I asked for professional....

What I got was a hair cut fit for a punk-rocking teenager! She gave me bangs as short as Christina Ricci here:


What I was hoping for (but she didn't give me a chance to say) was this:



This is how I turned out:



If you can't tell, that's my happy face... :(

For the love of the game...

So Bub and I have found the song we'll walk down the aisle to. It is one both of us are excited about and just is perfect for our wedding ceremony.

To put a little perspective on it: He and I fell in love over baseball.

I was a newly found Red Sox fan and he is a long standing Yankees fan. When we met, we were living on opposite ends of the state and were introduced at a party through mutual friends. Neither of us were ready for a relationship after just getting out of long difficult relationships, so we started off emailing. He found out I was a Red Sox fan and started teasing me and we had a rivalry about baseball. By the end of that summer, I had moved in with him and became a Yankees fan by default. I had seen and heard so many Yankees games that I knew more about the Yankees team than I did the Red Sox - eh, I had only been a Red Sox fan because I started watching in 2004 when they won the World Series and broke The Babe's curse. So it was no big deal. ANYHOW, the other day Bub found a rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" by Bernie Williams.

Bernie Williams began his career as a center fielder with the Yankees in 1985, staring off in the AA's and moving up to the majors in 1991. He played with them until 2007, when he "retired". Now he is starting his music career and has a beautiful rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZS-HpY3Dts

It makes my skin tingle when I listen. It has the perfect tempo and style for a wedding march. But the personal significance behind the song not only for Bub and I, but for my family is just a raw emotion.

And then we're exiting to "New York, New York" by Old Blue Eyes himself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro7Uz4jEfmg


If my grandparents make it, it will be a great surprise for them. My grandpa grew up in Brooklyn and has always been a Dodgers fan.


We've all been raised to love baseball. Most of my aunts and uncles are Mariners


or Orioles fans.


I can remember that one of the first songs we were taught as kids was "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

How could this be more perfect?

Wedding Stuff

So, after not saying anything for a while, I finally have something:

I've got my wedding dress! It's in my possession and hanging very prettily in my Aunt's closet.

So when the store (whom I won't name) called me, I immediately got butterflies in my stomach. When I have a bad experience with something, I resolve it quickly and then I'm done. I never want to have any experience with that person/business/thing again. If I do, I get massive anxiety and get a sick stomach for days. In this case, after my unfortunate confrontation with the store, I had to go back and actually pick up my dress. I had a nauseous stomach for days till we picked it up.

But Aunt Moe went with me to pick up the dress. We walk in, I try on the dress, and then the lady at the counter asks if we'll leave it there or take it with us. The store has a policy to allow a wedding dress to stay there for free until the day of the wedding. Moe thinks this is great idea that maybe I should consider.

No. Absolutely not. The idea of walking back into that store just makes my stomach flip. I can't do it. I wouldn't be able to handle sitting here for months and wondering if they were going to lose my dress, if it would get damaged somehow. I know where my dress is. I know that only Moe or myself will actually ever touch the dress until Wedding day. I know that if I feel the need to try it on, I can any time I want.

So I have my dress. Hopefully that will be the only time I could be considered a somewhat bitchy bride, because I don't want to be that bride. But there are certain things that I can't do, and that's one of them.

My dress is BEAUTIFUL! I love it. It's very elegant and lovely. BUT, I've lost enough weight for it to be too big already! Yikes! I know most brides get all hyped up about losing weight, but I'm not too concerned with weight. I'd like to become leaner, yes, but weight is just a number. So hopefully I don't get too much smaller, to the point that alterations will be difficult. But we'll see.

Struggles

It's amazing how the little things in life seem to become bigger and better when a challenge faces you. You start to appreciate how green the grass is, how a kid's smile is truly wonderful, and how great the sun on your face feels.

As I "grow up" and get older, life seems to get more difficult with each year. Friends die, loved ones move away, people you thought you knew become someone you don't know.

How do you learn to treasure the things you have in life now? How do you force yourself to appreciate your life as it is before the present becomes the past? How do you remember to thank God for the blessings in your life?