Day of Killing (and eating) Turkeys

This Thanksgiving is out of the norm. Which is saying something since last Thanksgiving we had Taco Mac with Emily, the year before turkey with Suzy, and the year before that (the first year Jeremy and I knew each other) I served slightly overcooked chicken breast in a semi-debacled Amy and Meg hosted Thanksgiving. I guess I'm used to Thanksgiving with Family (in caps) being a little more formal. We bust out the good china and put on our best-- if you don't use your good stuff for holidays, when will you ever use it?!

Right now I'm in Indiana with Jeremy's family, and it tugs at my heartstrings because I was so looking forward to finally spending a Thanksgiving with my mom, but Jeremy hadn't been up here in over a year so I told him we'd come. Plus, we're kind of hoping that one of us will land something that will prohibit travel in the days after the wedding. You know, like a job!

It's been nice seeing Josh and Sarah, though, they're so sweet, and they're in the middle of renovating this house they just moved in to. They're renting it, but it was Sarah's grandmother's house and needs a LOT of work! After failed attempts at peeling layer after layer after layer (and possibly more) of wallpaper off the walls (of which I had no part because I was in the middle of wedding details and I was scarred by the process when we lived on Westchester), we all decided it would be best to do some creative renovating and skip the pain and suffering of having to use dark magic to remove this wall paper. That cuts out a lot of the work for tomorrow, which means we will get to see Swiggett since she's just over in Bloomington!!!

I'm so very very close to finishing these bridesmaids bags, and now I just have to find a few things to put in them. Emily's helping me out, and I'm going to get a couple of other travel-sized things, plus I've been looking at all these awesome vintage brooches on eBay that are going for like $1 each! If the price stays under $1.50, I'm going to get each of them a brooch and they can keep it, pin it on their bag, or put it in their hair (which is what I'm doing with mine). I found this bracelet which matches an old necklace of my Granny's that mom has now, so that's going to be mom's present, and then this pin which might be an interesting addition to the fascinator I'm conning Meg in to helping me with, and these earrings which are very similar to the 1928 earrings I wanted! It would be really great if I could get them at or under my max bid of $7, because that would mean I'd saved something like $60 for very similar earrings! I'm bidding on a couple of other things right now (not that I super need to spend the money, but it's all told under $25) that will either go for the wedding or to the brooch collection that I am TOTALLY starting-- thank you for the inspiration Madeleine Albright! (side note: I'm totally hoping that I can talk Jeremy in to Moto GP tickets next fall for when the exhibit is in Indianapolis since apparently we don't get it in Atlanta-- que ridiculo!)

Plus, if I have some luck getting $1 brooches off of eBay, I can use them to decorate little bags, which I can totally sew with ease and put up on my etsy store (in spite of the fact that it's not doing a whole lot for me at the moment...) for sale. I need to start looking in to sewing laptop cases like I've seen in boutiques-- they sell them for like $50 and they would totally only take like $10 to make!

I've gotten a lot of my food budgeting done for the wedding, and thankfully Vicki is saving me big time by donating three trays (!) of Chick Fil A nuggets! I'm going to do the sushi still, it's the one thing I'm dying to have and I won't cut it out, I even cut the beer out of the budget just so I could have it.

We did get bad news, though. Valerie and Matt's court date got changed, so they won't even be bringing Ana over and going to Ethiopia without her. Jeremy's very sad about it, he misses her so much, and I'm sad because we'd made it in December so they could be there. :\ Such is life, I suppose. Pictures will be a little more difficult with Violet as flower girl, but they do have the absolute perfect dress, and with Julian as our ring bearer, Michael as a groomsman, and Meg an honorary bridesmaid... it's really quite fitting that Violet should join the party!

PS, our wedding has gotten quite out of hand! Apparently we have too much family!

I'll close this super long post now with my little Thanksgiving peace:

I am thankful for my friends and my family. This year has been extremely hard and there's no way I could have made it without them! Let me introduce you:

My mom, my brother Casey, and (of course) Jeremy

Vivi! Violet (9mos) Kavanaugh, our flower girl!

Michael, Violet and Julian's dad, and a groomsman

Meg, Nan, Violet, Della, and Iggy-- they're actually related, but have taken us in anyway!

Meg is an honorary bridesmaid of sorts

Meg, we are both goofy. She is also Julian and Violet's mother.

Sarah and Caq

Julian, our ring bearer, at his 3rd birthday last spring

These people are our family, though we may not all be related, and I am SO thankful for them!

I am also thankful for Jeremy, he is such an amazing friend and fiance, and I'm so thrilled I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him. We push each other and try each other every day, and I'm so glad we're together.

I'm also thankful for what I have. It may not be much, but it is something. I have a roof over my head, I have an awesome family (there are STILL a ton of people I'm missing in that family thing above!), I'm not going hungry, and I have some semblance of employment. Things could definitely be worse.

Here's to the coming year, to more things for which to be thankful, and finishing up this wedding majigger!

ciao for now folks,

M

Let them eat cake!

38 days to the wedding, says our Facebook Countdown!! We're starting to get the RSVPs, though we still have tons left to get! On Nov. 25th, we're just going to go through the list and take our best guess-- the worst that happens is we have a little too much food and hand it out to our wedding party for their flights/drives back!

Our biggest challenge here is the cake-- we've decided to do cupcakes which will a) be cute, and b) cut down on the cutting. I mean, we don't want to spend half an hour cutting and distributing cake, you know? This way, we'll have several cute little cake stands set up with cupcakes on top and surrounding the base of each stand. At least, that's how I see it in my head. I should look in to making some of those stands since cake stands are STUPID EXPENSIVE! So without further ado...

(this is the exact same thing I posted on FB, by the way)

Soooo, we're trying to narrow down flavors for the cake at the wedding and since we need to narrow it down, I'm asking for more!

Here are the flavors I have right now, so if you have more that you'd like to add, add them-- or, if you really want to see one of these, comment that, too!

Pound Cake
Red Velvet Cake
Carrot Cake
Almond
Chocolate Cherry
Mexican Chocolate (with cayenne)
Amaretto
Humming Bird Cake
Chai
Lemon Raspberry

We are doing cupcakes, so we'll have multiple flavors, we're just not sure how many yet!

This is Halloween, everybody SCREAM!

Wednesday before Halloween: After School Costume Contest!

Kristen (mouse), Me (Nancy Drew), Katie (kitty), and Brandy (Ginny Weasley)

have a War Head face contest. We're still not sure who won.

Louis showing off the costume I made for him-- Hershey's bar was a big hit!

All the counselors decked out; from closest to farthest:

Richard (Max from Where the Wild Things Are), Sam (African Princess), Kristen (mouse),

Brandy (Ginny Weasley), Jenny Lind (Dorothy), Sharon (M.I.A. or Lady Gaga),

Louis (Hershey's Special Dark Bar), Me (Nancy Drew)

My friend Octavia's boys-- Jacorey (Buzz Light Year), Jordan (Lion), and Trevon (Transformer)

Our finalists for the costume contest: Nailah (old lady), Juliana (magician), Lyle (Indiana Jones),

Bryce (someone who's actually a football player), Eli (policeman), Kanyisile (cowgirl),

Henry (wolfman), and Sydney (Gryffyndor student)

Jenny Lind (one of my oldest friends) and I with Juliana

Friday before Halloween: We all just dressed up for the fun of it again!

Brandy (vampire) bites me! Oh no!

Well, at least she didn't get blood on my sweater. I did feel a little under the weather, though...

Halloween Day! We went and helped the Kelly family with their Haunted House and handed out candy.

The chandelier in the entry way

Daddums, master of his domain

Staircase with lighting

Spider!

The overactive fog machine

Spooooky even in the daylight

And they mean it!

Cool shot by Jeremy

Jeremy and Daddums, creators of the outside scariness

Me and Bobcat protecting the candy from grabby kids

All in all, it was a good Halloween! We had a lot of fun at the Kelly's, even if some of the kids were a little rude about "only" getting two pieces of candy! We hung out afterwards and watched the original Halloween, which I'd never seen so that was a lot of fun. We also had the best little munchies from TJ's thanks to Shannon! Halloween is the best holiday ever :) I was pretty proud of coming up with three different costumes (even if they were gimmies) in one week, too!