My little (22 year old) brother just got engaged! Now that really makes me feel old. I guess he took her out to the Oregon coast (they live in WA just across the border from Portland) and he wrote the question in the sand, with the ring on the dot of the question mark...cute! They are thinking next spring or summer, probably. Guess that means I will be heading out west again.

Meh. Last week it was sunny with highs around 80. Today it's cold and rainy. Now tell me, how am I supposed to be in a good mood, weather? At least one advantage is that I don't have to water the garden for a few days since it is getting such a good soaking. The plants are growing quite fast- I can see a big difference since I posted those pictures 6 days ago. I think I could start harvesting radishes by this weekend!

We broke down and bought sod to cover the big bare patch where the tree fell down. We'd tried planting grass but it only grew successfully in a few small subpatches. We also put sod between the driveway and the porch, and I'm delighted with how it turned out. The "before" picture doesn't capture all the crappiness because I was focusing on the flowers, but you get an idea.

Before:

After:
After a couple weeks the seams should grow together, I hope.

I lost another two pounds this last week. The bridal shop is closed Mondays, but tomorrow I'm going to call and schedule a fitting. I can already tell you what is going to happen- the dress will zip up fine and fit like a glove, but be a little too tight to be comfortable for 7.5 hours. Maybe they will have to hem it a little, but probably not much because I'll be 5' 10.5" in my heels. I'll lose another 4 or 5 pounds, visit the shop again, and it will be fit perfectly. And we'll all live happily ever after. The end.

Nothing like a little (ok, a lot) of wheeling and dealing to lift the spirits:


After rebate, I spent 11 cents! Heck, since there's no bottle deposit in NJ, we can take the empty 2L bottles up to NY next time we visit Ryan's family and get 15 cents back. So I made 4 cents :D
4 gift bags
4 body wash
1 Lysol wipes
3 2L of soda
6 pumps Softsoap
dozen eggs
2 small dish soap
2 deodorant
2 CVS pain reliever
2 lip balm
1 nail polish for the wedding

Boo yeah!

And I recruited two new wedding guests from Penn, with the possibility of several more. I'd held off on inviting Penn people because if there wasn't room for all of them, I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But now there's room to invite away.

Aww, this is sadly appropriate for the wedding. Even has the right color blue ribbon.

Good grief. I was never much of a Peanuts fan, but Charlie Brown's catchphrase seems to be the first expression to come to mind. Oy. That's the second one.

I called my mom to see how she was moving along with wedding-related stuff. Mainly: 1) has she bought a dress yet (and if so, is it appropriate, or is she attending a wedding on some distant planet?), 2) what hotel is she staying at, and 3) where's my response card? And 4), I also figured I could use some filler material for my next therapy session (reminds me of the Geico commercial where the caveman puts his mother's call on speakerphone so his therapist can hear).

1) Hasn't gone dress shopping. Hasn't even browsed to see what's out there. Now come on, I'm sure she's been to the mall in the last few months. Would it be that hard to at least walk past the special occasion section at Macy's or Penney's?

2) Hasn't booked hotel yet.

3) "Oh, didn't look at it that closely." The invitations looked like something corporate. Back in my day they had scrollwork and frilly edges." Maybe she's referring to the block lettering? I don't know, to me at least, pearlescent paper with bright aqua doesn't look too corporate. Our names were in script, at least. I decided to just say, "What do you want to eat?"

I guess I should just be glad that she at least has a plane ticket. Oy.

I mentioned that while Ryan's mom was down last weekend, she said, "Cat, your mom must be really excited!" (My response was, "Uh, yeah, I guess...well...I think it hasn't really sunk in yet..." but I didn't mention that to my mom). My mom said, "Well, I'm not a big party person."

That's golden fodder for my therapist. Hello? Earth to Cat's mom?! Come in! Do you copy? I think the point is that your first child and only daughter is getting married. You know, the whole big trip across the country to witness the big commitment/starting a new family/sacred covenant and all that jazz. Not whether or not you're big on social gatherings. Good grief. It's not just lack of enthusiasm, it's lack of most interest at all. You'd think she was attending a wedding of some distant in-law who she'd met once at a funeral.

I admit that the reason that Ryan's mom's over-the-top-ness makes me feel bad (see stress last weekend) is the disparity with my mom's attitude. Ryan's mom won't stop asking questions: "Do you know what you're wearing to the rehearsal dinner? What is your first dance song? What song are you cutting the cake to? Are you having any readings during the ceremony? etc... With a lot of the questions I just smile and say, "It's a surprise," secretly hoping that it will reduce the number of future questions. I can't think of a single question my mom has asked about the ceremony or reception. I mean, I volunteer information and she sometimes comments ("Outside? You'd better hope it doesn't rain."), but there's not much anticipation.

I have some heavy therapeutic gardening to do tomorrow!

Just posted a crapload of garden pics on Flickr. In addition to everything pictured, I have potatoes, soybeans (mmm, edamame), and green beans planted that haven't sprouted yet.

Thinking about the wedding has me :( right now. We're getting more "can't attend" response cards than we estimated, and our current projection is only 56 guests. The space we have at the aquarium is huge (would comfortably fit 250 people), and I'm worried that it's going to feel empty and the dance floor will be empty. Not to mention the amount of money the whole wedding is costing...the per person cost is pretty ridiculous. It all has me feeling that the backyard barbeque should have been the reception itself.

Ryan's mom and little brother were down for the weekend. She bought all the alcohol ($300 worth!), paper goods, and non-perishable food for the Friday night house party and Sunday BBQ. Now, she always overbuys, but this time she really got out of line. There are over 300 paper/styrofoam plates. That's not including the 160 bowls and 160 small plates. That was the most ridiculous purchase, but there will also be enough food to feed a large army. There is really no persuading her to scale back. And to exacerbate the situation, what if only a few people show up to the house party and BBQ because of the small number of guests and travel plans? I know you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it's really unnecessary and I don't want to be wasteful. After all, we're going to be on the honeymoon all week, so all the perishable food will go bad. And most people have long drives or flights, so what are the chances that they're going to take 4 pounds of potato salad home? Not to mention that neither Ryan nor I likes potato salad. Or pasta salad. She ordered 5 pounds of each.

I only lost one pound last week, but that's actually a good thing because I totally went off my diet on Friday and Saturday. Saturday especially. Why? The stress of Ryan's mom and the ridiculous amount of food that she bought us just for the weekend. My diet is easiest to stick to when I don't have sweets in the house, but she brought home two cartons of ice cream, a cheesecake, two boxes of After Eight mints, a half pound of fudge, and a pound of saltwater taffy. Fortunately I don't eat cheesecake, but I had trouble resisting the rest. Don't worry, I didn't eat all of it and I got back on the wagon yesterday, but it's difficult knowing that it's around. I'm trying to fit little bits of it into my daily calorie budgets and encouraging Ryan to take generous portions. So if he looks a little pudgy at the wedding, that's why.

Another thing that we all did over the weekend was eat lunch at a possible rehearsal dinner restaurant. We decided that it was too casual of an atmosphere, but Ryan's mom decided that she'll host a dinner there for the people who will be in town on Thursday night. All 16 of us. The atmosphere was on the casual side, but it's still a fairly pricey restaurant because it's in center city Philly. She's paying for all of it, then also paying for the rehearsal dinner (25 guests!) on Friday. We went over to the Chart House after lunch and decided to have the rehearsal dinner there (we all ate dinner there once last year). So I guess I'm a little relieved to have that booked, since it was the last big thing that I'd been putting off. It's a little crazy that the people at the rehearsal dinner comprise nearly half the wedding guests. Another weird thing about not having many guests.

My garden is an oasis of serenity. I wish there were more weeds so I'd have more to do out there. It's therapeutic to pull out weeds. It makes me have a sense of control over something.

Soooo. We've been up to a lot of work on the house and yard, with a little CVSing thrown in. Our formerly office-style tiled ceiling laundry room now has a nice real ceiling with attractive recessed lights. And soon some cute shelves as well. And the side of the yard has a stepping stone path from the driveway to the back patio. And we put out grass seed to fill in some patches, including the huge bare spot left where the tree fell down. I love working on the house. I find it amusing how a year ago, my favorite store was Arden B, and now it's Lowe's. I may pinch pennies almost everywhere, but at Lowe's and Home Depot I start drooling and throwing things in my cart.

Only lost one pound this last week, but I've been "good," so hopefully that will just mean a bigger loss next week. And I haven't slipped up in 21 days, which is supposed to be the amount of time it takes for a new behavior to become habit.

I'm going back to school in the fall. It took me a long time to decide, but I'll give it another try. And I can meet up with Jen for lunch if she ever gets breaks. There are parts of the program I like, but a rather long list of things I don't. I might make a short trip or two to Maine, and can probably collect as much data as I did last summer, just more efficiently.

Monday weigh-in: I lost three more pounds! Or rather, somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5. I have not slipped up on my eating one bit and have continued gardening and home repairs, plus a little walking. My favorite walks are on the nights before recycling day so I can "help out the recycling crew" by taking some of the coupon inserts out of papers. So only 5-10 pounds to go! I might be able to have my first dress fitting in two weeks or so, it seems.

I've been having bad wedding dreams every few nights. Last night I had one where I was so behind in getting dressed/hair/makeup done that I walked down the aisle in jeans and a t-shirt and messy hair. I felt so dumb that halfway down the aisle I announced to the guests, "Just kidding, I'll be back in a little while." Then I left and it took me over an hour to get ready. I came back and walked down the aisle again, and when I got to the altar it was a different officiant because the first one got tired of waiting for me and left.

The RSVPs are rolling in. Meal count so far:
Filet: 19
Chicken: 3
Veggie: 1

I have to put a plug in for the chicken. You know how much I love filet, but I'm actually getting the chicken. You can get filet at most any nice restaurant, but the chicken was something different and very yummy. But don't worry, I won't shun you if you want the filet anyway.

I went to a party rental store and ordered chairs for the ceremony. That leaves the last big to-do item of reserving a rehearsal dinner spot. We've put it off so long because we haven't been to any appropriate restaurants in this area. We have one in mind and should probably eat there this weekend to make sure that it's good before booking.

I'm still waiting on the state to process my background check for substituting. As soon as the letter arrives in the mail I can start the following day. At this rate I'll only get in three or four weeks before the wedding and summer vacation. Hmph.

My seedlings have mostly emerged. I hope they look luscious and impressive by the time everyone comes for the wedding. The spring bulbs look very cheerful in the front of the house.

And your random cat picture of the week:


Nom, nom, nom, indeed.