Next installment!

I was just getting to our recent purchases (meaning, yes, PURCHASES, as opposed to all the stuff I get for free/ridiculously cheap, although of course we still tried to get the best deals).

We got a Wii Fit! It was very difficult to find one, as they're still super in demand. Here's Ryan doing yoga on it:

For the record, he tried a few yoga poses once and never did them again. He mainly plays the skiing game. I've been trying to work out on it 5 or so times per week, including yoga, strength training, aerobics, and the balance games. Like most video games, the first week or two I was totally hooked. Now it's a little harder to get myself to do it, but it is more fun than regular exercise nonetheless.

We also got a new laptop to replace Ryan's (5 years old, screen often blacks out). It's another Dell, basically a newer version of mine but with a standard screen instead of my widescreen. And it's blue, too!

We also (a month or so ago) got a china cabinet to house all our wedding booty. It looks waaaay nicer than the rest of our living/dining room furniture:
It's a Rick James china cabinet, because every time I pay attention to it, I think to myself, "I'm rich, bitch!"

Then something we didn't buy, but got as a late wedding present was a hammock. Here it is hung up:

The best part is that Jib likes to jump up in with us! He's done it 3 times so far, and each time he hangs out for 10 minutes or so. What a sweetie pie!
Not sure what caused the camera to put that line in, but that's the only picture with it. Ok, that sums up all the new stuff!

So, the schoolwork. Ugh. I think tomorrow I will be finished the first of the three papers I have to write. Truth be told, I ended up writing considerably more than I had to and will now have to axe some to fit in the page limit. So hopefully with the others I will have a better feel for how much to write, then won't have to cut out what it took me so long to write. It's been a really slow process, though. For one, I can't force myself to work more than 4 hours a day when I have no official deadline (but no, still don't want a deadline!). And secondly, it's a lot of ground to cover for each paper (which is the point, they want me to be well-educated or something. durrr...). Hoepfully I will get the second done before school starts...but realistically...hmmm...

Did I mention we're going to San Francisco for five nights in a couple weeks? Don't think I did. We're visiting Ryan's brother and seeing the sights. Should be fun, but also less time to work on my papers.

And I believe the last subject on the table of contents was wheeling and dealing. It's been going well, of course, and takes up most of my free time because I'm ADDICTED! We spent about $160 on food last month, which isn't too shabby. There's a town flea market in September and I'm going to get a table and sell some of my drugstore stuff- I figure I can make a couple hundred dollars easily. It should more than pay for the gas I use driving all over down searching for deals!

Since Christ asked about how I do so well at the grocery store, I thought I'd put together a mini-tutorial on how to "coupon." It's really quite simple on the surface, but can take a lot of time to really get into.

1. Amass coupons. Lots of them. The Sunday paper is a good start. Keep your eyes open for coupons being offered ANYWHERE. And get multiples; 10 free boxes of cereal are better than one!
Amassing all these coupons has Choco plum tuckered-out. I told you it was hard work!

2. Organize your coupons. Don't throw any away! Even if you don't use a product normally, what if you got paid to take it? I have!

3. Replace your Glamour, Cosmo, Harry Potter, or whatever it is you read with your local store flyers. Get to know the regular prices for stuff, typical sale prices for stuff, and rock-bottom prices for stuff. Also get to know the stores' coupon policies: many stores double small-value coupons, so your 50 cent off will turn into a dollar off! A couple of my stores occasionally have triple-coupon weeks, aka HEAVEN!

4. Combine incentives. The most common way I save money is buying at rock-bottom sale prices when I have coupons. You can only use one manufacturer's coupon per item, but can combine a store coupon and a manufacturer's coupon on the same item.

Incentives you can double- or triple-dip on (aka, you can do them all at once and get a great deal or turn a profit):
manufacturer's coupons
store coupons (usually in the weekly ad)
mail-in rebates (offered by specific companies or by the store)
online rebates (Walgreeens, Rite Aid do these)
instant rebates: CVS Extra Care bucks
"Catalina" offers: ever have the cashier hand you a coupon printed on receipt-type paper that spit out of a little machine next to the cash register? It's called a Catalina machine. What it prints is triggered by your purchase. Often stores have deals such as, "Buy $20 Proctor & Gamble items and get $5 off your next purchase!" So you buy the stuff ($20 before coupons, less after) and get a store coupon that's good for $5 of pretty much anything at the store.

You really have to be the sort of person who enjoys the thrill of the hunt, but I sure do!

1. Talk about major blog slacking! Oy, it's August already! I feel like there's so much to cover that I'll need to make an outline.

1. Introduction (above)
2. Garden
A. Written update
B. Pictures
3. Kitties
A. Residents
B. Ferals
4. Rachel and Don's Wedding
5. Recent purchases
A. Wii Fit
B. Laptop
6. Schoolwork
A. Slowness
B. Boringness
C. Suckiness
7. Wheeling and Dealing
A. Bragging
B. Tutorial
8. Conclusion

2. Garden
A. We've been continuing to get enough veggies to cover side dishes for dinners (and since we eat leftovers for lunch, lunches as well). It's pretty much exactly how much food we need that's been ready to harvest. I think we only bought veggies at the store 3 times during July, and mainly just because we wanted more variety. Come September/October, traditional "harvest time," I'm expecting at least a month's worth of veggies to store in the freezer/basement.

B. Onto the pictures. I didn't take pictures of everything, just highlights.
This is where the broccoli used to be. In the front are cucumbers, which are just starting to blossom, meaning cukes in a week or two. Behind them are the corn, which should be mature in early September.
Potatoes starting to sprout. They're where the snap peas used to be. Following the success of my first round of potatoes (very tasty, good yields), I planted a lot more. We'll have plenty of potatoes for late September through November, maybe even enough to store into December if we're lucky. Nice thing about potatoes is they cover a second side dish ("carbs") for meals.
Itty bitty watermelon! It's about the size of a walnut right now. Yes, watermelon, like many squash, cukes, etc, has a vining habit, so I directed it up the fence to save space. When the melon gets bigger I'll have to harness it to the fence so it doesn't rip off under its own weight. I'm really excited about it, because it's fruit instead of veggie.

The beast. It's still adding 6" per day to each of its vines. Craaaazy! A close-up of the squash (these four just happened to grow right next to each other, the rest of the plant is not nearly as prolific) is below. The plant they're on top of is sage that I started from seed in early spring.
We've had some of these with dinner a couple times. They taste just like normal yellow summer squash, even though they aren't as big and have that funny green bottom. I've nicknamed them "grenade squash" because of their size and shape.

Lastly, not only have I not managed to kill the big houseplant (I have way worse luck with houseplants versus outdoor plants), but it has its first flower! And that concludes the garden update.

3. Kitties
A. Residents. Well, Jib, Choco, and Grem are happy and cute. They spend a couple hours outside each day lounging in the shade and watching squirrels and birds. Not much new here.

B. Ferals. So, I'm now feeding six cats off the porch! And four of them are the WIDDLE KITTENS! They're super shy and skittish and will run away if they see a person (hence, no pics), but we've been able to spy on them out the window while they're eating. I'm still hoping to catch them and get them fixed, but since they're so skittish and fast runners, I'll have to devise some sort of trap. We've named them Lil' Blackie (black coat), Lil' Whitie (mostly white coat), Bitey (hogs the food and gets aggressive when its siblings try to get some), and Almost Caught (needs a new name, but I actually got my hands on this one and it managed to wriggle free). Their mom also feeds with them ("Mama Cat"), and she's got a black coat as well. She's almost as skittish as they are.

The sixth cat is Blackie, and he is the cat that I mentioned had been almost getting into fights with our cats. And it's definitely a He, he's got a big set of harbls. He and our kitties are getting along better- he still doesn't like it and starts to howl when they get too close- but they can lie down on opposite sides of the patio and coexist. I don't have to worry about them fighting if I leave them unsupervised anymore. He actually lets me get a few feet away from him when I'm refilling the food bowl, but runs away if I try to get closer. Here he is (he really likes our patio furniture):

4. Rachel and Don's Wedding
We went up to the good 'ol Hudson Valley for Rachel and Don's wedding last weekend. Jen was the only other person we knew there, so we did a lot of talking to her (hi, Jen!). The ceremony was held by a lake and was even shorter than ours, which I thought was pretty short itself:

I did think that our officiant was much sexier than theirs, though (hee hee). The reception was up the hill in a big open-air pavilion that had a nice casual feel to it. Here's me and the bride:
For fun, here's us roughly two months before:

The newlyweds.

They had the BEST Best Man speech ever. He wore a mask and tore open his shirt to reveal his "Best Man" superhero undershirt, then had a superhero theme (Don is big on superheroes). He also told about his role in getting them together, which was cute. There were a lot of funny anecdotes, too. And later he danced with his (very bulky) dog:

Ok, so this entry is taking for-freakin-ever. I will spread your enjoyment over two days and stop here, then pick up later this weekend. Ta ta.

Just have to brag about today's shopping trip! This was at a normal grocery store. All this for $3.25...and would've been $2.25 if I hadn't misplaced one of my coupons! Regular (inflated) retail was $40.

Other than wheeling and dealing, I've been keeping busy with gardening and (gasp!) schoolwork. I've been (slowly) working on the comprehensive exam essay questions that I was supposed to have done last fall. Well, so far pretty much just doing background reading, but eventually that will turn into writing. But that's boring, let's take a look at the garden!


Sorry about the zoomed-out-ness, but the point is, it looks nearly empty. Sad. The green beans in the middle are still humming along. The corn and cucumbers off to the left are still small. There's one cauliflower I haven't pulled out yet. Off to the right, formerly the pea area, will now be potatoes.

The other big bed (not pictured) is also looking whimpy. The hot weather made all the lettuce bitter, so I had to pull it all out. I think I'm going to put potatoes there too (they'll keep into the winter if stored correctly). In place of the turnips are pole beans and a second wave of soybeans. The carrots and onions are still growing slowly in their original positions.

The real action nowadays is along the sides of the house! I present, THE BEAST:
To exacerbate its beastliness, I didn't even plant this! I did fertilize using stuff from the compost pile, so perhaps the seeds came from a grocery-store fruit? It is freaking enormous, so I'm training it to grow up the railing instead of into the driveway. Up close, you can see that it's a yellow squash:
That's the biggest fruit so far, but with all the beastliness it will probably only take 3 or 4 days to reach nomnomnom size.

The other beasts, also accidental in nature:
These are mini pumpkins that sprouted from the seeds of last year's Halloween decorations that I threw off the porch once they started rotting! (Off to the far right, the soybeans are waist-high and the pods are starting to fill out) Mini pumpkins are cute, but also edible. I had one oven-roasted last week, and here are its about-to-be-eaten friends:
In the front? My first bulb of garlic, from one of the cloves I planted last fall! After its impressive early growth, it died back over winter. In the spring it sprouted again with the spring bulbs, but recently died back again, so I decided to dig it up and see what it looked like. Voila! Not for the impatient, though, as apparently they're supposed to overwinter before plumping up.

Love, love, love my garden! And my slick deals. And my kitties. And I guess to make the list complete I have to throw the husband in there too :P

I didn't remember until today, but yesterday was my 5 year blogiversary! 5 years minus a couple days ago, I wrote about attending the Fourth of July pirate party at Ryan's mom's house, pre-coupledom. This year- our first married FOJ party, is superhero themed. Yay. Peter will be turning 11. I wonder how many more years until he becomes a "too cool for this" teenager. It's a long drive and gas is expensive, plus we already saw them a lot around the wedding.

With the fancy-shmancy digital scale off the registry, we weighed the cattens (by holding them).
Jib: 14.5 pounds. Big catten. No surprise there. He's proportionate, though, since he gets the most exercise jumping over fences and after birds.
Choco: 12 pounds. Pretty big catten. His frame isn't as big as Jib, but he has a big belly.
Grem: 9 pounds. Whoa, mama! But she looks so tiny! 9 pounds is "normal cat" size, though. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

The garden is humming along nicely. I'm replacing the early crops with the midsummer ones: the broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, and spinach are gone. In their place are corn, soybeans, watermelons, cucumbers, honeydew melons, more green beans, and more potatoes taking their place. I really hope the watermelon and honeydew are a success- we have plenty of veggies but it would be nice to have some fruit. The other day we ate home-grown zucchini. Tonight we're having red potatoes and green beans, both from the garden, and chicken. Once we eventually move to a bigger lot, I'll have to see about raising chickens...

'sup party people?

Official wedding pics are online! There are A LOT; it took me an hour to watch the slideshow on medium-fast speed. There are some really cool turtle ones near the end :) Get thee on over to:

http://www.collages.net/

Username: Dickerson

Password: 14927

A grown-up haircut: I has it.



Kinda reminds me of this, 5 years and more of a double chin ago:

Hehe, Ryan and I weren't even a couple yet; just happened to be sitting near each other.

I'm FINALLY getting over my honeymoon sickness. I went to student health yesterday and they gave me some antibiotics. One plus is that I didn't gain any weight despite the all-you-can-eat and all-the-alcohol-you-can-drink at the all-inclusive resort. Gotta look on the bright side of things, right?

The sub teaching jobs have pretty much dried up. I know of at least one school that's in session until next week, but there are a lot of subs vying for only a few spots. I did get two days in last week. Easy days too- everyone is watching movies and letting the kids sign yearbooks instead of doing real work. So it'd be nice if I could score another day or two.

I love my garden. Yesterday I harvested about two pounds of green beans, and in another two or three days there will be another two pounds. With all the fresh produce and leftovers (frozen) from the BBQ, my post-honeymoon food budget for June is $20 :) That's just to fill in the cracks; if we reaaalllly wanted to, we could get by without any shopping. For example:

June 11: Spinach salad with chicken. Spinach, snap peas, broccoli, and green onions from garden. Chicken and salad dressing from BBQ, bacon bits (guys love bacon!) and croutons from stockpile.
June 12: Chicken stir-fry. Chicken from BBQ. Broccoli and snap peas from garden. Rice and sauce from stockpile.
June 13: Hot dogs (from BBQ). I forget if we had side dishes or not; probably misc snacks leftover from the BBQ.
Etc... Tonight is burgers and tomorrow is another stir-fry.

Being married feels the same as before, just with more rings. I'm still waiting on the marriage certificate to arrive so I can do all the official name-change stuff.

Oh, and I forgot the mention: for the honeymoon we flew US Airways because they were the cheapest and the only ones with direct flights. For the first time in history, both flights were on time (one even landed a half hour early!) and no bags were delayed. Amazing!

Pretty much the funniest thing ever: http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/taxonomyfail.jpg?w=360&h=480

I'm still sick from the food poisoning :( Not nearly as bad as the first day or two, but I still wish it was over.

The cat that Jib got into that scuffle with? It's a she, and she has KITTENS!!! They look maybe one and a half months old. Our neighbor told us that they were in the woodsy/brushy backyard of the next house down, so today I did some investigative reporting. I saw all four of them, then put out some wet food so I could help them out and get some pictures.



I already picked out the one I want. The black one with the white stripe on its nose (as seen in third picture). That's if I can't have all of them, of course.

But seriously, I think once they're a little bigger we might try to trap them and take them to the animal shelter. Two of them might have eye infections, I think. Plus, as much as I like kittens, it wouldn't be good if the homeless population grew exponentially.

My garden grew a ridiculous amount while we were gone. In addition to most of the broccoli being ripe and a couple of pounds of snap peas, we should have ripe green beans by the weekend. Not to mention everything else is just a whole lot bigger. The zucchini and soybeans are even starting to blossom. We won't be buying very much produce this summer, just a few things to fill in the gaps and maybe a few fruits that I love like cherries and grapefruit.

We're back! The honeymoon was pretty good for the first four days, but then I sprained my wrist playing beach volleyball, and the next day I got food poisoning/24 hour flu (no, I didn't drink the water), which meant Friday was one of the worst days of my life and Saturday was mostly spent inside watching TV. Before the mishaps we did get two dives in, and saw sea turtles, a nurse shark (6'-7' long!), a huuuuge moray eel, and plenty of fish, of course. It was too bad that we had to scrap our two other dives because of the sickness, but hopefully there will be other tropical diving trips during our lifetimes.

So, how was the wedding? We were cool as cucumbers until the last minute. I didn't start getting nervous/butterflies until the procession music started. I didn't trip on the stairs, yay about that. Several people said they thought the ceremony was more memorable inside than it would have been if the weather was predictably nice and we did it outside. I spent too much of the reception worrying about the dance floor being too empty. The DJ had sent us a .pdf of "last minute tips" for receptions, and among his instructions was to dance as much as possible so that the guests would follow suit. I guess that's the case at "normal" weddings, but of course our guests wanted to take advantage of the amenities such as the turtle tank and patio. Well, since I always worry too much about what other people think, I spent more time dancing when I really would have rather been elsewhere.

Anyway, Jen took some great pics, which you can see here. If anyone has more, I'd love to see them, especially since we don't get the professional proofs for another week or so.

We asked our neighbor, who we don't know that well but chit-chat about cats with (he has one), to "check in on the cats a couple times" while we were on the honeymoon. He did an awesomely over-the-top and hilarious job (and even left us a bottle of real Champagne as a gift). The hilarity comes from his detailed cat notes. Apparently he came over every day and took note of what the cats were doing. It's especially funny to me because it sounds like the journal of someone stranded on a desert island (and the bad spelling/punctuation is endearing too). Highlights:

June 3rd Tues 7:00 PM
Jiblees & Gremlin met me @ back door. Gremlin bolted. Jibs layed on LR flr for a pet. No Cocoa siting. Food good, Liter good. Changed water. Jibs everywhere I am. Sitting on paper I'm writing on now. cute!

June 5th Thurs. 7:00
All cats on cat tree in L.R. got to pet them all. CHOCO is his/her name! Got it. Gave them can treat. They all came running & meowin. Now I know the secret!

June 6 Fri 4:30
Jibs on cabinet in kitch. Topped off food & Gremlin came in. Choco came down & let me pet him. Jibs is rubbin the pen while I write.

Yay, tornado watch for the big day! That's semi-sarcastic; a big lightning show would be cool once we're inside, but a tornado would be overkill. Too bad the ceremony will probably be inside, but the rain location is in front of the sting ray and sea turtle tank :)

Ryan and I are cool as cucumbers. We're just not the types to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. So it should all be good.

LOL! Ryan had a ball and chain padlocked to his ankle at work today. It's a tradition for all future grooms on their last day of work before the wedding. It was literally a bowling ball on a real chain, and he didn't have access to the key at all. Fortunately he didn't have to walk very far or give any presentations to customers.

So, yup, he's taking the next two weeks off, and so am I. Wedding stuff, then 7 days/6 nights in Cancun/Cozumel.

Only 8 days to go! Ack!

D'oh! Jib caught another bird again today. I hope he isn't getting really good at it; I feel bad for the birds. He did the exact same thing with the bird- brought it to the same spot in the living room and rolled around on his back viciously shaking it around in his mouth. I wonder what it is about that specific spot in the living room.

I have a cold, so I'm taking off from subbing today. It's just a little head cold, so hopefully it will be over in a couple days. Better now than a week from now.

Busy taking care of the little wedding details. There's a lot of them. I picked up my dress yesterday. Today I mailed the cake topper to the bakery (didn't feel like driving over to PA). I'm very interested to see how the cake turns out. The top will be whimsical, so make sure you get a good look. And also to pique your interest, you may place bets on what song our first dance will be. Here's a hint: it was performed on American Idol this season (although we had it picked out long before). Speaking of AI, my favorite won last night- yay!

Saturday, Jib caught his first bird! Ryan and I were sitting in the living room while the cattens were outside with the back door open. All of a sudden, Ryan cries, "Jib, NO!" I look over, and Jib is furiously shaking his head with a mouthful of feathers. It was, uh, normal bird size (some biologist, eh? about 4-5" long) and already dead. Ryan was my knight in shining armor and wrangled away the bird with a plastic bag.

Yesterday was our one year housieversary! Only 14 years left until full ownership.

Today I sub for "culinary arts." That should be fun. I'm going to force them all to make me baked goods, but no cheesecakes, or you get an automatic F.

12 freakin' days until the wedding, and 9 until the out-of-town guests arrive. Holy mother of hell.

New garden pics on Flickr. Stuff is getting big!

And for the very first time on Chapter Three, a movie! Hope Quicktime is okay with everyone. Excuse my silly voices, I can't help it when there are cattens involved. Also excuse the high-pitched background noise; it's my camera's fault. Spoiler alert: at the end, I die!

There's no such thing as a typical day of subbing. Monday I signed up for a full day at a middle school. At lunchtime they sent me home because they actually only needed a half day and had entered the job wrong in the Subfinder system. I confirmed my suspicion that middle-schoolers are a pain in the ass, so I will really try to pick high school jobs when I can.

Tuesday I drove 25 minutes to a relatively distant high school to find that most of their building lost power due to some downed trees, so I was sent home. The real teachers told me, "Make sure you sign in so you get paid!" So I signed in, of course, but on my way out the principal said, "I'm really sorry about this." I don't think he'd feel sorry for me if I got paid a full day's work for showing up and heading right back home, so the jury's out on whether or not I'll get paid.

Today was actually as normal as it gets. I returned to "actually not Dan's high school, but the new school that replaced his the year after he graduated." It was nice to not have to learn an entirely new school's layout/bell schedule/policies/general vibe. I did a whole day of physical science, which was all about the periodic table. Yay! Like, did you know that helium has two protons, two electrons, and two neutrons? Like, whoa. One guy seemed impressed with my knowledge: "Did you just learn all this stuff before we came in?"

Another guy: "How old are you?"
Me: "Take a guess."
Guy: "Twenty."
Me: "Older."
Girl: "Stop hitting on the teacher."
Guy: "Twenty-two."
Me: "Twenty-six."
Guy: "DAMN. That's crazy."

I gather that I look young for my age, at least when I have makeup on and my hair done (so I don't look too haggard). When I worked at the Lobster, the other servers usually guessed my age as 19 or 20, although I was only 23 to 24 at the time. No big advantage right now, but hopefully the trend continues as I get "really" old.

I haven't got back on my diet yet and pretty much have no motivation to do so. I know I should so that I won't feel squeezed all night, but willpower isn't something I can conjure up without this intangible spark. I'm at least planning/hoping to really watch what I eat the week before so I at least won't have excess water weight.

My peas have flowers and my strawberries have little green berries. You could conceivably eat fresh-off-the-vine strawberries when you visit the house for the weekend of the wedding. Except that I'll be checking on them three times a day and will probably eat them a couple days before they're fully ripe because I'll be so impatient and eager.

I substituted at Dan's high school today! The middle school job was canceled (thank goodness) so I got a high school one instead. I did environmental science in the morning (nature video) and gym/health in the afternoon (free time shooting hoops/jump rope/playing catch and homework catch-up time in health. Not every student was an angel, but they were sooooo much easier to deal with than the middle schoolers.

Just so everyone knows, I will NEVER be a full time middle school teacher. Totally rowdy/loud/horsing around. I don't get why all the classrooms had inflatable balls in them- it's like asking for trouble!

So I was in charge of four classes by myself and "assisted" in four other classes (i.e. sat in the back doing nothing). Three of "my" four classes were all eighth grade social studies, where they watched a film about the civil rights movement. The first group was awful. Maybe two of them were watching the film while the rest were socializing and goofing off, not to mention asking to go to the bathroom every five minutes. I did my best to take away the obvious distractions (inflatable balls, sticks they were hitting each other with, etc), but there was really no way to get them to sit down and shut up. I at least stopped the film every ten minutes to quiz them about what was happening, and at least a couple students contributed, so that should have at least informed the goof-offs of the main points they had missed. The second group was about 50-50 good and bad students, and the third was really well behaved (yay!). The fourth class I had was sixth grade social studies, and while they were pretty hyper as well, one of their responsibilities was to clean up all the room's art supplies and they did a really impressive job. After that some of them worked like they were supposed to, some socialized, but I guess they just have to finish the rest as homework.

I have another middle school assignment tomorrow (different school)...here's hoping that this school is better at keeping their students in line.

I start substitute teaching tomorrow! I have assignments for both Thursday and Friday, both at middle schools. I won't know what subject until I get there. I'm happy to have the jobs in advance, otherwise I get woken up by an early morning call and have to quickly get directions and get out the door.

I had my dress fitting today, and my predictions were almost correct: it fit like a glove but would be more comfortable if I lost a few more pounds (I've been off my diet this week). The ladies were very impressed that it fit so well; I guess most women get something taken in or let out, especially with such a form-fitting design. I don't even need it hemmed- it was the perfect length with my heels on. The one thing that the seamstress is doing is adding the bustle so I can dance without tripping; the train is longer than I remember, but it's all good. I pick the dress up in two weeks.

Garden salad, srsly!

I thinned out the lettuce bed a little, so there's baby romaine and looseleaf lettuce, as well as a bit of baby spinach, radishes, and green onions, all from my garden! Yay! It was yummy. Summer is going to be great with fresh salads every few days. There are enough plants that I will be able to just pluck a leaf or two from many plants, and as they grow they will replace what I've taken. So it's a sustainable resource :)

Still seeking additional wedding guests...if anyone would like to amend their RSVP to bring along another guest or two, let me know. Srsly.

Ryan and I had lunch with Jen, KW, and Ariel in Center City today, as well as going on an apartment tour for Jen. She'll be in Philly for the next five years for her and KW's residencies! I recruited Ariel (probably) as another wedding guest, yay! I was also reminded how nice it is for Ryan and I to have so much square footage and yard space; medium-quality studio apartments in Center City are more than half the cost of our mortgage, for about the size of our living/dining room. There is something to be said for the short commute, but I could never live in a large city; I think they're dirty and full of sketchy people. But to each her/his own!

Here are some pics to illustrate how fast the garden has been growing. "Before" were taken on April 22, "after" were taken May 3.

Radishes before:

Radishes after:

Lettuce before:

Lettuce after:

Turnips before:

Turnips after:
I could go on, but you get the point. Plants are pretty cool.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Despite recruiting probably 5 or 6 more guests who weren't on the original invite list, the estimated guest count is still only 56 people. Plus me and Ryan = 58 people, if you include the DJ and two photographers, we bring it up to 61. I'm particularly annoyed today because someone who responded very positively when I was soliciting addresses mailed in their card with a no. Nothing but a little x on the card. I appreciate when people who reply no take the time to put a little note on there, such as "Wish I could be there, congrats, have a great time," etc.

To reiterate, why no one comes to mai party :[.

I'm breaking all sorts of etiquette rules trying to round up more guests- email, Facebook... Maybe I could get a tax write-off if I invite in some vagrants off the streets of Camden for a free meal?

I'm getting married this month.

OMGWTFROTFLMAO!

Also, IDKMYBFFJIB?

That is all.

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.

It's been one week of dieting and I'm down 2 pounds. So with exactly 2 months (eek!) to go, I have 8-13 pounds to go. Piece of cake. Wait, no cake until the wedding. Of course, I'd prefer to have most of it gone a couple weeks in advance of the wedding so that I can be sure my dress will fit without alterations. I was thinking about buying a decent digital scale instead of the beat-up analog one I have now, since it's hard to distinguish small increments. It would be more motivating to know that I lost 2.4 pounds, if that was indeed the case (flip side, could have also lost 1.6 pounds). "But why not put it on the registry?" I thought. So it's there, and hopefully it will be gifted in haste so I can get my much needed pre-wedding use out of it (wink wink).

I stuck perfectly to my calorie plan, but actually didn't do any walks or strength training. I did, however, work in the yard/garden 2-5 hours every day except one. That one day I had a root canal (eek!). My teeth seriously suck...bad genes, and I brush of course, but am not good at flossing regularly. I also have to go back for the crown and 4 (eek!) additional fillings. This is my first round of dentistry since I was in Syracuse, which I know I shouldn't have put off so long. But I digress. These are the outdoor things I was able to cross off my to-do list last week:

Plant broccoli, cauliflower, raspberries, hazelnut tree, some strawberries
Hang netting over raised bed arches
Spray paint arches dark green so they're not as conspicuous as white PVC pipe
Further chop up and move around tree debris (almost all taken care of!)
Move more of my dirt pile to various beds
Install edging along beds in front and side of house
Water plants every other day
Chase/round up naughty kittens when it is time to go inside (4-5x daily)

There's a stray cat that lives in the brush behind a house down the street. Jib has encountered him many times and they usually have a stand-off, sitting 15 feet apart while the stray moans/growls. But lately it has escalated so that Jib is growling back, and Jib has started chasing the stray off. Jib is very good at jumping over fences/on top of sheds/etc now. On one hand I'm glad he seems to be higher ranking than the stray so he won't get horribly beat up, but I hope there are no actual fights. I really like having the cats keep me company in the garden (the little ones are good and don't go past our immediate neighbors), but unless we build 6 foot fences there's no keeping Jib in. About half the time when he's roaming, though, if I call for him he comes running, leaping and bounding over fences to come to me. It's soooooo cute and makes me feel loved :)

We went up to Po-town for the Easter weekend. Saturday was my bridal shower. Ryan's mom and aunt hosted it, and it was just the female family members (them, Ryan's grandmothers, and stepmom). Ryan went with me even though it's not customary because I needed him to help keep me from going crazy, or rather, more crazy. I got a crapload of gifts, with highlights including: ALL of the china off the registry, the main silverware set, cocktail glassware (martini, Champagne, and margarita), party supplies for the pre- and post-wedding house parties, Victoria's Secret gift card, and a ton of miscellaneous little houseware-type things. It completely filled the back seat and trunk of my car. Oy.


Over the weekend I also learned that I can connect myself to Kevin Bacon in five degrees. Ryan's cousin (who I've spent many a holiday with, so I'll only count as one degree) has a friend (two) who has a friend (three) who went to private school with KB's daugher (four, five). So now you can connect in six degrees since you know me :)

Invites were mailed today! Keep an eye on your mailbox, unless you've been naughty rather than nice. Destination tally:
NY: 14
MA: 5
PA: 5
WA: 5
CA: 3
CO: 2
FL: 1
GA: 1
LA: 1
RI: 1
International: 2

Now that Easter and all of its candy goodness is over, I'm REALLY going to start my pre-wedding diet and exercise. I'd like to lose somewhere between 10-15 pounds. Based on past experience I know that if I stick with my plan (1600-1800 calories per day, long neighborhood walks 5-6 times per week, weight training 3 times per week, and an abundance of work in the garden), then my goal is entirely attainable. Keep nagging me about how I am doing. There is only a little over two months left!

Today I spent about 5 hours working in the garden. I planted my carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach, turnips, and peas. I also started constructing a series of arches that I can drape netting over to keep the birds, rabbits, and squirrels out. Tomorrow I plan to finish moving my pile of dirt, plant my broccoli and cauliflower, plant my raspberries, and finish the arch system. Oof.

A couple new pics on Flickr, including my pricey dirt pile.

I'm scrapping the garden blog. It's enough work to write in here every week or so. Especially now that I'm getting pretty busy. Tomorrow is my all-day training session at the teaching place. Today I bought $225 worth of dirt. For real. 6 cubic yards, being delivered on Tuesday, to fill these suckers:



The big ones are 5' by 20'. That's ENORMOUS. The little ones are 2' by 2'. They're cute. I'm gonna have a bitchin garden.

The downed tree remains are now in "little" (i.e. big, but smaller than earlier) piles:
Ryan's dad came down with a chainsaw and cut it up. We put a "free" sign by the firewood-type pieces, and people claimed most of it. All the branches are left, though. The town will remove brush in small quantities, so we're going to put out some each trash day and it should be gone by the wedding.

We bought a ladder, providing new opportunities for the cats to be cute:

And I'll finish with my first flower of spring, a crocus from the bulbs I planted last fall:

Rain + wind =



The tree was on our property, but came within a foot or two of hitting the neighbor's house! I'm actually kind of happy that it's down, though, because now there's more room for my fruit trees. We wouldn't have cut down the tree for that purpose, but now that it's down, we have room.

Who wants a $20 T-a-r-g-e-t gift card for pretending to be pregnant? Yup, this is the deal that I did a couple months ago. I got another voucher thingy, but can't do it again myself. It only takes about 30 minutes (you have to go around with the scanner gun and zap the items you want to add), and they give you the gift card on the spot. First commenter who asks gets it!

I have the teaching job. Well, they never really "offered" it to me; I went back yesterday to turn in most of the rest of my forms, and the guy just said, "Okay, just make sure to get fingerprinted and bring this form back. The next training session is March 17 from 9-4, right here." So I don't even know how much I'll be getting paid (though I've heard rumblings of about $80 a day). It will be a wonderful thing to have an income again- my savings account has been going down, down, down. You would think Ryan's salary would be enough, but we've got a 15 year mortgage and a 3 year car loan (and $300 gas bills during the winter!!), so we're somewhat overextended. The reduced grocery budget is going along swimmingly, though.

We have our DJ booked and have a tasting scheduled with the aquarium caterer on Friday. Next up is addressing the invitations (going out at the end of this month) and beginning to write the ceremony. Oh, and all the little home improvements before everyone visits.

We were thinking about a co-ed party at our house on the night before the wedding (Friday) instead of bachelor and bachelorette parties. Cornell people visiting from out of town probably want to hang out together, and I don't think the separate parties would be wild and crazy to begin with. Plus, as an added challenge, we can do the CVS egg hunt in the backyard while it's dark (with flashlights) :D

Hahahaha. I don't think this is the right place for Christ to get ordained. The research continues...

I just had my interviewish thingy at the substitute teacher staffing organization. I say "interviewish thingy" because it seems to be the closest to an interview that I'll need, yet it wasn't an interview. Even on the phone when I was scheduling it, the guy called it an "information session." I showed up, filled out their application, and the guy took a look at my resume and made a little chit-chat about Penn and asked a couple questions like, "How many days a week did you want to work?" and, "Magnolia, now where is that?" The next step is getting fingerprinted. Unfortunately, he said that it will take 4-6 weeks before I'm actually teaching because of the state processing my background check and certification :/ So that puts me at teaching April and May, and the last week of May I will need to take off to get ready for the wedding. Oh well, what can ya do?

So Ryan and I spent (what I consider to be) quite a bit of $$ on groceries in January ($375), which led me to want to trim our grocery spending in February. Now, we did "inherit" a lot of meat and stuff from January, but I am quite pleased to announce that we spent less than $100 for food in February! $99.40 to be exact :P That's through the magic of combining sales and coupons. And the spending even includes a bunch of wet food for the cattens. We don't have any meat to pass on until March, so the March goal is $225. That should be a piece of cake, so I might even shoot for $200. I know, I'm crazy, but it's a fun little game to me and makes me feel less guilty about being unemployed.

Oh, Jen, Ryan wanted me to ask if you could adapt the LOTR theme for dulcimer.

He was kidding (I think!).

Have you ever felt your life had a higher calling, but you weren't sure exactly what?

Do you like power trips?

Do you want a good story to add to your collection of life experiences?

Would you be comfortable reading and speaking in front of a group of approximately 75 people?

You know how on Friends, Joey married Monica and Chandler?

Do you want a cool thank-you gift that did not come from CVS?

Do you want to come to our rehearsal dinner?

That's right- it's legal in New Jersey and we are recruiting for someone we know to get ordained online and perform our ceremony. Getting ordained is free, and while you probably have to read some stuff and take a quiz, I doubt it would be too difficult. Or if you don't want to volunteer yourself, suggest someone else. Then we can all gang up on that person and force them to do it.

I've got the ball rolling on the teaching thing. I had to leave a message for the recruiter because he was on vacation the last couple days, but it sounds like he will be back and able to meet with me next week. I've also: ordered transcripts, asked two Penn people for reference letters, and had half my tuberculosis test (have to go back on Monday to have my arm checked). All that's left is updating my resume and going shopping for some interview pants. Yay pants, boo resume.

I will try to explain the cute Valentine story. All y'alls will probably not appreciate it as much as the Slickdeal community, though. So you need to know- "ECBs," or "Extra Care Buck" are the coupons that print at the bottom of the CVS receipt after you buy a qualifying item. If you get an ECB for $4, you have to spend the entire thing or lose the part you didn't spend. Sooooo, I told Ryan that I didn't want him to spend a bunch of money for V-day, but that I did get him a card, so he should probably get one for me. I suggested he grab some ECBs and get it at CVS :P So I guess on his way home from work he stopped there and had a $4 ECB but picked out a $3 card. So he had an extra dollar to spend. All on his own, he figured out that the best thing to buy would be a $1.29 Gatorade because they spit out a $1.29 ECB (effectively free). The kicker is that he tore off the $1.29 ECB and tucked it into the card he gave me :D

Ok, if you made it all the way through that paragraph and actually paid attention, you deserve a gold star.

Gee, if I made a special money saving blog there would be pretty much nothing left in here!

Today's trip to the grocery store:

• 10 boxes Green Giant frozen veggies
• small box Bisquick
• large box pancake mix
• 3 tubs Betty Crocker frosting
• 4 cans Progresso beans
• 3 boxes Pop Secret popcorn
• 1 Philadelphia Inquirer (because every girl needs 3 copies)

Total spent: $15.52
Earned: $13 coupon toward next visit
Net: $2.52 :D

I've been thinking about doing some substitute teaching in the surrounding school districts, maybe 4 days a week or so. I'm finally starting to get bored around the house, and there's only so much wheeling and dealing to fill my time (unless I start getting 10 copies of the paper). There's a staffing place I'll be calling early this week to set up an interview. I'm sure I'll be accepted, though, because 1) they hire people who have as few as 60 college credits, 2) I have a lot of teaching experience, 3) they especially have needs for science and math subs, and 4) I'm just all around God's gift to schools. It's in my nature.