Loving this...

A Guy's Opinion: Planning a Wedding Is No Big Deal

It would be even funnier if I weren't prone to getting totally stressed out about wedding stuff...

From now on, I'll just pretend I'm totally chill about wedding planning and never get stressed out (and I'll just count on the fact that you won't talk to my mom, John, my sisters, John's mom, my dad, several of my friends, random people on the street...) ;)

But things are good...my dress is here! and wonderful! and Brenna's boyfriend agreed to play guitar for pre-ceremony and aisle-walking time...so I'm really excited about that, too!

Yay!

Too hot for wool (blend) socks

Just finished these this morning...had to turn on the air conditioning and eat a bowl of ice cream just to get the pictures taken ;)



Pattern--7 stitches per inch pattern from Getting Started Knitting Socks

Yarn: Lion Brand Magic Stripes (thanks to Nancy for letting me buy it off her ;))

Started on May 16th, finished July 26th

Best part: I finally learned a better way to pick up stitches...I held off looking into it for so long, decided on the second sock that I was going to see if I couldn't find a tutorial on the internet, found one--and learned the mystery of picking up stitches in about 30 seconds...it makes sooo much more sense and looks better than what I've been doing for the past three years

And the weekend zooms by...

(Me and Callie on the way to Nancy's for a cookout)

I'm at the end of a wonderful and busy weekend. First, John's best friend Peter came to enjoy Brew Week. We hung out on Friday evening and then they headed off to the bars and I headed to the couch to watch August Rush (so cute!) and knit.

Saturday, we watched that silly basketball movie with Will Ferrell--the name is totally escaping me right now--and went to Boogie on the Bricks uptown. There was music from the Royales, hay bales to sit on, and beer to drink (although I think they ran out of all the good microbrews at 6...so by 10:30 we weren't drinking anything awesome). It was a really fun time and great atmosphere...we ran into Stephanie and then headed to Tony's to enjoy the very last of Brew Week...stayed out way past my bedtime (which, at the latest should be midnight) but it was definitely worth it!

When it was all said and done, I tried 15 different microbrews--my favorites being White Weasel Wheat from the Weasel Boy Brewing Company, Scholz (??-I don't think that's the spelling but I'm really not going to look it up right now) from the Marietta Brewing Company, and the Raspberry Wheat from Jackie O's. John tried somewhere around 40 beers, with his favorites being Dark Apparition from Jackie O's, Dark Horse from Elevator (or was it Magic Hat?) and the beers from Barley's (but we knew that one already) and is planning to start sampling on Monday next year ;)

Sunday was for sleeping in (I wish someone would tell Callie though!) and then working on the wedding invitations...they're almost ready to be printed but I'm not fooling with them anymore tonight. Then we went out to Nancy and Brian's for a cookout...we had a great time and Callie wore herself out running around and playing with their dog Brady. Came home and did a few of the chores we've been ignoring. Now, Callie's asleep in the middle of the floor (and believe me, I'm not far off from it) and John went to see The Dark Knight with a friend from work...

whew!

Baby tomatoes...

I also have one baby Roma tomato (something has eaten all the others) and tiny banana peppers. My squash plants are flowery but looking pretty pathetic...I'm thinking maybe I should've sprayed them for their mildew issue instead of just leaving it.

Other news...

My wedding dressed is being shipped to me right now! I can't wait to have it and see it!

It's Ohio Brew Week in Athens, so I've been having fun trying a few of the micro-brews that are in the local bars this week. John's been having significantly more fun than me (because he's decided that he needs to try them all ;) ).

Fireworks!

We went to Lancaster for the 4th of July--got to hear the Marine Corps Band play and watch all the fireworks. I also decided to take my camera and my itty-bitty tripod to see what kind of pictures I could get.




Before we left I goolged "taking pictures of fireworks" (I don't know what I ever did without the internet!) and got all the tips I needed to try it out...including the idea that, since I didn't have a remote, I should use the self-timer function so that I wouldn't shake the camera pushing down the shutter button...

So here's how our firework watching went down...I hear them shooting off a firework. I press the button...there's a ten second delay, then my camera takes the picture for about 6 seconds and then the picture shows up on the back screen. I press the button again, 10 second delay (cringe as I realize that I've missed all the fireworks this time), takes picture for 6 seconds, picture of nothing shows up on the screen, and...I push the button again, 10 second delay...



I did this for pretty much the whole show...took about 80 pictures, most of which were of a TOTALLY blank sky...but I did end up with a few that I liked. Probably would've worked a little bit better with a remote, but then, it wouldn't have been quite so exciting ;)



(also, thanks to John for picking a great spot to sit...you do know your fairgrounds ;) )

Garden (and everything else) Update

I have good news--my garden is doing well and I've only had one almost casualty (in a Monty Python-esque way that little tomato plant is "not dead yet" but I think it will be soon). Here's the overall picture of how everything's doing...



(You can see kind of the strawberry plants on the side, tomato plants in the middle, one yellow squash in the back side, banana peppers in the front right, and zucchini and acorn squash on the back right)

A few weeks ago, I moved them all to the center of our backyard so they'd get more sunshine. The plants all seem to be doing better out there, and we've only had one Callie/tomato plant collision right after I moved them. I was concerned that hauling water out there would be a big pain, but it's been raining on and off so much that I've only had to water them a couple times.

I did get some miracle grow (the kind you mix in the watering can) and it has been kind of impressive...



I'm crediting it with bringing the zucchini and acorn squash back from near death (or else squash has some crazy regenerative super powers that I wasn't aware of!). I'm excited that they've perked back up, and am looking forward to (hopefully...maybe) having some squash in the future.



Another exciting development--flowers on the tomato plants! More proof that plants the are in my care may actually produce vegetables. It's totally amazing to me!

Other pictures...



One of the banana pepper plants--they were originally in a too-small container so I wasn't sure if they'd ever do their growing thing...but it looks like they've perked up a bit (another Miracle Grow success story?).



My herbs seem to be doing okay, too...I don't think they're big enough to start cutting them yet though (in this picture--Basil, the second pot has rosemary, curled parsley, and thyme, and the third pot is lavender). I'd like to also have dill and mint but I haven't bought them yet, so we'll see...

The plants on my porch are doing well...and I went through and weeded the flower bed along the sidewalk. Last Sunday, I planted wave petunias there (heck yeah, $5 at Lowes for 30 plants...turns out it does pay to procrastinate sometimes) so I'm hoping they grow and fill in some more (either way it looks better than all the crazy weeds that were out there). One of my hanging baskets is looking a little yellow-ish...so I'm cutting back on watering it some (it's holding the water like crazy so I think it may have some draining issues) and I'm going to make sure it gets some magical miracle grow, too.

What I've learned so far:

1) Make sure to get ever-bearing strawberries. My two strawberry plants produced a grand total of 3 strawberries--2 that were eaten by the bird and one that I split (yes, I cut the little thing in half) with John. They're still growing but don't seem inclined to produce any more berries.

2) Tomato plants need taller stakes or cages. I had one plant break in the last storm and another that was all bent over because their stakes (umm...actually random sticks from our yard) were too short. So I found some bigger random sticks to use as additional stakes...but I think next year, I may just start with cages and let them do their thing.

3)Using bigger pots for the veggies could be a good idea...they seem to be doing okay, but I've seen pictures of HUGE tomato plants in containers...so maybe next year we'll do that.

And now...everything else...

Wedding planning is going (only 4 months to go!). We still need to get the cake lined up, but we've got a meeting next week for that (and I think it's going to be adorable!!). I got his wedding band, and we're still looking for mine. Having some trouble finding a band that looks good with my engagement ring, but we'll keep looking. I'm designing the invitations and having them printed here...so that'll be happening sometime soon. We also found readings that we both like a couple nights ago (!!) which is something I wasn't sure would happen.

We're going up to Lancaster for the holiday weekend, staying with John's parents. Hopefully, we'll get to see the fireworks tonight and the Marine Corp Band perform tonight(it's a little bit rainy), and then we'll be helping paint the living room on Saturday and Sunday.

Well, that's about it here...hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!!