The good:
The wedding itself, which was beautiful.
Jen and I going to Barnes and Noble (yay books!!) and to this makeup store called Sephora-- the girl who worked there, Elli, was fantastic. Jen got some stuff for the wedding and I got a couple of lipsticks that actually don't make me feel like a circus clown, so that was cool.
Heading out on walks around the condo at Keystone . . . gorgeous area, and all the people we met on the trails were so nice.
Seeing the mountains again.
Kaylee only crying in the car for about five minutes total out of a 24-hour round trip.
Coming home to find Season 4 of Supernatural ((yay!!! Amanda, get here asap. ;-)))

The bad:
Having a bit of a mini-panic attack at the reception due to there being a heck of a lot of people around I didn't know. I ended up hiding in one of the bedrooms and hoping no one would notice I was gone, but that didn't work out so well. Feh on my weird crowd-phobia thing.
Driving home in the pouring rain, and of course the storm followed us home and I got woken up several times by thunder crashing.
Coming home to a full inbox, and then actually opening said inbox and finding that everything was from spammers.

The ugly:
The hairdresser Jen went to (or rather, the hairdresser's boss). Went to a place called Fantastic Sam's, and the girl who did Jenny's hair was awesome, but when she got done with it the boss confronted her and Aunt Karen and demanded forty more dollars. Apparently at salons like that you pay for a couple of hairstyles pre-wedding to see which one you like best, and the stylist could only do one on the first day, so Jen came back for the other. The boss wanted to count that as a whole separate thing rather than something that had already been paid for, and finally Aunt Karen just paid the extra. Which I'm sure is what the idiot was counting on, pouncing at somebody less than six hours before the wedding. They're apparently going to file a complaint with the BBB, though, so that's good.
The lady who rented them the two condos for everyone to stay in for the overnight party/reception told Aunt Karen when she went to pick up the keys that one wasn't clean and oh by the way, she thought the owners might still be in it, but she'd "hook her up" with something else (which turned out to of course be more expensive). Fortunately Aunt Karen found a different place, but man was it all seriously stressful.

Since we got pictures back from the wedding photographer, I finally made a page for some of the wedding pictures. :-)

Got the wedding pictures back! They look really great; now all we have to do is order what we want and once those come in, I'll be scanning/website updating.

And... Kath got the edit of Unexpected (the sequel to We Were Strangers) done!! So I'll be going through that today. Hopefully it'll be published by the end of the year-- when it is, trust me, you'll read about it here. Heh.

Today has been a good day.

I am done with thank-you notes! Done, I tell you!!

Now all I have to do is print them off, address the envelopes and send them. *whimper*

I don't like the notes because I always think I'm going to misplace something and accidentally forget to thank somebody.

Also, because my handwriting is absolutely atrocious. I've solved that problem by typing the notes themselves and signing them by hand. I know that looks impersonal to some people, but at least it can be read. lol

Okay, now that I have more than five minutes at the computer... :-)

Wedding and honeymoon stuff behind the cut, since this got a little long.

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Back from the honeymoon!!

I'll do a bigger update on the wedding/honeymoon/etc. soon, but I just wanted to check in and say hello. :-)

So we went to the jeweler's to pick up our resized rings. And when we got there, they gave them to us and said that they just got them back today and they couldn't be resized. Us-- O_o

But, as it turns out, it's for the best-- I was wearing mine on my pinky for about half an hour, and it started to turn my finger green. At first I thought it might just be me, because I'm allergic to every little thing skin-wise, but then Chris took his off and saw that it was turning his finger green, too.

Which means it's highly doubtful those rings were sterling silver. I might order something from pyramidcollection.com in the future, but it won't be rings.

So we're shipping the rings back and getting a refund, and in the meantime I bought a new ring at Wal-Mart (purple and green stones with a silver band) and Chris ordered one from them (they only go up to a size 12 without ordering them) so it should be in before Friday of next week. Here's hoping.

And now, off to finish packing and housecleaning.

My appetite has definitely been going down over the past few days. I think it's nerves. :-P What's weird is that mentally I feel fine about the wedding, so I guess I'm giving in to the "AIEEEEEEEEE" vibe another way.

The strange thing is, my ideas have also gone up. I've figured out how to solve a novel problem that'd been bugging me (Ashley, I will email or call you about this) and come up with a few new story ideas to insert into the latest novel.

So at least that's good.

And we went and applied for the marriage license today, and I just ordered a box of checks with my new last name on it (boy, is *that* gonna take some getting used to). Though I've decided I'm going to keep using my maiden name when it comes to publishing.

All for now.

And here's what this afternoon has been like...



Impulse: Wanna start the new novel. Now.

Sanity: "Not a good idea. We're getting married in less than a month. That's going to leave a pretty big break not long from now with no real writing opportunites. Wait to start a new project until after the honeymoon."

But the characters-- they're chattering.

"They'll get used to it. All the others have."

Used to it?? If that's what you call tormenting us on a regular basis.

"Hush."

New Microsoft Word document. Calling our name...

"Go away."

What else are we going to do? We don't have the van, so there's no way of carting more stuff over to Chris's. Got most everything packed that isn't breakable, out of boxes so we can't even pack the breakable things yet.

"Geez, you're annoying."

But...?

"But, all right. One of these days, though, I am going to win an argument with you."

Keep dreaming.

In less than a month, I'm going to be married.

::blinkblink::

Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ashley visited a few days ago, and somewhere in the midst of running around terrorizing the populace, we found time to go through my song list for the wedding reception. ;-) So here, trimmed down to 45 songs, in order, is the playlist:

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And a 'yay' for Ashley, who's doing me a huge favor by getting the CDs for this done so I don't have to mess with it. lol

Yay, I think the registries are finished. LOL For anyone who's curious, here's what we've set up:

JC Penney

Amazon.com

Wal-Mart

We met with the minister yesterday-- Chris has known him for a long time, it was the first time I'd met him-- and he was really nice. So we worked out a few things about the ceremony, etc. Then today mom and I went to the florist's to get a few last things taken care of, and on Monday we're calling the photographer to get our engagement photo in the paper. 900 million things to do.

Saw Mindhunters yesterday, which was pretty fun-- and contained several points where I was leaning over to Chris (who knows much more about weaponry than I do) to ask things like, "Umm...can guns really fire underwater?" lol

While waiting for the movie, we went into the mall, and something weird happened . . . we were heading to a clothing store, and I saw a billfold lying on the ground. I opened it up and saw a bunch of stuff in it, so Chris and I took it to the customer service desk. I told Chris that I hoped whoever'd lost it would go there and get it back, but that I was pretty sure we'd never find out one way or the other. Then we went into the clothing store, and less than five minutes later a woman comes in asking the saleslady if she'd seen a billfold on the floor in there somewhere. :-)

On a 'this is cool' note-- got a postcard from CHAS (Children's Hospice Association of Scotland), inviting me and a guest to take a preview tour of the new section of their hospice, Robin House, during June or July.

Can't afford it, and I think Chris would be just slightly miffed if I said, "Sorry, honey, can't make the wedding, I'm in Scotland", but it is neat that they're holding tours and everything. *S*

Okay, when I told mom that I might try to lose a couple of pounds before the wedding because I tried on my dress again and it was a little snug around the middle, I did not mean "lose a couple of pounds by getting a cold and therefore not wanting to eat anything". Bah.

So I was sitting here, typing and sniffling and generally feeling sorry for myself and cursing at the entire planet every time I sneezed, and then mom and dad come back from some errand-running and mom hands me the DVD of Alone in the Dark.

Me: *purrrrrrrrrrrrr*

Happy Mother's Day!

What I did-- headed off to Joplin with mom to help her find a dress to wear in the wedding. Went to four stores, and then as we were heading back home I suggested a store in town that might have something. And she found something there. ;-) I also found a pair of pink leopard print pants. Just because. It was a good day.

And I saw Phantom of the Opera on Friday... thought it was fun, had a great time reading cleolinda's Movie in Fifteen Minutes of it, but I do have one question-- what is with the whole view of the Phantom as a romantic figure? The guy is obsessed with Christine, to the point of not wanting her to even speak with other men, he kills people for basically no reason, etc. and etc. I spent half the movie thinking, 'Run away from the scary stalker man, Christine'. So... ????

Well, I didn't do quite as badly as I thought I was going to. First run-through netted me 52 songs. Not that it was simple... a snippet of my interior monologue:

Hyperness: Oooh! What about this one?
Commmon Sense: Look, I know you love The Association’s “Requiem for the Masses”, but it’s not an appropriate wedding reception song. And “Getting Married Today” from Side by Side by Sondheim would be funny, but it is not in any way dance music.
Hyperness: Goodbye, Columbus?
Common Sense: Good song. Not dance music. Limit yourself to *dance music*. I mean it.

So, yeah.

If you're curious, here's the songs I've picked out, in no particular order. I will post the final selections, in order, closer to the wedding. But for now, here's what I've got. :-)

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Okay, did some figuring for the music at the wedding reception... the reception, so far as we know, is going to be three hours long. Assuming each song lasts about four minutes, that's fifteen songs per hour. Forty-five songs total.

I have a hundred and thirty CDs, people.

*wanders away muttering about how she's going to narrow this down*

Reservations were just confirmed-- this is where we'll be staying for most of our honeymoon. :-)

I need to be a useful little human being and write out a list of songs that I'm going to play at the wedding reception. Maybe I could do that tomorrow.

Or I can start editing the first draft of my newly-finished novel. (which is going to be titled "In the Darkness Find Me"-- thanks to spectralbovine and finniscs for input! *S*)

Hm. Decisions.