. Louis Bonus Mom."
We went to dinner with our friends Mike and Mina on Friday for Mina's graduation from SLU. I've known Mike for a few years now since we work together and met Mina when him and her started dating last year. They're super nice. Anyway, Mina's mom was at her graduation dinner, naturually so I finally got to meet her. She's fantastic! Most friend's parents you simply tolerate and deal with, but she's wonderful! I could have talked to her all night - but I think everyone wanted to go home because it was getting late (and we had to go to Dude's to participate in his "Pack up My House For Beer" party). :) She's got such good advice and reminds me of Cody's mom because she listens and then offers advice (very honest, well-thought out, intelligent advice) but doesn't tell you what to do - just gives you things to think about in make the decision you have to make. Anyway, it was so nice to meet her and talk to her. And she really gave me some great things to think about - more of which I'll write on later since they are still being pondered. :) So, while it was great to see Mike, Mina and the rest of the crew, it was a special treat to meet her mom!
Also exciting is we get to see my real bonus mom and dad, along with the rest of the bonus family in Wisconsin next weekend for Jessica and Matt's wedding - hope she's not going as nutty as I was a week before the wedding (she's got a much more level head so I'm sure she's doing fine)!

Speaking of Gators . . .

This Saturday was International Gator Day - a day where all the Gator clubs around the WORLD get together and volunteer in their communities. So our club volunteered at St. Francis Children's Home cleaning up their Alumni Room. We had a blast and it was for a good cause. Can't beat that.

Our Gator Friends REALLY ROCK!

We have fantastic friends. If it weren't for all of them we would have been out of St. Louis 2 years ago. But they are really great. We can count on them, they're fun and we always have something going on. They are seriously a large part of why we are still here and are planning to stay here for at least the near future.
But in particular, our Gator friends rock. First, it's just nice to have people who know what it's like not to be from here and who know where you're from. We can talk about games and sports and no one else can really understand the passion that goes into that in Florida. We can talk about living and growing up in Florida - and then moving to the Midwest. It's just a bond that is hard to replicate.
Anyway, they really went above and beyond for us for our wedding. For a wedding gift, they all went in together and bought us a tile of the floor at the Final Four in Atlanta - the one where the Gators won their 2nd NCAA tournament championship - in two years! I know some people might not be impressed by this, but to Cody and I this is the most amazing thing ever. Just to have friends that would think of something like this and know us well enough to know that we would about have a heart attack when they told us, it worth the world - but then to have those friends AND have a piece of the floor from those games is just priceless. We are seriously going to put it in glass and then put it on display - and then we're going ot have a party for all our Gator friends for a private unveiling ceremony. NOT KIDDING. We're still in shock and can't wait to see it (it takes a while for them to deliver it) - now how cool is that?

We have the best friends ever.

Last week (also seemingly a year ago), we had our St. Louis reception. Because so many of our friends here couldn't make the wedding because (1) it costs a zillion dollars to fly into Tally's airport, (2) it costs almost a zillion dollars to fly into JAX and then rent a car and drive to Tally, (3) it's a 13 hour drive - that's no fun, (4) it was Easter weekend, and (5) face it, Tally's just not a festive destination beach town that draws people from the midwest to visit, we decided early on that when we got back from the wedding and the honeymoon we would throw a party with all the leftover booze for our friends here. Well, we had no leftover booze but we still threw the party.
We found this fantastic old rehabed house that we rented for the occasion, hired a bartender, bought a ton of new booze, and had ourselves a party. The place was beautiful, we had a great turnout and had a ton of fun. Pictures are up on my picasaweb page - sorry I've been so bad about updating our webpage, but things have been CRAZY busy - I promise to take an evening to that shortly. Anyway, thanks everyone for coming out - we had a great time and it was great to see everyone! I'll post the rest of the pictures as I get them. :)

6 weeks.

Speaking of the wedding, we've been married 6 weeks already. Sometimes it seems like yesterday, other times it seems like years ago. But 6 weeks already.

First, A funny wedding story.

I was thinking of this story while taking a shower tonight and thought I would share. One of the funniest, best examples of how crazy things were pre-wedding -
We wanted two photographers for the pre-wedding festivities and actual wedding ceremony - one for the girls and one for the boys pre-wedding and then during the wedding one to get us from behind and one from in front so one photographer wouldn't be running back and forth and missing stuff. Seriously the best money ever spent (not that we've actually even seen the ANY pictures yet).
Anyway, so we asked our photographer to recommend someone to assist him. He emailed her information. I emailed and got additional information and was supposed to mail her a check and a contract. But never got around to it. No kidding. Anyway, due to me never mailing her a check or a contract we had never actually confirmed her presence at the wedding. So seriously ON THE WAY to the wedding, with Cody, Melanie and Marissa in the car, I had Cody bring the laptop (since that's the only place I had her information), look up her information and call her ON THE WAY to the wedding to make sure that she would be there even though we never confirmed with her nor sent her a deposit or contract. Good thing she understood and was planning to be there. In the end she was FANTASTIC - perfect photographer for us!
Anyway, I thought that was cute - that we were calling our photographer on the way to the wedding - after looking up the number on the laptop, in the car - to make sure things were okay. So much for confirming things ahead of time. Though to reduce stress, I highly recommend all vendors be confirmed well in advance. :)

Some quick catch-ups.

The following (though due to the blog way of the world, they're "upside down") are some brief updates of the state of my world. In no particular order. As always, so many stories to post when I don't need sleep (as if that ever happens).

Welcome to the world Baby Girl!

Today was a good day. The world was blessed with another little girl and I became an aunt for the FIFTH time! The forth time for a niece! I couldn't be happier!
Little Arianna Eve was born this afternoon right before 5pm and was a bit under 6 lbs. Little bitty thing and a bit early (she wasn't technically due until June but the C-Section was planned for next Wednesday but the little thing just didn't want to wait that long) but I hear she's absolutely gorgeous and has blond hair already like her two adorable sisters. I cannot wait to see her!
The one absolutely worst thing about being so far from home is missing out on things like this. I would give so much to be able to go visit them all tomorrow. I really would - it kills me to miss this. It kills me to know she'll be over 6 months old by the time I see her! That's huge in baby time! HUGE! It kills me to miss first birthdays . . . and second ones and third ones and fourth ones and fifth ones (we haven't had any 6th ones yet). It kills me to miss holidays (we're going to miss our first Thanksgiving this year). It kills me to miss Sunday dinners - or even Tuesday dinners. It kills me to miss weddings and funerals and graduations and all that fun stuff.
But I guess that's the price you pay sometimes. In the end is it all worth it? Who knows. It would take a lot for me to give up the life Cody and I have made for ourselves - we love it - we have a good time - we have each other - it's priceless - we wouldn't trade it for the world 99% of the time. It's that 1% that's killer - the birth of a niece, for instance. Is it worth it? How can you measure?
Some advice on raising girls that I found particularly touching (I wish I could take credit for but it's from a book that I really like):
Realize that one of your most important jobs it to give her a sense of self . . . to help her define who she is, so no one else will.
Girls whose parents (and other friends and relatives) have high expectations for them also have high expectations for themselves. It just works out that way.
There will be times when she says life is unfair. Explain to her it was never a given that life is fair.
And finally - Caution her before she gives up her dreams for any job. Or any man.

REALLY quick update

Things to update on (later):
- PARTY this weekend - it rocked - our friends really rock
- Our Gator friends REALLY REALLY rock - they got us a fantastic, drop-your-jaw present - more to come
- I'm finished with my running break after the 1/2 marathon and am back into running - couldn't have come sooner! I needed this!
- Work has been a beast.
- Happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms, grandmas, and other ladies who offer support and advice and guidance to others like moms.
. . . . more to come.

What I get for not watching the weather

Yesterday when I awoke it was nice and sunny and pretty. So I put on a nice and sunny and pretty skirt, sandals and sleeve-less top. Then it proceeded to rain large barn animals from the sky - as I've mentioned earlier, we have hampster sized snow here, I'm not sure what size rain that was - much bigger then hampster. Anyway, after the barn animals finished falling from the sky it turned chilly. Not snow-cold, but definitely a chill. So after work I was not a happy camper walking back. Then after working out I had errands to run - so I thought it would still be warm enough to break out the shorts - it wasn't. I froze my behind off running errands.
Then this morning. It looked nice and sunny from my window so I put on pants and a sleeve-less top (it's sleeveless top week because I got around to shaving my armpits - yipee!) - however, upon walking outside I promptly turned right back around and went back inside to change. It's downright COLD here!
Teach me to watch the weather!

Finished #2.

For those of you who have read Harry Potter, you can understand my addiction. I read the first one in less then a day in Mexico. I was hooked. Understandably #2 took longer to read because now I can't sit on the beach all day and read, I actually have to work. But I finished #2 last night. Not as great as #1, but still really good. So tonight (as soon as I finish this blog), I start on #3!! I really hope to get caught up by this summer when #7 comes out. If she kills Harry off in #7 I'm going to be quite quite upset! So if anyone is trying to reach me and I'm hard to get a hold of, blame Harry - and Melissa who got me interested in this crack rock, I mean series.

They weren't lying.

Marriage changes you. Before I got married, a lot of married people told me "Marriage changes you." I thought they were crazy and just getting old. After all, Cody and I had been together for eons, what could possibly change anything in our lives anymore? Moving in together didn't. People said that would be difficult and would take adjusting - but it didn't - it was wonderful - it was 100% easier then we even expected - it just flowed perfectly. People said buying our first house together would change us. I guess it did, we're now in a lot more debt. :) But other then that we just had more chores and responsibilities - we were still the same. Engagement didn't change us. One day I didn't have a ring, then I did - I was certainly happy, very very happy, that we were engaged but nothing core changed.
Then we got married. We're still the same "Missy and Cody" - we still do the same things, have the same friends, want the same things out of life - so nothing like that, but something core. Maybe it's just me being emotional, but life seems more intense - not in a bad way, in a very cool different way - like you were watching life on a fuzzy TV using rabbit ears and then got cable and the picture got very bright and clear. I've never cried at movies, or songs or any mushy stuff - it's not really my thing - but lately I've felt emotional over those things that you're supposed to (no, I haven't cried over a song, but I felt at least some emotion about a few). It's odd. Suddenly there is no argument or flaw worth actually arguing over. We have to live together FOREVER and we'd best work things out peacefully. We've really become a "family." I guess that's the best way to describe it (aside from my TV analogy) - we were two people living together in our own little make-shift family - but now we're a real life "family" - just the two of us. Sure we have all of our other family that's quite dear to us, but we've also created a whole new "family" unit. That's cool. Marriage has certainly changed us - for the better - things feel settled and nice. Now we can focus on what lies ahead of us and enjoying life now and we don't have to worry about marriage or dating or anything like that - we're done. And that's cool.

Coffee.

Sometimes I'm jealous of people who drink coffee. They have this sort of secret connection that non-coffee drinkers don't get and don't get to be a part of. They have that one moment each morning when they take their first sip and are just thankful - while we're just plain running around the house getting ready. There are so many ways to bond "over coffee." And we miss out on that. Meeting someone to discuss a job or an opportunity? Meet "over coffee." Want to go out with the girls on Tuesday night? Go for coffee. Want to discuss politics, religion, your job, anything really? Go "for coffee." Want to meet a blind date? Meet "for coffee." Sunday morning relaxing? Ride your bike to the corner coffee shop, sit outside and read the newspaper. So many ways to enjoy life with coffee. It's just not the same with "let's go out for a water."

But alas, neither Cody nor myself can stand the stuff - no amount of sugar or cream can make us stomach it. For one, I don't drink any caffeine (who trusts a word that doesn't follow the "i before e except after c" rule?) and Cody's not big on it either. We have two beverage groups consumed in our house - water and alcohol. Seriously. That's ALL we drink. All day every day we drink water. Water water and more water. We probably each drink at least 4 liters of water a day - probably more. It's simple, free, good for you and no calories. (I have a huge thing against wasting calories on liquids - I put that aside for a good glass of Reisling.) No soda, no juice, nothing - just water - sometimes tea when we're sick. And then we drink alcohol - beer, wine, etc. - socially, not as a habit - don't go turning us into AA here. :) So I was thinking of all we might be missing out by not drinking coffee - sure we get happy hours, but other then that who wants to go out "for a glass of water." Plus happy hours aren't always appropriate for all situations - taking your grandma out on a Saturday afternoon, for instance. A while ago, I started going out with the coffee people and getting hot chocolate - it's an overpriced waste of 200 calories but at least I got that socialization in. But I still couldn't join in the coffee conversation. There's just something missing.

There's really no moral to this story or this thought process. I still hate coffee. Always have, probably always will - considering I last had caffeine 10 years ago, I don't see myself going back any time soon (it's a long story involving very large amounts of Mountain Dew - lots and lots of Mountain Dew). Cody still doesn't drink it. I was just thinking of how cool it must be to be a coffee person - we'd create a "water house" or "water bar" but I don't think it would do too well. So be grateful, coffee people, for those little things in life. :)

I have a list.

I have a list of blogs to write - things I've been thinking about and mulling over, though have yet to get around to any of them - plus I don't think I ever finished up my "Wedding Updates" section. I'll try to catch up on those shortly. For now, a quick catch-up on life.
I must admit that most of the time Cody and I lead pretty charmed lives. We get to do pretty much whatever we want, whenever we want to do it - we have jobs that are stimulating and challenging but not overly stressful and demanding (normally) - now that we're done with school and really making some dents in all our debt (read: it was mine, now that we're married it's "ours" - poor Cody) we have the means to actually do fun things - we have enough going on in our lives to be fun and exciting and energizing but not so much that we're constantly beat. So we've normally got it pretty good - except this week.
This week has been a bear - you know, sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you. After taking off for the honeymoon and then taking off most of Friday for Detroit, Cody had a TON of time to make up at work (he works 80 hours in 2 weeks - however he wants - but if he gets behind it gets hard to make it all up). Add to that his school schedule and his life was not fun. Making my life not fun. Add to that my work was busy and I have a zillion things around the house (now that the wedding is over my new focus/stress point is getting the house in order - more on that later) and it was a long week. Cody's pay period ends on Thursdays so now his crazy hours are done and assuming I can get a brief done (I'm appealing a case to the Court of Appeals), life will be good again. :)
In more fun news, we're having a PARTY this weekend! The last of our wedding festivites - first it was the engagement party, then the showers, then the bachelor/bachelorette parties, then the rehearsal, wedding, reception and honeymoon - we have only one left and then we are DONE with wedding (if I sound super duper thrilled about that DONE part - it's because I am). We're having a party to celebrate the wedding with all our friends from St. Louis who couldn't make the wedding - and those that did too. We rented a historical house, hired a bartender, bought a TON of booze (we expected to have a ton left over from the wedding but I guess we had some good drinkers there because we came back with hardly anything), got some grub, and are having a PARTY. I'm quite excited to get to celebrate with all our friends here - they mean a lot to us. Yipee!! I'll post pictures!
Tomorrow is FRIDAY!

Life is good.

Life is really good right now - spring has finally arrived (after four solid days of raining last week - leading to flooding rivers later this week - we'll have to hold our breaths and see how bad that gets) - the wedding is done (I swear life is so much happier now that it's over) - we've been making progress with the house - we've got our lives back and we're enjoying it.
A quick update - I had my first weekend to myself last weekend. Cody and some buddies flew to Detroit to catch the Red Wings game on Saturday - they rented a plane and a friend of a friend flew them up there. I wouldn't have gotten on that tiny plane for all the money in the world - especially since it was raining, but they had a good time. I, on the other hand, stayed here and cleaned our "junk room" - everyone has a "junk drawer" - we have an entire "junk room" - so I purged and sorted, purged and sorted some more- went to The Container Store at least 3 times and hit up 5 different Target's, but got it looking pretty damn nice - I'll post before and after pictures when I finish. I got so much done - and still got to go out with friends and enjoy Cindo de Mayo! :) While I missed Cody, sometimes I really enjoy that alone time where I can just really work and get a ton done - which I did - if I had sat around and done nothing I would have been miserable but since I really kept myself busy and got a lot accomplished it was wonderful - plus I got a lot of really really good thinking in - more on that later.
A few more things to catch up on but I'm in the middle of Harry Potter #2 and it's calling my name - more later! :)

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Three years in St. Louis today! As of today, I have lived in St. Louis for three years! Three very very short years. Three incredibly long years. Three amazingly fun, exciting years. Three years of learning more then I learned in the other 20+ years.
After three years am I still allowed to call Interstate 64, "64," instead of "40" and when people correct me, can I still say "Oh, I just moved here"? Can I complain that I just don't get this city because "I'm new"? Am I still "new"? Can I still say "Oh, I didn't know that - I'm not from here"? When do you officially become a "resident" of a city? I still have Florida plates and a Florida license (mainly due to laziness and the desire to avoid personal property tax- yes, Floridians, we pay not only INCOME tax, and SALES tax, and PROPERTY tax, but also PERSONAL PROPERTY tax - sucks to be in a state not blessed by tourism - guess not as many people visit Branson as Disney - go figure) - can I even be a Missourian? I don't know a thing about corn - or the high schools here - or even why people would want to live in the burbs - can I be a "resident"?
Anyway, I still can't believe it's been three years already - it seems like just yesterday my baby brother was graduating college and I was driving up here following Cody on his motorcycle in the pouring rain. On the trip up here we stopped for the night in Cadiz, Kentucky and saw that one of my fish had had babies - lots of them - during the ride here. So we had to scoop them out into water bottles so their mommy wouldn't eat them (for some reason my fish always have babies during momumentous events - the first time the fish had babies was the first day Cody's parents saw my apartment in G'ville - so we were trying to show them around and at the same time scoop baby fish out). Boy does time fly when you're having fun. It's been a great 3 years - really it has. I've learned so much and experienced so many new things. I've learned things living away from home (not just 2 hours away at college - 13 hours away - living - no spring breaks, no summer and holiday breaks) that no other experience could have taught me. And of course it brought Cody and I together. There's something about having just each other to depend on and lean on that makes you grow stronger as a couple. There's no running to our parents, or even long-time friends, when there's a fight - just us two to work it out. When things get scary or sad or lonely or homesick or upset - we just have each other here - which has taught us a lot in terms of how to provide support and accept support from each other. For me at least, it's just as hard, if not harder, to accept support as it is to give it - and that's made us learn a lot about each other, life, independence and relationships. I think us living here has been one of the best moves of our lives - as much as we miss family sometimes, the independence we've gained here is priceless. We have a new "home" here and that's special - when we say we're going "home," we no longer mean Tally, we mean here, to our home. Tally is where our folks live and we'll always visit, but it's no longer "home" to us - I think we've created a great "home" for ourselves here that we enjoy though.
So - happy three years in STL! Not sure we'll make it another three here, but here's to enjoying every day of it!

Back to the grindstone.

Yup - back in STL and back to work. I wasn't as behind as I thought I was but I have a feeling that's because I'm actually so far behind I don't even know it yet. :) Life is good though - cleaning house, doing laundry, mailing stuff we got in Mexico - the normal chores. Cody started back to school today too so that sort of made it a little more hectic for him too - but he's good with that stuff so he should be fine.
I uploaded the honeymoon pictures to picasaweb (my new favorite Google tool) - if you want to check them out they are here. Nothing too exciting except if you're me or Cody - just a bunch of scenery (about 100 shots out the airplane window of clouds) and us chilling on the beach or by the pool - nothing terribly exciting. The only problem with vacations is you always end up with so few pictures of the two of you together - one of you is always taking the photo. It's the same with all our trips/events - sporting events, to Tally, holidays, our parties, etc. - we have so very few pictures of the two of us together. I'm starting to experiment more with the timer function so hopefully that will help things. :)

We're back!

We're back from the best trip EVER! What a time! It was fantastic! We laid around on the beach, at the pool - then when we got bored laying around (which we always do because that's who we are), we went kayaking, sailing, snorkeling on the reef and wandering around Cancun (we didn't stay in Cancun, but in a resort south of there in the Rivera Maya). Fabulous! It's so hard to come home - especially when from the time we landed until we got out of the airport was over two hours with immigration, customs, agriculture check and baggage -what a pain!
Anyway, we're back - many more updates to come. For now, I've been working on the webpage and just now have the February pictures up. I'm going to try to get caught up on the rest shortly. :) For now I have to go start on Harry Potter #2 - my friend Melissa finally convinced me to give them a shot and that they're not some dumb kids book - I obviously had my reservations. So I rented the first one from the library before we left - and it was AWESOME - I read it in no time. So today I went and turned that one in and rented #2 and #3 - I can't wait to see what happens - I'm hooked!

Absence . . . is AWESOME!

Nope - I haven't been intentionally neglecting my blog - I just forgot to leave a post before we left for our honeymoon. :) Yup - we're on our honeymoon - day 4 actually - and I just now found a computer. This place is AMAZING! Usually Cody and I are the types to plan vacations where we run around doing this and that all day, travling and sightseeing, and we come back even more exhausted then when we left - not this time! We're in Cancun at the coolest resort ever - first it's all inclusive so everything is free (or at least already paid for and at no additional charge). Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all the drinks you can drink (seriously), free room service (pizza at midnight? no problem! they'll deliver it!), everything - it's fabulous! And gorgeous and RELAXING! We've hung out on the beach, at the pool, eaten at awesome restraunts, went snorkeling on the second largest reef in the world (very very very cool - neat fishies). Anyway things are awesome and I'll have to write a ton more about it when we get back!!!

Life is great!

Life is wonderful without wedding planning. Today we got home from work - before dark - and didn't have anything totally pressing to do. So we dug around in the yard, preparing the bed for the vegetable garden soon to come! Yes -I actually got to play in my yard! I was so tickled! I'm loving married (aka non-wedding-planning) life!!

Run, Missy, Run!

What an April it's been so far! First weekend Gators win ANOTHER National Championship! Second weekend we get MARRIED! Third weekend, I run another half marathon - and I rock it!
I was so caught up with wedding-ness that I almost totally forgot about the half marathon this past weekend. So much that I totally forgot to run at all last week to sort of "warm up" for it. Oh well. So we had to get there obnoxiously early on Sunday - the race started at 7am - and yet again, it was freezing - literally - it was 32 degrees. But at least it wasn't snowing like last year at the start of this race. :) I already knew I could finish a 1/2 marathon - I'd done it before so really had nothing to prove to myself there. I also made one in under 2 hours so I really had nothing to prove to myself there either. So I decided to be a moron and go out totally fast - much faster then I was prepared for or had trained for. I figured I'd run a few quick miles and worse case, I'd have to walk a few and it wouldn't be the end of the world - like I said, I had nothing to lose on this one. :) So I lined up with the people running 8:48 miles (yes, I can run a mile that fast - but not 13.1 of them). The first mile we ran in 8:30 and the second was about the same. Usually I'm feeling great until about mile 7 - not this one - everything after about 1/2 mile hurt - my lungs hurt, my legs hurt, I just hurt. But I pushed on, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other staring at this group of girls in front of me. Before I knew it I had run 7 miles with them in exactly one hour. At that point I realized that even if I ran every remaining mile at 10 minutes each (slowish) then I'd still beat 2 hours. That pumped me up. But then I got a cramp and had to really bite my lip for the next three miles. Usually at mile 10 I can kick it up a notch and run fast the last three miles - not this one - it was all I could do those last three miles to keep my head up and put one foot in front of the other. It was a tough one but I kept telling myself to just push myself for 2 hours and it would all be over soon. And it was. I finished in my fastest time ever - chip time of 1:53! If you go here and type in Raffensperger as the last name (my first race as a Raffensperger!) then I pop up! Yeah me! Usually I'm not all about patting myself on the back, but this one I really feel proud of. Now I have to make the decision about the marathon or what to do next. . . .

Wedding Post #3 - Addendum

Three things to add to the last post:
(1) I don't want anyone to think for one second that I ever questioned getting married (especially at the rehearsal dinner). I was never upset or crying about getting married - I was often upset about the wedding, but never about getting married. I've known I wanted to marry Cody for so long it's amazing. There was never a question in my mind that I would spend the rest of my life with him and that this was the best decision I would ever make in my life - the wedding was a different story - it was stressful - most of it was likely self-induced but however it came it was stressful. At that point I was insanely stressed about the wedding - we had literally gotten about 3 hours of sleep the night before and I was at the end of every rope I had. I was dead dead dead tired (not only from the night before but the weeks preceeding as well) and crazy emotional (girl's get that way the day before they get married) and that's the whole reason I wanted "to go home" as I told Cody 100 times - I was just beat - I wanted to rest and be away from the madness.
(2) Piggy backing on that thought - I never thought I would say this, but all the stress, all the work, all the effort and planning - and crying - was 200% worth it. My wedding day was honestly the best day of my life (not to say I wouldn't go back and change a detail here and there if I could) - so far. :) It was worth every bit of stress, every long night, every bit of lack of sleep, every craft project and every penny - I wouldn't trade those memories and that day for the world.
(3) And just a last thought that I forgot to add. Just a testiment to our lack of sleep and total head-in-the-clouds-ness (is that a word?) - we totally meant to give out parents gifts and bridal party gifts at the rehearsal and never even got around to it - we totally forgot. This is one of the things I would go back and change - make a toast to our parents and bridal party, give gifts, express our appreciation appropriately - but as our officiant says, "With a wedding there are no mistakes, only memories." So we ended up sort of handing them gifts in a rush the day of the wedding while getting dressed and we didn't get the parent's gifts out until Sunday night. Actually since we didn't see my dad on Sunday (he lives in Sopchoppy which is not in Tally or even remotely close to an interstate) we had to mail him his package this week - so he likely still hasn't seen his gift. :) Such is life and weddings. At least it's all over and I can look back and laugh and enjoy it now. :)

Wedding Post #3 - The Rehearsal

Honestly I don't remember too terribly much about it - it was all a very distorted blur. That might be a good thing - call it a coping mechanism. :)

We had the rehearsal at Maclay Gardens - site of the wedding the next day - and then had the rehearsal dinner at the Gardener's Cottage a short walk away. We got there early and pretty much just set everything up. Cody had his "Game Over" shirt on and I had a white eyelet dress on - it was a bit chilly for Florida but I survived. We all headed over to the gardens, only to find another group there already rehearsing. Well, you see, they wanted to charge me $75 an hour to reserve the place in the (public) garden to have the rehearsal and I thought that was ridiculous so I just banked on no one being there - I guess I banked wrong. But it turned out fine because there's ended at 6 pm which is right when our's was supposed to start anyway.

The officiant (who is AWESOME - if you get married in Tally and need an officiant I highly recommend him) ran us through a short but sweet rehearsal of the ceremony. I thought I'd be really uptight and worried about getting everything down perfect but I really just trusted the whole thing to him at that point and he took care of things.

After the reheasal we headed back to the cottage for a dinner of Sonny's BBQ - my favorite! I think it was good but am not too sure because by this time I was so stressed I had seriously lost all my taste buds - nothing really had a taste at all. But I ate because I was told I needed to. :) Sometime around dinner time things start getting blurry. I remember sitting at a table with my friends wondering why they all came all this way for this stupid wedding and then I was outside crying to Cody that I "just wanted to go home" - over and over and over again. I was just done with wedding hell - I wanted to go to the courthouse and I wanted to be back in my own house and back to my own life and out of wedding hell. I just wanted to get in the car and head home to St. Louis - it's not that I didn't want to get married - I wanted very much to get married - I just wanted the wedding hell to be over and I didn't want to deal with one more little thing. So he calmed me down enough for me to walk inside, only to start crying again. Luckily I think it was Cody's sister who was there that time to save me. She talked some sense into me (it totally helped that she had been through all this 6 years ago - so she had credibility) and then we moved forward. I tried not to talk much or look at people much because then I just wanted to cry more - so I sat, relatively quiet for me, and chilled. Sara made delicious Chocolate Eclair Cake for dessert and with it we had a fabulous ice cream bar - with all sorts of ice cream and toppings. It would have been great, but again, I couldn't taste anything. :)

After the dinner was over and most of the people left we had the core group ready to get moving on the rest of the "to do" list. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, Sara ran to Walgreens to get my prescription filled while Cody, Marissa, Melanie and I went to Wal-Mart. We ran through the garden department gathering every flower in the wedding colors - the we collected some hair products for Marissa, some picture frames for seating charts, more ribbon and we were off. We met up with everyone at the hotel and got to work!

Marissa was in charge of writing out the names for each table on a sheet of paper to go in the frames, while Sara, Donna, Mommy, Melanie and I did the wrapping paper around the pots (see above picture). They turned out better then I even expected - I just wanted very simple centerpieces - real flowers so I could plant them and then a touch of decoration and uniformity with the wrapping. After those projects we moved on to the veil. Here it was midnight before my wedding and I wanted a single strand of beads all the way around the veil. Yes, I'm insane. Weddings do that to you. :) So at first I was going to sew a row on one by one. Everyone looked like they were going to tar and feather me. So then I conceeded that maybe we could glue them on one by one - everyone was more receptive to this idea but still considered me insane. At this point my mom was leaving to go to bed, so I walked her to the elevator and started bawling again - go figure. So she tried her best to calm me down and then Cody came to help out and about 20 minutes later when they got me in a workable state, I returned to the reception room - only to find Marissa and Melanie had totally finished my veil. It was wonderful - it's truely one of a kind. They just ran a glob of glue all the way around and dumped beads on it. They thought I was going to be mad, but I was actually quite relieved. They took it to my room and took a hair dryer to it and it was done. I had a "designer" veil. This is one of those stories I'll be telling my grandkids one day - about the night my friends glued beads on my wedding veil. :) A girl couldn't ask for better friends.

Favorite Wedding Cards

Here are some of my favorite passages from wedding cards so far. Yes, some people actually do READ the cards - Cody was shocked and appalled at this concept. But then again I'm the person who insists on taking at least 30 minutes to write every single thank you card so I can adequately determine what I want to say and how I can convey that to the individual person - I seriously put a lot of thought into them, so I hope people know that whatever I say, I really mean. So if you're waiting on a thank you card from me, hang tight - I'm working on it but it's a slow, though thoughtful, process.

From Aunt Bev, Matt and Jessica:
Marriage: A journey beginning where two pathways meet, Where hopes are exciting and feelings are sweet, A new world unfolds at the joining of two, In the beautiful promise of marriage, "I do."
May you always know the kind of love that brought you to this day - a love that is built on trust, a love that is unafraid of sharing and compromise . . . a love that holds the promise of still greater happiness with every passing year.

From Bobbie and Joe Frank (this one's long but worth the read if you're feeling sentimental about your new marriage):
How to make a beautiful life together: Let love be your shelter. The world is noisy and confusing at times, so make a home that is a haven, a peaceful place where you can listen to your hearts and savor the comfortable closeness you share.
No matter how busy your days may be, make time for yourselves. Hold hands. Unwind. Surprise each other. Find little chances every day to show you're grateful to be partners, to be friends, to be married.
Life is not perfect. You will make mistakes, but each time you meet life's challenges together, you will grow wiser, stronger, and surer of your love.
Cherish your yesterdays. They are irreplaceable souvenirs of your journey through life. Make memories that will bring smiles and signs whenever you look back. (Look back often!)
Look forward too. Dream together. Plan together. Make promises to keep. Believe in your tomorrows, because tomorrows are what forever is made of.
To make love last, put each other first. This is the way to make a beautiful life together, the kind of life you both desrve so much.

No I'm not pregnant, but . . .

I found this video HILLARIOUS!! It's a short skit entitled "Mom my Ride" - it's really really funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFE3B0Rje0

Wedding Post #2 - Top Moments

In the interest of continuing to catch everyone up on the wedding happenings, I figured I'd do a Top Wedding Moments blog. In no particular order:
- Making the programs Thursday night (until 5 a.m.) with Cody's family. We had a whole assembly line going - Kinko's already folded the programs so we didn't have to do that but then Rick (Bonus Dad) used a special hole punch to punch two holes in the top of each program. The programs then went to Uncle Bob who threaded green ribbon through the two holes in each of the programs (Trish - if you're reading this, your dad is great at crafts!). The programs were then passed to Donna (Bonus Mom) who tied perfect little bows on each and every one of them - at first she was getting frustrated because I have a particular way of tying bows but then she got the hang of it and rocked at bow tying. Then I got the programs and stamped the back with embossing stamp stuff and put the embossing powder on the stamp. Finally the programs were then passed back to Rick (because he finished his hole punching early) who used the heat gun to melt the embossing powder on each one. It was hillarious to watch the guys do crafts - late night but fun!
- At the wedding, Sara gave a speech and toasted "Bridezilla Missy is gone and Happy Missy is back" - not only did I think it was hillarious but it was quite a cool moment - I felt like the hard stuff was finally over and normal, happy life could return. I'll never forget that feeling.
- Another Sara quote. After the rehearsal dinner everyone was telling me I couldn't do everything myself and that I needed to let people help. I then retorted with "Well, I've got to run to Walgreens tonight to pick up my birth control. No one else can do that - that's something I have to do." Well, Sara quickly responded with "Hell no you don't. I know your name, address and birthday, I'll get it for you." Sure enough she called Walgreens got my prescription filled and picked it up for me. Now that's a Bonus Sister for you!
- Another rehearsal night story. After the rehearsal dinner, Cody, Melanie, Marissa and I all ran by Wal-Mart to see if we could pick up some centerpieces (this is while Sara was at Walgreens). You see, instead of cut flowers that would just die, I wanted to buy potted plants/flowers, wrap them in cute wrapping paper and use those as centerpieces - it's "green," cheap and now I can plant them in my yard and they'll come back each year. So here we are, the night before the wedding, all running around the Garden Department at Super Wal-Mart searching for any flower that could possibly match the wedding colors. Sure enough we succeeded and we had great centerpieces for every table!
- One more night before story. Upon returning to the hotel, flowers in hand, we proceeded to make each centerpiece (thanks Melanie, Donna, Sara, Mom and even Kristy) and make table assignment cards for each table (thanks Marissa!). Well then I only had one thing left - my veil. It was getting pretty late and I was insisting that I wanted to thread one row of beads around the entire veil (I never found one I liked so I got a plain one and was going to add the beads I liked). When they convinced me it would be morning before I could sew on all the beads, I tried to glue a row of beads on the veil - very difficult. Well then my mom left and I started crying so while she was calming me down Melanie and Marissa had at the veil. They took the glue bottle and basically ran a thick line of glue around the entire veil and then just dumped a bunch of beads on the veil. I got back in the room, prepared to glue one bead at a time, to find they had already finshed the veil. Honestly if I had been in the room I would have never okayed that so I'm glad I wasn't there because I loved it! First it looked really cool and really great (if you need a veil designer I can give out their names). I really thought it looked wonderful. And on top of that it was made with love which made it even more special. So as I was wearing my "designer" veil on my wedding day I was thankful to have friends and family that cared about me.
- And last, but not least for tonight, is the toilet. Best told in pictures, but I'll give it a shot. During the ceremony the DJ announced a special presentation by the Germans. They all walked in carrying a toilet - a real life toilet from Lowe's. Well it was filled with chocolate pudding and ziplock bags of money. It was so gross and so hillarious. I still cannot stop laughing about it! It was the hit of the party. So Cody and I got down on our knees, with our rubber gloves (kindly provided by the Germans) and fished out the bags of money from the pudding. You had to be there because the pictures can't do it justice but it was hillarious.

I love being married.

I've never felt so wonderful about anything in my whole life. Honestly. I really realized how much I love being married. Tonight was my first "Me Night" of married life and I've really had time to take everything in. You see, while I may be the most talkative person you've ever met, the most outgoing person in the family or the most obnoxious person ever, I also love my alone time. I honestly cherish that side of me as much as I do the outgoing side. I take a day every now and then when Cody has something planned with the guys (tonight it was Matt's going away happy hour and I think they're at the casino now) and just chill with myself - I decline the offer to hang out and just be quiet (yes, I know this is impossible to believe for some of you - but I really can be quiet sometimes). This is great for me as it allows me to reconnect with myself and be the talkative, outgoing, extroverted person the rest of the time - because somewhere in me I'm actually a nice, quiet, introverted person too.
Anyway, I really think marriage is the greatest thing ever - so far at least - and I'm only on day 6. :) As a female, your entire life is constantly swirling with questions when it comes to boys and marriage (or at least mine was) - who will I marry? will he be nice? when will I get married? will I be an old maid? will he be good to me? what will he look like? will the marriage last?
Then you meet the man of your dreams - the guy who you love to be around and makes you a better person - the man who makes you smile every day of your life - he makes you giggle when you're sad or when you're mad and holds you even when you're yelling - he is kind and the most generous person you've ever met. And then there are new questions - does he love me back? does he think I'm stupid? is this going to last? are we going to break up? what if I mess things up?
And then the best thing happens - he proposes and you realize that he does love you and he wants to be with you forever - you connect in a way you never thought you could. And then there are even more questions - will he go through with this? what will the cake look like? will he think I'm stupid for wanting to sling a monkey across the room instead of the garter toss? will he hate me after this whole wedding planning crap is over? what do we do about the dress, the flowers, the programs, the rehearsal dinner, the dj, the photographer, the centerpieces, the favors, etc., am I pushing him away throughout this process?
And then you get married - you smile at him saying his vows and can't help but burst into tears (so much that Marissa has to hand you a tissue which you then very unlady-like blow your nose on and then tuck in his tux pocket with your snot on it). As you say your own vows you can't help but cry and giggle at the same time with utter joy. And then you're married and all the questions stop. For the first time in my entire life (that I can remember) my mind is just calm. It's quiet. I feel at total peace with the way things are. I have finally reached a point where I am just purely and utterly happy and peaceful - no more worries, no more fears, no more questions, no more "what if. " I'm set - I'm settled - I feel like I'm ready to take on the rest of the world together and that we can conquer anything. And I love it.

Wedding Post #1 - Dress Saga

Ah, and I thought the dress saga was over in St. Louis when I picked up my dress! Oh no - that would be WAY too easy. So it goes like this:
I picked up the larger sized dress in STL prepared to take it in Monday to be altered. We get to the alteration place on Monday and talk with the person who assured us he could do it in a week - well, he lied - or at least wasn't 100% honest. He took one look at the dress and basically said "no frikin' way." At that point Cody's mom (my "Bonus Mom") and I had a dress too big and no idea what to do. So we did the only thing I knew how - run to family. My aunt is an insanely good seamstress so naturally we ran to her. At 9 am we show up at her door and shoved the dress in her face and begged for her to tell us if it was possible to hem it and take it in. She reassured me that it would be possible, just not easy. That made me feel better. So once David's opened we ran there to see if we could find ourselves an angel. We found one. Apparently Bonus Mom's boss has a friend/seamstress that works there and she just happened to be there on Monday (she normally does not work Monday's). She was fantastic. She had me put on the dress and started pinning away. The dress was unzipped half way down my back and she had it all pinned and I was convinced it would never zip the way she had it pinned - not only did it zip but it was perfect. She even gave us two bustle options! So we left the dress with her Monday morning, having complete confidence in her abilities.
And she didn't let us down one bit. We went back on Thursday for a "fitting" (for those who don't know most people have their final fitting months before their wedding - mine was less the 48 hours away). She had the dress hemmed, bustled and taken in, but hadn't finished the details. It was perfect. It was the closest I came to crying over a dress this entire process (but I was crying a lot that day so that might have played a factor too). :) It fit wonderfully. She basically took a huge dress that was ackward on and remade the entire thing - she took in a ton of room from the top all the way through my hips and made it work for my body - she was a miracle worker. Then Friday Melanie and I went to pick it up. It was perfect. She then taught Melanie how to do the bustle as well (it was a VERY complicated bustle - 6 ties for the bottom bustle and a button for the top layer) - her and Bonus Mom ended up having to teach everyone else by the end of the wedding. :) So Friday around 2 pm - about 26 hours before my wedding - I finally had a perfect wedding dress!!!
Of course it was great at the wedding - perfect actually for me - at this point I could care less if anyone else liked it our not. :) At the reception I pretty much tore the dress apart. :) As I think Bonus Mom said or maybe it was someone else, the sign of a good wedding is how messed up the bride's dress gets. Mine was good then. I ended up with blue icing on it from the Gator grooms cake and at some point someone (or me) stepped on the bustle, busting the button. My mom then tied the bustle up with a string (there's a picture on picasaweb of her doing this - it's the one of me with my butt in her face) from the favors. This lasted a little while but it tore off eventually so I just carried the train over my arm.
Today I took the dress to the cleaners to get it pressed and cleaned (I think I might wear it to the STL party so I didn't get it preserved). I think the cleaning and alterations together cost more then the dress - not kidding. It was worth it. I could have done without some of the dress drama, but in the end I loved the dress I wore and I had a great time in it.

Day 5

People say marriage is so hard and this and that. I don't think it's hard at all - it's actually quite enjoyable and easy - and I've been at it for FIVE days already! Wait, never mind, I'm not a movie star so that's not a long time yet - maybe by the end of the week?
In other post-wedding news, I'm loving marriage - or maybe I'm just loving life without wedding planning. :) While I loved the wedding and honestly think it was all worth it (all the stress, crying fits, money, more money, anxiety, work, more stress, etc.), I hated wedding planning - really really hated it. But I'm LOVING life now that it's all over and I'm happily married! Regular, non-crazy person, non-foggy brained Missy is back! :)
Some more wedding stuff:
Check out our AWESOME DJ's link: http://gtentertainment.typepad.com/.
We're on there under Saturday (duh!). So far he's had the best picture I've seen of us and the toilet! There's also one of me and the bridesmaids.
Also if you want to see the first of the wedding pictures as they are coming to me go to http://picasaweb.google.com/melissa.flynn . Instead of loading them bit by bit onto the website, for now I'm just loading them all onto Picasaweb - plus if you have Picasa (which if you don't and own a digital camera you should because it's an AWESOME photo organizer - free from Google) it's super easy to download any you want onto your personal computer (rather then trying to download them from the website which can be more difficult).
On the picture note, if you have any please please please send them to me!!! Preferably by uploading them onto picasaweb or via CD in the mail - email doesn't do well and the pictures are usually shrunk to fit email standards. If you need a CD, I can mail you one!
In other random thoughts, in order to catch up on blogging I think I'm going to try to do one present post and one past post a day until I catch up - this should get everyone caught up on the wedding festivities and drama. :)

What I have to look forward to. . .

Cody forwarded me an email this morning that someone had sent out at his work because he brought in White Castle for everyone (you are supposed to bring in breakfast every time something "big" happens - Gators win the National Championship, we get married, Mr. Pickles takes a bath, etc.). The subject line read:
"Cody Raffensberger Wedding Bells White Castles in Galley." At first I didn't even notice why he forwarded the email - then upon closer inspection I saw it. It's RaffensPerger, not RaffensBerger! I guess I should get used to this . . .

I'm married!!!

Yup - we're back in St. Louis (and thus to a reliable internet connection) and WE'RE MARRIED! It's super late and we've been driving all day - not to mention the emotional roller coaster of the past week - so no time to write now but wanted to say hi! The wedding was PERFECT! I never in a million years could have thought that all that stress, anxiety, worry, lack of sleep and long, hard work could have possibly ever been "worth it" at the end of the day but it completely was. Honestly even Friday night I didn't think the wedding could live up to all that I had put into it - but it was and more! It was honestly the best day of my life. It was very quintessential Cody and I - complete with me having to "hop" back to our proper standing place at the ceremony when we accidently forgot and walked too far forward - us being silly during our first dance - slingling a "sling shot" monkey across the room instead of the garter toss (we have Jessica Schilling and her almost husband, Matt to thank for that one) - me somehow ending up with cake UP my NOSE - oh yeah, and the presentation of a TOILET (a real life toilet) filled with chocolate pudding (and bags of money - thankfully it was in bags) at the wedding from the German relatives!!! Yeah, that's a whole blog in itself. The wedding was fabulous and I was never happier - not sure if the happy was all from being married or just having it over and having my life back to ourselves. :)

Thanks to everyone who made it down there - you were all fabulous - and to those who couldn't make it, you were in our thoughts nonetheless. Now it's time for the fun part - MARRIAGE, oh yeah - and hte STL party (tentatively MAy 12th STL people!).

Take care,
Mrs. RAFFENSPERGER . . . or as Sara would say, "Raffensperger party of 2" :)

WE'RE ON TV!!!

Go to this site: http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/Sports/Detail?contentId=2756317&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=6.10.1 and then click on the top "Sidebar Video" - the one with the people in Butler blue. Watch through to near the end and there are a group of Gator fans walking down the street, drinking and screaming - THAT'S US! Cody's pretty obvious - he's the really tall one - I'm the one in the orange shirt to the right of him in the picutre (right on the screen, his left) screaming. Cool, huh?

Dress Drama

Of course I couldn't leave now without a quick dress drama update. It's been insane! Totally insane. I'm on dress #3 now! So we realized Dress #1 was never going to work - then we argued about refunding me my money because "that doesn't happen in the bridal business." Well then, give me the dress I ordered or my money. Anyway, on Saturday I was tired of dealing with them so I sent in my reinforcements (Cody) and he got my money back. It's funny that I'm the lawyer that argues all day for a living and he is so much better at handling things like that. Anyway, then we went to another shop, tried to buy a dress, but the only place in the ENTIRE COUNTRY that had my size (allegedly) was California. God love California, they have people with small sizes. Anyway, I ordered it and had it shipped overnight. Dress #2 arrived on Tuesday. It was not my size. Someone miss-tagged it after the orginal tags were for some reason gone. It was huge. Another huge dress. So I went back to the store to exchange it for the bigger size and have it taken it but they had since sold that one.
Welcome Wednesday - total dress meltdown. Still no dress and running out of time. Well, they found another store in the St. Louis area that had the bigger size. So my options were: (1) get the bigger one and have alterations (along with hem and bustle) done in 10 days, (2) find another dress in my size that I could live with (and then have it hemmed and bustled) or (3) find a tea length dress in my size - no hem no bustle. I came so close to getting the tea length because then it would be my "I hate wedding dresses and the entire industry" dress, but then I realized months and years from now I'd look at the pictures and marvel at how dumb I looked with everyone in long stuff (including bridesmaids) and me in a short dress. I tried on every dress they had in the smallest sizes they had and hated them all. No luck with not having it altered. So I got the bigger size and thanks to Cody's mom, we now have someone in Tally who can alter it, hem it and bustle it before the wedding. It's likely going to cost a fortune with so much to do with such short notice, but she won't even tell me how much it is so I can't even freak out about it - yet! :) So now Dress #3 is at the store, being cleaned and steamed. I pick it up Friday at 8:30 pm. Then Saturday at 6am we leave for Atlanta, watch the Gators beat some UCLA butt, then go to Tally, drop off dress at alterations lady at 9am on Monday and then go back to Atlanta to see the Gators win their second National Championship (in basketball)! Fun with time crunches! I'm still holding my breath until I see the dress done, pretty and fitting correctly but at least now I'm not an emotional basketcase and I have some hope. :)

First time with Raffensperger

So, I've officially now registered for the 1/2 marathon here on April 15th - yes that's the week after the wedding. I wasn't posting anything about the possibility of running it just in case I backed out but I told myself if I make it to the 9 mile run in training then I'm in. And I did my 9 mile run last Sunday. So this weekend, in Tally, I'll do 10 or 11 miles and then I'll be set.
But that's not the point of the post. The point is I had to fill out the registration sheet. I started to fill it out and put "Melissa Flynn" but then I realized by then I'll be "Melissa Raffensperger." So I had to scrap that form and do a new one. Then I had to sign my name for the first time as "Raffensperger" - very weird but cool at the same time. Of course, being a pack-rat, I photocopied the form for my scrapbook as the first time I used "Raffensperger."

I love weather.com.

I know it's been a while - things have been so insane it's not even possible to describe. So crazy that you don't even want to read about them - trust me. :) Anyway, while I had a moment to breathe I had a few quick posts. First: weather.com.
Since we are now within 10 days of the wedding, the weather.com 10 Day Forecast now includes my wedding day! So far it says we're looking at a high of 80, low of 51, partly cloudy with a 10% chance of rain. Sounds good to me. Now I can obsessively check it every few hours for the next 10 days to see if it changes. :) Trust me, it's better then me obsessing about other things right now. :)

St. Pat's Day

Can you tell I downloaded my digital pictures onto the computer today? :) Anyway, here's a cool picture Cody took of the start of the St. Patrick's Day run. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people run in this race - more then a few of them drinking beer and probably already drunk (the ones not in hats and gloves as it was 31 degrees at this time). I honestly think most of these people run 5 miles per year - this one race - and then never again until next year - but hey, good for them for getting out there. :) That's Union Station (home of one of two TCBY's in the city - the other is at the airport) in the background - very very cool place to check out.

16 days to go.

I've got 16 days to go until my wedding and have no dress. I guess I technically own one because I've paid for it (but it's still at the dress shop because we're going to argue until pigs fly for my money back - another story), but I don't have one that actually FITS. So today I went dress shopping - again. Cody said "But look, Missy, not many girls get to go wedding dress shopping TWICE." - like I was lucky or something. I quickly reminded him that I hated it the first time around and I certainly hate it even more now with SIXTEEN DAYS TO GO! Anyway, here are pictures of two of the dresses I tried on. Neither are perfect but might do. I love the short one but given the late date and the fact that everyone else had their outfits (including bridesmaids which have long skirts) I don't think I could pull of tea length - though I do like the dress. :) I think it makes me look like a flower girl though (and like I weigh significantly more then I do). :) At least I have some humor with this. :)