What the hell?!

Never in my life have I had allergies. EVER! I suppose those times are forever in the past. Now that it's sunny out I have itchy dry eyes and throat. My ears are annoying the hell out of me. My nose is dripping worse than our leaky faucet. This sucks! How the hell do people deal with this? I feel like a warm steaming pile of crap! I'm going to go get some over the counter allergy medicine after pay day. But come on! I am so sorry to all of the people who have had seasonal allergies that I told to just suck it up. So truly sorry. I'm gonna go be a cry sack now and watch a movie with some tissues. This SUCKS!

So far, Egh.

Let's face it. Okay "let's" be honest here. I need to face it. I'm what I like to call a larger American. So one of my goals is to get in better shape for our wedding. Me and Justin have been doing really well at it. We walk almost every night. And on the nights we don't walk I find someway to just get up and active. We have been cooking at home too. This has been a huge help. I already feel better than I did. Me and Justin just got into this HORRIBLE habit of eating out all the time. That has definitely changed. We haven't eaten out in quite a while. I love it! I've been eating lots of salads and baked chicken breast. Yummy! Lots of other good-for-you foods too. But those are my favs! My clothes feel a teeny tiny bit looser I suppose. But mostly I feel like I have tons more energy than I used to. That is the part that makes me happy and keeps me motivated to lose more. Oh yeah...and all those pictures of me in a dress on the most important day of my life. I might keep that in the back of my head too.

Since this blog is my "therapy" to keep me calm (still no anxiety attacks!). It is also now going to be my weight loss tracker. I'm uncomfortable with telling people exactly how much a "larger American" weighs, so I'm going to tell you how much I've lost.

Well, I can't actually do this yet because I don't have a scale. But my clothes fit better than they used to so I know I'm off to a good start!

Hot Stuff

So it's finally sunny here and today I thought that I'd work on my tan. Let's just say I'm an overachiever. I'm not burnt too bad. But it smarts.

I'm working on finishing all of the boutonnieres. Then I'll start on corsages for the Moms. The super super glue worked pretty well. It takes a while to do each one though. I was hoping you could just put it on, wait a couple seconds, and be done. No such luck. You have to hold the ribbon down with a little needle for about five minutes until it is dry enough to stay by itself. It's difficult but not impossible. And the finished product looked great. Overall I was quite pleased. I didn't do it in a well ventilated room though and after I did a couple of them my head was spinning. It was very unpleasant.

Well, it's aloe vera time. On the plus side I did get darker...but with a hint of red!

Sunshine!

It is finally summer here! I know most places have had bright shiny skies for a while now. Well, it is finally like that here! I can't wait to go camping. I love sitting by the fire, roasting marshmallows (I don't like eating them much) and of course swimming in the river. Ahh the great outdoors. I can't wait till I get a break and go go camping! I'm friggin' excited! We don't have a tent though. Mild setback. Well, I'm gonna go enjoy the weekend! Toodles!

Flowers and Festival

Time for my daily dose of blog therapy.

I've been putting together my flowers for the wedding! Yippee! I'm using silk flowers (that should be pretty obvious). So far I have the tossing bouquet, Justin's boutonniere and a I have one groomsmen's boutonniere. I still have to make much more, but now that I've got a start on them it is much easier. I didn't realize when I began that I'd actually have a little "give" in the flowers. After I get the wire on I can still bend them around some to get my desired look. I love it! It's pretty fun. Now I just have to figure out how to get the ribbon on them to stay. There is a lot of tension on the ribbon because that's what I used to wrap around the stems and finish the look. So I'm hoping that I can use super strong super glue. We'll see how that goes. Here are some pics of the boutonnieres so far. (I used my phone to take pictures and the colors are much different in person.)

These will be the for the groomsmen

Here is a pic of the ribbon I have to finish.This is Justin's boutonniereThe colors are actually tans and browns. Very pretty.

Oh, and as if I'm not stressed out enough, I'm now a member of the Summer Fest. Committee. The Toledo Summer Festival is a big hoopla here in my hometown. I've been involved someway or another since I was 8 years old. Now I help run it. Well, not yet but that's the idea.

I used to coach the High School JV and Varsity cheerleading teams. But that was WAYYYYY to much drama. Again with the I hate people thing. Mostly it was the Mom's. Ehg. The High School brats weren't much fun either. Actually I take that back. Most of the time it was great. But you'd always have those couple of girls who only wanted to prance around in the uniform and call themselves cheerleaders but never do ANY cheerleading things. Well...let's just say I'm glad that's over with.

Anywho, my point was that now cheerleading is over with (I did that for 3 years) I wanted a new project to volunteer for. This came up and Ta Daa! I hope this goes over more smoothly. I like my community and I think it will be awesome being part of my favorite event of the year.

Ommmm...

My honey mentioned this to me the other day and it got me to thinking. He said I was much more calm now that I've been blogging. I would have to say he is correct. It could be other factors but deep down I think it's the blogging. Every day I want something new to write about. Something interesting. Having this want has made me get off my ass and get down to business with the whole wedding essentials that I've been putting off. So, to the blogging world at large THANK YOU!!! I haven't had an anxiety attack since my debut as a blogger has started. (he he, blogger. Remember that game Frogger! It was great.) I suppose I should take up yoga or something similar. I really do need to learn how to chill out.

Enough of that...I have found my officiant!!! Yet another checkity check check off my list of Wedding must haves. And my officiant is (drum roll please...) My youngest sister and Maid of Honor, Samantha! She is going to be the official officiant. She actually proposed an idea to me earlier today and me and Justin loved it. The idea was that Justins little bother and her both perform the ceremony. She'll read some, he reads some, I say some, Justin says some. I loved the idea. We are close with our siblings and I trust them both so this seemed appropriate. I have big trust issues and didn't want someone I have never met before to be involved in such a personal and monumental event. I don't like people at all. Public places drive me crazy. And if it's crowded in there then forget it. Just thinking about them gets me tense. So having a stranger be my officiant was out of the question.

I should seriously consider taking yoga. Maybe I'll try some tonight. Ommmmmmm...

Reverend Tayia!

Once again I sucked it up and did what I needed to do. Figured out the whole officiant thing. Well...kinda.

I nutted up and called the county clerks office. My question to them was if they recognized online ordinations. The lady at the other end of the line was SO helpful. She said yes they do from the Universal Life Church. Well, I've been reading around at different online ordination sites and they say you might need to submit this and that to your local whatever in order to be recognised. You better believe I made sure to ask about this. The lady said no such deal (arms in the air with touchdown fists!).

She said when they perform the ceremony. All they need to do is sign and fill in the info about the "church" (address, phone number, whatever) and that's it. No submitting of ANYTHING!

Naturally after this conversation I was curious so I went to the site. Well, it was so simple and easy and FREE. I did it myself. I think it took 5 minutes tops because I read through everything multiple times. It seemed too good to be true. But the county clerks office directed me to this site and gave me instructions. The whole process is much easier than I thought it would be. YEAH!!!!

Now all I have to do is convince someone to buck up and speak in front of (dare I say it) people. AHHH. No one I know is great at or likes to talk in public. This should be interesting. But at least I know when I find the person it will be a piece of cake to get them ordained.

Queensryche Tickets!

Personally, I'm not a big fan. But Justin is and today is his 23rd birthday! So I got him Queensryche tickets. He loves these guys and they are coming to a place around here.

To give him his present I told him a clue. Which led him to 22 more clues (23 total). So it was like a big scavenger hunt all around the house. He loved it! It was fun watching him trying to figure all of them out.

Well, gotta go give him his birthday spankings! Queensryche here we come!

Location, Location, Location.

So today we went out to the Elks campground. It is going to be so amazing! We are all booked for October 17th and 18th. It's going to be completely outside so I hope it doesn't rain. But even if it does OH WELL! I like the rain so it's not a big deal. Just a different experience.

Everyone is going to be entering in from this woodsy spot. The "aisle" is actually a nice little natural path through the trees. Hopefully if it does rain these will kind of shelter us a little bit and ease up the rain hitting us. This leads to a gazebo that is going to be all decked out and pretty. That is where the ceremony will be. Everyone will be gathered around the gazebo and then behind that we are getting some big tents to have the reception under.

One thing off my list, ROCK ON!!!!!

Disney Rocks My Socks

Family photo from the '06 trip

Disneyland is the best place EVER! Some people say it's just for little kids. Oh how wrong they are. If you've never been to the big DL you should go. It is fun with children I'm sure. But my whole family are big kids at heart. We have an amazing time every time we go - and we don't have to take potty breaks or worry about temper tantrums or go back for naps. Not anymore at least (we've been going since we were very little).

The rides are fun. My favorites are the Haunted mansion, it doesn't get as much hype as it should; Soarin' over California, you can actually smell the places!; Of course the Tower of Terror, AMAZING ride 'nough said. I love all the rides without a doubt. But those are my absolute favorites. I think it's cause we don't do them as often as oh say Splash Mountain. We ride this probably 5 times a day when we are there. When you include the time for waiting in the lines...this means a good portion of our day was at Splash.

This is my sis and me in line for Indiana Jones

The food is yummy, although pretty spendy. Churros...ghurlghurlghrul...(the sound Homer Simpson makes when he sees a doughnut.)

Most of all I love the atmosphere there. It is indescribable. Just thinking about it takes me back. I can smell the hot asphalt, the crying kids in the distance, the sounds of people screaming on the rides...All 'booaaaarrrrDDDDD! (for those of you who don't know this is the train that circles Disneyland. The guy says it every time before they take off.)

Ahh the memories. Whenever we go we try to get as much of the family to travel with us. Usually there are about 9 or so people on the trip. But now with everyone being engaged or close to, the last trip had 14 people I think. Me and Justin are planning on going next September with my family. It will be Justins first time ever at Disneyland. I imagine he'll be like a kid in a candy shop.

The nerve!

I finally did it! Yesterday afternoon I got up the nerve and called the place I want the wedding at. It's a pretty funny story. The guy who answered sounded like an older man. He kinda made me feel like a dumbass. Most of his answers were along the lines of yeah duh. First I asked if they were open in October. Logical question, makes sense. Some campgrounds close during certain seasons. He had a big pause before he said, "yeah" like he was talking to a toddler. Then I asked if I could reserve it. "well, yeah". He could have said, sure what dates would you like, or something along those lines but noooooo. He pretty much called me a dillweed.

All righty then! It keeps going but just talking about it makes me shake my head at the guy. How am I supposed to friggin' know about a park area that I've rarely been to. Like everybody has this information of this park stuck in there head. But that's okay because the news was spectacular!! The Elks Toketee Illahee Park. Known around these parts as the Elks campground. I am so excited. It is wayyyyyy cheaper than the other place we were looking at. About $400.00 or so cheaper. I love it! We are going this weekend to look at it. I hope the guy is a little more helpful.

Hi. Hello. 4 Months to go!

Hi!! My name is Tayia and I have now officially joined the ginormous world of blogging. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, but it's just so...what's the word...(huge, stressful, permanent, intimidating...intimidating!...That's it!) Blogging is so intimidating. I want mine to be great you know? Just marvelous (this said with peaked fingers and tight lips) say it with me: marvelous. Something you should know...I'M A RAMBLER!!!! Always have been, always will be. Also, I love ellipses, parenthesis and these little suckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't care if I don't use proper punctuation and grammar. It works in my head therefore it is absolutely correct.

Moving on. My wonderful fiance and I are getting married in exactly 4 months as of today! I still have so many things that need done. And I just keep putting them off. Elghgh. Don't get me wrong, I want them done. But when something doesn't go the way I want I get extremely disappointed, then stressed out, then I end up having what one might call an anxiety attack. Though I could be wrong. I just want it to be so perfect for my fiance. Of course I want it to be all that I'd ever hoped for too. But when Justin sees it all, when he remembers it, I want him to be proud. Then there are my hopes for it. This is the only wedding I get after all. We don't have a lot of money so we're being creative with many things. For the most part it is all planned out and going smoothly. But for the big decisions (e.g. location, officiant, vows) I'm drawing a big ol' blank blank blank. In the end I know everything will be just fine and dandy (like a plum candy Christmas) because when all is said and done my incredible (word...soul mate, lover, goober, honey, Justin, best friend) all of the above will be my husband. I can't wait to be his wife.