Buy Me A Drink…

Sing Me A Song…

Married Life… October 25, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 6:35 pm

I love being married.  I really do.  Nothing really feels very different, but little things get me every once in a while.

Yesterday, we opened a joint savings account.  We have one with ING Direct, but needed one more accessible to deposit all of the checks we received from the wedding that were made out to both of us.

From there, we went furniture shopping, and in the span of 2 hours, bought a new couch from Living Spaces, a new bar cabinet from Crate & Barrel to hold all that new wedding crystal and such, and a couple of paintings for our ridiculously bare walls.  (When we moved in, we were in the middle of wedding planning and never really had time to decorate.)

When we got home, I waxed the floors in preparation of the delivery of the couch, and my wife (feels weird to say!) worked on cleaning up the back yard a bit.

It’s a simple life, but it feels good.

Our new couch feels pretty damn good right now, too!

 

The Professional Pics… October 22, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 9:56 pm

How do I love our photographer?  Let me count the ways…

 

Wedding Photos… October 21, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 9:41 pm

While I wait for the professional photographer to sort through the gazillion photos I’m sure she took, I keep myself satisfied by looking at the 546 photos that Val’s cousin took.  I don’t know how she managed to take 546 photos, but I’m sure glad to have them!  So here are a few gratuitous wedding photos:

 

And we’re married… October 18, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 9:12 pm
Tags: , , ,

Our wedding could not have been more perfect.  Sure, things went wrong… but even so… perfect.

We were able to shock our friends and family with news that we are actually legally married.  We tied the knot for real last July while it was legal in California, and kept it a secret until our wedding day.  The gasp in the crowd was fantastic.  Everyone cried.  It was just so… perfect!

And the best part?  My brother and sister by my side.

 

4 Days to go… October 7, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 1:34 am

In four days, I will walk down the aisle to the woman I love and we will promise to love each other for the rest of our lives in front of 150 of our friends and family.

My brother and my sister will stand next to me. For the first time in years, our family photos will be complete.

Even the weather looks like it will be perfect. 80 and sunny. I couldn’t ask for anything better.

It seems surreal when I think about it. Perfect, but surreal.

Wedding gifts keep arriving at our doorstep… generosity that I never imagined. Gifts from people I haven’t seen in ten years… people who aren’t invited, but who heard through the grapevine and just want to show us that they are happy for us. It’s amazing.

And fun! After all, who doesn’t love presents, right? Crystal vases and wine glasses, silver candlestick holders… even a Kitchenaid mixer (I have ALWAYS wanted one, but they are so expensive!).

Val is horribly sick right now… our biggest concern at the moment is that she just gets well… and that I don’t catch it. At urgent care yesterday, her temperature was 103. I went and got some antibiotics, but who knows if they’ll have any effect. I have a supply of zinc, vitamin c and echinacea…

I will NOT be sick for our honeymoon. 7 nights in Mexico, and I plan to spend every last second of it healthy, relaxed, and happy.

 

Don’t want to jinx it, but… September 2, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 1:43 pm

I sent my sister a message on facebook last week, not really ever expecting her to respond. I figured she’d just block me and move on. (It’s all about self-preservation at this point.) After several days, I gave up that nagging little glimmer of hope, and just let myself feel… well, awful, for a few days.

On Saturday, I went shopping with Gina for something for her to wear to the wedding and something for me to wear on the honeymoon. On my way home, my car started acting up and the check engine light came on. Plus I had horrible cramps. When I reached home, I collapsed in front of the computer, intending to look at the message boards on theknot.com for a while. But first, I checked my email.

And what was waiting for me?

An email from my sister.

Telling me that she loves me and she wants to have a relationship with me.

And (naturally), I burst into tears. I called Val and cried. I called Gina and cried some more. I responded to her message, added her as a friend, and then later once she accepted my friend request, I spent the evening looking at pictures of the baby sister I haven’t seen in six years (and crying).

(Happy tears, of course.)

And now I just feel… strange. Very, very strange. My brother and sister have been a source of lingering sadness for so many years that it feels completely foreign to not have that hanging over my head. (Wonderful, but foreign.) And now… there’s nothing to be sad about except the lost years, but there’s no getting them back, and so there’s no real sense in dwelling on everything I’ve missed.

Now, it’s just about the future. Catching up. Getting to know each other.

I feel complete for the first time in so long. There’s nothing missing, now. It’s incredible.

 

Life… August 24, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 7:47 pm

With 47 days left to go until our wedding, I’ve started thinking about how quickly time gets away from us. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Val proposed?

I took my brother and his friend to lunch and a movie yesterday afternoon. We don’t know each other very well anymore, but there was a time when he would fly across the room at top speed and throw his arms around me when he saw me. In the movies, I would have had my brother plastered to one side of me, and my sister on the other. Now, my sister wants nothing to do with me, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what to talk to my teenage brother about.

They used to put on shows for me in the living room, using stuffed animals, blankets and old Halloween costumes for props.

I love that I can take my brother to the movies. I love that I can talk to him like a normal human being. But god, I miss the days when there was dancing in the back yard… when I used to have to stock up on little kid wrapping paper… when butterfly cupcakes were greeted with gigantic smiles.

I was so happy at the tux shop yesterday getting Colt fitted for his Best Man tux. I wish our sister was going to be there with us. I wish we could rewind. I wish she would just entertain the notion that there are two sides to every story. I wish she would give me a chance.

I was just barely 22 when the shit hit the fan between my dad and stepmother. In her head, I think my sister feels like that made me an adult. An adult who should have fought harder for her… for them. In theory, it’s all true. Unfortunately, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that age does not make you grown up. There is no magic toolbox that opens on a particular birthday giving you all of the wisdom and coping mechanisms you need to act like an adult. (And it really is just an act.) If a crystal ball could have shown me then what I can see now, I wouldn’t be in this position. But here I am. I’m trying hard to be the person I know I am. To fight the battles that need to be fought.

Back then, I truly believed that our father would make everything better. I believed him when he said he would fix things for us. It was easier to believe that he would be true to his word than it was to fight my stepmother on my own. And hell, in a perfect world, a girl should be able to trust her father. I didn’t know until it was far too late that I couldn’t trust our father’s promises that he would fix things.

I am so tired of this lingering sadness. I’m tired of these manic waves that hit me every so often. I have a dream about my sister (had one two nights ago) and then for days, I am consumed by it. I don’t think I will ever be able to accept the way things are… but I also don’t know that I’ll ever be able to change them. It’s as if there is a piece of me missing. For her, I am a distant memory… her young age makes it easier to forget the details of what life with me was like. But for me, I remember everything. I know how insanely wonderful it was to be her big sister. I remember it all.

I hate that I’m beginning to wish that I could forget.

 

Getting Excited! August 19, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 10:36 pm
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51 days until our wedding.

My brother has official permission to be my best man, and we go to pick out his tuxedo on Sunday.

On Saturday, I have appointments for trials runs of my hair and makeup. (I get to wear my veil, which makes me happy since my mom is holding it hostage! According to her, I will wear it while doing dishes… probably true!)

We started our dance lessons on Monday.

We received our first eight RSVP cards… 23 yes and 0 no! (170 were invited)

We got a wedding gift in the mail yesterday from our Macy’s registry… a Vera Wang cake cutting set. It’s absolutely gorgeous! I want to send her a thank you card right this second, but our thank you cards haven’t arrived yet!

I can’t even believe this is all happening. When Val proposed, a wedding seemed like a nice thought that would never happen. And yet here we are. It’s incredible.

 

The Home Stretch… August 14, 2009

Filed under: The Good — Molly @ 1:26 am
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58 days until the wedding.

Where does the time go?

Tonight, we sat down together and finished the invitations. They will go out tomorrow morning.

It’s so exciting… this is the final countdown. We’ve been talking about this wedding for over 2 years and now here we are. With 170 people on the guest list, it’s about as real as real can be.

Still, even with all the excitement, there is a nagging voice inside my head telling me that the guest list isn’t complete. There’s one person in particular whose presence will be missed so much. (Well, one who isn’t on the guest list anyway… I will miss my sister, but she’s on the guest list… she just won’t come.)

I really do believe that the people in our lives are here for a reason. They serve a purpose of some sort. They fill something up inside of us that needs filling. Sometimes it’s a temporary need and sometimes it’s a permanent need. The ones who serve a temporary need are forever in our hearts, but not forever in our lives. If that makes sense.

I wonder how the wedding would be different if she was still in the picture. I wonder how she would get along with my friends. I wonder what she would have said in her speech as my maid of honor.

But my god… I’m having a wedding. In 58 days. A big, crazy, perfect wedding. I can’t wait!

 

Wedding Invitations… June 30, 2009

Filed under: The Good, The Wedding — Molly @ 12:05 am
Tags: , ,

I found out last week that my cousin is getting married next month.  She doesn’t have much time to get her wedding put together, and couldn’t get invitations made fast enough, so I offered to take care of them for her.If I could make a living creating invitations for people, I would.  I love it so much.  I love the textures of the paper… the design… I even love the monotony of the cutting.  

I didn’t realize how short my deadline would be, but in the end, I had 48 hours to design & assemble 65 wedding invitations.  Despite the time crunch, I think they turned out beautifully.

Sarah's Wedding Invitation

Sarah's Wedding Invitation
My cousin chose her colors based on the Save the Date Cards I made for my own upcoming wedding.

Our Save the Date Card

Our Save the Date Card

Our Save the Date Card

Our Save the Date Card
Coming soon… my own wedding invitations!