Lazy Weekends Are The Best!

Hello all!  You know what feels good after over 2 straight weeks of nothing but high stress?  A lazy weekend!

Jeff and I are doing pretty much absolutely nothing this weekend, which is really strange for us.  We almost always go somewhere to grocery shop or get things that we need, like dog and cat food or something.  In fact, I can't even remember the last time that we didn't go somewhere at least one day out of the weekend.  Jeff DID have to go out this morning for a couple hours, but that was to get a prescription filled for himself and it took much longer than he thought it would because the pharmacy's machine was not working or something.  He actually had a nap this afternoon, and I've never seen him take a nap.  Ever.  He's against naps for some reason.  I'm glad he had one though because he is extra stressed lately and he needed it.  He needs a couple day to just do nothing.

I'm glad we aren't doing anything this weekend because the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is on today and tomorrow and I didn't want to miss it.  It's too bad that Perez Hilton spoiled it for everyone and posted the Best In Show winner on his website like an asshole, I really wanted to be surprised.  Oh well, at least I can see who won the Best of Group winners.  God damn Perez Hilton pisses me off more and more each day.  I'm going to boycott his website!  Yeah... that probably won't work, millions of idiots check out his site every day lol.

I've been doing some MUCH needed online shopping therapy haha.  It truly does release stress!  Well first I won a Revlon hair straightener last week.  I've been winning a lot of things lately.  First I won a makeup package valued at over $140 from Elle Canada Magazine's Christmas contest.  Then I won a Kobo eReader (which I am obsessed with!) from the Kobo website in an online scratch and win contest. I won the hair straightener from a Wal-Mart customer appreciation survey that was on one of my Wal-Mart receipts.  Yeah, I'm on a bit of a roll lol.  Last week a bought a whole bunch of ELF stuff because if you bought $25 worth of stuff from their website, you got to pick 10 mineral eye shadows to add to your order for free.  So I did that and now I'm just waiting for it to come in the mail.  Last night I found the website of my dreams!  Beauty Joint sells my favourite makeup brand, NYX, at prices 25-60% lower than retail price!  I don't know how I didn't find this site sooner, but now that I have I'm obsessed!  Here's what I bought last night:

 

It's the NYX Soho Glam Collection and as soon as I saw it I fell in love!  It has 52 eye shadows, 4 blushers, 4 face colours, 8 lip colours, a lip liner, and 2 lip glosses.  I have lots of palettes, but NYX is the best quality I've ever used and I'm so excited to get this!  Plus, the regular price was $34 and I got this on this new website for $23!  I've very excited lol.

Anyways, that's all I have for now.  Jeff is swearing at the TV because his hockey team, the Ottawa Senators, is playing my Mom's team, the Toronto Maple Leafs right now and if Ottawa loses, he owes my Mom money in some bet they have.  Apparently Ottawa isn't doing to good haha.  

Bye for now!

-Ashley

So Frustrated!

Ugh, why can't I just have the perfect wedding that Jeff and I deserve?!

I've just about had it up to here *raises hand above head*.  Things were going so great.  We had all of our invitations done and ready to be shipped out.  My dress fittings were going perfectly.  We are on track with our budget.  Why does one person have to go and screw everything up?

I'm talking about the Pastor that is doing our wedding ceremony for us.  I don't know what the hell is wrong with this guy to tell you the truth.  First of all, I just want to say that I believe in God but I don't understand some of the decisions that he puts in people's heads.  Our Pastor is REFUSING to let me walk down the aisle to "Here Comes The Bride", you know, the traditional bridal march.  What is his reasoning you ask?  Apparently the person who wrote the song over a hundred years ago wrote about paganism and this song isn't meant for God, it's meant for Pagan worshippers. 

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!

If this is true, how come every other bride in every other single church is allowed to have it?  It is not fair that my parents, aunt, uncles, cousins, and who ever else got married in my family is allowed to have it and I'm not.  I have dreamed about walking down the aisle to that song since I was a little girl.  The Pastor says the words are meant to worship me, not worship God.  Well I hate to tell him this, but #1) No one even knows the words and they certainly won't be singing and #2) Everyone will be looking at Jeff and I, they won't be thinking about God.

I don't even have a second choice for music, and even if I did he'd probably turn in down because it wasn't written for God.  Even more stupid, he is letting my Uncle sing a song that he wrote during the license signing and he sure as hell didn't write that song for God, he wrote it to praise his wife. 

You wanna know what the worst part is?  We told him when we saw him at Christmas that we wanted the traditional bridal march and he agreed that we could have it!  He even wrote it down on his papers!  Now all of sudden we can't have it and his lame ass excuse is "when you said the word 'traditional', that could have meant anything".  If he didn't know exactly what we meant, he should have fucking said something when we meant with him 3 times!  EVERYONE knows what the traditional bridal march is, he's just being a sneaky bastard.

I'm sorry if I sound so mean when I'm talking about a Pastor, but this guy is just full of himself.  He's ruining my wedding ceremony.  I really don't want to have anything to do with him or his church ever again.

-Ashley

Winter Break Happenings

We've been in Ontario for about 2 weeks now and we've still got 1 more week to go. Jeff took more time off work that usual for this years winter break because this is basically the only time we have before the wedding to get things done. Planning a wedding from a whole other province in tricky that's for sure! We have got so many things done though, our wedding is basically complete.

While we've been home we have done the following:
1) Hired a DJ (friends of the family who have been DJ's for 25 years, they gave it to us as a wedding gift for FREE! SO GREATFUL!
2) Hired a cake maker
3) Hired a photographer
4) Had meetings with the Pastor and looked over the church
5) Bought the flower girl dress
6) Got all the guys tuxedos fitted and rented

Holy smokes. We have been so busy! The bridesmaid dresses I don't have to go to, so they can get them at any time. They just have to say the designer and the dress number so that everyone has the same dress.

We are having our engagement party on Saturday at Amanda-Dawn and Chris' house. A lot of people are going to show up, its going to be really fun. We are taking Amanda-Dawn and Chris out for dinner tomorrow for Chris' birthday and to thank them for hosting the party and letting us have a huge amount of people in their new house.

Of course we have to order our invitations, but we already have them picked out and we know where we are getting them from. We have a guest list of 160 so that's how many invitations we have to mail out. We don't expect 160, we expect about 125-140. Still, that is a huge number. We are ordering the invitations as soon as we get back to Manitoba and then once that is all done, its basically a waiting game from then on. I love that I have so many things so early. I really didn't want to have so many things to do last minute. Don't get me wrong, I am still EXTREMELY stressed out, but at least things seem to be going mine and Jeff's way.

Well I guess that's all for now. Today we are going to the mall for a little shopping! Oh and on a side note, I won a Kobo Wifi eReader from the official Kobo site last week and they are sending it to me in Manitoba, how awesome is that!?

-Ashley

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on the MTS High Speed Mobility Network

What's Been Happening?!

Wow I've been away for awhile (except for my last post, which was done in like 2 minutes so doesn't count!).  I've been in wedding planning overdrive lately.  We are going home to Ontario for the holidays in less than 2 weeks and there is so much wedding stuff to be done.  We are home for 3 weeks and we basically have to get everything in gear in that time because we are getting married in Ontario and we won't be back until a month before the wedding so its better to get it all under control while we're there.

We are having an engagement party at my sisters house on the last weekend we're home.  It's been kind of stressful because we have to basically invite everyone who is invited to the wedding and that is a lot of people to fit into one house.  Thankfully a bunch of people won't be coming because I have family in British Columbia and Nova Scotia that won't make it out and Jeff has family in Ottawa that won't make it either.  It's not going to be a huge party, just an afternoon get together from 1-4pm to see us and congratulate us.

The first full day we are home for the holidays is already busy with wedding stuff.  We are having a food tasting at our reception site to see exactly what food we like and will be serving to our guests.  There is so much amazing food to taste, but I am most looking forward to the Belgium chocolate mousse cake and the creme brule!  The food is so fancy at this place, our guests are really going to be treated well!

We are also meeting with a photography company at some point to see their portfolio and book them in for our wedding day.  The price is steep, but it's worth it to have beautiful photos to remember your day.

The cake is probably the only thing we don't have a meeting booked for.  We are just going to look at different bakeries in the area and then choose one.  Price isn't really a problem here, I mean, we need a wedding cake!  I just want a plain vanilla cake with butter cream frosting and NO fondant.  I don't like crazy cake flavours, vanilla is my favourite so that's what I'm going to get.  As for fondant, it tastes and feels like sandpaper, so no thank-you.

All this PLUS Christmas and New Years!  It's a good thing we're going home for 3 weeks because we never could have fit all this in just 2.  Oh and I just remembered that my sisters and I are going bridesmaid dress shopping AND I have to go and find a dress for my Mom and Jeff's Mom!  Ugh, it's going to be my busiest holidays ever.  This is my wedding though, and as long as everything goes my way and people don't try to do other things behind my back or try to change my mind decisions I make (expect for Jeff), everything should go smoothly. 

Hopefully...

-Ashley

Holiday Survey!

Yes, I know it's been awhile.  Wedding planning and Christmas planning and everything else has really got me tied down right now.  I have a few extra minutes, so I decided to do this holiday survey thing that I found on YouTube.


Questions:
1) Which holiday do you celebrate in December?
Christmas of course!

2) What are you doing for the holidays this year?
We're going home to Ontario to spend the holidays with our family.

3) What's your favorite holiday drink?
Hot apple cider.

4) Candy cane or Gingerbread men?
Yikes, BOTH!  I can't choose, they both taste so yummy!

5) What's your favorite holiday/Christmas song?
The Christmas Song - but ONLY if it's sung by Nat King Cole

6) What's the weirdest gift you've ever received?
Some art that my youngest sister made in kindergarten.  I don't even know what it was supposed to be lol.

7) Have you ever made a snowman?
Yes and I used to love making snowmen, but I can't anymore because of my cold allergy :(

8) What is your favorite winter fragrance?
Cinnamon!

9) What is at the top of your list this Christmas? (or whichever holiday you celebrate!)
Just to go home and see my family, which we are doing.  I don't need anything else.

10) What is most important to you about the holidays?
Spending time with family.

Wedding Planning Madness!

I have been going non-stop for about 4 days doing wedding stuff.  Usually I pick something to do and then I slowly get around to finishing it.  However, since we decided when we are going home for Christmas, I decided to kick things into high gear because the time we are home during the holidays is basically the only time we will have before the actual wedding.

We decided to go home from December 22nd to January 9th.  That is hopefully a good amount of time to get everything done.  I know our wedding is 9 months away but since we are planning it out of province, it's a little bit more trickier than the average wedding.  My 2 sisters are planning the engagement party and that has been on my mind a lot this past week.  We decided to just have it at my sisters house because booking a hall would be $500 for the cheapest and that is just way too expensive for just an afternoon (says the bride with the $16,000 reception hall booking lol!).  Anyways, it should be okay, it's really only a drop in thing to see us and congratulate us or whatever.

I also ordered all my flowers.  My Aunt in a florist and she is doing them at a super family discounted price and that is extremely awesome!  Even more awesome considering I picked the most expensive flowers out there:  red roses and white calla lilies.  My wedding colours are red and white and the flowers are going to look so beautiful!  I ordered my bouquet, 3 maid of Honor/bridesmaid bouquets, 5 corsages (moms and grandmothers) and 8 boutonnieres (groom/best man/groomsmen/ushers/ring bearer/fathers).  Plus my Aunt told me that she has some sparkle spray to add to the bouquets and some fake diamonds to add as well.  It's going to be so beautiful!

I've also had one of my sisters tracking down a hair and makeup artist who is willing to come out to the hotel we are staying at the morning of the wedding.  I think we found a good one, we just had to see if she is available for my date.  My sister emailed her, so hopefully she's available because that will be one more thing I can check off my list!

So, I don't know what I'll do next.  Tomorrow I think I'll just take a day off from wedding planning and maybe sleep in.  That probably won't happen though lol.  Oh well, it's all going to be worth it because I know my wedding is going to turn out amazing.  For the price of everything, it better!

-Ashley

Trying Hard To Cheer Up

Hey guys.

I've been having a really depressing fall.  As I mentioned in my last post, our family dog had to be put down.  His names was Casper and he was a Lhasa Apso and he was 15 or 16 years old.  That's pretty old for a dog, and I guess it was just his time.  It hurt even more for me because he lives in Ontario with my family and I couldn't be there for his last years.  I cried so hard when it was done, it was so upsetting.  Even writing this now, I feel like crying.  I know he's in a better place now with our other dog Barney, but I am still going to miss him.

Another thing making me upset is this crazy woman who moved into the apartment below us.  Let me just start off by saying that they walls and floors in this place are basically paper thin, the building was built in the 60's.  There are lots of regular living noises that can be heard here, you just learn to tune them out.  Well this woman has been here MAYBE a month, and it's been hell.  She's not even old, she maybe around 30.  Every single little noise that I make in my own apartment, she bangs like a maniac on the ceiling.  I mean seriously, she sounds like an insane woman who should be put into SEVERE anger management classes.  As I mentioned above, I cried when Casper was put down.  She banged on the ceiling when I cried.  I had my hair dryer on, she banged on the ceiling.  Electric mixer while baking cookies?  Ceiling banging.  It's getting worse though.  I raised my voice once when Jeff was annoying me, and she not only banged on the ceiling, but she called the landlord.  The worse part is, I have only seen her once when I was doing my laundry, she never even spoke to me and just gave me a dirty look.  She has never come up stairs and knocked on my door to see if there is a real problem, she just bangs on the ceiling.  It gets even more insane because she is a single mother to little boy who is about 6-7.  Yeah, she is banging on the ceiling and acting like an out of control lunatic in front of her young child.  Well after the landlord call, I've had it.  If she bangs one more time for me making a small noise, I'm emailing my landlord and then going down there and asking her what the hell her problem is.  I can't move here, it's like I'm a prisoner in my own home!  If she wants to start paying my rent, she can tell me how to live.  Until then, kiss my ass lady!

It's mid October and in Manitoba that means cold weather.  It's supposed to snow before Halloween!  Jeff and I went to a Haunted Forest and Corn Maze last weekend with our friends and I almost died I swear.  After 15 minutes my legs were covered in hives and I nearly passed out.  Jeff had to tie his sweater around my knees, but that didn't help and I even had long johns on under my jeans AND I had taken 4 allergy pills.  Nothing works anymore.  I told everyone that I was fine, but I was far from it.  I passed out in the car on the way home.  It seems my cold allergy is getting worse and worse each year and there is no cure and I have tried just about every allergy pill out there and nothing works.  This is going to be one long winter.

I guess the only good news I have right now is I've lost about 19 pounds since we've been engaged.  I hope to lose about 20 more, but I'm not going to the extreme.  Just eating healthier and working out on my elliptical.  It really does work if you put some effort into it.  Diet pills and all the crap are just that, crap.  The old fashioned way is really the best way.

So as you can see, I've been having a bit of a depressing time.  I hope it doesn't get worse, but I feel it will due to the cold weather.  Sigh...

-Ashley

This or That Survey

I've had a pretty stressful few weeks, reaching the breaking point with our family dog having to be put down at the age of 16.  To get back into the swing of things here on my blog, I decided to just do this survey that has been circulating YouTube.  Enjoy!

This Or That?!

MAKEUP:
blush or bronzer - Blush because I can never find a bronzer that fits my skin tone
lip gloss or lipstick - Gloss, it's easier to put on doesn't melt in your purse
eye liner or mascara - Mascara, can't leave the house without it!
foundation or concealer - Concealer because it hides all the imperfections
neutral or color eye shadow - Neutral, it's more classy
pressed or loose eye shadows - Pressed, less messy
brushes or sponges - Brushes, I just through the sponges that come with the makeup in the trash

NAILS:
OPI or china glaze - I've never used either brand
Long or short - Long, but I unfortunately bite my nails
Acrylic or natural - Acrylic, but they cost a lot
Brights or darks - Brights
Flower or no flower - Flower

BODY:
perfume or body splash - Perfume, lasts longer
lotion or body butter - Lotion, it soaks into your skin faster
body wash or soap - Body wash, it lathers a lot easier
lush or other bath company - Never tried Lush... I use Dove a lot

FASHION:
jeans or sweat pants - Sweat pants, more comfortable
long sleeve of short - Short, I feel suffocated in long sleeves
dresses or skirts - Dresses
stripes or plaid - Stripes
flip flops or sandals - Flip flops, easier to just throw on and go out
scarves or hats - Scarves
studs or dangly earrings - Dangly
necklaces or bracelets - Necklaces
heels or flats - Flats, heels kill me
cowboy boots or riding boots - Neither
jacket or hoodie - Jacket, I don't like putting things over my head once my hair and makeup are done
forever 21 or charlotte russe - Haven't shopped at either
abercombie or Hollister - Neither
saks 5th or nordstrom - Neither

HAIR:
curly or straight - Straight
bun or ponytail - Ponytail
bobby pins or butterfly clips - Bobby Pins
hair spray or gel - Spray
long or short - Long
light or dark - Dark
side sweep bangs or full bangs - Side Sweep
up or down - Both

RANDOM:
Rain or shine - Shine, since rain gives me hives
Summer or winter - Summer, since I'm allergic to cold
Fall or spring - Spring because Summer is on the way!
Chocolate or vanilla - Vanilla
East coast or west coast - East Coast... NOVA SCOTIA!

Autumn Has (Sadly) Arrived

I know what you are all probably thinking.  You're thinking that autumn is probably your favourite season of the year because of all the beautiful colours of changing leaves, the crisp air, and Thanksgiving and Halloween are just around the corner.  Well I love all those things too.  I'm just in a depressed mood because it's getting colder and I can't go outside as much as I would like to because of my cold allergy.  I even had to dig my winter coat out from the back of the closet.  I feel sorry for Dixie too, I would love to take her for longer walks but I can't without getting sick.  If am feeling this bad now, I am REALLY not looking forward to winter. 

I have started taking a new over the counter allergy medication.  It's about the 5th one I've tried, nothing ever seems to work.  This new one is called Desloratidine and it's basically the store brand of Aerius, a well known allergy medication.  I prefer to get the store brand because it's the same thing except you get more at a cheaper price.  Unfortunately, no allergy pill really works for completely stopping my allergy from happening, it just makes the hives go away a little bit faster once they arrive.  When my mom was visiting I tried one of her prescription allergy pills called Singular, but it didn't work either.  I really wish there was a cure for the stupid allergy, it's so hard to live with. 

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted in a month. I have been really busy though, and I know it seems like I say that all the time but I'm getting married okay, I'm actually extremely busy lol.

For the past 8 days I've been playing host to my Mom, youngest sister, and Grandmother. They came last Saturday and left yesterday. How am I feeling after a very loud and stressful 8 days? Let's just say I slept in today and relished in the silence. Its not that I don't like my family, its just that I really enjoy my quiet time. Plus the fact that my Grandmother seemed to starting fights for no good reason. I love her, but I would have been more at ease if just my Mom and sister came out. Going home for Christmas should be interesting.

Something good did happen while they were here though. Actually, something amazing happened. I bought my dream wedding dress! Oh my God I never knew that I could ever lay eyes on such a beautiful piece of clothing. I don't want to explain it too much here in case Jeff reads this, but its gorgeous. Not so keen on the $1090 price tag or the $200+ in alterations that need to be done to shorten it, but hey you only get married once right? Got to make it count! I tried on the sample dress and then I ordered it in my size. It will be in the store in January and then I can go in and have fittings. I can't wait to go in and try it on again, I am seriously in love with this dress!

Well I'm laying in bed and sending this via my Blackberry and I'm getting pretty tired. I'll try to post more often, honest lol.

-Ashley
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on the MTS High Speed Mobility Network