Monday Review: Wedding and Interview

So we're back from the interview and the wedding, had a day of rest, and now I'm making myself get stuff done.  On a frustrating note, Derek didn't get his visa approval right away.  Everything went well - they told us that everything looked good (apparently we convinced them that we were married and that we made enough money) but the only issue was "establishing domicile."  That means that we have to prove that we are in fact moving to the states.  That seems so stupid to me, because why would we have gone through all that trouble to NOT move?  (Guess I should have worn something red, white, and blue :P) Haha.  Anyway it's quite easy, we just have to send in a few more papers via mail - we don't have to go back to Quebec, thank God.  It should be fast, as well, so we should still be moving soon (mid September, perhaps?).  So all in all, a very good outcome, but quite frustrating after spending five hours sitting in a building knowing you have to be in Traverse City in less than twenty four hours. 

Dress: Express Shoes: Aldo Necklace: Designs By Annika Headband: Feather Your Nest

We did, in fact, make it to Traverse City in time, and my friend Sharayah's wedding was so lovely.  It was incredibly emotional watching her tie the knot, and seeing her so happy.  Her classic fashion sense was evident in the sand-colored tuxedos she chose for the men, the hints of color to her ensemble (blush colored sash and veil) and amazing hairdo.  I will have to share more and better pictures when I stumble across them.  As to the matter of what I wore, the above was not my carefully planned outfit.  My carefully planned outfit is actually in Quebec, where I left it, hanging up in our hotel room.  -_-  The dress I ended up wearing is this gorgeous, colorful number, and I received it from my in-laws for Christmas.  It actually ended up being a better choice than my original plan, so hey, not all a loss.  I tend to purchase black dresses, but I don't like wearing black to a wedding.  Other dresses of mine have a white base with a print over it, but I also don't like wearing white to a wedding, so this dress will actually probably be a staple for attending weddings.  It's celebratory, formal, but still very wearable.  I can't say the same for my stilettos, but I fail-danced the night away in them regardless.  Also worth mentioning, Sharayah managed to seat us probably with the best people...ever.  It was the most successful seating chart in the history of seating charts.  Most likely.  

We gave the bride and groom somewhat of a creative present, but I won't tell you what it is in case they haven't opened it yet.  Maybe in a couple of days I will.  Well, little hands of panic are closing around my throat as I contemplate the workload before me, so I better get crackin'.  Just try not to think about what it's going to take in order to be packed up and ready to move across the continent in a month, Elizabeth...

Would you let the husband of this woman into your country?

Shirt:  Dress worn as top from Charlotte Russe Skirt and Belt: I think from JC Penny Heels: Payless Bracelet: Necklace worn as wrap bracelet from Ben Moss Jewelers

Tomorrow, Derek and I leave to head to Montreal, Quebec, to attend a visa interview.  My husband is trying to become a permanent resident of the states so that we can live in California!  This should hopefully be the first and only interview, and we don't really know what to expect.  They should give hubby the green light for moving right away, but the process could (fingers crossed, let's hope not) take longer still.  Anyway, I don't even know if I'm being interviewed, but I'm sort-of sick with dread.  My horror of any sort of test and my penchant for forgetting normal things that everybody knows like their own address make this not the sort of situation I would succeed in.  Furthermore, the determining of where I am going to live is a lot to rest on how an interview goes.  Of course, we will eventually live in the states, but California has been calling me home for too long now as it is.  To compensate for my utter lack of prowess in interview situations, I have put together the perfect outfit.  I wanted to look like a contributing member of society, wealthy, and respectable.  I may have overdone it, but it's basically either jeans or this.  Haha.

After that, we're driving down to Michigan to attend the wedding of my dear friend, Sharayah.  I am VERY excited for that, but I can't even really focus on that until after the interview.  I would show you my outfit for the wedding, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.  ;)  Meanwhile, Linus will be staying with the in-laws (he loves his "grandparents," and they are total champs about it) so he received a bath and trim two days ago.  We used watered-down baking soda and lemon juice to wash his fur, since that's what we've been using on our own hair for the last two weeks, with great results.  It got Linus really clean, and as with my hair, it made his fur REALLY FLUFFY.  Linus is not usually very fluffy for a male rough Collie, but not using a heavy pet shampoo on him really gave his coat a lot of body.  He looks great, and I'm really excited, because I always wished he was a bit more fluffy.  In this picture, he isn't as fluffy as he was after drying off from his bath two days ago, but he's still more voluminous than usual.

I won't be doing any posts for a few days since I'll be out of town, so while I'm gone, be sure to read the awesome guest post that my friend Abby did yesterday.

Anyway, wish us luck!

Guest post by Abigail: Don't fight about the little things

(I, Elizabeth, went to high school with this fantastic girl named Abby, and she kindly offered to do a guest post for me!  It's really terrific, so read up!)

I have known Elizabeth for some time now and asked her if I could give this guest blogger thing a go and she said YES! So, where to start???? Well, let's see.... My name is Abigail (Abby, Abs, Gator.... pretty much anything but gail) and I have been married to my wonderful hubby, Chris, for over 3 years now.  We have a beautiful and very active 2-1/2 year old, Adrianna, who thinks she's 16.  My hubby is in the military and thus we are forced to uproot every 4 years or so and move.  It's stressful enough that we have to just pick up and move, but it's about twenty times worse when you find out you're going to New Jersey. Personally, I'm not a fan.  We moved here about 2 years ago and have been making it through the best we can.  New Jersey is much different than anything we're used to (which definitely pushed all of us out of our comfort bubble) and added a large amount of daily stress to our lives. My hubby and I are quite similar in the way we are very vocal about something if it is bothering us and since moving to New Jersey, we've had several "tiffs". The particular "tiff" I want to talk about occurred about a year ago.

It was one of those days that just seems like the NOTHING goes right.  I decided that right before bed I was going to make cookies to add a little bit of happiness to the end of a terrible day.  As I was in the process of mixing ingredients and about to add the butter, my hubby walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge asking where the butter went. I informed him that I was making cookies and needed what we had left for them.  That's when it happened. We started to argue....yes, about BUTTER.  He said he wanted to make toast and needed butter for it.  I knew that for him to have his toast with butter the way he wanted it, it was going to take too much butter and I wouldn't have enough... We continued arguing for about 5 minutes until I suddenly realized - We were fighting about a stick of butter.... I started to laugh and he, still frustrated and angry, asked what was so funny.  I had to take a minute to stop laughing and catch my breath before I could make him understand that we were fighting about butter.  I realized that we fight about a lot of small, insignificant things that seem like they are so very important at the time.  We've learned to take a breath and think about what it is that seems so significant. It usually ends up being something as trivial as butter; although butter is delicious, it's definitely not worth getting all up in arms about.  Oh, I almost forgot - my hubby ended up wanting cookies also and they were delicious!

- Abigail

Date Night, Marriage, and Memories

 Last night, we went to the movies, as we do every Tuesday night.  We got a (practically) flat tire, and had to go put air in it before we went home.  I decided I ought to take a picture of my wonderful man.  While he was refilling the tires, he reminded me of the time that we had to do the same to our previous car while on a cross-country road trip.  He had forgotten to put the caps back on and drove away, scattering the caps across the parking lot.  In his defence, I was just sitting in the car being useless as usual.  He realized what had happened and we drove back and hunted for the caps.  At the time, it probably wasn't the most fun thing ever.  Yet we laughed to remember it, and honestly, it just...took me back.

Derek and I have been through a lot together, and though we've only been married for two years, already it feels like a life time.  I think that's a good thing, but it can also have its downsides in that if all you can remember is now, then you forget the things that led you to now.  Spontaneously remembering that random, minor, silly misfortune that befell us nearly three years ago did something strange to me.  As if I had become numb without knowing it, something opened and I fell even more in love with my husband in that second.  Just like how the best memories are often the ones you didn't even intend to make, it's funny that the best part of my date night was an unscheduled and inconvenient stop.  Life is strange like that.

Cardigan: Dynamite Shirt: Charlotte Russe Tank Top: American Eagle Wrap Bracelet: headband worn as bracelet from Walmart Jeans: Fidelity Denim

Living With A Dog (especially a long-haired one)

I have recently realized that being single and owning a dog would be an entirely different experience than being married and owning a dog.  When you're married and you own a dog, you can just make your significant other do all the things you don't want to do.  It's great.  It's also very character-building...for the other person, that is.  Your unlucky partner can pick up after the dog, give him baths, take him outside in inclement weather (or just all the time, if you're super lazy like me) lint roll the car interior, brush the dog, the list is totally endless, as my dear Derek can attest to.  I just figure that my big strong manly husband is looking for ways to rescue me from the dragons of gross stuff and inconvenience.  (For example, Derek kills all the insects in our house.  If I shriek for him from the other room, he comes running and proceeds to slay said minuscule beast.  If he's not home I just pop a cup over the sentenced individual and leave it to await its doom until hubby comes home.)

Of course, all of this doing-nothing-and-making-your-husband-do-everything can have its downsides.  Your husband can actually start to believe that you can't do any of this stuff (when really you're just being nice and pandering to his macho self-image, but whatever :).  Case in point, the other day I was going to go for a walk with my mother-in-law, Marion, and I said to Derek, "I'm taking Linus."  Derek stopped what he was doing and gave me an unflatteringly nervous look.  "Are you sure?" he said.  That's right.  My husband thought I was incapable of walking my own dog.  So of course I ranted at him and complained to Marion and off she, the dog, and I went.  And we were fine.  I mean, maybe I did let him off leash on a no-off-leash path, because he was pulling on my arm too hard, and maybe I did make poor Marion stop every five minutes to put him back on the leash whenever someone was coming.  Maybe I continually interrupted our conversation by shouting "LINUS!" or "Heel!" as if I had dog-owner's Turrets syndrome.  But the point is, I managed.

(There I am having trouble walking Linus)

Yet there are some situations which would have been very difficult to handle on my own.  Like, for example, the time that Linus brought twenty-five ticks into our house.  Now, living with a long-haired dog presents even more challenges than living with a short-haired one.  Just like a big dog presents some different challenges than a smaller one.  (Even though I assured my husband that there would be no difference.  As it turns out, there is a very, very big difference.  For example, not hardly being able to walk my own dog or bathe him because he's stronger than me.  Also massive poos.  But that's neither here nor there.)  Some of the fun aspects of living with a long-haired dog are: constant brushing, hair everywhere (and I'm not talking discreet hair, I'm talking hairs over four inches long snaking all over your clothing) said dog getting clumps of hair stuck in his mouth which his toys picked up from the carpet.  Another epic tale of long-hair woe is how he started to reek no matter how often we bathed him, and we had to inflict a hygene-clip upon him ourselves.  Let's just say I was scissoring in gross places while strangers looked on...  But that's a story for another time.  Right now I'm going to tell you about the time he brought twenty-five ticks into our house.  At least twenty-five.

I had drug Derek out on a walk after he had worked a long and exhausting day, because our gigantic dog needed some exercise.  We went to this wetlands conservation trail that is very pretty and was completely abandoned.  We were walking along, having one of those red-flag perfect moments, with Linus trotting through long grasses looking like his movie star doppelganger (Lassie, of course).  We were over halfway back when Derek noticed a tick on his sock.  He began to freak out a little bit and...I laughed at him.  (I'm ashamed to say, considering what happened.)  Normally I'm horrified of ticks.  But at that moment, I was just being stupid like one of those unsuspecting girls in a horror flick.  I think we made Linus get out of the grass by then and hurried back to our car.  We searched ourselves and Linus carefully (I think we found about ten on him at that point...and keep in mind that when I say we I mean Derek, because obviously there was no way I was going to willingly touch a tick).  We drove home, and I was still all chipper, blissfully and ditzily unaware of the waking nightmare that was about to become my life.  We were about to go to sleep that night, and I turned on the light I think because Derek found a tick on his neck.  There were ticks everywhere.  On our walls, in our bed, on the floor, and as time would tell still on the dog.

Let me reassure my readers that Linus is on a good flea and tick medication, and always has been.  We used to live in Tennessee, which, as anyone who has ever lived there knows, is where ticks hang out.  Ticks are a perpetual fear in the south.  In the north, they're a laughing matter, as far as I'm concerned.  Well, disaster strikes when you're least expecting it, usually.  Even though Linus was banned from our room for awhile, we kept finding ticks, for days.  Oh, and our car?  Also a tomb of horror.  Even after Derek vacuumed and sprayed it, a tick would fall on my shoulder and I would be trapped in that cab of the truck with no where to run.  I refused to ride in the car for a good week, I think.  Oh, and we bathed Linus.  "They'll drown!"  I insisted.  Well, no ticks drowned and none fell off, either, despite his body being submerged underwater.  Days afterword, I kept finding ticks crawling on Linus (but not biting) or hanging out on the walls.  I slept, cocooned tightly in blankets and horrified.  Finally, after a couple of days of no tick sightings, while lulled into a false sense of security, two final ticks made their last stand by crawling onto Linus' nose and biting below his eye.  After awhile, I put on my husband's robe because I thought the war of the ticks was over, but when I took it off I brushed a tick off my back.  That might have been as long as a month after the tick infestation began.

Understandably, I am mentally and emotionally scarred from that experience.  Every time I feel the teensiest tingle in my skin, I jump and start pawing at the spot in paranoia.  Honestly, though, I think just below thirty ticks is the maximum amount of ticks that one dog can bring into the house at one time.  Even a long-haired dog.  So we should be safe.  Now, Derek doesn't allow Linus to go in tall grass.  It was rather dumb of us to let him do so in a marshy area, but hey, live and learn, right?  We are leaving to go camping tomorrow, and we'll be extra vigilant in the tick-department.  Last time we went camping with Linus, he chewed on a stick, got his gum infected, developed a tennis-ball sized lump beneath his lip, and $200 later, was fit as a fiddle again.  So I'll be trying to keep all the sticks in the great outdoors away from our high-maintenance, but entirely worth it, dog.

(I'm going camping with these lovely people, my in-laws.  Derek and I are at the top of the photo.)

I won't be posting until I get back (so maybe on Monday) but when I do, expect pictures, funny stories, and hopefully no tales of woe.  After that, I'll be doing my first "Drool List," which will be filled with drool-worthy items you're going to want to buy.  There will also be another OOTD post.  Wish us luck!

Oh, and if you have a funny (or horrifying, or sweet, for that matter) pet story to tell, do share!

OOTD: Boyfriend Flannel

My poll indicates that what you guys want to hear more about is marriage, by a slight margin.  Of course, I know one of those votes was my husband, who was not aware that the 'marriage content' I was referring to could be better named as 'jokes at husband's expense.'  (Clearly this is not the place to come for marriage advice.  ;) Anyway, to satisfy the cravings of my readers and to excuse the fact that this Outfit Of The Day (ootd) post is neither very fashionable nor enlightening, I bring you: boyfriend flannel.  Which is me raiding Derek's closet.  It was so comfortable, I loved it.  I feel a dangerous tradition in the making.  Don't worry, I have ideas for more stylish ways to wear boys' shirts, which you will see later.

Also, Derek really liked this outfit.  A COMFORTABLE OUTFIT THAT A MALE LIKES?!  A BAGGY comfortable outfit that a man likes?  I might as well close this blog.  You have no need for me, I leave you with the only piece of advice you'll ever need: go steal your significant other's clothes and live in comfort all of your days.  I'm just kidding, but in all seriousness, why is it that men love it when their ladyfriend wears their clothing?  It's funny, and great.

 Softest, yummiest flannel shirt ever: American Eagle for guys

 Shorts:  Hydraulic (possibly purchased at Target?)  Skinny braided leather belt: Forever21 Ribbed tank: Hand-me-down Necklace: JmundoDesigns

Sunglasses: somewhere embarrassing like Claires Lips: Maybelline ColorSensation lip stain in Cherry Pop Random Straps: handmade purse

Have I revolutionized your life?  You're welcome.