Too busy for postings!

I have been super duper busy lately so every time I have a free moment I don't feel like posting. Anyways, this will probably be quick, but here is my updates! Today at lunch we tried the food at our reception site (WOW). Basically you just get to try whatever the chef makes and as luck would have it none of the stuff we got to try was the stuff I was considering for the wedding...so not much help. The thing that was helpful was one of the meats we tried was this 4-cheese stuffed chicken breast that sounded awesome and thought for sure we would end up getting this. However, it failed to mention on the info sheet that it came with 2 cups of white gravy poured all over it! It tasted good, but the display was HORRIBLE-- looked like something from bob evans or cracker barrel-- country cooking! Half my plate was just filled with this gravy and we are wanting to upgrade and get 2 entrees so I'm just wondering what this will look like when you have another entree slopped on here. We also tried these pork medallions that were very good and the sauce was much more controlled. I'm going to talk to our contact person because I really don't know what to choose and maybe usually the chicken doesn't have all that gravy or we can have them leave it off or just do like a tablespoon.

So I then left work a little early to go meet with a florist. Super nice girl who I think had really reasonable prices since she basically just does this out of her home. I'm decided between getting all rose bouquets and bouts or all calla lily ones. I like the callas cause it's just white, simple, and elegant...and no further decisions to be made! I like the roses though because they can add a splash of color-- could either do white or hot pink or some shade of pink. The callas are slightly more expensive, so I just gotta keep looking at pics and decide what I like best. Here were some shots of ones I like:

Lastly tonight then we met with a guy who will hopefully be our wedding officiant. I thought he was very personable and great (and I think dustin did too), so that will be a relief to officially get someone booked for this too!

Aerosmith adventure

Well this week I've had major troubles sleeping, so I've been too tired to even blog about anything. Our really only interesting adventure this week was the Aerosmith concert at verizon amphitheater. So the forecast for that evening was thunderstorms, large hail, dangerous lightning, and I think tornado conditions...not ideal for an outdoor show. So I call that afternoon to ask if there is severe weather if the show will be rescheduled or anything-- they say, No it is rain or shine. Ok, so we grab a large umbrella and put in the car and head out there after work. We eat at Dave and Busters for dinner since it is right next door and we have HORRIBLE service, so we don't get to the concert until at least 30 minutes after it started. But that's okay- i wasn't gung-ho to see the opening band anyways. We have to park in the very last row...and let me tell you the parking lot is HUGE-- I bet it is .75-1 mile walk from this spot to our seats. We decide not to bring the umbrella cause the weather looked okay and they are so picky about what you can bring inside that we weren't sure they'd allow it. So just as we get inside to our seats, we see the last song of the opener. We now have an hour break until aerosmith comes on and the lightning starts up real bad. We can't get internet or phone service because I was trying to call my sister to get a radar report. And the policy at the concert is no re-entry...so basically I'm feeling stuck here...but am wondering if hail starts where all these thousands of people are going to go cause there is limited sheltered areas and it was going to be a panic scene! I can't imagine if hail can dent my car how bad it is going to hurt on my skin! And as luck would have it, we have seats but are like 10 rows short of being under the covered seats. So we talk to our usher-girl and she says that supposedly there were 5 news stations outside because there was such severe weather headed our way and all these people are at the concert...ya, so we're some of the idiots standing outside here! So we are debating what to do and finally they make an announcement that they will let you leave and re-enter after the weather has passed. They are going to postpone the show and want everyone to go to their cars and they'll announce on the radio when to come back in. So now we have like a mile hike back to the car and are almost running because we are afraid a downpour is going to suddenly start. We get back to the car and both have to go to the bathroom REAL badly. So we drive back to D&B to use the bathroom there and just hang out in there for a while. Finally at 10pm, we go out to the car and decide they have to be making a decision soon to either go on or just cancel it. Right then they announce they'll start it back up in 15 minutes. So now we park again and this time in like the 3rd to last row, so save ourselves about 10 steps and haul back in there sharing our 1 umbrella and the rain is coming down pretty good. I have flipflops on and since they are wet, they are real slippery and i'm sliding all over the place and have my jeans rolled up. So we stand through the whole concert under the umbrella and finally during the very last song...guess what...the rain stops! Now we hike back our car through the most uneven parking lot ever-- walkthing through huge puddles like 4 inches deep of water the whole way. It was a good show, but don't know it was worth all the effort! They did play some good stuff, but then also had a good number of songs that either one of us had never even heard before. At least it was a memorable experience though and did make it a little more exciting!

Jewelry ideas

So one of these weekends I want to take a stab at making some jewelry. I keep finding some really cool things on the internet for the wedding, but they are all handmade and people say it's not that hard to do. Here is the style of bracelet that I just love, but the problem is that my wrists seem really small so it's hard finding a brooch that isn't going to just take over my wrist!

I don't like this particular necklace, but something like this without the emerald and the brooch to match the one on the bracelet-- I like having it off-center...but of course I really need to just have some jewelry options and then see what looks best with the dress on.

Holy Tornadoes!

So today it's nice and sunny out, so I walk home for lunch and go back to work. About 10 minutes after I'm at work, I'm on the phone and hear this loud pinging against my window and turn around and it was POURING like crazy! I was on the phone for 30 minutes, so didn't get to take a look at things, but knew it was storming. Jeanette, my cubby neighbor, gets back from lunch a little later and says she was driving down washington ave (which is where we live) and was like- I think something happened because there was like debris everwhere and looked like insulation was all over the road. So I belong to this nerdy online community that is mostly made up of people living/working downtown or have a strong interest in revitalizing downtown, so I went on there to see if anyone was talking about it. Here was what someone reported:

This afternoon around 1:00 it seems there was a small tornado that came through the middle of downtown from west to east along Washington, Lucas, Convention. A whole bunch of trees are down, cars had debris thrown through windows, a small piece of wall fell off the west side of the Lammert Building and smashed a car's windshield. Trees by the St. Patrick Center were uprooted. Two cars parked in front of McMurphy's Grill had windows broken by flying chairs from the outside patio. And, a large section of the east wall of the Renaissance Hotel was ripped off collapsing into the alley and into Washington. Oh, and a dumpster was blown out of the alley on the west side of the hotel and smashed into a moving car on Washington. Pretty nuts. Anybody notice this or were you all busy grinding away in your windowless cubes like my co-workers?

There weren't any reports of a tornado, so I think it was just really strong winds. Luckily no damage to our loft building...but the Renaissance of course is the hotel we had picked for our wedding guests! I walked down after the gym tonight with camera in tow to check it out. The damage was all to the building with the suites, where we did not reserve rooms and is a pretty old building. I liked the outside of it because they painted the brick to make it look like there were windows and architectural designs...dustin always thinks that looks stupid. Well the part of the building that came off was this painted portion, so not sure how they'll replace this one! Here's some shots from Photog Gus:

Can't wait for dinner!

So it's very rare that I make any good meat dishes for dinner and usually i have to buy pre-cooked stuff because I can't touch/look at raw meat. So I've decided lately that the frozen chicken breasts really aren't too bad and need to start using those more. Lucky me-- they were on sale this week- like $5 for a 3lb bag! So I got 2 bags- most meat I've ever bought in my life. At work potlucks people frequently bring in this italian beef that is really good and recently my cubby neighbor brought it in but used chicken instead of beef. So that's what I'm cooking up- Italian Chicken in the crock pot. It's so easy-- I just dumped in my bag of chick breasts and a jar or pepperocinis. Then you mix 1 cup of chicken broth/stock with 2 packages of Good Season's Italian dressing (I used the zesty italian since dustin likes spicier things) and pour that over the chicken and peppers. I started it last night and kept waking up during the night cause smelled so good! Then this morning I came to check on it and was wondering how i was going to shred the chicken....well lucky me again, I just used some tongs to pull the chicken out of the pot and it just fell apart and shredded itself! So this definitely is worlds easiest recipe and now we'll have awesome sammies to eat this whole week!