So it begins...

So the game is afoot. We get to start doing some registry shopping starting with a really cool Crate and Barrel + Real Simple Weddings party in NY tomorrow. Talk about powerful marketing. Apparently they're going to shut the store down for a bunch of engaged couples with all kinds of gifts and such. They're even serving free mimosas! So smart of them. Gonna try to hold Kate back! Yeah who am I kidding.

Wedding Work is HARD!!

So we are busy right now. CRAZY BUSY!! I mean we knew it was going to be busy but this is ridiculous. Wedding planning is time consuming and we knew that coming into this year but we didn't expect to have both of our jobs take so much more out of us this season. Just a tad challenging to make all the ends meet. No sleep, no money, no time together. Just bliss city. How does anyone get married?? Oh right, cause at the end of all the struggles, its a pretty darn cool thing! Just one piece of advice for anyone out there considering getting married: Don't be poor!

La Dolce Far Niente

The sweetness of doing nothing. This is my new favorite Italian phrase. We have been researching Italy for our honeymoon and I knew it was a culture I could get used to. But then we discovered the Italian idea of La Dolce Far Niente. And it makes me want to move there right away. Enjoying lifes pleasures. Not having any place to be but where you are. Lingering over a glass of wine just to watch the sun set slowly. Getting lost in the back canals of Venice. Taking a meandering stroll (or passeggiata) through the heart of Florence. Drinking cafe all morning on a terrace overlooking the Amalfi Coast. I say, yes please.

If anyone has any recommendations about places we should visit on our trip, suggestions are welcome. As I was looking through my book in Italy this week, I was noticing that all the things that sounded interesting had to do with food and wine. I skimmed through the information about museums and churches and circled things about cafes. So we are basically interested in things involving wine, cheese, bread, gelato, and wandering about. And yes, we plan to gain a good 10 pounds. At least. Totally worth it.

A Touch of Whimsy

So my mom gave me these in my stocking for Christmas and I think they are cute. They were given to us specifically because I told mom we wanted to use this color green in the kitchen. They don't do much but kind of float around to different surfaces in there, but we like them.

Just so we're clear

OK, Kate can't have all the fun. I want to blog too. So in this my birthday month, I just have to clarify that in a short few months, I am in fact marrying a "wild" dwelling monkey.

This one in fact:

All grown up

So....the moment has come. I finally feel like a grown up. Not only do we now have our own apartment but we just bought a couch. An actual, nice couch that we like and that is our style and that is not handed down from anyone or stolen from someone's trash on the street. And I love it. Even though the delivery process was a nightmare since neither of us could be home during the window they told us they would deliver it and my intern Kyle ended up waiting for it at our apartment (which was unbelieveable of him and i'm forever grateful). And apparently we're not the only ones to have a little bit of hate for Jennifer Convertibles...

http://www.realestateabc.com/insights/jenniferfurniture.htm

So hopefully thats not foreshadowing for what we'll have to deal with. But the couch is in now and we love it. And there's a perfect corner of it that butts up against geoff's desk so he can be working and I can be watching TV or reading on the couch and he can still lean over and kiss me. Which is gross to even tell people, but my exuberance over the couch and being a grown up has apparently taken over my common sense. My apologies.

Here it is....but ours is cream.

I MOVED!!!

Well, it finally came. Yesterday I picked up my life and moved it around the corner. I'd been in the same apartment for six and a half years and have finally moved into my own place. Well, it will really be Geoff's and mine too, but we're technically calling it "mine" until we get married in June. I AM SO EXCITED! We found a great (large) one bedroom in Sunnyside Queens, in the same neightborhood I've lived in for those six and half years, just actually around the corner from my old place. We are still a block from the subway but are closer to our favorite restuarants. The living room has enough space for Geoff to have an office and the bedroom has two sets of windows that meet in the corner with enough room for a king sized bed (which is good, since we need one - Geoff is 6'5" after all). I will post some pictures once it's all fixed up, but here are a few from when they were renovating before we moved in (it looks better now). The first is the cool windows in our bedroom and the second is of the new sconces in the living room. So fun!



Also, the best moment of moving day came at the very end. Our friends Jeremy & Megan stayed to help with getting the last few items into the apartment. We'd just finished, it was about 430pm and the four of us were sitting around in our box filled living room. We had one arm chair, a desk chair and two barstools we'd brought in from the kitchen, and i'd just frantically unwrapped a kichen box to pull out a few mugs so that I could get everyone some water. We were sitting there drinking our water when someone knocked on the door. I was so startled that i spilled water all over myself in an effort to get up and get to the door. When I opened it there were three women standing there. One had a full pot of coffee, the other a tray of teacups, saucers, plates, milk (which we found out later was steamed!) and sugar, and the third had a plate of chocolate cake (which we found out later was homemade). They explained that they lived right next door and had seen us moving in all day and was sure we'd had a long day and just wanted to bring something by. They basically came in, droped off manna from heaven, welcomed us and left us alone to enjoy it with our friends. Coffee never tasted so good. It might have been the fine china it was served in, or the exhaustion, or the juxtaposition of all that homemade goodness being served from a box that was doubling as a coffee table, but it was an AMAZING thing, perfectly timed, and I hope, forshadowing of how life will be for us in our new home.

Mark your calendars

We've set the date! Everyone plan on being in Middlebury, CT on the afternoon of Saturday June 14th to see Geoff and I get married. We now have the location, the date, the caterer, our photographer, the videographer and my dress (which i bought on accident with my mom over Thanksgiving. We were just going to "look", but when i tried on this dress, i cried unexpectedly and inexplicably, so i took that as a sign. Especially since I tried it on 4 times and cried 4 times). So I feel like we are pretty well on our way. And now I will do no more wedding planning until January, as December means Christmas, traveling, and moving into a new apartment. And that's enough for me.

Our first wedding appointment - The Caterer

Geoff and I had our very first wedding appointment together. What a surreal moment. It all begins! Michelle was nice. She didn’t have June 14th available and I don't want to have my birthday and the wedding in the same month. I know, it may be slightly ridiculous, and Geoff doesn't get it either, but really, why cram all the celebration into one tiny month? Spread the love, that's what I say. So I don’t know where that leaves us with the Hen of the Woods. But she did say she had a killer recipe for one of my favorite beverages, so that may well win out in the end.

Labor Day at the Cape

We spent Labor Day weekend at the Cape (as we like to do). This time my brother, Clay, joined us and we had a revolving door of friends stop through as well. Clay had recently bought a boat (a motor boat, as he is a man of action) for his contribution to the weekend. My contribution was 8 new wine glasses - 4 red, 4 white- which i LOVE. Can you tell who works for a non-profit? Clay took us out for a boat ride, during which we went so fast we were almost killed. Or at least it felt like that might be an option. I'm more of a sailboat kind of girl myself. We got soaked to the skin and nearly fell in the ocean and that was enough boat riding for me for the weekend. It was so fun to host friends, eat, drink and be merry. We had Liz and Katherine Kannenburg swing by for dinner one night. Liz and Kak's mom and my mom were college roommates and are still very close friends, so the four of us kids kind of grew up together. One of Clay's buddies from West Point also came by for a day or so and had fascinating stories to tell about his life in Hawaii and his time in Iraq before that. He'd been critically injured and the fact that he was there drinking beers and cooking out with us was really truly amazing, given what he'd been through. He's a great guy. Clay also introduced us to a lovely girl named Jenny who lives in Boston and who joined us as well for a day or so and who I think is great fun.


Just before we left I picked some beach plums which grow just below the deck, in hopes that mom and I could make some beach plum jelly - possibly for wedding favors. But that plan failed pretty quickly because not only did Clay forget to put half of them in the freezer after we left but while I was picking them (precariously balanced on a steep hill in the middle of prickly bushes, I might add) Geoff started throwing beach plums at me in an all out assult. Needless to say, then it was ON.


It all went by way too quickly and I wish we could go back and stay for weeks and weeks. Maybe someday our lives will allow us to "summer" at the Cape..... Ok, so clearly I'm not even a person who is in a position to use "summer" as a verb, let alone actually do it. But man, would it be nice....