Christmas Preparation

Even with all of the stress and craziness that goes along with the planning of this wedding, last night Adam and I took some time to set up the few Christmas decorations we have. Now, we will return from our honeymoon to a festive apartment and be able to enjoy the final 2 weeks before December 25th!

This ornament was attached to one of the gifts we have already received, and it quickly became the focal point of our little tree.

Tactics

Usually when I leave work, there are various homeless people out in the plaza in front of my building, and they always ask for money. Once one of my coworkers that I was walking out with said that he was probably alot less likely to give money to a homeless person when he was just leaving a very long day at the office.

Yesterday, I was walking out when I saw a young guy (probably my age) dressed in nice jeans, a button down shirt and a Polo blazer. Honestly, he was probably dressed in more expensive clothing than what I was wearing. He claimed that he had recently become homeless and then, in a southern accent, asked me for money. I don't ever carry cash, so I didn't have anything to give, but it got me thinking about whether that is a good tactic.

Giving the guy the benefit of the doubt (because I have no idea if he really was homeless or if he just wanted to go buy a pack of cigarettes at the CVS), I would be much more likely to give money to him because he is less threatening to me and also because I can picture myself if that kind of situation (hopefully that never happens). It made me want to go out and do an experiment to find out what type of homeless person gets the most money, although I don't really think that would be very ethical.

Bachelorette Bonanza

Last Saturday, my amazing sister Sally threw me an incredible bachelorette party with 10 of my closest friends. My oldest sister flew up from Atlanta and even Toni traveled down from New York City. Every time I get together with these friends, it feels like no time has passed since we've seen each other. We talk, laugh and goof around and it was so nice to catch up with all of them before wedding day.

We started the day off with lunch at Sally's and then visited two different Maryland wineries: Basignani Winery and Boordy Vineyards. We tasted about 25 different types of wine between to two and even got a tour.

After sipping wine all afternoon, we headed to Sally's to hang out and get ready for dinner. Around 7:00 we went downtown to Pazo, one of my favorite restaurants. We paired up, ordered lots of different types of tapas, and I even got to drink two really fun cocktails.

After a 3 1/2 hour long dinner, we went to Powerplant Live, where we witnessed the shortest dress I have ever seen as well as some pretty interesting pole dancers. We were there for about an hour before we decided to go back to Sally's and go to bed.

I had a wonderful time with amazing friends and I'm sure I'll remember it forever.

Improv Everywhere

This morning I was cruising YouTube and found Improv Everywhere, a group that goes to different public settings in NYC and breaks out in song. Some of their music videos are hilarious, but this is my favorite. Can you imagine being in a grocery store and having this happen?

T-Minus 1 Month

So the big day is only a month away and I am getting more excited by the minute. I have various countdowns going on as well....30 days, 5 more grad school classes, 15 more days of work, 4 more weekends, etc.

On the planning front, everything is running smoothly and I am confident the day will be beautiful and really special. We've met with the musicians, the florist and the photographer, and we've also ordered all of the place cards and thank you notes. This Saturday is the final meeting at the reception venue. We even have about 98% of the responses and it looks like an amazing group of friends, family and coworkers will be there.

I feel like I've been waiting forever for this day (well, 17 months is a pretty long time) and now I'm afraid it's going to be over in the blink of an eye. So, I'm going attempt to sit back, relax, and not become Bridezilla because at the end of it all, I am marrying my best friend and the perfect guy for me, and that's nothing to stress over.

Think of him as your solider

For the past 18 months, I have been working on a joint Department of Defense and Department of Veteran's Affairs pilot program called The Disability Evaluation System, or DES. Basically, the two departments work in conjunction in order to help some of the Gulf War's most seriously injured veterans. Working on this project has been hard for me, because many of the claims are for people my age or even younger, and many have catastrophic injuries.

Today, one of those service members took the time to come visit the office with his mother and speak to us about his struggles thus far. They traveled up to Baltimore from Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital outside of Washington, D.C., a place that has been their home for almost 3 years, since the service member was flown out of Iraq after stepping on a land mine. His injuries are unbelievable, and he is only 25 years old.

Although seeing this young hero was extremely emotional and heart-wrenching, it was even more emotional hearing from his mother. When the accident occurred, she quit her job as a nurse to be her injured son's full time advocate, sleeping in his room on a hard hospital cot, and fighting with doctors and physical therapists to get him the care that he deserved.

The whole time she was talking, she kept referring to him as "her baby" and "her soldier." Here was this big, 25 year-old man, but to his mom, he was still her baby. It just goes to show, that no matter how old people get, they are still someone's baby and mothers are willing to do everything in their power to make sure their babies are not hurting.

She encouraged us to imagine that every case we work is "our soldier," someone who is important to us and what an important lesson as we approach Veteran's Day on November 11th.

Glee

A couple of months ago, Adam and I started watching Glee on FOX Wednesday nights. Let me say, that the show really brings out the inner band/chorus nerd in both of us, plus it really appeals to our sense of humor. We find the sarcastic and off-the-wall jokes and comments hilarious and usually spend the whole episode laughing.

Throughout the show, they have little vignettes where certain characters sing a song that has something to do with the story line. It made me think about how much a song can describe a situation, a feeling or a story.

Have you ever been listening to a song and you can totally relate to it, or you are just so moved by the moment, the notes, the chord progression, the words that it catches you off-guard? That is honestly why I think music is so wonderful...it can be a song without lyrics and it still has the ability to make you feel a variety of different emotions.

When it came to picking the song for our first dance at the wedding, we had a hard time. We didn't know whether to pick one of our old favorites, or something new and different. Eventually, I heard a song on XM radio and fell in love with it because it describes one of my favorite times of the day.

Anyway, if you haven't watched Glee, I would recommend it, then you can write long, drawn-out blog posts about what music means to you.

Carving

On Friday night, Adam and I drove through the pouring rain to Mechanicsburg for another busy weekend. The plan was to meet with the minister, the DJ and celebrate my Dad's birthday with a nice dinner and then pumpkin carving. Even though it was raining, we picked out some great pumpkins and had a wonderful evening carving them and celebrating Dad's birthday with carrot cake made from scratch by my sister, Sally.

When we were growing up, Dad always used to carve our pumpkins for us after we would scoop all of the goop out of it. Usually, we would stand around the kitchen table that was covered with newspapers and Carrie, Sally and I would argue about what the face should look like. Dad usually drew the design quietly, maybe listening to our design ideas, maybe not, but our pumpkins would always turn out to have great little faces.

Over the past couple of years, we haven't carved pumpkins at home, we were all busy doing different things. It was fun to sit around the kitchen table and carve pumpkins, even if Adam was the one carving it for me this time.

Photogenic

On Tuesday afternoon, Adam and I went to have our engagement pictures taken. The pictures were kind of an afterthought, considering we have been engaged now for about 16 months, and I wasn't even sure that I really wanted to have them taken. I am very happy that we went, because the pictures are great! Here are some of our favorites:

Being Sensible

Over the weekend, Adam and I ventured up to State College, PA to catch the Penn State vs. Iowa game and also to celebrate my future sister-in-law Cara's 21st birthday! We had been looking forward to the weekend for a long time and we were very excited to go up for the whiteout game.

Around noon on Saturday, it started to drizzle, and then the drizzling turned into a downpour. Thankfully, we were all in Adam's grandparent's RV enjoying chili and other football games on TV. Around 7, with the rain still coming down relatively hard, we all bundled up in sweatshirts, ponchos and hats and headed over to the game. Saying I was miserable would be an understatement. The game was wet, cold and the people in front of me decided to combat these two problems by making out through the entire first half. And to top it all off, Penn State played like crap, and they lost.

After the game, we met Cara and her friend and began the long trek down to the bars so she could be there and ready to party when the clock struck midnight. It took us longer than expected, and she actually ended up turning 21 while she was in the bathroom of a computer lab, complete with countdown and all.

Shortly after midnight, Adam's parents called to wish her a Happy Birthday and tell her to "be sensible." "Being sensible" then became the buzz phrase for her 21st birthday night. We went to a really cool, dirty and dingy Irish bar where everyone was getting warm and drowning their sorrows after the horrible game.

Overall, the celebration went off without a hitch: she got really drunk but didn't get sick (the sign of a successful 21st birthday), both the band and the entire bus on the way home sung happy birthday to her, she rode the children's carousel in front of the Giant at 2:30AM and Adam and I got to relive our long-lost college days.