A new semester begins

The past couple of weeks have been really busy here at work. I think that by Friday everything will be slowing down and getting back to normal. I always have a ton of things to do before a semester starts and it's nice to see the end. The Fiddler's booths are just about full. I only have 25 booths left. I am pretty happy to see them filling up. Well, I hope everyone has a great semester!

More photos

Home Inspection and Pictures

Here are a few pictures of our house. We had the home inspection and everything seems to be ok. We'll need a new roof within 5 years, so no biggie. The water heater is too close to the circuit box, but were not going to move it. The only thing that we would like the seller to fix would be the leak in the air duct under the house. So overall the house is in very good shape and we are going to continue with the buying process.

TGIF!

This is has been a very busy week. So I am truly happy that today is Friday. I don't have much planned for the weekend either. We have the home inspection tomorrow at 11:00 and a couple of friends are wanting to go shopping. I have to do the usual weekend cleaning, but I'm also thinking about sanding and staining my night stand. We have already finished one of the nightstands and I would love for them to match. We won't be able to stain the dressers until we move because we can't fit them on the balcony. That's really the only news that I have to share. Kind of boring. Oh well. Hve a pleasant weekend.

Thank you J.Crew

Lilac dress-for our couple shower, white blue dress-Rehearsal dinner *This dress is awesome to me for so many reasons. It's Tye-dye, it's white and blue-color of our wedding. Grey dress-possibly for bridal shower. I have been eyeing this dress for a couple of months. I went into the store a few weeks to see if they marked it down. I imagine that they did since it wasn't there :( But now Ive got it. Yay!
Well I ordered the dress that I mentioned yesterday. However, I bought 2 additional dresses. I hate that I did it, well not completely, but I don't really have the money. J.Crew had a special of 20% off and free shipping. So I couldn't turn it down and I bought the dresses for very good reasons.

Finally get to goof off....just a little.

I am just about completely caught up at work. Last week involved making new applications for our services. Figuring out better ways to run our office. Printing transcript for about 125 students. Making sure my co-op students were in the right class. A couple were not.
So far today has consisted of getting my Fiddler's folks placed in a booth, and of couse I have left messages for people and can't get a call back. Now, it's time for a little "me" time. I ordered my very cute something blue garter and I am now debating on ordering this dress. Through Wednesday, J.Crew is offering another 20% off final sales. I thought this dress would be perfect for our couple shower, which will probably be an outside bar-b-que. I realize that the shower won't be until April but I think this dress is great and it's affordable.

We bought our first house!

*This is our home! Isn't it the cutest place ever.*
Well I guess that's what I should say. We haven't had the home inspection yet and of course we haven't closed yet, but we came to an agreement on a price.
We spent just about the whole weekend looking for appliances. We actually left Bestbuy with a dishwasher. It's a Whirlpool Gold, Stainless steel dishwasher. Super nice! It was regularly priced $700.00, but we got it for $350.00. We had no plans of buying anything this weekend but we couldn't turn down that deal. We are probably going to buy a refrigerator and oven this weekend. HHGreg has a good sale this weekend and they said that they can hold our appliances for 2 months. So that would work out really well for us.

In need of a change

I have been debating on what to do with my hair. I have been wanting to cut my hair about shoulder length for quite some time now. Mostly because I think I need a new hair style and because my hair is somewhat damaged. I also want to darken it just a tad. Keeping my hair THIS blonde is costing me on average $600.00 per year-yea I know. The only thing holding me back is the wedding and all of the pictures. I have had my hair long for about 4 years now so I would hate to cut it short and hate it. We are having our e-pictures taken at the end of October. I'm sure that I could push the pictures back if I hate it. I know that I want to have some length for the wedding and especially the bridal portraits, but those will be next March. I feel kind of lame basing my hair style decision on my wedding. I mean after all it's just hair it will grow back.

Waiting

We made an offer yesterday morning on the house in Athens. Our realtor called us back last night at 9:30 and said that the seller wanted to talk it over with his wife. We are supposed to hear something this morning. So this is good and bad. Good, because I think our offer must have been close to what he was looking for and bad, because I'm impatient. Fiance and I have already begun talking about what new things we would like to do to the house. We are both really excited and we hope to get it. Either way we are getting a really good deal on this house and you really can't beat the location.

My fiance is so smart.

I know, I know. But he really is. We have decided that instead of buying a home that is in the 130K range we will try to find something around 100K. We think that it would be best for us, because we can take out a 15 year loan (instead of 30) and not pay too much interest. FI figured up last night that we could have a 100K house paid off in 15 years and only pay 30-35K in interest, while with the 130K house we will have paid almost 70K just in ten years alone. Then we would still have 20 years to go. We have found another house that is about a mile and half from my work. WooHoo. It is a bungalow style home with 3 bedrooms and 1 and or 2 baths. Different websites say 1 and 2. It has been remodeled and it doesn't look like it needs much work. I really really like it. I do wish that it had a garage with a working a garage door and a bigger yard. But a bigger yard just means more yard work. We are going to look at it today and I hope it looks as nice as the pictures do.

Looked at houses!

Saturday we went and looked at about 10 houses with our Realtor. There was one that we really liked. However it is about 7-10K more than we want to spend. And fiance isn't crazy about living in the semi-rural area of Harvest, Alabama. However, I really like the location. It's half way in between both of our workplaces and the houses aren't on top of each other. These are the reasons I love it: Completely renovated, fireplace, new kitchen appliances, counter tops, cabinets, bar, hardwoods in hall way, 3 BR/3BA, built-ins in one of the bedroom/office, laundry-mud room, detached two car garage, front porch, covered back porch, and sprinkler system. So yea there are plenty of reasons to love it. Fiance feels that location is most important, while I agree I also want to live in a house that I love, not one that is just in a good location. Here is the listing.

My dress

I thought I would say a little bit about my dress. I don't want to post pictures here on the bloggy because it may ruin the surprise. For those of you who know dresses, you can probably figure it out. It's a Casablanca from the 2008 collection. It's champagne with an ivory overlay. It has an empire waist, but on me (because I'm so short) it doesn't really appear that way. It should be in mid-September, which is a very good thing because I swear I can't really remember the details. I also want to go ahead and purchase my jewelry and veil.

Bridesmaid Dresses

Both of these dresses are j.crew and are still $180.00. These same dresses are in different colors (pink, yellow, peach) and they are on sell for $100.00.
I know that I need to be deciding on the BM's dresses, however, I really don't think I can. It bugs me to know that I am picking out what everyone else will wear. I know some people would laugh at that statement, because I am a self confessed control freak, but I still don't like the idea of picking out what 5 girls will be wearing. I know that I have finally come up with what colors I would like. Midnight, navy, and sapphire, mostly dark blues. But I do like some lighter blues. I think blues are very classic and sophisticated I don't what to look at my pictures 20 years from now and say "Geez, how 2009". I also would love to have my ladies buy a dress that they can wear again and again. I have three dresses in my closet, probably totalling about $600.00, that I am never going to wear again. I should also add that I want to find very affordable dresses. With all of the weddings that I have been in, the bride was gracious enough not to pick out $300.00 dresses. I have been looking online at J.Crew, Dessy, After Six, Ann Taylor and Alfred Angelo. J.crew and Ann Taylor's dresses look casual enough that they can be worn again, so this is what I'm looking into. However, (of course there's a however) both designers run about $200.00. Presently, j.crew has a huge selection of dresses on clearance, but I did find the drawback. There may not be sizes for everyone. So yea, this is pretty big drawback. Maybe I should just ask the girls to fork over the $200.00 for a dress that they will definitely be able to wear again. Hmmm... what to do?

Yesterday...

We found out that the house that we had our eyes on has already been sold and I was actually very sad. The realtor told us that she would put a list together for us. We haven't heard from her yet. Last night I took Ben, our dog, for a walk around the lake. After I returned home with Ben I decided to go to the gym and run on the treadmill. I ran right under 2.0 miles. So, I totaled alomost 4.5 miles yesterday. Since going to the conference and then our vacation, I haven't fit very many runs into the past three weeks, and I haven't felt great. So I told myself starting August 1st that I had to get running again. Since the first I have only ran two days. Hopefully, last night gave me the motivation that I needed. Plus, we have a wedding to attend on Saturday morning, so that gives me some motivation to not look icky in the cute dress I bought.
Yesterday was the first time that we took Fatcat to the groomers. We got a call at 2:00 saying that they couldn't do anything else to her, because she had bit and kicked and scratched them. I felt terrible and dissapointed. And Fatat looks a little weird. They were able to shave her belly and her back but her legs, tail, and head are still furry. Oh well, lesson learned.

Approval

I almost forgot to tell our awesome news. We got our letter of approval for purchasing a house! WooHoo! We are so excited! We are now talking with a realtor about finding the perfect house. Right now, this is the current house that I'm in love with.

Bouquet

This peony bouquet is exactly what I would like my bouqeut to be. However, I have read that having a peony bouquet can cost anywhere from $250-$500 dollars. Um, no thanks. I have also read that garden roses are much cheaper and resemable peonies. So, I'm hoping to be able to get something like this and on the cheap. As for the bridemaids bouquet, I have no idea. I like the idea of having some yellows and purples. I think they would look amazing with the navy dresses.

Cake Inspiration

This gives a good idea of what I would like for THE cake. I want 3 or 4 round tiers, white, with a Sapphire blue ribbon placed around the bottom of the tiers. Then I would like to place some light pink flowers onto the cake. It would be pretty simple for the baker, so I may just use Publix. I can place the ribbon and flowers on myself. Now, for the type of cake-I have no idea. I would maybe like to do vanilla and chocalate cake, with some sort of filling. I also want buttercream icing.

Centerpieces

I just attempted the first centerpiece. Turned out really well. I will need to get some better scissors and some sort of fabric tape. Here is what they will look like. I will use all different fabrics and I plan on ordering flowers from Sam's club. They sell roses in bulks of 100 for around $80.00. I won't to get a bulk in hot pink and a light pink.

Just realized something

This afternoon I have been googling and estying trying to find the perfect bird topper. There are a ton for sell on esty.com, and they are all adorable. However, the cake toppers that I most adore are in the $100 plus range. So I found this tutorial. I actually have no idea what some of it is saying, but I think that I could really pull this off. I would love to be able to say "I made that!" I would be able to customize it as much as I wanted to and I'm pretty sure I could do this for super cheap. I'll post when I get started.