I'm a winner

on Ebay! I won the bracelet and hair piece for a total of $41.41. I figure I can get the beads, ribbon, and clasp for about $10. So that willbe around $50.00 for both pieces. Not to shabby.

Another VERY EXCITING moment!

Well I have found another fabulous find on ebay. Seller lafancybeads sells exactly the kind of jewelry that I have been looking for. I really want this and you can see how expensive it is. I found the rhinestone piece for $15.00 on ebay. I can't believe this. It will be super easy (I think) to attach the pretty ribbon. I'll save about $65.00! Go me!

I'm excited!

I ran over to Michael's last night to get some ideas about DIY wedding jewelry. The only thing that I found of any interest was Ecru colored glass pearl beads. Almost 200 beads for $4.00. So this will definitely make a nice bracelet, earrings, and maybe a necklace. The one thing that I was really looking for I couldn't find. This morning I asked fellow knotties if they knew where to find a cheap antique brooch-to make the bracelet with. This is EXACTLY the one that I wanted! I think the price of this DIY bracelet will be under $25 dollars. The ones on Etsy.com are going for $65. So yea I am thrilled about this. I have also been thinking about the kind of earrings I want. When I noticed that I don't have a ton of money to spend on the wedding jewelry I began to re-think my orignal plan. I initially thought that I wanted some big blingy earrings. However, since it's a midday wedding I think it might be more appropriate to wear a smaller pearl dangle type of earring. I found this pair on Overstock.com. I LOOOVEE them and love the fact that they are hand made. However, the details say that they are white pearls. So these won't work. I'll just have to keep searching.

Wedding map

I realized yesterday that I really need to make a decision about the wedding invites etc... I also realized that I may want to include a map on an enclosure card. I'm not sure if many people will need it, but it just seems like the nice thing to do. Anyhoo, I found free service website, Wedding Mapper. It locates your wedding location and adds in extras such as: hotels and restaurants. It looks like a really well drawn out map. However, you do have to do some "Techie" critiquing. Which sounds just awful. But hey! For free-I'll take it!

Wedding Budget

We never made a wedding budget because it didn't like we would need to. We never planned on spending much money or money that we didn't have (credit cards).
Now, with there being about 6 months till the wedding I think we should look at what were planning to spend.
Ceremony and Reception Site - FREE
Dress - $1000.00 (PAID)
Photography - $1200.00 ($500.00 PAID)
Food - $1000.00
Cakes - $300.00
Flowers - $300.00
BP Gifts - $300.00
Wedding License & Officiant Fee $80.00
Paper (stationary) - $200.00
Bridal Accessories - $150.00
Decor - $200.00
Budget for everything except rings, honeymoon, wedding parties (showers)- $5000.00
Budget as of now $4,530
Minus what has already been paid - $3,030
Looks like we could spend another $270.00 and be at our budget. Maybe we could get a videographer!
Recap - we still have around $3,000 that we will have to spend.

Possible reception food

This weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about wedding related things. I spent a lot of time thinking about food. Since we are having 2 receptions, one at the University and one at our house I have to budget and plan for 2 receptions. This is what I have came up with so far.

University Reception
-fruit and dip (maybe not dip) $125-with dip
-cheese ball and crackers $ 95
-vegtables and dip $ 75
-meatballs $ 65
-chicken salad croissants $180 (*I would love to have 50 chick salad and 50 pimento cheese.)
-tea
-lemonade
-plates, napkins, cleanup
I figure that having a 2pm reception people won't expect to be fed a complete lunch. To me this seems like adequate food, and does not include the wedding cake. I may do another meat-chicken tenders.
Budget would be around $500-600 for this reception for 100 people.
*Now looking at the food and the cost for the reception I'm wondering if we could do the food ourselves.

Backyard Reception
I don't have a list of foods that I would serve for this reception. I would do most of the food myself and probably order the meat. This reception would be for about 30-40 people and this would be an informal dinner reception. I would like this food to reflect what foods we like and be easy to make and clean up.
I think that if we could stay around $400 for this reception that would be fantastic.
Looks like our ideal food budget will be around $1000.00.

What to be for Halloween?

It just donged on my yesterday that Halloween is quickly approaching. We're having Halloween at work on Thursday, October the 29th. I know that I want to dress up, but I'm still not sure who or what to be. My ideas include: 70's girl, balloon girl-instead of balloon boy, or trophy wife. Out of all of these I feel that 70's girl would be the cheapest. But I love the balloon girl idea. I was thinking about taking a cheap laundry hamper and cutting the bottom out of it. Getting a bunch of helium balloons and try and make it look like I'm in a hot air balloon. I think this would be super cute and I may win the prize this year! For Saturday which is actually Halloween (if I buy a costume)I was thinking of being either Mother Earth, Beer Girl, or Angel. I have always wanted to be a German Beer Girl-so I would probably go with one of those costumes. But their so dang expensive. Which probably means that I will just make something.

This month just keeps getting worse.

Friday after I got back from my conference I had an email from my fiance. It included an entire conversation about our closing date. Now we aren't closing until the middle of November. I guess we won't be having Thanksgiving at our house. I can't believe how long this is taking. On top of that it seems like the people that we have trusted with our home buying and the loan process are mostly MIA. Whatevs. To top off the best weekend ever! Kidding. We were scammed! Saturday night two cute, young "college" girls came to the door "selling magazines". Long story short-I placed a stop payment on two checks and went and closed the bank account completely. I now have a new bank account and an urge to kick some ass. Well... at least their little asses. Plus, channel 48 called wanting an interview. I very nicely declined. I have had to deal with enough this, well, this entire month. I hope everyone begins to no longer trust anyone. These cute girls are going to screw it up for the rest of us ;)
FYI Cafe World on FB is the best game ever.

We have a moving day

Lance made arrangements with the moving company to move us on October 30th. Hopefully, we will have the keys to the house by then. The moving company charges more on the weekends. So were hoping that this date works out. We are going to start packing tonight. It's mandatory. We are also going to pay off the appliances this weekend. It won't be long now till we're in our new home.

United States Marine Corp.

is getting a new soldier, my little sister-Jennifer. She will be leaving this Monday and will do her basic at Parris Island Military Base. I think she is so brave and I am very proud of her. But I don't think that it has actually hit me that she is leaving and has chosen a military career. I just never saw this coming. Good luck Jen! I love you.

Worst week ever!

Seriously, I don't think I have ever had so many things go wrong in one week. First, someone got into my car and broke the interior console in my car. Looks like they were trying to steal my cd player, but failed. But in the process decided to break everything around it. Luckily for me they didn't take anything. Kinda weird. Secondly, our beloved Fatcat almost destroyed our mattress and we had to buy a new one. That was money that we weren't planning on spending right before closing on the house. Over the past couple of days we have seen some improvement with the smell-it seems to be going away. This coming week were going to clean it as best as we can. If the stain comes out then we'll be able to keep it and use it as a guest bed. I hope it comes clean. I hate to throw away a 3 year old king size mattress. And thirdly, my most hated-Troy University has given me a headache again. I have taken three courses towards my Masters of Science in Public Administration. However, when I first applied I selected a Masters of Science in Management as my degree program. I have been trying to change my program since January. Now my administrative advisor is telling me that I was never supposed to take any MPA classes, because I haven't actually been accepted. What!? Now she wants me to write a 500 word graduate entrance essay and turn it in with my resume. Once again I am amazed at how disorganized this University runs. I have an email dated May 13, 2009 from this same advisor telling me that she is going to change my program "right this minute". So I am quite mad about this situation. I am terrified that "What if I am not selected even though I have already taken courses?" My co-workers have told me that that won't happen, but Troy University never seizes to amaze me. After this tryly terrible week I plan on having a less stressful but very productive weekend. Got to start packing! Oh yea I almost forgot. Since Monday i Have lost 2.5 pounds. WooHoo.

I'm on a mission

I started a diet yesterday. It's called the 10-day diet. It consists of 6 small meals a day. Well maybe not meals, rather 2 foods: beans and an apple. There are lots of foods to choose from too. I really think this diet is going to work. I only ate small servings of fruits, cheese, beans, and 2 hard boilded eggs. You also have to watch what you drink. I have had water and caffeine-free diet mt. dew. I'll let you know Friday if this diet is showing results. I told myself that I won't weight myself until Friday. I'm really wanting to buy some new clothes in the next month and the only way I'm doing is if I lose 8-10 pounds.

Good news about our house

We got a call today from our Mortgage Loan Officer and we found out that we are getting a much better interest rate than we were orignally thought. It was 6.50(?) now it's 5.37, I think those are the right numbers. This means that our payments will be about $60.00 less per month. So yea we're happy about it. Still no news on our closing date, but we turned in our notice to move out of our apartment. So technically we have to be moved out by November 6, 2009.

Fiddler's Convention Re-cap

The Fiddler's Convention came and went this past weekend. This is the event that I have been working on since this July. So I am truly happy to see it come and go. Not to many problems to mention, only a few people that lied to get extra tickets (that only cost $15.00) and another *crazy* lady that got mad about her booth spot and packed up and left on Friday night. I also have to mention the BSC lady that I spoke with yesterday. She actually cried during our phone conversation because I couldn't reserve a booth for her a year in advance. This really pushed my buttons. I looked at her application and she lives in Athens, Alabama and not the county area, the city limits area. I told her that she could bring her application in the day after she receives it in the mail. She actually said that she wasn't sure if she could do that. Whaaaa?? Plus, I called her at her house during the day-meaning that she doesn't have a day job. How lazy right.? Anyhoo, Fiddler's was an overall success. We had a little bit of rain Friday morning and then blue skies for the rest of the weekend. So I feel pretty good about my task-that was a very BIG task :)