Happy Halloween!

I'm so excited that the day is finally here! We've been planning our Haunted Housewarming for months now and although there are real leaves (and therefore real bugs) on my kitchen floor, I couldn't be happier with the outcome. Decorating has been a family affair. My sister, her boyfriend and my Mama carved pumpkins and helped Turkey Butt and I with all the decorating. We've got 11 jack o'lanterns that will find a home in the yard. This is my inspiration:

A yard full of pumpkins like in the film, Trick R Treat seems very creepy to me! Add to it the cemetary in my kitchen and the dead body in the hallway - it should be a great haunted house! Now I just have to get some sleep (I just got off an O/N) and then get dressed and made up in my zombie prom queen outfit. More photos to follow I'm sure!

This is my life!

TV Lineup

Since Turkey Butt and Adora went for a hike, I've decided to cuddle up on the couch and catch up on some TV. Since we don't have cable, I have to catch up on the internet. My lineup goes something like this:

Mike and Molly Season 1 Episode 5
Grey's Anatomy Season 7 Episode 4
The Defender Season 1 Episode 3
Mad Men Season 1 Episode 3
Blue Bloods Season 1 Episode 2

I might need some made at home Cafe Mocha to go with it. This is my life :)

Adora-ble

Our pet photographer turned future wedding photographer, Emme from RavenDawn Photography brought us our images from Adora's session. They are SO cute!

I'm having issues uploading the high resolution photos. But here's one adorable photo of Princess Poop! This is my life!

A case of the grumps.

I think that once in awhile I am allowed to be grumpy! For instance, if I haven't been home for more than 5 minutes in the last 15 hours because I've been working. If my boss shows up late to relieve me, again. If I go to scrape the frost off my car only to realize that my perfectly-good-last-summer scraper is broken and the actualy scraping part of it is missing. If I notice a large pile of turkey fat on my back seat where Turkey Butt kept the turkey during our hour long drive to the cottage for Thanksgiving. The turkey he promised wouldn't spill on my backseat and made it seem like that was such a silly question for me to ask. If I try to pull in my driveway and have to wait for the delinquent from upstairs (and his buddy - the town's resident underage drunk whom i've caught shoplifting at a previous job) to stop smoking in the middle of the driveway and move out of my way. If I pull into the driveway and realize that the parking lot is full, again - and I won't be able to back into my awkward parking space. If I get out of the Jeep to find Turkey Butt standing in the door, ready to leave for work even though I've seen him for less than 10 minutes since 2pm yesterday. AND THEN, he gets huffy about my grumpiness and leaves without saying goodbye or even giving me a goodbye kiss, only making me MORE grumpy. HMPH! Today is a grumpy day. This is my life.

Since I've got weddings on the brain...

Some of my Etsy Favorites:

Hmmm, this retro 'Save The Date' card from papersocialite perhaps? Except with the yellow in a deep orange and the starburts in chocolate brown or black!

This dress from ouma is pretty fantastic. The black ribbon tied around it is exactly the look that I'm going for.

And this headband from Little White Dresser would be perfect in my hair. Hmm, up do or down?

This sign from Go Jump In The Lake has just the right feel for our outdoors at the cottage, autumn wedding.

What a fantastic guestbook idea! These puzzles from Bella Puzzles Too are a photo of the happy couple on the front, and on the back, it provides guests the opportunity to write a heartfelt message. So cute!

Another dress, this time from AnnabelAndRuby . Has more of the vintage 1950's look that I'm aiming for. If only the flower and ribbon were dyed black!

The only flowers that I want at my ceremony/reception are going to be in my bridal bouquet. I think this one from braggingbags is absolutely perfect.

And just incase I don't feel like there's enough black in my outfit - I've got my eye on this bolero from maryandangelika.

As you can see, I love etsy. Oh, and weddings - especially mine! This is my life!



Say Yes To The Dress

I just finished working O/N three of four. To pass the time I've ogled the new IKEA catalogue, baked egg-less peanut butter cookies, created some Halloween crafts and watched wedding shows on TLC. I was actually lucky enough to catch a couple reruns of Say Yes to the Dress that I hadn't seen before. One of them involved a woman buying a dress to pair with fairy wings for her Wiccan wedding. I've got to admit, initially I was like, "Weird" but then when I saw it, I realized I kinda loved it. Reminded me so much of the movie, Ever After. Cute!

On another note, we found ourselves a wedding photographer for a third of the price of the "competition". I magically came across her add on Kijiji one night - for pet photography! We took Adora for a photo session with her in the local park on Thursday and it was really laid back. She happened to mention that she's done a few weddings which certainly peaked our interest. She then emailed me with an amazing deal - $1500 off because she wants to use our photos to bild her portfolio! Done!

This is my life!

Thanksgiving.

I just want to start this by saying that I am so very thankful for the wonderful life I live. My amazing family, my great friends, and even my smelly dog. I am thankful for my sister who spent 6 hours of her Thanksgiving keeping me company in the Emergency Room and for my wonderful Turkey Butt who loves me with all his heart and will forever do so, no matter what life throws at us.

Yeah. I spent 6 hours in the Emergency Room on Thanksgiving Sunday. I noticed some front bum bleeding when I got home from turkey dinner at my grandparent's house and found out shortly before 2am that I was in the process of miscarrying my little bun.

I'm doing alright now. My physical pain has subsided a great deal (though the doctor has me on strict orders to not work and take it easy) and my emotional pain is ... better. I'm still heartbroken. I still feel like a little bit of a failure. I still think it is not fair at all. But I can smile and laugh and go most of the day without crying. I can hug and kiss Turkey Butt and know that we're really going to be alright.

We barely had time to get used to the idea of having a bun in the oven. It's actually been less than a week since I peed on two home pregnancy tests - and received two positive results. But alot happens in such a short time. We created a nickname for our fertilized egg. We talked baby names. Turkey Butt kissed my still small belly every night before bed. We pondered our future with our little baby bun....

But we'll be okay. And we'll keep trying. And no matter what this life brings us, we will always have each other. This is my life.

My blogging obstacle.

Would you be surprised to learn that this photo was taken with my computer's webcam while I was blogging this morning? I can't even see me in this picture! Adora sure does love to claim as much attention as she can. She's such a good cuddler, if only she wasn't 80lbs, didn't insist on squishing my left boob, and chose not to do this while I was busy blogging on the computer. But she's sweet, so she always gets the cuddle breaks she so obviously craves. What a girl! This is my life!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Looking forward to my first Thanksgiving as a semi-non-vegetarian in ten years!! I made the selfless decision to start eating meat again when Turkey Butt and I started trying to become pregnant and have yet to regret it. In fact, who knew turkey tasted so darn good? Seriously! Hot turkey sandwich's smothered in gravy are now a staple of my diet. Um num num! I'm so excited for turkey today AND especially turkey tomorrow.

Turkey Butt (haha, loving the cleverness of the nickname right now) is whipping up a HUGE turkey feast for my family tomorrow. And I do mean huge. Turkey Butt has dragged me into the walk-in refridgerator at the restaurant he works at just to see the 27lb. turkey he bought. He's so proud. SO proud. I am so hungry just thinking about it. Stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and turkey covered in rosemary butter. Oh my!

I might just gain 12lbs. this weekend, and I'm okay with that! This is my life!

It's been a busy week - working 7 shifts, planning our thanksgiving get together, hiring a pet photographer, contacting wedding photographers, etc. There's just no time left at the end of the day for much more than five minutes of a movie and sleep. I'd hoped to watch a horror movie a day for the month of October and then critique them for you - that's not going to happen. Let's just hope that I'll have more on my mind post-turkey day. Like Murder Mystery night, and our Haunted Housewarming party... Oye. This is my life.

Re-decorate.

After the holidays are over (Halloween and Christmas), I think I might try to redecorate the apartment. Turkey Butt plans to take everything off the wall in his quest to turn our living room into a cemetary and I plan to hang Christmas decorations from every available space - so perhaps this is a good time to rethink the decor. We have too much stuff and not enough wall space. The visual clutter is distracting. Here are some rooms that I LOVE:

(I love the simplicity of the bare walls and the white lights)

(I wish our mirror/clock wall was more vintage like this)

(My dream pantry. Sigh. So beautiful!)

I have to move my older files from my laptop to this new lap top so I have more inspiration. Maybe I'll start digging through my old 'House and Home' magazines as well. Luckily I have til the New Year to devise a plan. This is my life!

Cookie Dough

No matter how hard I try, my cookie dough just never compares to:

Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. The taste, the texture, the way the cookies cook (soft in the middle, crunchy on the outside) - I just can't compete. Maybe I'll trying refridgerating my cookie dough before cooking (I do refridgerate the cookie sheets) to see if that makes a difference. This is my life...

Launching: Elle Designs

This is just the beginning. Once I get settled in, this will encompass my photography as well as my home decor creations. Perhaps someday I'll even start selling things on my Etsy account. One can only dream. Until then, I guess I had better get to work.

This is my life!

365 Days to Go...

 The venue has been decided on, songs have been chosen, rings have been ordered (well my rings have any way), and it is now official:

Turkey Butt will wed Elle on October 1st, 2011!

I got an email this morning telling me that there are only 365 days until my wedding so I had better get planning. Luckily they included a checklist of what I should be doing this month (how... convenient, eh?). Color palettes and venues and dresses, oh my!

Now if only my engagement ring would arrive, we could become officially engaged! Then I could send out the adorable Save The Date's that I made and really start planning this thing. Of course, with no idea whether or not there will be any babies in our immediate future, I think that buying the dress will be the last thing that I do.

This is my life.

I had a lot of fun taking photos at Turkey Butt's cottage. Like these:

It was all fun and games until I got distracted and stepped on a rusty nail that was sticking through a piece of wood. Luckily it didn't cause much damage:

And on a happier note, my wedding band arrived in the mail just a few hours before we left for our mini vacation. I kinda sorta maybe might have wore it around for a little while. Bad luck or not, it's so darn cute!

This is my life :)