The irony of the 4th of July

The Fourth of July a day to celebrate our nation's freedom and independence. 

The irony in the Fourth for me is that it marked the "turning" point in my bar exam studying where I lose my freedom and independence. Many a mention has been made of the fact that after the Fourth of July is when we should start to really kick it into gear. That means that now? It's crunch time. Tomorrow is our last in-class lecture. Tomorrow is also my last day of work until July 31st. I've taken the next few weeks off to dedicate 8-10 hours a day to studying. Yes, it's going to be as fun as it sounds. On one hand, I really just want the whole stupid thing to be over, on the other hand, I feel like I need 10 more weeks instead of 2 and a half, to study everything they expect us to know. 

There are 13 subject areas on the bar exam. We've had a lecture for each of those, every one of which had a 15-40 page outline (one was 70 pages). On one hand, when I consider the fact that a 64% is "passing" in MN, I'm able to remain fairly calm. On the other hand, when I remember what happened with the LSAT (the law school admissions test) I find myself on the verge of a total panic attack. 

I "studied" for the LSAT, I took a brief prep course, I THOUGHT I was prepared... wrong. I don't recall what my exact score was, but I do recall it was 2-3 points below the low median for the law school I wanted to go to- WMCL. I hadn't taken enough practice tests, and I did not devote anywhere near the amount of time I should have. I crossed my fingers and applied to a few schools anyway. When wait list, and rejection letters began rolling in, I had a quarter life crisis. Do I take the LSAT again? Do I consider grad school? Then, late January 2009, I got the letter from WMCL: I was accepted. Lord knows how it happened, but it happened. I got admitted on a special program for people with low GPA's or LSATS, and spent the first few months of law school wondering if I really belonged there. If I could cut it. I ended up graduating with a good GPA, 2 Moot Court's on my resume, and a lot more confidence.

Bottom line: I never want to look back on a test and realize too late I could've done more. Are the next few weeks going to suck? Yes. But it's a few weeks versus having to take this damn test again....the thought alone makes me want to vomit. 

Moving on. M and I went to my uncle Mike's for the Fourth, and like the absent minded blogger that I am, I forgot my camera. We sat around on the patio, chatted, ate, and drank... per usual. 

M and I went home around 4:30 for a few hours before heading to my office to watch fireworks. Every year a bunch of people from the office sit on the rooftop balcony that overlooks the Mississippi for the fireworks show over St. Anthony Main. This year? NOBODY showed up, except M and myself, and my uncle Tom and aunt Pam. Tommy is a partner at the firm. Here's the view from the 25th floor: 

 We picked up some wine, raspberries, and cheese spread and crackers before heading up. Pam made crack cookies, as I called them. I think they were butterscotch chip cookies. I think I ate 10.

 We dragged conference room chairs out onto the deck (huge leather chairs) and the 4 of us sat and watched the fireworks. The best part? The fireworks we went for started at 10:00, but from 9:30-10:00 as you scanned the horizon, you could see the fireworks of every east suburban city for at least 20 miles in a 180 degree radius. It was incredible. Finally our show got underway.

 I could think of no better way to watch fireworks: free parking in my work ramp, sitting in a leather chairs, with a nice breeze (as you're bound to have 25 stories up), no bugs, and most importantly: no crowds. Call me a surly old curmudgeon, but crowds and parking give me such a headache.

I had the day off work, which meant instead of an 8 hour day followed by 4 hours of lecture, I just had 4 hours of lecture this morning. I got home and started to work on flashcards. It was then that I realized how nice it would be to be a cat: 

Rough life. TJ got need and bored and promptly stomped over to put a stop to my studying for a brief period:

Kitteh sez, "pay attenshun to meh."

In the same vein-TJ has mastered the face of indifference, exhibits 2:

 and 3:

 I feel like this post is the jankiest thing I've ever written. I seriously have re-read it 4 times and hate the way it flows, hate the words I chose, and feel like a high schooler could've come up with something wittier... but my brain is sleepy. I'm not feeling creative. I'm going to have to find something to write about between now and August otherwise all my "weekend update" or "what I've been up to lately" posts would look the same: me, cracked out on coffee, buried behind a stack of flashcards.

Woof. 

-Kelly

The story of us: amended

I didn't get into a lot of detail in the original "story of us" about those early days, but thought it'd be fun to go back and document pieces of it. 

Do you want to know what the neatest part of meeting your future husband online? I have a lot of sweet documentation of our "early days" via email. We're such a modern couple. ;-) 

The other neat thing? I was a TOTAL spaz and recapped in excruciatingly painful detail every single email and my thoughts and analysis to my girlfriends. That transitioned into recapping all of our early dates and moments. I'm not sure how much I'll share, and I'd like to keep some of that to myself, but I wanted to put some of this here, should anything happen to my email, and whatnot. AND I figured it'd be fun for ya'll to see :)  

So, as I mentioned, M and I met on Match.com. I had created the free profile and emailed a few people... but good ol' M took his time emailing me back. Finally, I opened my inbox after a very long final exam my 1L year of law school to the following message:

I was FLOORED. We exchanged a lot of early "getting to know you" emails. I would usually reply within HOURS, and he'd wait a day or 2. He later admitted he would wait so he wouldn't look like a crazy person.. clearly I did not have the same hangups..haha. It was the holiday season and he was planning a trip back up north to where he grew up for Christmas, so we just did a lot of introductory stuff. Not to mention, I was waiting for HIM to make the first move as to a real life meet-n-greet. 

Meanwhile, I had a simultaneous email chain going with several of my girlfriends. I'd never been a "dating junkie".. I usually focused in on one guy, and went for it full throttle. BUT, something strange happened at this time, and I somehow wound up with 2 other dates between the time M sent his first email and we actually met. I couldn't put all my imaginary eggs in one basket! What if he wasn't as great as he sounded, or photogenic but a weirdo in real life?! My girlfriends (and I) were not-so-secretly always "team M" though, as you can see below:

 1. "Tom" was one of those aforementioned random dates I went on. It was a fine date,...we went to the Wild game, but he wasn't Matt. (bear in mind I had never met M and I was comparing people to him already. Totally normal, no?)

2. Let's address the fact that my friends were planning my wedding to a man I had never met. God bless those 2. I look back at this particular email and REALLY cherish it, because while it was a joke (and a dream) back then, I think it's SO special that now it's REAL. 

3. Leah's timeline may have been a BIT off, but HOLY WOAH- girl you are a fortune teller! Let's compare! :

"offical by date #8" --> It was right around this time that Leah herself made a comment to M about "his girlfriend" while we were hanging out, which prompted the question..."well, IS she your girlfriend?"He said yes, and it was easy as that. 

"He'll propose next year" --> Oh Leah, quite the optimist. While it wasn't exactly December 2010 (it was April 2012).. I'm glad we waited until I was done with school and had a chance to live with each other. I really feel like marriage will be less of a "shock" to the system and more of a smooth transition (for US, at least)

"We'll all be in the wedding"--> This was accurate! I was Meagan's MOH (she would get engaged 11 months after this email) and she's my bridesmaid, Leah is my personal attendant. Girl is organized, and a PRO at this. I have the utmost faith in her. 

"They'll move into their house somewhere between mpls and stp, probs south mpls."--> Well, we DID look at houses in South Mpls, but we found it was too "hit or miss" by neighborhood and block. We're not far from there now, though! AND we did this backwards, from engagement. 

Overall, a very accurate (albeit mayyybee a tad creepy at the time) assessment of my future! haha

OH and as far as Meagan's reply? I'm leaning towards black bridesmaids dresses as well. Eerie. 

SO after a bunch of emails that looked a LOT like the one above (to save face as only a partial creeper, I'll spare you), and we finally set a time and date to meet: New Years Eve, 2009-2010, 1:30 at The Depot in downtown minneapolis for an ice skate: 

We skated for 3 hours that day, and each left for our respective New Years Eve parties. What followed was a dinner date at Loring Pasta Bar (the same place we went to eat after he proposed), mini golf, home cooked dinners, movie-watching, and on and on and on. :-)

As our 1-year approached, we decided it'd be fun to start a tradition (by that point we'd discussed moving in together, so starting an anniversary tradition wasn't "creepy"). Every year on our anniversary, before we went out for NYE, we'd spend the afternoon ice skating at the place we first met. Here are our first two years' photos:

So there's a little bit more detail about the story of us. :) 

OH, and do you recall the mention I made in the "story of us" of some of the creepers that caused me to stop emailing the rest of the guys all together? (This was before M finally responded to my email).. WELL, here is the gem that prompted it: 

You just can't make this stuff up. I had been emailing with him, and he's the 2nd closest I came to a "real" match date- we spoke on the phone, but never met. After our phone chat there were several HUGE red flags that he was NOT dating material, and overall the idea of meeting someone (besides the guy that had prompted the whole ordeal- M) was overwhelming me. SO I sent him the text you see recapped above for 2 of my girlfriends. His reply is below. I die. May I reiterate how Lucky I am to have only met one guy, and gone on one date from match? oofta. 

-Kelly 

                                        

Groopdealz giveaway

It's a long shot, but I'm realllyyyy trying to win a camera. I'd love to be able to take fancy photos :-)

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The weekend and a reveal

 Turns out when my blog is pretty, I suddenly have more motivation to bring out my "nice" camera. A.k.a. NOT my cell phone. 

Friday, well, ya'll know what I was up to Friday with my vino and blog design.

(You'll have to keep reading to find out what Saturday entailed)

Today, Sunday, we went to the first birthday party of a friend of ours' son. Let me tell you, I am nowhere near ready for babies, but my goodness is there something adorable about watching a hoard of small children interact. "Normal" activities suddenly become...strange. Behold:

1. Splish splashing in a bird bath. A little normal, maybe?

2. Until someone gets thirsty.

3. and thennnnn it's monkey see, monkey do.

 The birthday boy, Erik!

 As you can see, he REALLY enjoyed his "fruit pie" cake. Looks like a bloodbath. 

Below, we have "blueberry mousse" for le hair. I know it looks like he cracked his head open and is bleeding, but I swear it's mashed up blueberries.

 and thennnnn, errybody got NAKED. 

Just kidding, just the babes. I said this could definitely have been a Huggies or Pampers commercial. So many round little bellies!

After the party, we came home and I napped for about 40 minutes before heading to my parent's house. My dad had planned a fish fry to cook up their catch from Canada a few weeks ago. I snapped a few pics of my dad's backyard. It's his pride and joy, and it feels a bit like you're in the secret garden, if I do say so myself.

 

We relaxed out on the patio, and I even tried fish! No, I do not care for fish. I think there may have been a traumatic incident with a fish stick as a child, because I used to eat them all the time. 

 

M and I in front of my dad's.

And last, but not least, here's "Saturday":  

M's mom bought this crusty old trunk at an estate sale for $3! I've always had a thing for trunks, and wanted one as a coffee table... so when she offered it to us we couldn't very well say no! 

M tore out all the blue and white fabric on the interior, which smelled like grannies and mothballs. From there, he primed the entire thing white, and painted it a light green/tan color I had picked out at Home Depot (He's the manual labor, I'm the eye for design. Well, that's a lie, I do help out on the labor too, but I've got more of the style-eye). 

After that dried we taped off ALL the accents so we could paint it a light cream color. I had googled "painted trunks" to find a color combination we liked. We knew, since it had been painted previously, we would never get it to look 100% "authentic" and old, so we embraced the paint/modern nature of the colors we chose. 

We sponged on the hardware, let that dry, and then M covered it all with the polyeurethane. 

And here she is!

 She lives in the living room as our new coffee table.

 I'll admit, I've been struggling a TEENY bit with the size/scale of it.  Our old coffee table was an IKEA one with a shelf, so it's an adjustment. Also, the couch we have now (crusty old white leather one M's had for YEARS, that we have a slip cover on) has a low profile, which just makes it look bigger. I think once we get a new couch (soon, hopefully....maybe...) that is a bit taller and more modern, the whole look will come together even better.

But for now, I like her. She has character.

 While we waited for the poly to dry to bring it inside, I had a photoshoot with TJ.

 So handsome. So serious. So seksy. 

That ball of blue fur is his new toy. It's got a rattle ball attached by a string to the fuzzy monstrosity you see in the photo. He loves carrying it around and playing fetch. Yes, I have a cat-dog.

 That's it for the weekend recap and trunk reveal! Kind of bummed that I had to work on a memo for work for 2 hours, and now as I finish writing this it's 10 p.m., and POOF..there goes Sunday. Alas... Hope everyone had a good weekend! 

-Kelly

Amazeballs

You guys. ROCK. hard. seriously. 

Friday night I plopped down on the couch with a little wine, and a lot of Say Yes to the Dress (or mayyybeeee it was the other way around) and your great suggestions, determined to fix some of the things that had been driving me bonkers on my blog. Namely the photos along the side (done in MS Paint, originally. I'm so fancy!), centering the banner, and wanting to add some centered tabs below the header to direct you to specific pages..

(I'll wait for a second while you hop off Google Reader to go check out my pretty new design!) 

I stumbled my way through Picasa, thanks to a suggestion, and after some googling..discovered easy tips on how to center things. MAGIC, those interwebz, I tell you what. I LOVE the new feel. Streamlined, clean, and dare I say it looks a little bit like I could've paid someone to do it.. ;-). I am not TOTALLY computer inept but I am pretty proud of myself for figuring some of this out myself!

I feel a little bit more "official" now, guys! 

Oh, and I stopped by my own home page to see I had 25 followers! To you newbies: Hi! Feel free to click around, OR just click on my super fancy new "About Me" tab for a brief summary. 

M is in the midst of refinishing an oldschool trunk we got from his mom, that SHE got at an estate sale for $3! We're thinking it will live in the living room as coffee table. Stay tuned, hoping to bring ya'll a before and after by Monday!

(2 posts in a row without photos. My bad. Buuuut I HAD to come back here ASAP and thank you guys for the great advice!) 

-Kelly

Beautifying the interwebz

Guys. I need help.

I'd be lying if I said one of the reasons I waited SO long to start a blog is because I didn't want my blog to be ugly.

Hi, I'm shallow.

But really, pretty things are aesthetically pleasing, and I'm a design nut (if you saw my house, you'd understand.. it looks like Pinterest threw up in my living room) and I know NOTHING (or remember nothing of my one 'computer' class I took) about photoshop. Point being, I'm pretty happy with the grey and white polkadot plain background.. but my header. Hevens help me. That was a pathetic attempt in MS Paint at editing an image I stole off the internet found online (you NEVER know when the ethics people are reading). I reaaallyyyy like Erin's design. (go on, go look!) and Katie's too. Now, this is NOT to say I don't like any of your, dear readers' designs. Don't go there. These were just the first 2 that popped into my head for the "feel" I want. For now, I like just words... maybe until I pay someone $$ to take snazzy photos of me looking cute (oh hi, engagement photos/wedding photos). Something clean, simple, but stylistically fun with maybe some different fonts for different words -- like in Erin's how the "is" is varied. Get it?

Any of you have tips on where or how I can go about doing this? Do I have to farm it out to someone else? do you know someone lovely who would do this for minimal $$s?

OOH, one other question- those little bars below the banner that say things like "About, Contact, Our Wedding" yadda yadda. I LOVE those on other people's blogs.. because I'm a wedding creeper. And it's easy to get a quick summary about someone without clicking on the word bubble for different subjects. How do ya'll do that!?

My shabby little blog, and I, thank you ahead of time.

-Kelly

The Dress

First and foremost, let me gush: I BOUGHT MY WEDDING DRESS! Am I aware my wedding is 16 months away? Why yes. Am I also a recovering law student who has a compulsion to do as many things as soon as possible? Bingo. 

Anyway, let me back up. A few weeks ago I made an appointment for this past Saturday to go dress shopping at a place called The Wedding Shoppe, Inc. in St. Paul.

  

I had kind of made up my mind that I was going to "get it" Saturday no matter what. I'm a pretty no nonsense girl.. and I know what I like when I see it.  I also have a habit if making decisions, and then falling MORE in love with them later. I did this for college, law school, hell..the home we live in. I always wind up happy and excited with what I pick. This is not to say I "settled" at all with my dress..but I knew- could I keep looking for months to get a dress that had one TEENY detail I liked a bit more? Sure. But why do that to myself? I am aware I've only been engaged for 2 months, and I only tried on about 10 dresses total, but that's cool with me.

Anywayyyy, the appointment was from 9-10:30, but I brought just one girl (Dana) for the first half hour so I wouldn't be TOO overwhelmed, and because I thought it'd give me time to pick dresses/get settled in. Well, turns out the consultant picks all the dresses (or did for me) SO I ended up trying on a few with just Dana. The other 5 (3 more bridesmaids, a personal attendant, and my future MIL) showed up while I was in dress 3. We circled back to the first 2, and I knew #2 was my favorite before they got there. Needless to say, I ended up putting on dress #2 THREE times. First, when it was just Dana, second, when we "cycled back to it" and third, after trying on a few styles I knew I didn't like, but did it just to humor the consultant and my girls. I knew it was "it" when the consultant asked me if I wanted to put it on (for the third time) and I smiled like an idiot and jumped up and down a little bit. 

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised by my reaction. Similar to the proposal, I was far more composed than I "imagined" being in my head. Especially after we went to a wedding Friday night and I lost.my.shit. at the first dance (of a couple we're not even close to) because NOW when I see "wedding stuff" I think to myself "Oh, in 16 months I'LL be doing that" and I lose it. Don't even get me started on the father daughter dance...oy. Anyway, I didn't cry at all. I came CLOSE once, and I'm sure I would have if I had spent any more time REALLY thinking hard about why I was wearing these beautiful white dresses. I just felt like me, and happy, and pretty in it... OH, and comfortable. I did not want to worry about mobility at all.

SO, while that MIGHT give you an idea of what style I picked, I can't say too much because my lovely fiance, M, stalks this here blog (hai, boyfweynd.) I can show you a different photo though! M's sisters were over the other night and asked M what style HE thought I'd pick. He said, "strapless, sweetheart, that 'goes out' a little bit, but not TOO poofy, and maybe a little detail, but the detail will be clean and simple and elegant." okay, so I lied, I will say one more thing: the boy knows me. WELL. 

We asked him to "elaborate" on his description and draw a little sketch. This is what he came up with:

 I'll wait while you get a tissue to wipe your eyes,.... Lord knows I needed one after seeing this beaut.
A few questions, M:

1. Why do I have linebacker shoulders and a size 36DD bust? 

2. I have LONG brown hair, what's up with the granny curls?

3. Where are my hands? 

4. Those scribbles at the bottom? Oh, I was informed those are ruffles. (The only real direction I got from his as far as what he would NOT like were, "Too many ruffles. Like, more than 2/3 ruffles." Mkay, hun)

5. Those 2 lines on either side at the bottom of the dress? That's my train.

God bless you, M. His description was VERY good as far as "dress language" goes, but that drawing. I die. 

After dress shopping we went to brunch with everyone. Naturally I still forget I have a blog and took ZERO photos. Swear I'll get better at that soon. I only realize it when I sit down to write a blog post and have no photos. Which sucks. Sorry guys. 

SO, I will leave you with that, for now! Hoping to get a photographer lined up in the near future and schedule some engagement photos before the snow falls. :) 

-Kelly