I feel like we're living a little bit outside our means at the moment because of all the wedding spending that's going on, but I think we're fine. Spending will be curbed drastically once the wedding and honeymoon are over, so I might as well enjoy it while I can :) And then we can start saving up for a house and retirement and all that grown-up stuff. Anyway, here's an entry about fun and unnecessary things I've spent money on recently.

I had a splurgey kind of day today. First I went to Juut and had my hair trimmed (can't cut it for real until after the wedding), my brows tidied up, and my lashes tinted. I wasn't sure about the lash tinting for a while, because it seemed unnecessary (well, it is unnecessary, no doubt about that), and I wasn't sure if it would be worthwhile. But then the woman doing my wedding makeup recommended that I do it because I have thick, light lashes and I rarely wear makeup. The aesthetician at Juut had said the same thing, and I figured there was no way they could be in cahoots, so it might actually be a useful thing to have done. I'm really pleased with the results. It's like I'm wearing mascara, but I don't have to worry about smudging it or anything. It's supposed to last 4-6 weeks. Assuming nothing calamitous happens (like all my eyelashes falling out), I think I'll do it again in a few months. It seems like an easy way to look nice without any effort.

I of course had the hairdresser style my hair straight after the trim because that's the best part about going to the salon. I wish I had the motivation and arm strength to do it myself sometimes, but my hair probably wouldn't appreciate all that blow drying. It's probably best to let it be curly most of the time.

After the salon visit, I went to our local Anthropologie. I'd ordered a few things from them online so I'd have a nice outfit to wear on our honeymoon, but the stuff I ordered didn't end up fitting well. So I went to the actual store to return it and had a grand old time trying on clothes there. It's too bad their clothes are so expensive; I love so much of what they sell!

I ended up finding an even better and more flattering honeymoon outfit for the same price as the clothes I was returning, plus I got a great poofy white skirt that will be ideal for spinning around in circles in and wearing while having picnics in meadows. It was on sale too! Here's a blurry picture of my new outfit (with the white skirt hanging up in the background), taken while in the dressing room at Anthropologie:

The sweater has ruffles, but they're hard to see in the picture. The skirt is corduroy and has a really good weight to it. I enjoy wearing it. And here's a picture of my straight hair and tinted lashes (you probably can't see any difference in the picture, but I can definitely see a difference in person) and the necklace (that I got from Hovey Lee a few months ago) that I will wear with my new outfit:

Also, I just got some well-made and cute shoes (Naot Tranquil) that will be great for (a) walking around Italy in and (b) wearing with skirts and capri pants in lab (I believe my quest for attractive, close-toed, and comfortable shoes is finally at an end). They cost more than I'd normally pay for shoes, but I think they'll last for a long time and will be good slightly dressy everyday shoes. Yay!

And I ordered this last item a few months back, but it took a while to get here because it was handmade by the wonderful people at Queen Bee Creations. It's my cute new purse! (There are better pictures of their purses on their website; mine doesn't do it justice)

I debated with myself for a long time whether I needed a new purse, since the boring utilitarian black one I bought in college was still doing fine. But in the end I bought it, and I love it. It makes me smile :) Its only shortcoming is that it only has one pocket, but I'm willing to overlook that flaw. I still don't know quite when I became a woman who carries a purse everywhere. I guess it happened when I got a real job.

Oh, and I picked up my wedding dress from Elaine's yesterday. She ended up just hemming it; the rest of it fit fine. I think she did a great job. I'm not sure how hard it is to hem the mystery fabric that I can't mention because Patrick is reading this. Anyway, if I need more clothing alterations done, I think I'd go back to her. I'm not sure if her rates are reasonable, since this was my first time getting clothes tailored.

I'm happy to have my wedding dress all taken care of and ready to wear. The wedding is in 6 weeks--wow! I'm excited to be married to Patrick, but a little nervous about the wedding day itself. I'm just glad it's such a small wedding. I'd be way more nervous if there were going to be more people there.

We will have lived in this apartment for a year come September. It's a wonderful place, and I love almost everything about it, including the seafoam green bathroom.

We renewed our lease today, and it turns out the building manager is changing the lease so that no pets are allowed (previously, tenants were allowed one indoor cat as long as they got permission first). That makes me sad :( I was looking forward to getting a cat after we got married. Patrick was not looking forward to it so much though, so maybe this will help prevent future conflict over having a pet. He agrees that someday we can have a cat, just not right now. It still makes me sad though :( I was going to make a cute little place for it to live in our triangle closet. Oh well...

I haven't written for too long, and now I'm due for a long, boring recap of gardening and wedding stuff. I'll try to keep it brief! Sorry if this seems disjointed--it's past my bedtime!

Garden: I started pruning the tomato plants a few weeks back on Jen's suggestion, and I'm glad I did! It opened up the middle of the garden, and the tomatoes don't seem any worse for wear. I just finished reading You Grow Girl (a birthday present that I very much enjoyed), and now I have all sorts of additional info on how to raise tomatoes. Very helpful for a beginning gardener, and there are a bunch of cool garden-related crafty projects I want to do now!

The peas seemed to be dying (I probably planted them too late in the year), though there's a chance they were about to make a comeback. We got a decent harvest from them. Anyway, I pulled them up last weekend and moved my indoor herbs to their vacated spot. They seem to be doing fine so far. I hope the basil grows bigger like its cousins in our outdoor herb garden. I'm also looking forward to the chamomile spreading out--it smells nice!

The strawberries are still putting out runners instead of making fruit. Hopefully it'll be fruit time again soon! It is pretty cool how they propagate all over the place though. We haven't harvested any collard greens yet, but they do seem to be doing okay now that the cabbage worm/cabbage looper barrage is over. Keep growing, greens! Click for pictures:

Wedding: I actually don't think I have a lot of wedding updates. Erin (with Patrick along for moral support) tried to get deputized last week, but City Hall's computers were down. She's going to try again this week. It'll be good to have that out of the way and crossed off the list. We're pretty much down to small things that aren't urgent. Still need to work on the ceremony though. It's too easy to put off!

Patrick picked up his wedding suit, and it's all good to go. He also bought a wet suit, but that's not related to the wedding, as far as I know :)

With only 9 invitations to send out for our wedding, I made my own! Paper Source came to the rescue with its useful invitation ideas. I was able to buy the supplies in packages of 10 for the most part, so I don't have too many leftovers (but I wouldn't really complain if I did--I love paper!). It would've been nice to design the whole package myself, but I think this was a good compromise, since I had plenty of artistic license (choosing the combinations of papers to use and coming up with the actual content of the invitation), but it didn't take forever to make the invitations.

Back of the envelope

Opened!

Outside of invitation folder. It looks a little Christmassy, which was not my intent. Oh well--we liked the green and white paper best, and red seemed like a good folder color to go with it.

Inside of invitation folder

Tucked inside of the folder are the invitation and two folded info sheets. I used PVA for all the gluing, and it made the invitations curl up a little despite my squishing them under our heaviest textbooks. Maybe I used too much glue or maybe that's just how PVA is. I bet I learned about this in typography class, but I've forgotten by now.

Info sheets used the M letterfold, which gave the best final dimensions with the least amount of work. I love the Internet for giving me 20 ways to fold our info sheets!

Invitation close up. Fonts used: Zapfino and Adobe Caslon Pro Small Caps.

Info sheets, flat

Close up of my favorite part of our info sheets: map of Big Sur with sea monster! Illustrator is a handy tool. Patrick helped with the design of the sea monster and waves, for which I am very thankful. I used the map from bigsurcalifornia.org for the general outlines and locations.

That's all! No RSVP cards, no meal choice cards, no tissue paper. But still a fun invitation, in my opinion.

After saying that I hadn't had any wedding dreams yet, I started having them nightly. The first was that Patrick and I were working on wedding invitations, and we got into a fight about how to cut the paper to line the envelopes with. When I woke up, I realized I'd actually forgotten to line the envelopes when assembling our invitations. I was kind of sad because it would've been a nice touch, but it's really the most inconsequential thing ever, so I won't worry about it.

And last night I dreamt that I was just about to walk down the aisle when I realized we'd never written our ceremony, and I freaked out. Good thing we still have 2 months to rectify that problem...

Erin and Jason are visiting, which is enjoyable. I like having guests in our guest room :) Patrick is gone this weekend on a river rafting trip with a bunch of college friends. I miss him, which is just the silliest thing ever because he's only been gone for 2 days. He'll be back tonight, which makes me happy!

This week, I ordered beets instead of green beans in our box, because I wanted to try preparing beet greens, plus I wanted to decide if I actually like beets. I prepared the beet greens on Thursday (I made pasta with sauteed beet greens and chicken apple sausage, based on a recipe in Chez Panisse Vegetables). Patrick and I agreed that there was nothing wrong with them, but that they didn't have much flavor. They were on par with swiss chard. I roasted the beets last night, and they tasted okay, but I wouldn't go out of my way to make them again. Too messy, and I still don't know if I like the taste of beets or not. They're not my favorite root vegetable, but they are very colorful!