1 month

at 4pm one month from today, I will be Mrs. B (short for Bama Boy) . CRAZY and super exciting!!

Anyhow, Boy did I have a wonderful time this past weekend!

On Saturday I had a lovely Bridal Shower hosted by two of my mom's good friends: my godmother/ mom's best friend from college and one of our neighbors that I've known since I was 5.

(me seated with my little sis/maid of honor, my mom and my rehearsal dinner bouquet)

Everything was so perfect - from the cute little "B" Petit Fours to the each and every guest. Everyone from my Aunt from North Carolina to my babysitter from when I was a year old to my 5 bridesmaids made it to the party and truly made the day that much more special.
Later than night was an awesome bachelorette party with amazing friends -- note: theres a reason theres no pictures posted here of that night's events (i didnt have a camera and i havent gotten anyone's pics back). The short version - It was an absolute blast, a surprise and I was proudly not hungover the next day. Amazing!

Now back to reality and crunch time. T-minus 30 days til spectacular spectacular (or maybe just a fun wedding celebration at the beach)

details details details

this is the current scene in our living room:

favors/ seating layout in front -- welcome bags to the back. We're trying to get everything in order so that when we head down to the outer banks the week before the wedding, we're just compiling the welcome bags all at once. I love how our favors are doing double duty - serving as both favors and placecards. They're been really helpful in helping to organize our seating layout.

More to come on this fun little aspect of our beach-y celebration as we get closer to the wedding/ we get all of our little goodies in from various vendors and the dollar store!!

My Table Pain (plus a general update)

The RSVPs are coming in at an average of about 3 a day. Not too bad when you've sent out about 63 invites in the first round. I especially love getting something in the mail other than bills!! We thought we had a pretty good hold on who was and who wasn't coming for sure, so to lessen the strain in September, we started a preliminary seating chart to help us figure out numbers for tables, etc. Well, as the rsvps have been rolling in, a weird thing has happened -- we're getting some odd replies. People who have verbally said "yup, Im coming, you can bet on it" have then sent "decline" responses. The reverse is occuring also -- even amoung the bridal party -- where people have said "we can't make it" and then they've "rsvd'd" that they can make it! We love the wonderful surprise that some people who originally couldnt make the trip to north carolina are able to come... but its making things very interesting for sure.

It's also making the seating chart a fluxuating entity - changing with every passing day. Some tables that have started as 10 tops have been reduced to 6 tops (not really what we're going for) and some tables that had a nice mix of singles and couples have been reduced to 3 couples and a single. As a former shunned single, I refuse to do that to my single guests.

That being said -- I dislike seating charts.

On another note-- Here are the wedding updates:

1) the bridesmaids gifts are in. I love them and I really want one for myself. Also, all the bridesmaid dresses have come in from J Crew. Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

2) The names of the tables (which we're doing rather than tables numbers) are coming along. Heres an example of the first one:


1 down, 10 more to go (not including the recipe cards for the cocktail tables & signature drink signs for the bar)

3) The placecard/favors have been ordered and will be in w/in the week. Then its up to printing all of the name tags

4) rehearsal dinner invites, menus & drink tickets have been ordered from Vista print (many many thanks to one of my bridesmaids, misa, at notreallybloggingmaterial for the referral)

5) The welcome bags should be arriving today!!

6) My dress is at the tailor being hemmed right now, w/ a cute little bustle being added!! Shoes are in the process of being broken in as we speak (hehehe)

7) final contract w/ the floral designer to be finalized this week. Table linens also ordered

8) timeline to be finalized w/ vendors

9) maybe have the song list done for the dj completed???? maybe find someone to play guitar / violin at the ceremony. Maybe finalize verse readers? Can't print the programs til thats all decided.

And thats it. My stress hasn't been too crazy so far, but its only 45 more days, so who knows!

another reason why I love TJ Maxx/ Home Goods

I admit, I get such a tremendous high from finding amazing fashion steals at TJ Maxx (my $300 Ralph Lauren silk seersucker skirt I got for $30), and during the planning process I've learned to apply this to my wedding shopping.

Especially for my centerpieces

When I originally sat down with my floral designer extraordinaire in March, we had discussed using square, low glass vases I would rent from her for $5 a pop to house the table centerpieces. Five of the bridesmaids bouquets would be used as the centerpieces on the head table and we'd have 9 other round 10 top tables to decorate from there.

Oh how things change in 5 months. I've become super budget conscious, but also have really defined the look for the wedding - vintage inspired travel. I thought "why would we rent identical square vases for a fee that we'd never see again when we could jazz things up and BUY 10 unique vases for a similar amount and then turn around and sell them to get our money back (and maybe keep one for ourselves)." Using the idea of vintage as our guide, my mom and I were in TJ Maxx/Home Goods wandering around as usual and happened upon 10 Different apothecary style jars of different heights and shapes for b/t $3 and $10. They all have a similar neck opening diameter and similar bowl depth to make my florist's life a little easier. I'm thinking they will make really pretty and unique vases for our tables.

Here are my beauties:

Which in a little over 45 days they will look something like this:

(picture courtesy of theknot.com)

We've also nixed the idea of a head table and made it so we'd have 2 round tables for the wedding party just like the rest of the tables. I really didn't like the idea of making the significant others of the wedding party sit at another table away from their partner, so we decided against it! That means we've got 11 total tables to outfit. Six centerpieces will be made specifically for the larger apothecary jar vases and 5 of the jars will hold the bridesmaids bouquets-turned-centerpieces. It all sounds so good in theory, my florist is on board (and she has always created such beautiful arrangements at past weddings) so lets cross our fingers and hope everything works out!

The Invitations -- Check!

After 3 months of designing, anguishing, nitpicking and perfecting my invite design -- The Invites have been sent, delivered and people have started to respond--- so drum roll please:

Our Invites:

(names have been smudged for privacy.)

The Inserts: (clockwise from top left: The RSVP Postcard, Directions Card, Accomodations Card and Reception Card inserts)

The RSVP Postcard: Directions Card: Reception Card:

(and yes, that is what the actual veranda of the Currituck Club looks like)

Accomodations Card:

All 4 inserts stuffed into their comfy little kangaroo pocket (the actual invitation was mounted on the other side of the pocket):

My mom did the calligraphy on the pocket front. she went through like 20 of them "practicing" formal calligraphy. In the end I just told her to go for it & wing it w/ her normal handwriting. The result was even prettier than if she had done calligraphy!!
I dont know what I would have done w/out Photoshop and AutoCad. Who says that you don't learn skills that will help you in every day life in college & in Grad school? Without those hours and hours of learning how to create accurate measured computer drawings of buildings, I wouldn't have had my graphics for my wedding invites!
So now that that has been done, we're onto the programs and the name cards for the wedding. Bring it on.

Finding not just any ol guestbook....

So I've been thinking guestbooks lately. It's such an overlooked, but really important part of a wedding - a book that contains a record of the thoughts and well wishes from those with whom you've invited to share one of the most important days of your life. While a traditional "guest book" with 10 or so lines to put your name and a kind sentiment is nice for some some couples, I've often thought "what the heck do you do with it afterwards?" Does it get shoved onto a shelf somewhere only to be resurrected every anniversary and then somehow forgotten again? We're having a small wedding, so the thoughts and sentiments of our guests are extremely important. Also I have always thought that it would be a wonderful idea to not just have a guest book, but have something that played double-duty and that would honor something that both my fiance & I will cherish beyond an engagement & a wedding.

Enter coffee table photo book -

Brilliant, I said! Now just to figure out what this Coffee table book would be about. Option 1 ) a photo album of our engagement photos. Spectacular, except the wedding is taking up 99.9% of my time and even though it's super personal, its way too labor intensive. Plus, we will have a coffee table album of the wedding photos from our photographer after the wedding.

Option 2) photo book of the Outer Banks. Both the fiance and myself LOVE quality photographs('Bama boy took some photography classes in college and I had to take a lot of "artistic" pictures of my building models in grad school) so it seemed like a great solution. So I started scouring local book stores while on vacation in Corolla this past weekend. Not too many photo books available on just the outer banks, I tell yah. Lots of books about boating and fishing and duck hunting, but nothing about Corolla and it's absolutely amazing natural beauty and historic architecture. I found one book that did highlight the beauty of the Outer Banks, but most of the pictures were from the southern outer banks (Hatteras, Oracoke, Rodanthe..), where in my 25 years of visiting the barrier islands, I've never visited. Hardly very personal .

I was ready to leave defeated, surrendering my perfect idea, until the solution practically blindsided me. The Whalehead Club.

This spectacular Art Nouveau hunt club - the inspiration for me pursuing architecture and historic Pres, and which I've blogged about in a prior post, recently had a gorgeous coffee table book published highlighting its preservation and the beauty of the environment surrounding it.

The pages are full of a lot of open space, where guests can write their sentiments and well-wishes. The pictures are also exquisite -- Mollie Issacs, who took the pictures and also authored the book, has captured some of the most breathtaking images and details from this very special building. Even though we're not actually getting married or having our reception at this building (its a block away from the our chapel), it still is very near and dear to both myself & my fiance. Its a book that even without the messages from our guests we would be proud to display on a coffee table someday.

What unique way have you put your own unique twist on something as seemingly mundane & traditional as a guestbook for your wedding?

signed, sealed and *almost* delivered

Although today has been extremely stressful due to a bridesmaid dress shipping/order snafu (i continue to shake my fist at you J Crew), a HUGE step had been achieved in this massively DIY wedding. I don't want to show too much until I know most people have received them, but here's a little preview:

The front of the envelope. The label wrap came out spectacularly and I love how the 62 cent stamps (yes, these things, with all of their inserts do get very heavy) actually ended up matching the envelope!!
The labels wraps to the back -- our return address is there, but I had to smudge it out b/c of the privacy thing. The label actually seals the entire envelope.
When opening the envelope, this is what you see -- only a sneak peek for now.

So all in all, here was the scene before heading to the post office -- everything ready to go!
What is wonderful is that we're actually on vacation right now in Corolla and so we're shipping them from the little post office we've gone to for ages while visiting down here -- the invites will actually be postmarked from the wedding location (we didn't plan this, it just happened that we would finish stuffing and sealing the invites while we were down here.)
What a huge hurdle jumped! Now on to the RSVPs *hopefully* rolling in en masse!

as of today, I officially despise J Crew.

Their bridesmaid dresses and lack of stock/ shipping problems have become an absolute wedding nightmare. More to come later.

The Hunt for the Perfect Shoes

Ok, so I know I'm supposed to update you all on the most recent trip of mine with pictures and stories and such, BUT I just had to share one of the best/ most interesting parts of my trip....

After 5 months of intense searching - I finally found the perfect shoes for my wedding.

First let's rewind to March. I get this awesome idea to spice up things a bit and wear colorful shoes to the wedding Creating a cute, flirty effect like below:

(courtesy of WeddingPaperDivas)

Perfect because I'm not into white shoes at all and i want to be able to wear my shoes again after the big day. I love heels, so that's a must and it should be a fabric that complements the cotton of my dress. So I decided I want Navy Blue satin peep toe heels. Simple enough, right?

wrong. Big ol' freaking wrong.

I begin to scour the internet while I'm taking breaks working on my final study project. I look at Zappos, Piperlime, Ebay, JCrew, Nina, Nine West, Kate Spade, Nordstroms, Neiman's, Bergdorff (I was getting desperate), Glassslipper, visited DSW, Off Broadway and even Googling "Navy blue sating peep toes" and going from there. At one point I think both myself and another classmate were taking breaks from work in the studio just searching for navy satin shoes online. This routine of regularly scouring the internet for shoes went on for months into July. The result: no navy blue satin peep toe heels that were (a) in my price range, (b) fit the casual, classic simplicity of the wedding. Lots of leather (wrong fabric) and lots of closed toed (not appropriate for a beachy wedding), but nothing I was "excited" about - and truth be told, if you're someone like me who LOVES shoes, the shoes you should be excited the most about should be the shoes you wear for your wedding.

Feeling defeated, I decided that I would just have to buy shoes and have them dyed to match. I figured I'd buy a pair of dyable satin shoes after my trip from Glasslipperand just MAKE them blue, even if I had to go over a little on my budget.

So I then go abroad to visit my sister (more about that later). We're just casually walking around city 1 and my sister says "oh look, a Zara! They had a coat there I wanted, lets see if they have it in this store in my size." We walk in and she goes off to look for her coat. After browsing the first floor, I walk up to the second and then I see them.

Sitting on a shelf are the exact shoes I've been looking for: navy blue satin high heeled shoe with a peep toe and a little casually tied bow. They are PERFECT. Since I dont know my size in European numbers, I try them all on. Turns out, they have all sizes EXCEPT mine. Since it's a very popular chain in Europe (there's only one in the US - NYC), I figure they will have to have my size in another store. So I leave feeling hopeful that at the next store they will have my shoe. In our travels over the next 3 days we come across 3 more stores: 1 doesn't have ANY of the shoes at all, another doesn't have my size, and the third one.... well, lets just say I found 1 shoe in my size. No, that's not one pair of the shoes, that's one singular shoe. I scoured the entire store for my shoe's partner to no avail. I even asked a store attendant (rather, i cornered her b/c she was the only person I could find who looked like she worked there and asked her politely if she could help me find the shoe. She replied then, in perfect English "I don't speak English" and walked away. Wonderful). Note: Its sale season in Europe right now, so these stores are a mess -- piles of clothes on sale, the stores are swarming, and things are left everywhere. Incredibly intimidating to most people, but I had a mission.


So we left country 1 and visited country 2 - which I knew had establishments of the store in the city. So, while site seeing, I took a small detour to the first store I saw. I checked out their shoe area, found the shoes and once again, saw that they had the shoe in every size except for mine. I went to another associate, asked her if she may have had my size in the back. She said she'd look, ran off for 5 mins, and came back with a no answer. After a few moments of feeling defeated, I snapped out of it and then entered my determined, semi-bridezilla moods (which I am really trying to make a rarity) and marched up to another sales associate and politely asked her if she could see if they had a stock of my shoe in any other stores... I was tired of chasing after a shoe that I wasn't going to let dominate my vacation. The sweet store employee said "no problem," checked the stock, called the stores in the vicinity and within 5 minutes had a pair on reserve for me at a neighboring store. I had to restrain myself from hugging the woman in the middle of the store I was so elated.

So after 5 months of searching, and an shoe chase that covered 6 stores in two countries, here are MY wedding shoes:

Now onto breaking these bad-boys in!

Where the heck did you go?

Heres some hints of where I've been the past 10 days:

and

more to come soon, after I catch up on some sleep

and rockets red glare

So after flying back to good ol' New Orleans for a day or two, my fiance and I drove up to his hometown in North Alabama for some 4th of July bonding with the future in-laws. It was 3 days of LOTS of food, good beer and wonderful people. I also remembered how fun it is to set off fireworks -- the two places I usually am for the 4th (home and the outer banks) have made fireworks illegal in the past 10 years, so I haven't set any off in a VERY long time. So, I took advantage of them bring very much legal in Alabama and we set some off on the railroad tracks behind my fiance's childhood home:

(this is me lighting a little 'bottle rocket' on the tracks... i've got mad skill - i ended up actually hitting the next door neighbor's house during one try)

It was also on this trip that I realized that I am marrying a closet pyromaniac. It was like Christmas for 'Bama boy and his 4 year old nephew with all of the explosives and things to light on fire. Pretty funny, I must say.(my fiance in red getting ready trying to set off some little fireworks, telling his little nephew to stand back and watch, much to his nephews disappointment)

After our little family house party, we all drive to the bluffs above the Tennessee River to watch the annual fireworks over Florence, AL. The bluff was packed with tons of kids, families and we even managed to bump into some of 'Bama Boy's high school & college buddies that he hadn't seen in years. The fireworks ended up being spectacular (since we were on the bluffs they went off literally RIGHT in front of us) and both of us had a great time enjoying the simpler things in life: family, friends, fun and our wonderful, beautiful country!

(The crowd looking out over the bluffs waiting for the fireworks to begin)

( The town of Florence after the fireworks - view from the bluff)

('Bama boy & I right after watching the fireworks -- what a great holiday!)

Eulogies

June in my family has usually been a month of celebrations and joy: my mom and I both have June birthdays, summer break is in effect and we get to enjoy the sun and the blessing of living at a beach. This June, however, has been a very different story...

At the time I'm writing this, the world has lost two incredibly influential people: Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, who displayed that even if you come from humble beginnings, you can achieve anything you want if you hone your skills and strive to be the best you truly can be. Their influence is immeasurable and they touched so many people during both of their short lives.

However on June 3, my mother lost her big sister, my sister & I lost our aunt, my uncle lost his wife and my two cousins lost their mother. On Wednesday, June 3, at 12:30pm, my Aunt Christine passed away after a brave and difficult struggle with endometrial cancer. Christine was born in 1951 and became the tough, tomboy older sister of 5 who grew up on Long Island, NY, graduated high school and felt a calling to do what so few of us can do: care for others. She graduated in 1972 from St. Vincent's Nursing College. But as she was starting her nursing career, she went to a party and met a vivacious, driven and passionate law student who told her that night that he was going to marry her. Within 9 months they were married and a partnership started that would last over 30 years. Christine encouraged my uncle to start his own law firm and also, when her husband and family would complain about the deteriorating state of their little New Jersey town, she encouraged him to run for Mayor. My uncle won and over 15 years the two of them helped rebuild their town into one of the most unique and prosperous places to live in New Jersey. My Aunt's obituary correctly mentioned that she was affectionately known as the "First Lady" of her town.

(my aunt Christine is in the middle w/ my mom & other aunt behind her. My uncle is sitting in Christine's lap. Photo circa 1959)
But the Aunt Christine I knew was a little different than what the public remembers. My parents and my aunt and uncle were VERY close in the early 80s when I was born -- they were my second set of parents. It was at that time that all 4 of them invested in land at a relatively unknown area at the time called the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The video of my first steps into the arms of my aunt and mom have my uncle and dad in the background going over floor plans for the new house in Corolla. I spoke some of my first words on the deck of that beautiful beach house as it was being constructed and so many memories of the first 10 years of my life included my aunt, uncle parents and that beach house. So much joy, love, family and happiness happened within the walls and around their houses in North Carolina & New Jersey.
(my aunt Christine, in teal, holding me right after the completion of the Corolla Beachhouse in 1984. My dad and mom are on the left, my uncle is on the right)

I also admired more than anything my Aunt Christine's ability to grasp life and live it to the fullest. She always told people how she felt and what she was thinking -- a rare quality in this day of super-political correctness. It sometimes came off as abrupt and caught people offguard at times, but Christine didn't care, she told people what she thought because she cared. She cared more than most people I will ever meet. Ever the nurse, Christine would always be watching out for you, be the first to take the shirt off her back if you needed it, give you food if you were hungry or just be a shoulder to cry on when you needed solace. She cooked better than anyone I've ever met (she once took over the kitchen of a closed Italian restaurant because her and her friends were hungry -- she fed the wait staff while she was at it) and threw the most amazing parties. Christine was beautiful in every way, shape and form and as she battled the cancer waging war against her inside, she wouldn't let it stop her from being herself. That's why the untimely death of Farrah Fawcett haunts me more so than Michael Jackson's - Farrah fought the same courageous battle that my aunt fought and did it with grace, and strength. Watch "Farrah's Story" and that was Christine and every other woman and man battling this evil (and yes, I do believe it's a tool of Satan) disease.
(my mom, grandma, grandpa & Aunt Christine in 2007, while in remission)

So while I, as a child of the 80s mourn MJ (My mom used to work out to "Thiller" while she was pregnant with me) and Farrah Fawcett, I truly memorialize my aunt as the beautiful woman she was and use her as a true inspiration. My family find comfort in knowing she is no longer in pain in this cruel and difficult world and is perfect and whole up heaven with her maker. And when I walk down the aisle to my beautiful fiance in September, it will be in Corolla - the place that held so much joy and love for Christine and who I know would have loved to have been sitting in the pews of that little chapel next to her husband. So Aunt Christine, I love you and you will be missed more than words can describe.

Heres to July -- a month of bright beginnings for so many people. May we take every day as a gift and a blessing with true gusto.

Crisis averted... for now

Wow, so it was bound to happen. I was 99.9% done w/ my invite design and then my computer died. No joke - screen went black and everything shut down. So I restarted and then got one of the scariest things anyone who relies heavily on computers will ever see: the blue screen of death. Thats right, apparently my computer decided it wouldnt load my hardrive. No if, ands, or buts, just an answer of "no, screw you, I dont want to work and you can't do anything to make me work."

SOOO, enter scene of me, 11:45 on a friday night, on the phone with Dell with a technician telling me that my hard drive may be fried. Not a problem, except for a) i suck at backing up my files.... b) I have a lot of programs, like Photoshop, Autodesk and such that arent cheap and I downloaded from the internet rather than have them send me a CD and c) I have a TON of wedding junk that I put off b/c of grad school that I can't really have a ton of downtime. This issue coupled with my recent bridesmaid dress crisis (a topic for another post) almost caused me to go into sobbing bridezilla breakdown mode. Thank heavens it didnt get that far, but it was close. ANYHOW 4 days later, my computer has miraculously been saved by the Dell technician people and I've subscribed to an online backup company that with the press of a button all of my documents will be safe and sound. I'll still have to figure out what to do w/ my precious programs, but for now, the document safety won't be a worry and my computer is happy again.On the brightside, at least this didnt happen during the last few weeks of my final study. That would have royally sucked in more ways than I can express at the moment.

I swear I'm going to need a vacation after the honeymoon to recover from all of this unnecessary wedding stress.

Oh, and about the invites, previews of the design coming soon :-)

Times are a changin' -- a return to blog-world

Hello everyone! Long time, no, see, speak or hear. Yes, a long absence, i know. However, its been one insane week after another. Some things to note:

1) I passed my final thesis with so much ease, it was awesome. My committee loved it, I could answer all of the tough questions, and my images were worth the 10+ hours of rendering... each. If you knew me the first year of architecture school 3 years ago, you will understand just how amazing this is-- back then I called home almost every night, in tears about how I was going to drop out, hated architecture and missed home. However, lots of all-nighters, great guidance and poor fast-food eating habits helped me to achieve a project that not only made my committee happy, but proved that no matter what I believed 3 years ago, I am NOW a competent designer. Below you can see a few pictures from my final study:

(The picture on the upper right is the building's existing condition. The main image is my proposed condition)

(night view looking in the other direction, at the new bar addition)

(The proposed gallery space in the industrial building. I previously posted about my initial rendering of this space. The image in the upper right had corner is the existing view of the space. The largest image is the proposed reuse)

So yay for being done! Passing my final study then lead to my next update:

2) GRADUATION!! I have my masters degree, thank Heavens. Here's a picture of me after the hooding:

It was a blast and very bittersweet. I am so happy to be done, but I know I'm going to miss this time in my life for one reason or another.

4) After graduation, it was time to pack everything up and move everything about 7 hours east to my fiance and I's new hometown... now for him and in September for me: New Orleans. It is absolutely an amazing city and for the first time in my life I've visited a place and haven't ever wanted to leave. We got to catch up with friends, both new and old who now call this amazing place home, so Bama Boy and I are really looking forward to starting our life off there together in September. The lucky guy gets a head start on me though, since he gets to live there now while I have to wait. We didn't take a lot of pictures b/c we were pretty absorbed by finding a temporary place for my fiance to live til the wedding, but I know more pictures will come the next time I visit/ when I officially move there. One thing to note: the 3 course breakfast at Brennan's is a must.... it is a day's worth of calories at one meal, but oh my goodness it is so amazing (Brennan's is the restaurant that invented Banana's Foster in the '50s).
So here I am back in Virginia working after a crazy month of graduating, moving to a new city and spending time w/ extended family in New Jersey. The next adventure? Diving head-first into planning a big party (more commonly referred to as a "wedding") in less than 100 days.... so here we go!

I swear I'm still here.... somewhere

Apologies - Ive been MIA alot recently primarily b/c I have t-minus 8 days until I give my final presentation, aka my Thesis defense #2 i guess you could say. This means 8 more days of NO sleep and a ton of work, all for a project that doesnt exist and honestly, no one except myself & my 3 committee members care about (see above Dilbert cartoon, its sad but true). So is the oh so glamorous world of architecture. I promise I'll be back after May 7th... that is, of course, unless I don't pass my final. Then I think I'll drown in misery b/c it means I'll be in Texas until August. Now wouldnt that be fun?

Bridesmaid Props

I thought I'd start the week off with this adorable video I found that gives a little history to the tradition of bridesmaids. Happy Monday!!

(Video courtesy of the Dessy group)

Bummer

Today is an "I-very-much-dislike-Bama-Boy's-job" day and I feel as the pic of our family dog above displays how i feel perfectly. Bama boy & I havent seen each eather in 2 very long, lonely months and he was supposed to drive down from Missouri this Saturday and stay til Tuesday morning. I was so super amazingly excited and giddy it was almost embarassing. Well, due to a number of issues, we couldn't talk today until about 9pm this evening after I returned from my college's annual scholarship & awards banquet. Thats when the cruddy news came.

Apparently his job threw a curve ball at him and told him they need him to be at a meeting/ conference starting Monday morning and running til Wednesday afternoon. Note: the drive from Missouri to where I am is 10 hours (he does it all the time and swears he doesnt mind the distance, but it obviously takes up a TON of hours). Therefore him driving down Saturday morning and then turning around and driving back the next day isn't practical nor very economical. So i went on an "angry, irrational fiancee" tirade about how I hate his job and it stinks and how they should find someone else who has nothing else to do this weekend and is in town to attend the conference. But in the end it all proved futile, he's cant come and thus I am very sad.

It also stinks b/c really this was the only weekend we could see each other before I graduate in a month... I really cant dedicate any other weekend between then and now to US because of my darn thesis work. Theres a reason why this happened, it sucks and I need to put my big girl panties on and deal w/ it, but really I can't help but just feel sad.

Well heres to, I guess, another round of phone movie/ dinner dates. Very fun, but it ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.

Final Study Friday

Since I haven't done Fugly Architecture Thursday in a while, I decided to share my final project design instead. Heck, depending on your preferences, this could be considered fugly. But eh, its all subjective anyway.

As many of you know, I'm trying to wrap up my Masters in architecture. I've been immersed in the world of late nights, no sleep, critiques and model making for 3 years already and I cannot wait to get that diploma. But before that glorious May 15, I have to complete a the architecture version of a master's thesis: aka- the final study project. Since I'm a preservation nerd, I chose to adaptively reuse a 1934 Motor Pool Building located on an Army base that is projected to close in 2011. When I visited my site in December, this is the current condition of the building's inside:

Very very industrial, and blase. Also very dark. But the entire left side of the building in this picture has 9 foot tall casement windows that stretch from about 4 ft off the ground to the bottom of those trusses. Some brilliant person in the 1960s decided it would be a fabulous idea to cover up the top 5 feet of these windows with ugly siding... thus creating the dark interior. Genius I tell you (*rolls eyes*). The wonderful current condition is shown below:

Isnt that just horrid!!??

Since I'm dealing w/ 48,000 sq ft total, my project proposal was to adapt the building into a art gallery, restaurant, art academy spaces and standing room only, House of Blues type entertainment hall. All areas are connected by a central "avenue" that runs the center of the building. My description is totally not doing the design justice, but this past march for my "thesis defense" I had a 20-slide PowerPoint to explain my project. I'll spare you the pain of that presentation.

Now I'm in the design development phase and here's a little sample of where I am in my project.

This is the proposed view down the main "avenue." To the left (behind the turquoise wall) is a dance studio and part of the academy. To the right is the side of the Entertainment Hall.
The other end of the corridor is the art gallery, the entrance of which is shown below:
The red wall in the background is the entrance to the Entertainment Hall. This view is from practically the same location as the original, dark and icky picture shown above. Also, I've removed the silly window coverings and voila: more light! Shocking, I know.

These are very preliminary renderings and theres still A LOT to do -- last night i spent just developing skylights. Oh Ces't La Vie. Must push on til the 7th!!

PS - SUPER excited, b/c Bama boy will be here tomorrow!! It's been 2 months since we last saw each other. Oh the horror.

A Change of Heart

So....my whole life I've had such a bias against carnations..... somehow, someway they always invoked memories of middle school valentines (or lack thereof) and a blah pukey pepto-bismal color.

Well, the other day i was perusing my local food store and happened upon their floral department. Usually I grab some tulips or some gerbera daisies, but it was not to be: the tulips were not in sight and i was tired of white daisies (all. they. had.). I was still in mourning after the sudden death of the gorgeous daffodil bouquet that 'Bama boy sent me and was in desperate need of some color. Enter the raspberry carnations.

There they were, 24 for $12 and such a pretty color. I bought those bad boys, came home, bundled them up and they sitting pretty on my desk. Soo happy!

So I've gone all Carrie Bradshaw now and I've begun to appreciate the little flower w/ the bad rap. Still, not a fan of them in single form, but I think you'd have to agree that en masse they're quite pretty and preppy!

Mistaken Magnets and Purple Stamps

Well, since they've managed to make it safely into everyone's mailboxes by now.... here are our lovely Save The Dates. Apologies for the fuzziness. The thing I'm nervous about though is people not knowing the white square is actually a magnet ... we stickey-tacked it to the lime paper so it would be the same size as the envelope (yay for easy shipping). However, I know some people didnt know it was a magnet until they called me to tell me they received it and I gave them the heads up. Oh well.

I also made some cute stamps for the envelopes, which were a mix of computer addessed and hand addressed (by my mom!). The stamp design is below:

However, when the sheets of stamps we ordered from Stamps.com arrived... the navy blue turned out to be a dark shade of purple!!! THIS is exactly why you check the CMKY/ RGB settings between different screens and printers.

Now on to the rest of the week..... heres to hump day and being done w/ half of the week. Also, yay for Easter this weekend!