A little craft update since I can’t sleep (again). As you know, my nephew Brady was born a couple weeks ago, and I embroidered his name on a (decorative, not functional) bib. I’ve done this for many of the special kids in my life. Here’s Brady’s:

Not my best work, but those bibs are hard to work with.

Also, I finished my dad’s christmas gift, and now that he’s opened it, I can share:

I think he liked it. The idea was to spend no more than $4.44 on a gift, and since I had all the materials for this on hand – fabric, embroidery floss, frame – it was basically free.

Next I’m working on some gifts and some decorative stuff for the wedding. And eventually the “Unity Quilt” of course.

I’d love it if you contributed to my and the Giraffe’s “Unity Quilt.” Get the details at S&M.

Have you seen my wedding band yet? It’s so simple and dainty and exactly what I wanted. I’m thinking about wearing it right now even though we’re not married yet.

The Giraffe’s is still being made, but we’ll be sure to share pictures when he gets it.

We’re having trouble generating conversation and feedback at our wedding blog. And it’s frustrating. I can see that people are reading, but I guess they don’t have much to say. We really do want to hear from other people, which is why we often ask for feedback or comments or ideas, but we don’t actually get very many.

Maybe it’s vain of me to think that people care enough about our silly wedding to take the time to comment, or maybe our blog is just boring and we’re oblivious because it’s so damn interesting to us (it’s our wedding, so duh). Yet people are reading. The stats tell me so. When we write a new Shan & Mike post, and especially when I link to one on facebook or twitter or here, I can see that people are going there and spending enough time to read. Yet the comments are few and far between.

It’s hard to write in a vacuum, which is why I’m so thankful for the little internet support group I’ve accumulated through this blog. And I know that Shan & Mike is new and it’s a very narrow topic, but we’re tackling more than just the details of wedding flowers and favors. We hit on some pretty meaty topics yo! Like marriage equality and patriarchal traditions.

While, yes, I’m hoping this will inspire you to take pity on us and visit our site and leave comments, mostly I’m just ranting.

You know what, let’s just cut the bullshit here. What I really want to know is… how come nobody wants to play with me? Do I smell? Am I wearing the wrong clothes? Did you hear rumors that I like to eat worms? What? What is it!

I thought some of you might be interested in what I wrote over at Shan & Mike yesterday about acknowledging our support of marriage equality in our wedding. And also I thought you might have some good ideas for us. I admit, that’s my real motive.

In case you missed it, I wrote about my dress for the wedding (and included pictures!). I’m definitely not a The Dress Must Be A Secret Or The Wedding Is Ruined! kind of girl — even the Giraffe has seen it — so go ahead. Check it out.

If you’re sick of ‘hearing’ me ‘talk’ about the last name topic, that’s ok. But if not, you should read about the last name ultimatum I heard live on the radio this morning. Crazy stuff.

[Want to read more on this topic? I've written about it here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.]

Have you heard of mint.com? Trying to save for a wedding has really opened my eyes to my money situation. I’ve managed to skate by every month, but sometimes barely, so trying to save a certain amount of money in a set amount of time has posed a major challenge, and it was a big wake up call.

For a long time the Giraffe has been suggesting we set a budget, or at least get a better idea of where our money goes. I’m pretty frugal, but I’m not good at sticking to a budget. Life is too messy and unpredictable for that. But it did make sense to get a better idea of how I spend my money.

Enter my friend Robin (of recent weddinghood), who told me about mint.com. It connects to all your loans, accounts, credit cards, etc. and keeps track of your spending, your savings and your financial goals.

When you get started, you tell mint where your stuff is (accounts, loans, all that), it connects to that site, asks for your login/account info, and pulls in all your information. Once all your stuff is gathered, you can set up a budget and financial goals.

Then there’s all kinds of fun graphs and charts and stuff that help you visual your spending. So when you charge $10 at McDonald’s, mint.com recognizes that you just spent $10 in the “Fast Food” category. And you can change the categories as needed. If you spend $50 at Target, mint might categorize that under “Personal Care” but you know you actually bought a gift for a friend’s wedding shower, so you change it to “Gifts” next time you log in.

You can also set goals. Like, say, for instance you want to save $2,000 for a wedding by June. Tell mint and it’ll help you figure out how and keep track of how well you’re doing. I haven’t figured out if you can merge two accounts though. Since the Giraffe and I are saving for the wedding together, it’d be nice to look at all of our accounts and savings as a whole. Anyone know if it’s possible?

If you want a better picture of your financial situation, you should check it out. It’s all free, the website is easy to use and pretty to look at, and I think it’s pretty safe and secure.

[I'm not getting paid in any way to promote this site, I just thought it might be useful to others.]

[Also posted at Shan & Mike.]

One of my very best friends in the world (Robin) got married this past Saturday. You should check it out. And even if you don’t care about their wedding, there’s a bonus picture of me rocking out to “It Must Have Been Love” that’ll make your click worth it.

Big weekend coming up. My dear friend Robin is getting married on Saturday, and it’s a whole wedding weekend extravaganza. Mike and I are Master and Mistress (I’m a Mistress!) of Ceremonies, so we have a lot of responsibilities. Starting tomorrow morning it’s full-on wedding mode.

This is the girl who, at many points, truly believed she might be alone forever. She did have a pretty rough romantic road, but Jason, her almost-husband, is pretty frickin’ awesome. They are very lucky to have each other. In January Robin and I moved out of the apartment we shared, and she moved far far away (about an hour) from me to be with Jason. Oh how I miss her. But also, oh happy I am for her!

And did I mention that I’m giving a toast? Yeah. So that’ll be fun nerve-wracking. Wish me luck! And also them!

So the Grand Canyon. What is there to say? It’s amazing. I was worried about all the commercialization because that’s what I hated about Niagara Falls. When I recall my visit there, I think not about the majesty of the falls but about the obnoxiousness of all the people and gift shops and parking lots that surround them.

Luckily the Grand Canyon was a different experience, at least for me. Yes there are LOTS of people and LOTS of shops/lodges/visitor centers and LOTS of parking lots and cars. But there was also many moments when we found ourselves walking or standing near the canyon all alone.

As I mentioned, we camped there Monday night, and we packed up camp right away in the morning. Like 6 because we slept so poorly. Ludicrous right? Our first stop was the canyon coffee shop so we could get caffeine and also steal electricity to charge my camera battery. As we were walking out, I glanced to my right and saw a big hole in the ground. “Holy crap is that it right there?” It was. So we walked out to see the canyon for the first time. You really can’t quite believe it until you see it.

Then we took a shuttle that goes to one of the furthest points with several stops along the way. I thought it was a pretty good way to see the canyon. You get many different vantage points, and there’s the option to walk from point to point and then hop back on the shuttle when you feel like it.

I don’t even know what to show you because none of my photos look any different from other GC photos, but here’s the muddy river that created this behemoth:

And here’s one that doesn’t even come close to demonstrating the vastness of this thing:

And for good measure, here’s proof that we were indeed there:

We probably could have stayed longer, but we had a five plus hour drive to get to our hotel for the night, so we left the park in the early afternoon. When you get up at 6 apparently you can get a lot done! The road to the east exit of the park runs along the canyon so we made a lot of stops on our way out, as well.

Once outside the park I was fascinated by all the roadside “Indian” (I’m really uncomfortable with that term for Native Americans, but that’s what the signs said. I think it’s done to appease all the white tourists.) shops that mostly sold hand-crafted jewelry. I was hankering for an authentic hand-made turquoise piece because it’s my birthstone, but I didn’t buy anything. To be honest, I like subtle, simple turquoise and all these pieces were a little much for me.

We didn’t plan the next phase of our trip very well because we made a last minute decision to visit Bryce Canyon and never changed our hotel reservation to accommodate that. So Monday night, after GC, we drove all the way to Hurricane, UT which took us through Zion National Park. The original plan was to stay in Hurricane and explore Zion all day Tuesday. But instead we stayed in Hurricane, then drove back through Zion Tuesday morning to get to Bryce, then drove back through Zion on the way to Las Vegas. Did you get that? Three times through Zion! Which is a stunning place, so we didn’t mind, but the backtracking was silliness on our part.

Anyway, boring details, sorry. The point is that we drove through Zion Monday evening and stayed in Hurricane overnight. I started feeling sick that night, too. I had a sore throat all day, but I wasn’t too concerned. However, when I woke up in the middle of the night because I had to puke, then I worried. Sick while traveling? Again? Fuck.

I don’t yet have my Zion or Bryce pictures uploaded, so I’ll share those next time.

(You love my trip recaps, don’t lie.)

Thanks for all the congratulations and well wishes. You guys sure make me feel good. I’m sure I’ll write here about wedding plans as they progress, but if you’re really interested in following along, check out the joint blog the Giraffe and I created: Shan & Mike.

We’ve talked about doing a blog together for awhile, and keeping friends and family informed of our evolving plans seemed like a good way to start. But I also hope it’s interesting to others because we are inevitably doing things a little different than I think many couples do, and we’re doing it on a pretty limited budget. So basically how to do a “nontraditional” wedding on the cheap. Or how we’re doing it at least.

We’ll probably cover other things too, couple-y and otherwise, and it will most likely evolve into something else entirely post-wedding. So if you want, head on over and check it out.

I’m getting married!

I can’t believe how my life has changed in the last year. I never expected to meet anyone so soon after feeling so heartbroken, and when I signed up for match.com in November, I didn’t really believe I’d find anyone. People to go out with? Yes. But someone I would love? Hardly. But here we are, only eight months later and not only am I in love, but I’m engaged.

The Giraffe and I never really avoided the topic of marriage. I think we’ve been talking about the possibility from the beginning – maybe that happens when you get to a certain age. Over the summer we started to talk more and more seriously about it, even discussing the details of a wedding. Pretty soon we were talking about potential wedding dates, and then we had to stop and ask ourselves how serious we were about this. Turns out, pretty damn serious.

A while ago our friend Erica (E – get a website so I can link to you!), an aspiring photographer, said she was always looking for ‘models’ to practice on. I never planned on doing an actual engagement session like many couples do, but I thought it’d be fun to pose for a fake one anyway. So on July 19 we did a (free) faux engagement photo session. At that point we knew we wanted to get married, but we hadn’t used the term “engaged” yet. One passerby saw us posing for photos and asked, “engagement session?” Well sort of, we answered. And it was that night that we decided to officially consider ourselves engaged.

Soon after, we both bought engagement rings. I got permission to pick his out with no help from him, and we picked out mine together (I had something VERY specific in mind!), and we split the cost. His is titanium with a black walnut inlay. Mine is white gold with a cushion cut green amethyst. His came in last week, and I got mine yesterday. I pretty much love it.

We’ve started planning a wedding, but nothing is for sure yet. We are both determined to keep it low-stress and low-budget because the actual wedding is just not worth a lot of anxiety or cash to us. After seeing how much work my sister’s and friends’ wedding were/are and how much drama surrounds them, we’re more determined than ever to keep it simple. We’ve even discussed the possibility of elopement or a trip to the court house.

No matter what we do, we’re both very, very happy.

(Also, my baby sister proposed to her boyfriend in July, and another sister was proposed to last night. So now one of us is married and three of us are engaged. There’s a seven year age difference between the four of us, but somehow we all met our match at the same time. So weird.)