Weddings, weddings, weddings!

I thought last year was a crazy year for weddings (I went to 7 and 4 were in the span of 15 days - Sunday, Saturday, Saturday, Sunday) but this year is even crazier because of the multiple destinations.

The FI (I'm promoting him from "boy", I think that stands for "future intended") and I counted up the weddings we're going to this year and we're already at 8!

- April - his friends' wedding in Long Island
- May - his cousin's wedding where he's best man
- June - my best friend's wedding where I'm maid of honor
- July - my cousin's wedding (technically this could be 2 since they're having ceremonies in Japan and Taiwan)
- August #1 - my college friend's wedding in VA
- August #2 - we each have one on the same day! - he's going to his friend's in long island and I'm going to my b-school friend's in Portland, Oregon
- September - my college friend's wedding in VA
- December - my friend's destination wedding on a cruise!

Whew, at least they're fairly spaced out. We've still got some room in October and November if anyone else is thinking of getting hitched. :)

My favorite wrap...

It gets really cold in our offices. Like shivering, have-to-wear-your-outerwear cold.

There are a few staples that every woman in our building has in her cube. Underneath the desk, there is a pile of dress shoes. Everyone wears sneakers or flip-flops or rainboots or snowboots (depending on the weather) in to work. Then when we get to our desks, we kick off our shoes and pull on a pair of heels.

I finally got a shoe rack to put underneath my desk. My shoes (which ended up being 10 pairs after I sorted and stacked them) were just lost in a big pile and I would never wear some of them. Instead I'd wear the same pair day-in and day-out because I find them right in front.

Back to the cold thing...

The other item every lady has is some sort of wrap/sweater/scarf that hangs on a hook or hanger in their cube. I have a pink wild silk scarf that I got from my Madagascar trip. I also have a beautiful cashmere/silk wrap from BCBG. I saw Su-Cha with 2 when we were in San Francisco and knew I had to have one as well. It's one of my more expensive splurges (yes, I am thrifty), but it's totally worth it. It's light and soft but still warm. I love throwing the long pieces in front over my shoulders so I'm all wrapped up. It's good to look good and be warm at the same time.

Pretty perfume bottles...

I love buying stuff at Sephora. Both in the store and online. In the store I love running around trying lipsticks and perfumes on and testing out new lotions.

I even learned from a Sephora saleslady how to use testers with makeup. You first take a cotton pad, soak it in alcohol, and then wipe the tester. Then you take a q-tip or applicator and scrape off whatever make-up you want to test. Finally you take another applicator and test the make-up on you. Basically your germs never touch the tester and vice-versa.

I did some online shopping last week at Sephora's. I wanted to get some new perfume and I had grown to like Marc Jacobs' Daisy. I had a small sample that was almost out so I wanted to buy a bottle. It smells super delicious - a combination of fresh flowers and a little bit of exoticness. Also the bottle is super pretty and elegant.

Look how cute it is! The bottle itself is sturdy and classy, a very sleek and substantial design. The daisies on the cap are rubber and they make pulling the cap off really easy. What a great combination of cute and elegant.

I told the boy that it was going to sit on the dresser and "girlify" up the place.

(Image: Sephora.com)

I also bought the Sephora Brand Sun Safety Kit which is filled with oodles of sample sof sun products. I am a huge user of sunscreen and sunblock, having had a few painful sunburns. Thanks to mulitple tubes and spray cans of Neutrogena sun protection, that hasn't happend for a while. I love Neutrogena sun products! They're non-greasy, absorb really quickly, smell really nice, and keep me sun protected. I think I have 5 tubes and 2 spray bottles currently in my apartment. :)

Math as arts & crafts...

I just finished making a cross-stitch for my best friend's 2nd baby. I put in all the backstitching last night and embroidered her name and birthday.

I love doing the backstitching and personalization on a piece because 1) I'm excited that I'm nearing the end and 2) backstitching always adds a extra layer of detail and realism (in as much as it can to a bear sitting on the moon) that makes the image more alive and clear.

Now it's under a pile of magazines and books. Since the fabric came in a kit, it was folded up and there were heavy creases. I'm trying to flatten it out as much as possible before I frame it. I'll probably have to take a hot iron to it, but it's really hard to get folds out of aida fabric (the graphy fabric used for cross-stitch).

I really like doing cross-stitch for babies and weddings because the final touch is always the personalization. You know the piece isn't going to be given away or regifted because it was made just for them.

Cross-stitching has been a long-time hobby of mine. I like the exactness required, the variations of patterns and design, and I spend the same brain power I use towards puzzles on trying to figure out how to use the least amount of thread and not waste any material. As I do the cross-stitches, my mind is always one step ahead thinking, "Where should I stitch so I don't waste thread and get to the next row of stitches?"

When I started doing cross-stitch, the one thing that stuck in my mind from everything I read was that "the back of your cross-stitch should be as neat as the front." I pride myself on having extremely neat and clean emboirdery backs because it's that much more difficult to do.

I miss sewing on a regular basis. I didn't have room for all my arts & crafts stuff when I moved to NYC, so I haven't done it for a while. Now I'm just working with some all-in-one kits. Next time I go back to VA, I need to dig out all my threads and fabrics and pattern books. One kit probably costs 8 to 10 bucks, but buying all of the materials (threads and fabrics) separately would cost me just 5 bucks and I would be able to do several projects from the same materials. I had a couple of books of hundreds of fonts and lettering designs. I would spend so much time designing a cross-stitch by picking out a font, spelling the name out, counting the stitches, measuring out fabric, picking out colors, and then working on the piece. It was fun to see those come together.

Pouring coffee all day...

This morning the boy and I went help out at University Soup Kitchens. They're an all-volunteer organization that does a soup kitchen once a week in the Lower East Side. The NYC UVA Alumni Association goes and volunteers once a month, which is how I heard about them.

This was my 2nd time volunteering. I signed up for the 2nd shift which starts at 11:45am. The first shift starts at 8:45 and who can get up that early on a Saturday?

It's a very cool set-up for a soup kitchen. Instead of having a buffet/cafeteria style service, it's actually restaurant style, where the volunteers serve the patrons at their seats. The main course is always meatloaf and they have salad and veggies and bread and bananas and brownies for dessert. They also started branching out into other services, like there's a free clothes table and everyone gets a bag of food when they leave.

The first time I was there, I managed the clothes table. Once we got a sense of what was available, we'd try to find something for each person to take with them. We became fashion consultants. We'd ask what they'd like and then offer recommendations and tell them they looked good or tell them they should go for something different.

This time the boy got bussing duties and I was responsible for serving coffee. The coffee was made in this gigantic brewer with 1 pound of coffee at a time and a filter with a 1 foot diameter. The first time I tried to brew coffee, I nearly spilled grounds everywhere because I didn't realize you could pull the whole grill out with the filter and grounds all in it. After brewing, we'd have to transfer it, pot by pot, into a dispenser, and then wheel it out into the eating area. Then we'd fill a pot and walk around to fill people's cups.

It was fun to walk around and talk to people and offer them drinks. My hands got really cramped up since I had to clutch the coffee pot pretty tightly. There was no insulation on the pot, so you couldn't use your other hand to support it. But I can pour coffee with my left hand, so I was able to switch back and forth. Although my hands will be pretty cramped tomorrow.

We serve for 1 hour and a half and the time just flies by. You are on your feet the entire time moving around and trying to help everyone as fast as you can. But everyone was very nice and polite and grateful that they were getting some good food.

It was a good morning, but we were pretty tired afterwards and ended up taking a nap for 2 hours.

The start of the guest list...

The wedding planning.... eek! Our friends who had just gotten married or are in the middle of planning their weddings kept telling us it's incredibly stressful and it's like a 2nd job.

The fact that 3 couples told us this in a row at a wedding we attended recently made us very nervous (not that we weren't already about being engaged and getting married). But then one friend told the boy that he (and I) shouldn't do anything wedding-related for 2 weeks after getting engaged. "Enjoy the engagement!" he said.

So the 2 weeks are up now and we need to start thinking about all the parts of the wedding. I've signed up for The Knot, Wedding Channel, and set up RSS feeds to wedding blogs. I even tried to buy a wedding planner at Borders, but after seeing the 2 bookshelves full of pink and flower books, I got scared and left without buying anything.

So we took our first stab at making a guest list. Easiest to start with family of course... because even if you're not very close, you have to invite them.

The boy opened a spreadsheet and started typing in all of his family's names. Heehee... several were labeled "uncle's wife" or "kid" or "kid?". He was like, "I don't know their names!" or "I'm pretty sure they have a kid..." I then added mine - all of the aunts and uncles and cousins and significant others and first cousins once removed.

And the grand total? 154 adults, 20 kids (under 13) for a total of 174 family members!

Good grief!

I think we'll enjoy our engagement a little longer...

Don't have time to laugh...

I just started watching 30 Rock this season because the boy really likes it. I actually didn't watch it last season because I had too many shows on my t.v. schedule (e.g. a color-coordinated spreadsheet) and I didn't think Tina Fey would be a great leading lady.

Oh how that's changed. I love 30 Rock! It is so absurd and extreme with jokes and plotlines. I love how jokes and one-liners don't get reaction scenes from the characters. They just take the absurdity as part of life, which makes it even funnier. The boy pauses episodes sometimes just so he has "time to laugh".

The one scene that I love to repeat word-for-word is everyone's reactions when Kenneth the page announces he's leaving New York and NBC to return home to Georgia.

Dot Com or Grizz: Who's going to see Spamalot with me?
Dot Com or Grizz: Who's going to be my wingman at speed dating?
Tracy: Who's going to help me tell white people apart?

Hee-hee...