Last Day Worked

Today was my last day in the office before the wedding. I have been putting in long days/nights, especially since Presidents' day. I have been trying to clean up messes, get everything up to date, anticipate problems, leave notes, prepare those who will be trying to cover for me, but also not advertise too loudly I was leaving or everyone would be down this week trying to get in their last thing before I go... UGH! I'm exhausted. And I noticed I have been sneezing all day so I hope I'm not catching a cold just in time for the wedding. I don't have to return to work until March 19th, so I have 18 days away from work. And a lovely trip to Mexico in between there. I will turn my attention to everything wedding now for the next 8 or so days. It is exciting knowing that when I return to work, I will have new business cards with my new name, a new door sign, a new work e-mail address, and I will have to work on signing my new name for all of those letters.

May the Weather Fairies Smily Upon Our Union

I just took a look at the 10 day weather forecast and I'm not impressed with the prediction of snow showers for March 7th and rain/snow showers for wedding day. So, please call upon any favor you may have with the Weather Fairies and ask for decent traveling weather for next Thursday through Monday. I want our wedding guests to have no trouble getting to our rehearsal, and wedding, and home. And we especially don't want any trouble with Michael and I making it to Boston so we can fly out at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. So, whatever your spirituality allows, please either pray, mediate, send positive energy, chant, use Jedi mind control, whatever you have to do to help us insure our wedding weekend is free of weather woes. One of my coworkers tried to tell me today that bad weather is lucky on your wedding day. I think that's rain, not freezing rain, or a blizzard, or sleet. What a winter!

Showered Again

During the hard snow storm on Friday night, I was treated to another shower by my coworkers. It was a complete surprise! I thought I was meeting Michael at Chen Yang Li Restaurant because his coworkers wanted to treat us to a dinner. Instead, it was my lovely coworkers who dared to brave the storm. They even had a Cosmo waiting for me at the head of the table. Andrea made a gorgeous chocolate cake with ganache (did I spell that right?) frosting and butter cream frosting cherry blossoms. They dressed me up in a necklace, lei, and another bridal veil. They gave us goodies for the honeymoon and a Kitchen-Aid mixer! Michael has no interest in the mixer, but he will enjoy the things I make with it for years to come. And, the mixer was exactly the obscure color I wanted... Pistachio! They really do listen to me ramble at work apparently. I've already made brownies from scratch one evening when I should have been doing wedding stuff. When we get back from Mexico, I will have to play with the mixer and learn how to adapt my recipes to this mega-mixer. Thank you! With coworkers like this, who needs work/life balance?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Michael is in New York for work this week, so Elleigh, Lucas and I had to celebrate Valentine's Day without him. I got each of the kids a heart shaped Lucy's Canine Treat that I bought at Charlie's Paw Wash Plus in Concord. Lucas' was a carob & yogurt coated pumpkin spice treat and Elleigh's was a coated raspberry almond treat. They smelled so good that I almost wanted to take a bite myself. Lucy's treats are always made with human grade ingredients, so it would not have hurt me if I did eat the treat. Still, I decided to stick with leftover bridal shower cake for my special Valentine's Day treat. Elleigh and Lucas look a little less than enthusiastic in the photo because I'm actually commanding them to not touch their treats while I prepare the camera to take a photo of them. It was a very difficult task to leave those cookies alone when they were touching their paws. Lucas is also checking out Elleigh's heart to make sure hers isn't bigger than his.

At work today, Michael arranged for delivery of a rose and Valentine's Day balloons. Ahhh... he remembered his Valentine even though he wasn't home.

I'm Truly Blessed!

I went to Nancy's beautiful home on Saturday afternoon so I could attend my bridesmaid Allison's baby shower. It turned out to be my bridal shower! Nancy's whole house was filled with my friends and family members, all there just to spoil me rotten. I felt truly blessed to have that many of the special people in my life all in one room. Check out the gorgeous chocolate cake from Frederick's that was adorned with cherry blossoms. And Shaelyn was proud to show off that not only was she wearing a dress to the shower, but she got her ears pierced too! She seems prepared to take on her junior bridesmaid duties. I don't think I have ever opened so many presents so quickly. I got many beautiful things, including a lovely hand knit that I don't think can actually post a photo of here and still have a "family" blog. I got to wear a cute little bride to be veil with flashing red lights on it. I am skimming very quickly over all the details of the shower. The roads were getting slick, and several people had traveled a long way, so they needed to get back on the road quickly.

And that was just half of the adventure! Michael had slipped a change of clothes and a pair of pajamas out of the house and to Allison on Friday. So I changed into a "going out" outfit, got to adorn a bachelorette sash and a glow in the dark "Last Night Out" button. A limo showed up in the snow storm and (after our driver got the limo out of the snow bank) Alison, Jacinda, Allison, Nancy, Sherry, and I went to Plymouth. We had dinner and drinks at Foster's Boiler Room at the Common Man Inn. And then the limo driver slowly brought us back to Nancy's house for a girls' slumber party. We watched a few old wedding videos and laughed at how much the styles and people had changed.

Just Days Left!!

The wedding countdown has switched over to just days left until the wedding now. No more months and weeks. 28 days! 26 days until Michael and I check into the Lake Opechee Inn. On Friday, I was figuring that I have 13 full business days in my office to wrap up and try to catch up (that's really funny if you know the pace at the office) so that I can take time off for the wedding and hopefully not worry about work. I have the week off before the wedding. I'm sure the office won't want me around that week anyway. And then we fly away on the Monday after the wedding for the honeymoon and we will start flying back on Michael's birthday, March 17th. I think we actually will arrive home in the wee hours on March 18th. 28 days...

The Boys

Lucas and Michael spent a lazy Friday night on the couch sharing the remote. Lucas still seems to be a little tired from his surgery earlier this week, and a little extra snugly. Good thing Daddy has been available to make little Lucas feel better.

Our Little Man Is Home

Michael went and picked up Lucas from Russell Animal Hospital during his lunch hour today and brought the little guy home. Michael had to endure the staff telling him how cute little Lucas was and they assured him that Lucas got all sorts of special attention during his over night stay. We are suppose to be keeping Lucas calm and quiet for the next week to give his incision plenty of time to heal. He tore around the house like a mad man most of the early evening, and there was no subduing him, but he did eventually tire himself. He's been snoozing on the couch with Michael for most of the later evening hours.

Where's Lucas?

Lucas went to Russell Animal Hospital this morning to be neutered. They called by noon and said he had done fine with the surgery. We paid extra to get him micro-chipped. The little guy seemed a bit overwhelmed this morning with all of the staff that was approaching him because he was so stinkin' cute. Lucas is just under 11 pounds now.

Meanwhile, we assumed Elleigh would miss her little brother tonight. She runs to the door repeatedly most evenings when either Michael or I are not home. She will even ring her bell to go out and look in the driveway for Michael's Pilot. It sounds cute, but it becomes annoying after the 1st or 2nd time. But she really hasn't seemed to have skipped a beat tonight with Lucas gone. She hasn't looked for him. She hasn't been clingy. After Michael got home, she never rang the bell again to go out and look for Lucas. In fact, Elleigh seemed to be very excited to play tug with us, and snuggle on the couch with just Mikey, and play basement monster by herself, and not have to gulp her dinner down so Lucas wouldn't get to it. I dare say that she seems to be happy he isn't home tonight. Could it be puppy sibling rivalry?!

We wonder if she will be excited when Lucas comes home tomorrow night.

Are You Ready For Some Football!?

Elleigh got up early this morning to dig through her couture and find her Patriots jersey. She's already found her spot on the chair and claimed the remote control so she will be ready to rewind the good animal commercials that air during the Super Bowl breaks. She would like for us to paint her nails red and blue later, but we will see how much time we have before the game starts. There's three beers in the fridge (left over from the summer BBQ since we drink oh so much beer in this household) and hot wings ready for the oven. Oh, and chili and tortilla chips with lots of gooey cheese. Mmmmm, Elleigh confessed to me this morning that she really only gets excited about the Super Bowl because of the food and the commercials, and of course, the guarantee of at least 2 hours of snuggle time on the couch with Daddy. She doesn't like fits of excitement though, so Daddy has to try not to holler out as it disrupts (wakes up) the dogs and gets them all worked up. This will be little Lucas' first Super Bowl, so he is not aware yet of the good time in store for him tonight. He is also not quite big enough for his own jersey. He doesn't have the chest development yet to keep a new born sized shirt on so he has to go naked for the Super Bowl.

GO, PATS!

Orchid Blooms

Two of my orchids are in bloom right now. The white one seems to be blooming on the second stem, with a third stem just starting to develop buds. All right, so maybe I cheated by buying the orchids at the start of their bloom, but I can at least take credit for keeping them happy and growing for several weeks now. I haven't killed them yet.

I cleaned out and packed up my office at work on Friday. The Human Resources department is being renovated next week. We are all going to try to work creatively and from various locations around the hospital while the work is being done to our wing. I am getting new paint and a rug, but some of my co-workers are getting new office furniture too. Now that my window sill has been cleaned off, I have been thinking about taking an orchid in to my southern facing window and see how well one would grow there.