Murphy's Law

Have we ever discussed Murphy's Law together?

If not I'm surprised - especially seeing how as I am the definition.

I won't get into the background but in my world- if it can go wrong it will.

Case in point - this weekend.

I've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. My friend Jessica who is going into her third year of grad school in Arizona has been planning to visit for the entire summer. I spent the week cleaning and making plans for us for the weekend - I have been so excited to see her because I haven't seen her since June of 2008.

Just before she arrived yesterday I split my big toe nail while vacuuming and that sucked, I cried. Ben had to bandage up my toe just minutes before Jessica breezed through the front door.

The first few hours were great. Jess and I exchanged presents we made plans to go out to dinner and off we were to Red Robin (yummm!).

Dinner was good but Jess who was a little sniffly upon arrival began to get snifflier and snifflier and mentioned that maybe we shouldn't go out that night because she wasn't feeling so hot. I told her that was fine and after finishing with dinner we hopped in my car to zoom home.

Or so I thought.

I started the car, flipped into reverse, reversed and then my steering wheel locked up and I couldn't steer! So I reversed into another parking spot and called Ben. After having me try several more times he told me he would be on his way up. 20 minutes later he showed up, popped my hood and found that one of my belts had snapped. All we could do that night was drive home and he and his dad would come back and repalce the belt today.

I agreed (what else could I do) and Jess and I hopped into Ben's car and headed back for home.

By the time we got back to our house, Jess felt so bad she just wanted to go to bed so she went to bed and I watched an episode of Roseanne then I went to bed too.

This morning Jess and I went to Urgent Care because she could barely swallow only to find out she has strep throat. So we picked up her prescription came back here and started watching The Secret Lives of Bees before Ben called and I had to drive (in Jess' car) up to my car to give him my spare keys (which of course he forgot).

Ben and his dad looked at my car for awhile before determining that in order to fix it they are going to have to take my engine out and they wouldnt have any trouble doing that except that Ben's mom's car is already up on the blocks at their house having her brakes fixed and they don't want to bite off more than they can chew.

So to make an even longer story short I now have to have my car towed and fixed at a shop that won't even open until Monday- who knows when I'll get it back. So Ben's with my car waiting the 2 hours to have it towed, Jessica is in the guest room sleeping, and I'm sitting on the couch typing, finishing the Secret Life of Bees, and throwing myself a pity party.

The only thing that could make this weekend even better is if I manage to contract strep throat too and it lasts through next week when I'm taking a 6 day weekend to do wedding things and celebrate my birthday.

YeeHaw.

Well, I guess you can say I should just be glad to see my friend...and I am glad to see her but if I had that kind of optomism I just wouldn't be me.

Hope everyone else has a better weekend than I'm having.

Love,

Miss Amber Lane

Show Us Your Life: Wedding Party & Flower/ Ceremony

This week at Kelly's Korner is all about showing the rest of the wedding (except the reception). Since Boo and I are deep in planning mode; I am armed with lots of photos and ideas to share with all you ladies!

(Note: I tried to post a playlist in the middle of this post and the html is wrong so its just a bunch of tags- please ignore it until I can get home and fix it on a good computer- my work computer won't let me remove it!)

Ceremony

First off: Our wedding date is June 25, 2010. Our ceremony and reception will be taking place at The Oasis Golf & Conference Center in Loveland, Ohio.

This first picture is of a recent wedding that our coordinator took a picture of and made accessible to us.



This next picture is a publicity shot used for advertising. While I think its a beautiful picture and showcases the venue- the first picture is much closer to my personal taste.



As it stands right now we have decided that on many things about our ceremony but will eventually need to work out all the details.

What we know for sure:

Ben and I will not be seeing each other prior to the ceremony for pictures
My brother-in-law will be performing the ceremony
Our processional will be to the tune if Michael Jackson's Speechless
My Mom will be escorting me down the aisle to the traditional Wedding March
We will be keeping the unity candle tradition
The song we want played during the lighting is the first half "You and I" as sung by Michael Buble'

Wedding Party & Attire

This next section is a bit out of order and for some reason my stupid work computer won't let me edit it without completely messing up everything so bear with me here.

I have 5 Bridesmaids and 2 Matrons of Honor. My sisters are my Matrons of Honor and they are 19+ years older than my 5 friends so I decided to choose two different dress styles to compliment both age groups.

The first dress is the MOH dress.

The back is the best part!


The actual color is called lipstick and is a sunny, hot pink color.

Here is a picture of beautiful sisters and my Mommy:



Diana is on the top right and Denise on the bottom.

This is the front of the dress "in the lipstick" color but thats really not the true color its much perkier than that.

The next dress is for my bridesmaids- the color is called bubble gum (yes I am doing two different colors of pink and I promise its going to look FABULOUS). Again this isn't the true color but its closer than the lipstick.

Now all along I've been planning to have just my sisters in the long dress and just my maids in the tea length dress but lately I've been regressing and thinking I may put a couple of the maids in the long one as well to make things more even. Opinions would me MUCH appreciated here.

Of course I want to take this opportunity to show off my girls as well so in no particular order: My Bridesmaids!

Megan

Best friend since 1st grade- getting married herself in October! We met when she slapped me on the playground because she wanted the peice of playground equiptment I was playing on.

Rachel

Rachel (AKA Shawdee) Best Friend since I changed high schools my junior year. We've been known for wearing blingin' shoes, searching for Harolds, and ruining fantasies among other things

Emily

Best Friends since college. We drink a lot of wine, watch True Blood on Sundays, and live the glam life together.

Jessica

Best Friend since college. Our fave memories include Children's Theater travels to Russia, Taiwan, and Finland where we drank until our 5am flight home and ran around frozen Helsinki in early March with only tshirts, jeans, and ear muffs on.

Jennifer Marie

Best Friends since middle school. Favorite memory? Definitely all the trouble we got into when we were 16! We've had a tumultuous friendship but like a good blogger friend of mine Nelle says: "Without the bitter, the sweet aint as sweet"

Makayla (and Aiden)

My flower girl and ring bearer- both Jennifer's kids. They're cuter than crap- I think their going to work out great!


Speaking of Makayla did I mention I'm not planning to have a traditional flower girl dress?

I found a cute tutu maker on etsy and am planning on custom ordering her a tutu dress.

Seriously how cute is this little dress? I'm also hoping that after she wears it in the wedding she'll wear it for dress up or maybe Halloween to be a little fairy - after all what good is a beautiful little princess dress that the little girl wears once then outgrows? See, cute and practical!

Flowers

Here are some ideas for flowers that I like for me:

And my girls:

I Don't like gerber daisies but I love the contrast of the green leaves against the pink dresses. Pinks with a hint of green is what I will really be looking for when I sit down with the florist (hopefully) next week.

Ceremony:

I know that I will want flower arrangements at the ceremony but as of yet have no idea what.

What I do know is that I want the aisle to look like a rose garden exploded on it like so:

I'm thinking I'll have a dark shade of pink laid down on the aisle prior to the start of the ceremony and when Makayla comes down I'll have her drop a lighter shade of pink for contrast.

The last things I know for sure about the ceremony is that we're gong to DIY fan programs modled after something like so:

And that we're going to do our big "get-a-way" from the ceremony not from the reception and have our guests toss/blow a mixture of flower petals and bubbles.....

But then again sparklers at the end of the night would be pretty cool too.......

As you can see we still have a ways to go before all the details are settled. It helps to use this blog as an idea board and was pretty fun (though lengthy) to put together.

I hope you enjoyed- and I can't wait until I can FINALLY post pictures of the real thing in 11 months (ughhhh still so far away!!!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Friday!

Miss Amber Lane

Birthday Bummer

So for like ever now I've been planning to have my hair colored, cut, and up do'd (practice for the wedding I swear) on Saturday the 8th (it is my birthday after all) so it would be all pretty to go out Saturday night.

In my mind I'm thinking- I'll get my hair did, have a pedicure and then go and have my drivers liscense renewed ( the big quarter century to-do list) before hitting the town with my friends.

When I shared this schedule with my sister she informed me that I would have a heck of a time getting my liscense when the BMV is closed on Saturday.

Strike 1.

So I adjusted my thinking and figured that I would have my hair done on Thursday before the family birthday dinner. Just nowI called my salon to schedule the appointment only to discover that my girl is going to be on vacation....the whole week! Not only that but she can't even fit me in for a color before her vacation starts!

Strike 2.

Its frustrating but I made an appointment with another girl who works at the salon (baby can't have dark roots for her very special birthday).

I gots to tell ya- my hair is very nervous. I'm faithful to my stylist 100% and the thought of someone else doing my hair is nervewrecking.

But, I'm going to get over myself and have my hair done by this other gal who comes highly recommended. Hopefully it turns out ok...no better than ok.... awesome!

So there's my Thursday afternoon dillemma. That and I would rather be doing anything right now than being at work. This week can not end quickly enough.

Oh well.

Bye Bye For Now

Face Lift Gone Awry?

So I decided tonight that I would try my hand at creating my own header.

It doesn't look terrible.

Am I completely satisfied?

No.

But the time is now 11pm and that means it is Miss Amber Lane's bed time. I guess I'm just going to have to play some more later. In the mean time any suggestions would be welcome.

How do ya'll create your awesome looking headers? Is there some super easy way that I am completely over-looking or are you shelling out the beacoup dollars to let someone else do the dirty work?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Anyhow, goodnight bloggy world, happy over the hump night!

Miss Amber Lane

Donde Estas?

Well ....

The test was negative.

The monthly visit still AWOL so I'm just trying to ride it out - not stress about it and see what happens. If we roll around to next week and still no news- I may take another test - and if still nothing then I guess there is no harm in making a visit of my own to the gyno.

Better safe than sorry.

I mean precautions were taken but Boo and I had more bedroom fun than normal in June/July so that paired with the lateness just gets me to thinking.....

But oh well. No stressing allowed. They say the more you stress - the later you are ... so no more!

In other news: the weather in Cincy is still terrible. Its been raining more frequently than not and the temp. keeps jumping from the 60s to the 80s so you never no quite how to dress for the day.

I have to admit the weather is making me terribly blah. I went to bed, no lie at 9:30 last night and slept like a baby. During the day I just drag around. I've been trying to give myself little projects to do to keep from slacking off.

Today my project was to pick up all the necc. items for all the house pets at work.

5'3 little me schlepping a 4o lb. bag of bird food + 31 lb boxes of kitty litter + toys + front line + fish food = me literally laying into the cart handle to get the thing to move.

After that I thought I would embarrass myself a little by stopping ar Kroger for the head nurse to pick up snack packs of pudding for med pass. Had I gotten a shopping cart instead of a basket I probably wouldn't have looked so much like a little Miss Piggy but imagine someone checking out on the U Scan with a basket over-flowing with pudding and you've got what I looked like.

Oh well. At least I found a Gold Star between Pet Smart and Kroger and picked up a cheese coney - that made the whole day worth while.

Well its smoothie day here at my work so I've got to run so that I can the smoothies made before 3pm and the natives start a mutiny.

I may be back a little later!

Ciao!

Miss Amber Lane

Is It In The Water?

Be forewarned...this post talks about "womanly things" if you would rather be spared- skip this post!

Last Wednesday my assistant and I were winding down at the end of a work day.

Per the usual we were chatting away about life and the day to day blah, blah, blah when somehow the subject of our monthly visits came up.

I casually mentioned that I thought mine had begun last night because I had just the slightest bit of bleeding on the tp when I used the restroom but almost 24 hours had passed with nothing more significant. My assistant said the same thing had happened to her earlier in the week and then joked that maybe we're both pregnant. We laughed, we moved on.

Fast foward to today -after still not starting my period over the weekend ( also no more spotting on the tp) I told my assistant that she had made me a nervous wreck and that she had me worried that I might be pregnant.

She froze in her tracks, looked me dead in the face and said;

"Well I am, that would make two of us"

She took a test this morning and it was positive.

OMFG.

I shared with Ben my worry and told him about my assistant via Blackberry- true to guy form he says;

"What does that have to do with you, you don't share a uterus"

I explained the spotting story similarities to which he used an emoticon to express his unease with the situation and then asked what I want to do.

Nothing. I don't want to do anything right now. I can't focus on work all I can think about is calculating my last period and whether I'm actually as late as I think that I am.

The last period I remember the start and end date for was in May - I KNOW I started on the 22nd EXACTLY and that I finished 5 days later.

I also know that I had a June period but can not remember the specifics. I do know that I was finished with it by the time I went to the NKOTB concert on the 27th.

I've been using my personal calendar and one of those online trackers to try to determine how many days late I am and I've figured I'm between 4 and 10 days late. By one account I should have started on the 17th and another I should've started by the 24th so I guess we're in a gray area.

I will be taking a test within the next 24 hours regardless though. If I wasn't completely turned on my ear by our conversation last week, assistant telling me that she is in fact is pregnant today- totally did the job.

Oddly enough though while cleaning out the linen closet yesterday I came across the companion to an ept bought over a year ago when I was tummy sick and thought I could be pregnant (though I hadn't missed a period). I didn't even know I had one- guess the timing there couldn't be better- at least I don't have to go out and buy one. But the irony of finding it yesterday...ugh....hope its not an omen.

Like I've always said, if I am, I am - it might be the end to our big blow out wedding- but Ben and I are planning on starting a family not too far off into the after-wedding future anyway- so I guess we would just be starting a little sooner than expected.

Of course I would prefer that it not be now....

But you know what they say: Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

Stay Tuned

(Note: I am also hoping that by posting this, my body will make a liar out of me and I will start like.....right now....we shall see)