Dresses

So I got an email this weekend, along with a postcard in the mail yesterday about Alfred Angelo dresses being "on tour" in my area.  I LOVE his dresses.  When I've been looking at wedding dresses, he has been my favorite designer so far.  So yesterday I called and made an appointment for Friday after work to go look at dresses!  I'm really excited.  I asked our friend Anne to come with me, and she's going to bring her baby, Parker with.  The Bridal Center that the dresses are being shown at is right next to a pizza place, so maybe Anne will want to get something to eat afterwards.  It's nice to just sit and have some girl talk every once and a while.  And ogle over Parker, because he's so darn cute.

Got my oil changed on Tuesday at the Mazda dealership.  It was one weird thing after another.  I showed up a TEENSY bit late because I had stopped at a park to take some pictures (more on those later), and then by the time I made it onto the highway, it was rush hour.  I was literally like, 3-4 minutes late.  No big deal.  Pulled part way into the garage, and no one greeted me as usual (had to get my tire checked one day because I found a nail in it).  Waited, waited, finally, someone greeted me and told me what stall to pull in.  Got my little buzzer thing, like the ones you get at restaurants when you're waiting, and went up to the lobby.  A woman and I were sitting in the chairs, and later, a man came up, and was dinking around on the computer behind me, mumbling to himself.  He gets up, turns towards us, and says, "May Jesus Christ bless you and save you," and leaves.  What?  The woman and I exchange puzzled looks and wait for the man to make it down the stairs before starting in.  "What do you say to that?  'Thank you'? Do you bless him back?  Did I sneeze?"  Not sure.  We had a good giggle over it, though.  Then my thing buzzed and said I was done, so I went down, the guy says "Your car is over there, the keys are in the ignition.  I go over to my car, and there's still the little paper floor mat they put in there so they don't muddy up your car, along with a sheet of printer paper with "VACUUM" typed on it under my windshield wiper.  I look in the car - not vacuumed.  Go into the office, tell the guy my car wasn't vacuumed.  He says he'll get the kid on the phone to vacuum it once he's off the phone.  I wait, wait, wait.  Finally, the guy tells the kid to go vacuum the car, and he'll take care of the phone.  The kid says, "Yeah, I'll vacuum it.  I'll vacuum the hell out of it."  And vacuum the hell out of it, he did.  I was waiting there forever.  Kid gets done, but doesn't come back to the office to tell me my car is done, but instead gets into another car and drives off.  I asked another guy if my car was done, he says yes, and takes the paper mat out of my car, and I'm ready to go.  Buckle, turn the key.  Wait.  There's no key.  That kid took off with the key to my car!  Tell the other guy my key is not in the ignition.  He checks for himself (like I would lie about that or not know where my ignition is?).  Goes to find the kid, kid doesn't have the key.  Somehow the key ended up back in the office, but I'm really not sure how.  Finally get to go home!

So that was my Tuesday, minus going to the park, which I will post next.  TTYL!

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The weekend, and then some

So Thursday night marked the first company softball game. Man, was I excited! I hadn't played softball in at least five years, and that was a one-game, half-assed attempt at a game in college. I didn't go to the pre-game celebrations, as I didn't want to spend three hours at the bar before going to the game. So I drove in on my own, following directions from Google Maps. Apparently that was mistake number one, because there is a LOT of construction going on in that area, and it was utterly confusing. I think I missed the turns I needed to take at least three times, if not more. I didn't have the phone number for anyone on the team, so my first attempt at help was to call Aaron, as he can always get me turned in the right direction. He didn't answer his phone because he was on the other line, and then never called me back. So then I text messaged a co-worker and got the phone number of someone on the team - well, he left his phone in the car, never got ahold of him. I stopped, used Google Maps on my phone, and ended up finding my way, 5 minutes late. Which turned out okay, as our team was just getting in the dugout.

I was catcher. I could barely move my legs after that day. Saturday was the worst. Every time Aaron and I got out of the car during our errands, I had to stop and stretch my quads because they'd tighten up on the road.

Friday was pretty relaxed - I think we just stayed home and watched the Olympics. Saturday involved LOTS of driving around. I wanted to check out Minnehaha Falls as a wedding venue, it's outdoors, and very pretty. Unfortunately, there was ALREADY a wedding taking place, so we couldn't park, or really look around. I tried to take some drive-by pictures, but I think they turned out blurry. Hehehe. Then it was off to Kahn's Mongolian Grill. They didn't open until noon, and it was only 11:30 or so. So we wandered over to IKEA and killed some time, then back to Kahn's. I think we got turned around a couple of times during this whole run, too, so that wracked up the miles.

There were two other parks I wanted to visit that day, but it never happened. We stopped at Target and got a bunch of crap, then came home. On Sunday, we went to Clifton French Park in Plymouth, but everything looked very picnic-y. Shelters, not a lot of cleared-off grass, and sand volleyball at every one. Not quite my style. I learned from a co-worker today that there's actually a large building that the ceremony could be in. I'll have to go check that out. Groceries were bought, and baseball and Olympics were watched.

We got into more wedding stuff this weekend, and I was trying to figure out how much the average wedding cost in this area. Quite a bit. I had no idea weddings were so expensive. We're going to try to keep ours around $10,000, which means that in 13 months, we'd have to save $770 each month. Yikes. I don't know if we can do that. We're going to try to save a lot of money by having friends help us out. We already have at least three individuals who have offered their services to us in the areas of music and photography. Now, if we can just have one of our friends ordained as a priest over the internet, we'd be set! Too bad we didn't have someone's large back yard, or someone who worked in the food industry. That would really help out.

We'll just have to see what we can do!

Mmmmm, pancakes

So this morning, all of us on the short term disability team got to go out for pancakes!  We went to the Original Pancake House, or something like that, and ate massive amounts of food.  We were gone for about two hours from work, and didn't even have to extend our work day.  It was fabulously good, and a fun time, too.

Yesterday, I had a horrible headache after work, and I went over to the fitness center to see if I could make it go away.  Unfortunately, it never did go away, so I only ended up doing enough to get 2 miles in, which was somewhere between 22 and 26 minutes.  I don't remember because I forgot to write it down.  Today when I went in, all of the machines were full, and most of the weight lifting equipment was full, too.  I managed to do some rounds on the weights, arms, abs, and legs, did a couple of stretches, and left.  Oh well.

Got back to the apartment and vacuumed because I was lazy all weekend and didn't do much cleaning.  I had to clean out the filter before I could do anything, which I'd never done before, so I wasn't entirely sure what to do, but I figured it out.  Man, I can't believe how much dust and crap accumulates in this apartment!  Gross.

Last night, I was doing some wedding research, just dinking around on TheKnot.com, trying to get some ideas, and bookmarking the things I liked.  Then I came across a Q&A section, and one woman was asking what to do for name changes, because both she and her husband were changing their names - they were both hyphenating.  I jokingly told Aaron that's what we should do.  He said he wanted to do something different, like make up a whole new last name.  I was telling Mom about that, and she said that we should take all of the letters of our last name, put them in a bowl, and draw one by one.  I told Aaron, and man, did he get excited.  Then he grabbed the Scrabble board and started pulling out our letters, and threw them in the bag...and so it began.  We pulled one letter after another, left them upside down, and once we pulled all 11 letters out, we flipped them over.  These are some of the new names we came up with:

Ahamljvrrme

Mrealjahmrv

Emrmlaahrvj

Ralhmjemrav

Unfortunately, we have a bad combination of letters between the two of, mostly consonants, three vowels.  Mom told us to get ready for a lot of full body cavity searches at the airports.  Adn that we would never be able to spell it the same way twice.  Drats.  Then our friend Brandon said we should just meld our last names together, literally.  His last name end in an M, mine begins w/ an M.  We'd be the Rehmravlja's.  Haha.  We were laughing our heads off the whole time we were creating new names.  What a hoot.

Lori invited me to go to lunch with her on Friday, to some organic restaurant.  That'll be fun, and nice to get out of the building for a while. 

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weekend

Well, Aaron and I did go and look at the Theodore Wirth Fireplace Room on Saturday. I took some pictures, which I will post below. The Fireplace Room is very cozy, and I do believe would hold everyone for the reception. It's not large enough to have the ceremony AND the reception both, but the Theodore Wirth parkway also has something called Wedding Hill, but we didn't go look at it because to reserve it, it's through a different number, and just getting someone to let us up to the Fireplace Room took about 10 minutes, I wasn't going to hold my breath in the guy behind the counter telling us how to get to Wedding Hill. I'll call on Monday.

So pros about the Fireplace Room: It's cozy, it will hold the people we'd like to come (we only have about 70 people on the guest list currently, and I think many won't be able to actually make it due to the distance that they live from here), it's inexpensive, beautiful building, would look great with the fall colors, has a balcony, and is close to where we live.

Cons about the Fireplace Room: It's a little dark, as you will see by the pictures. It's a little beat up, but I think most of the woodwork is original, and the building is quite old. All decorations must be free-standing. No using the rafters for decorations, no using tap, tacks, pins, etc., to keep decorations up. That could prove to be difficult, especially with such a high ceiling, you'd like the decorations to go up higher. There were golfers everywhere. But, it was a beautiful summer day in August when we visited. Who knows what it would look like in September or October.

Oh, speaking of that, Aaron had thought that maybe we could push it back to September or October, due to heat. If we had it at the Fireplace Room, there is no air conditioning there, it's on the second floor, and with it being as cozy as it is, it would get quite warm filled with people. Maybe later in the year would be better, as it would be cooler.

If the Wedding Hill is close to the Fireplace Room, I was thinking we could do the ceremony itself at the Hill, and the reception at the Fireplace Room. I'd like to have them as close together as possible, to eliminate people having to drive back and forth and finding parking and all that crap.

Here are the pictures of the Fireplace Room. We didn't turn the lights on while I was taking them, so the only lighting is from outside, or the flash of my camera.









After we looked at the Fireplace Room, we went for a walk at the Bird Sanctuary again. I remembered to take a Claratin before we left, which either helped tremendously, or there were different pollens out from the last time we went, which I wasn't allergic to. Either way, I wasn't sneezing and snuffly.

We've had a very relaxing weekend so far. We've been watching Olympics, watched the Twins lose to Kansas City (and go back to second place for the American League), did some cleaning, gave Odin a bath, as he was starting to look a little grimy. His white wasn't as white as it should be. It paid off, he's now much softer and smells better now. And he doesn't hate us. At least, I don't think so, but I haven't tried on all my shoes to see if he pooped in them...

Well, I think that's about it for me today. Back to the grind tomorrow. I will be so happy to be doing just my own work and no on else's. Until tomorrow!

late entry

2.26 miles in 30 minutes yesterday. I forgot to blog about it because Aaron was home when I got back from the fitness center, and he's usually not home for another hour.

So at work we have this goal to have a decision made on new claims or new mail within four days of receiving that piece. I don't have a very big workload yet, so I can easily reach my goals. Which means I help a lot of coworkers out when they get backed up because they have a lot more work than I do, and that's perfectly fine with me. Except this week seems different. This week, a coworker is out on vacation, and another person and I are the backup, making sure that all of the claims in the office are at four days, including our vacationing coworker's. I am supposed to be the second backup, but the first backup is so backed up herself, I've been essentially first back up. Which is not really a problem, I just find it difficult going through current claims that are waiting on decisions to be made before making another payment. But then yesterday, this other backup worker leaves work early due to not feeling well, and she has a claim and a new piece of mail at FIVE days, plus a bunch at four days, and I get asked to help with her stuff, as well. Um, ok. Total overwhelming feeling hits at three hours before my day is over. Hopefully today and tomorrow will be better.

We've been trying to kennel Odin at night so he learns a schedule of sleeping at night, being up during the day. On the weekends, we're not so worried about it, and let him roam around at night, but during the weekdays, I really would like him to be kenneled. Monday night and Wednesday night, he was not kenneled. Monday wasn't a problem, but this morning, about an hour before I need to be up, he's in the bedroom, scratching on the box spring of the bed. I ask Aaron why he's not in his cage, and he says he couldn't find the cat last night before he went to bed, which is the same reason he wasn't kenneled on Monday. It's not a very big apartment, he shouldn't be too hard to find, and a sure-fire way of finding him is shaking the treat can. I just let Aaron know that he's never going to learn his schedule if we don't stick to it. I hope that we can stick to it, because I'm tired of being woken up in the mornings before I really need to be.

So those are my rants for the morning. Time to get ready for work!

2.23 miles in 30 minutes, plus some abs and lower back workouts on the weight machine today. Rockin'.

Today at work was BUSY. I now know what it feels like to have a full caseload, only worse. When I have my own caseload, I'll have worked on all the claims myself and know what's going on, at least.

I haven't heard back from the club room yet for the Theodore Wirth Parkway. I called and left a message yesterday. I'm going to shoot off an email today. Called the insurance company / billing place, and they told me to call the doctor's office. Last time I called the doctor's office, they told me to call the billing place. Grr. Makes me mad. I've never had to deal with insurance before in my life, and it's a pain in the ass - no one can help me.

Now I kind of know how my claimants on short term disability feel when they aren't getting their checks. Only not as bad because they need the money, and I just need to pay some money, but I want to make sure I'm paying the right amount, first.

Anywho...that's it for me today.

back at it again

Today was 2.08 miles in 30 minutes on the elliptical.  Project Runway wasn't on, and I couldn't bring myself to watch a full episode of Shear Genius, so half an hour was all for me today. 

This weekend was good - we got a lot of cleaning done, groceries, hung out with some friends.  Good times. 

Monday was Monday, times 10.  One of the claims analysts is gone this week on vacation, and I am her second backup, but I've been doing most of the backup work, and it's hard to do when it's a claim that's already been worked on, and you're waiting on information, but you're not familiar with the claim.  Just kinda sucks. 

Aaron just installed the latest and greatest version of Linux (Kubuntu) onto my desktop computer, so I am having a good time messing around with that, adding widgets and changing the themes. 

I called the place where I want to have our wedding today after work to see what their availability in August and September is for next year.  Ended up having to leave a voicemail, but I hope I hear back from them soon.  I'd like to be able to go look at it soon, if they have availabilities during the weekend.  That's the big thing.  Don't want a Wednesday night wedding. 

Well that's about it for now.  Until tomorrow!

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Something worth watching

2.12 miles in 31 minutes on the elliptical, and since they got cable, I was watching Project Runway, and wanted to see the whole episode, so I did another 3 miles in 15 minutes on the stationary bike.  Whew!

Now I'm going to have to show up around 5 every evening so I can watch some real TV, since we still just have the antenna, haha. 

I'm hoping Aaron will get home at a decent time tonight - he sounded busy in an email today, and it's past 6 and I haven't heard from him yet. 

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Improvement

2.19 miles in 30 minutes.  I'm doing better!  This was on the elliptical.  I've been doing the same pre-programmed "weight loss" setting each time, on each machine, in order to be able to keep track better.  I'll be sticking to about half an hour for now, and increase as I feel I plateau for that time frame.  Now that I have a really nice fitness center to go to that is free and close by, I look forward to going.  Granted, it's only been three days, but it's nice and quite and cool in there.  And once they get the cable hooked up on the TV, it will be even better, because watching the fuzzy news every afternoon is kind of lame.

I tried reading a magazine that I brought, but it was hard to read while bobbing up and down, so I guess I won't be doing that again.  Bummer.

Odin's not getting any better in the middle of the night, but I am thinking that we need to start locking him up in the bad kitty cage at night when we go to bed.  I think this way, he'll learn a schedule, and that he can't just be up annoying the crap out of us whenever he damn well pleases.  I'll let you know how that goes.

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Today

Only 1.64 miles in 33:00 minutes.  The elliptical was in use when I arrived, so I had to use the treadmill, which doesn't allow you to set your own pace as easily as an elliptical, you have to push the stupid button over and over again to find the right speed.  Oh well.  Felt good anyway.

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