Kelly B.com

Christmas was good. I hope everyone else had a nice holiday as well. Mine was spent at The Farm with Trevor's family. My own family was invited as well but my mom was actually spending the holiday working and my dad certainly wasn't going to leave her alone. Add in the fact that my parents are a bit wary of driving places which they are unfamiliar. I had to drive my own mother to my bridal shower in order for her to attend. In any case, it was a nice time. It was however punctuated by a lot of car trouble. Yes. Car trouble. Times two. First we're making our merry way out to Boston to visit with some of the extended family and Devin's car doesn't go into gear. It'll go into Reverse, but none of the forward moving ones will work. We were right behind him thankfully, so the boys (and a nice stranger) rolled it out of the intersection and we eventually got a tow to come move it back to The Farm to be dealt with after the holiday weekend. Since Devin was wit...

I've been reading blogs (what a surprise, she writes in one and she reads them) and what typically happens is that I absorb the snark and I begin writing in a much more abrasive fashion than I would ever actually express myself in real life. So if I by some irrational reason have rubbed you the wrong way I totally don't intend to rub anyone the wrong way. In fact I don't want to rub anyone on the internet. It seems both inappropriate and weird. I really just want to get thoughts out of my head. It's that simple. I think many thoughts...although they are rarely deep and meaningful. Thankfully I don't have to think wedding prep thoughts anymore and that's a huge weight off my shoulders, but I still have weird things floating in my head that worry me in some way. Mostly it's about things I still need to buy for the house that cost way too much money. Occasionally it's about how I really don't like working side-by-side with my husband on a physica...

Went to the mall today. It was as awful as I thought it'd be. P.S.-Car is fixed but I'm totally in the market for some snow tires. I thought I was going to die on my way home from work Friday.

So...I really need to get some shopping done. Talk about procrastination. The only worse thing would be to wait until the last minute on Christmas Eve. Hopefully the person who picked me out of the Secret Santa pull is better than I am and would complete their shopping much earlier than this but just in case...I'll spit out a few things that are always big hits in Kelly-land. 1.) Vichy. I am addicted to the stuff. You can never have enough of the greatest day-cream ever . Plus I am lazy and enjoy built in SPF in everything. Also I am fond of their calming solution liquid cleanser. 2.) Food. In particular restaurant gift cards because if there is anything better than eating indulgently, it's eating indulgently for slightly less money. Plus once it's used it does not take up any space in my home. 3.) Good sheets. I spend like 8 hours in bed every single day. I think having good sheets is worthwhile. Plus over time you'll have to replace them as they get dirty, holey ...

Kitchen Island....Check Futon...Check Washer/Dryer...Check Fridge...Check We almost appear to have a home. I'm relieved to finally have the capacity to wash our mounting piles of clothing. Not like I don't have plenty enough clothes to last me, but I don't like doing a lot of laundry at once. Plus now I get the joy of doing laundry inside my own home and I don't have to drag it up and down stairs only to wait for available machines. And I'm glad to have a refrigerator which has door storage. The last one was mustard yellow and somewhere along the line lost all of the bars on the door that you would typically store your orange juice and milk in. The kitchen is still quite small and even with some new toys in it I'm insane when I see things on the counter that shouldn't be there. The clutter is somehow amplified ten fold because there's only about a square foot of counter space and I loose it. I can't stand it. It's less noticable in a bigge...

We are moved in. I don't really want to talk about the horrible stress of moving and being yelled at...so I won't. We're living among many boxes. The problem with older homes is A.) lack of storage space anywhere B.) tiny little closets C.) creaky floors. The great thing about older homes is that they're ridiculously sturdy. This poor house has been quite thoroughly abused in the past few weeks. My poor couch is somewhat broken trying to move him in (and in particular up 3 flights of stairs) but you have to anticipate that things will be broken when you move. It's not as though I invested in fancy Ethan Allen furniture. If any piece of furniture I owned cost over $1,000 I'd be a bit more upset but perhaps one day when we have our "stay for life" home then I'd feel better about investing in long-term furniture. We actually made a small investment I guess because we're getting a futon at the end of the week delivered to our home. Delivery ...

Is ever so slightly older than before. Yes, my birthday passed. No I didn't really party it up. I did have dinner the night before with Kim and Vinnie. And yes, I did have brunch the morning after with Lexie, Amanda and Kim at Mill on the River topped off with mimosas and lots and lots of chocolate mousse and birthday cake. It was a really nice time with just the girls. I think we need to do that more often just to catch up and laugh and have fun. It reminds me that I have friends and a life...sometimes. Mostly it's been a really stressful two weeks of working all day long, and then working on the house all night long only to come home, rinse off the paint, dust and general dirtiness, go to bed and repeat. It's pretty blah. All we do is spend our time at the house fixing something and then when we're just at our apartment finally relaxing Trevor talks about the house some more because of course tomorrow's another day and that means another day's worth of...

So since I've had some time to mull it over and internalize my little fender bender I'll start off by complaining about my rental car. I'm driving an 2008 Nissan Sentra. It's...alright. It's not as underpowered as my mom's '03 Corolla, but it's sort of plastic and cheap looking/feeling. Not like my Mazda3 is lavish by any means, but even though it's plastic and cloth it still appears modern. This doesn't appear all that visually stimulating and it's really loud (engine noise-wise) in comparison to my 3. I'm only just starting to get used to it but it handles a lot differently and I miss my own car even if does eat more gas. I'll say the seats are pretty comfy, but the material seems like it's a magnet for stains. I'm driving the bottom rung of Sentra that doesn't have a clicky thing to unlock your doors and no electronic means to adjust your mirrors. No big deal as a commuter car but I do very much miss my remote st...

I recently got into a car accident. As such my mind is wandering all over the place and I kind of want to space out but at the same time I think it's important to write otherwise my mind might very well explode from too many things being inside of it. What's your name? Kelly, although I'm having an identity crisis now since I can't seem to remember my new married name. Where do you live? Right here...for now until the house is done and then we'll be back in my old hometown. How old are you? 25 going on 26 in a few weeks. Unfortunately due to all the house stuff I'll likely be busy painting and packing and cleaning. What are you doing right now? Watching "When Harry met Sally." I love the old married couples in between scenes talking about how they met. I particularly like the really old Asian couple and the old man keeps saying "wery" instead of "very." They are SO cute. Favorite food? I am a lover of all food, but whenever I s...

I guess it'd be really weird if I didn't mention the election. It'd be kind of like ignoring the elephant in the room. It's a historic time and I'm sure many of us will be talking about this for a very long time. What I don't really perhaps...grasp is the whole racial undertone to it. I know it's historically valid and important to be the first African American President but at the same time it's not as though I voted for a race, you (hopefully) vote for a person, an individual you hope is competent and lives up to their promises. Perhaps if I were also African American it would speak more to my own personal strife and experience and the general historicness would resonate in me with a more profound significance. It's hard to say. Perhaps sometime in my lifetime we might have an Asian American President and I'll be able to have something to compare it to. You simply never know. If nothing else, I think this proves that anyone really can be ...

I haven't been posting. I've been really busy with work...and I hate saying that because that sounds so uninteresting and generic but it's true. When your work is tied to the stock market and everything is tanking to record lows you'll find that it drags you right down along with it. But I don't dare complain about work because I'm quite happy that I still have a job given the current economic environment. In non-work news, now that I'm a married lady the next natural question that people tend to ask is "when are you going to have kids?" And my answer is, "eventually...but certainly not tomorrow." Sorry to disappoint but as of this moment I don't care to be bogged down by a tiny, screaming, pooping monster. Not to sound like a heartless baby hater because I'm actually quite fond of children but I'm not naive enough to think that our lives will be as carefree after one enters the picture as it is right now. Children are a l...

Yesterday I hung out with Lexie & Kim baking. I decided on boston cream cupcakes and Kim made a mix of different candy bar innards for her cupcakes in lieu of pudding. All in all it was a lot of fun and very indulgent. Even Lexie's mom was saying how she was having flashbacks because the last time all three of us were piled together laughing and being silly was like 8 years ago. A lot changes, but a lot stays the same. Kim and Lexie still lovingly bug one another, I'm still the kindhearted mediator and there's a lot of laughing. Kim and Lexie talk about boys and I calmly listen on and chirp in my two cents where appropriate. I think that's always a good sign of a significant friendship; you can just pick up right where you left off like no time has passed. We caught up on what I missed while I was away; I talked about my honeymoon; Lex about her new job...etc. I think it's a bit of a longshot considering everyone's current economic status but the nex...

And we're back.... The honeymoon was beautiful. I'm glad we chose to do a cruise because this time of year is very tricky with hurricanes and we got the benefit of being able to sail around the inclement weather. So unfortunately we didn't get to dock at Puerto Rico, but St. Thomas and St. Maartin were perfectly sunny and a lot of fun. I highly recommend it if you're tentative about what the weather will bring your way. I would love to go to Europe (and Singapore and Korea...) but the high costs of travel added in with the US Dollar not getting you very far in Euros added up to it being a bad idea. Plus I didn't want to think on my honeymoon. I just wanted to be fed, walk around, get a little sun, relax with my husband and not worry about converting my money or getting lost or not speaking the native language. I think having never been on a cruise helped too. I'm pretty sure if I had done it before that I may not have found it so novel that they feed you e...

I've been ridiculously tentative about sharing any of my wedding planning all year long because A.) I didn't want to hear anyone say "well, I wouldn't do it like that. If you did ___ it'd be better." Even if you're right I didn't/I don't want to hear it. You can say I'm hardheaded but the fact is that for my wedding day I wanted to do what I wanted to do how I wanted to do it and hearing otherwise from people just filled my head with anxiety. Because I do have a bit of wishy washy-ness inside me and the last thing I want is to be tormented with more options. I have a hard enough time trying to pick out an entree at dinner time and that's a pretty inconsequential decision. B.) I don't like the idea of someone snagging my ideas before I use them. Once I've used them you can feel free to give me credit for inspiring you, but I'd be ridiculous kinds of upset if someone outright stole an idea from me under my feet. And it's...

Now that some of the chaos of the past few days has simmered down I guess the best thing to do is give you my brides-eye view of the events. Wednesday was flowers. Oh, the flowers. lol In case you didn't know or have forgotten I decided to do the flowers for my own wedding. Bouquets and boutineers..nothing crazy fancy like giant topiary displays shaped like cherubs. Just the basics. I was up to my ears in pink roses and pink daisies but they were so beautiful. I'm really happy how they all came out and they looked really stunning against the green bridesmaids dresses. On Thursday we closed on our home. We also picked up our marriage license and were generally a little crazy. I think Devin was at least 5 times more excited about the whole house thing than we were. It was also my last full day at work and I was insane running around updating people on what's been going on with my plans. I later finished up working on all my place cards. Friday was all errands. Thi...

Bachelorette party was another really fantastic success. It was this Friday and the boys went out for their one Bachelor party though we went to different towns (not intentionally) and didn't cross paths. However, it worked out beautifully and I think any other prospective brides and grooms to be would be best served having their bachelor and bachelorette parties on the same night. 1.) I did not have to sit at home worrying at Trevor because I was occupied with my own party. 2.) Trevor did not have to sit at home and worry about me. 3.) We got to see everyone, at least for a little bit before each of our prospective parties divided up. 4.) Any couples that were going to our wedding then could also just easily travel together and it made for much smoother sleeping arrangements. I was a bit concerned because there was a distinct concern about who would be driving home the girls. The boys had rented a party bus so they were all well taken care of. But somewhere out of left field K...

On a decidedly different note I'm really happy about my new coffee related toys. My old fashion-y italiano espresso maker is pretty cool. I'm most intrigued by how the heat and pressure forces the water upwards through the grinds whereas every other coffee maker works with the water dripping downward. My french press is pretty awesome too. I might forgo my "normal" coffee maker once I get the swing of things. The hot water to grind ratio is a bit off still and I'm not entirely sure about the ideal temperature of water to use. However...thanks to a method I stumbled upon when reading about my favorite (Vietnamese Iced Coffee) I found something of great interest to me. Cold brewed Iced Coffee . Now I've tried the double brew method of simply using twice as much coffee grind to the typical amount of liquid you'd use for normal hot coffee. The results are almost always disastrously bitter and need a ton of sugar and cream to balance it out. However, I...

Shower was so fun. Much thanks to our wonderful hostess and her bevy of assistants. :) I'm so tired. I really dislike driving and yet we still got there and home all in one piece so it took a bit of focus. lol My dear friends & loved ones are so great for traveling so very far out of their way to spend time with me. I really appreciate all the love and I'm glad it was a drama-free day with wonderful weather and a bare minimum of traffic. Considering how much it was raining all the days leading up to my shower I was pretty convinced things would be at least sprinkled on, but it ended up being beautiful, comfortable and sunny all day long. Everyone seemed to have fun and if they didn't...well, they did a good job faking it and if that's the case I appreciate that too. Positivity does wonders for an overtaxed, underfed, sleepy bride. It was also a great opportunity to talk to Kim for a few hours straight since we carpooled all together from Connecticut and I had...

So our meeting with wedding coordinator Laura was okay. Not great though which is disappointing because up until now our experience with her and the site has been really top notch. We had to wait 45 minutes before she got to us because she was running late and still working with another couple. Not like I'm not empathetic since I'm sure she couldn't control the length of their meeting but Trevor in particular took offense to her not apologizing for making us sit and wait for sooooo long. In other slightly disappointing news they didn't have the color napkins I wanted and I wasn't about to dole out more money when I was already feeling displeased to get special ordered ones. You can't shake money out of an upset Kelly; that's not how it works. The food we wanted was no big deal, but the cake flavors apparently were because I wanted something more Asian for one of our layers. I think it would have been much better had things started off on the right foot b...

I don't consider myself to be much of a hair person. I have some. That's pretty much the extent of my overall excitement regarding hair. I'm not the kind of person who has a standing appointment at her local salon. I don't color my hair. I certainly don't blow dry or flat iron it unless it's a special occasion. I'm generally very low maintenance and that's fine by me because I'm not the kind of person who wakes up an hour early just to pretty up for work. Now, this lack of hair related appreciation is coming back to get me because I do not have a regular stylist to take me in and coddle my needs on my wedding day. I'm getting married on what is typically considered a salon worker's day of rest and I've been having some issues finding a place that's open. I'm not asking for really meticulously molded, curled, braided hair; it's not my style to be that overly made up anyhow. That's not the kind of tone I want to set ...

I feel better now that some time has passed. I have an unusually low tolerance for picky eating. I'm not irrational; I know people simply don't like certain foods and that's their preference but I think it's rude to question someone's choices when you know they must have thought long (almost a year) and hard over which entrees to select. I wouldn't ever come to your house after you invited me to dinner only to whine and moan how I don't eat goat. (Though I totally would; how exciting would that be to try?!) The fact is that Trevor and I knew that there would be some backlash but hoped that people would have some tact and keep it to themselves instead of acting like bratty children. I think it's different if you actually tried it first and then formed an opinion about it but it's prejudiced to just preemptively complain about something just because you think it's weird. Usually I'm very sensitive to people's likes and dislikes but wh...