Driveway update

Update: It was pouring down rain this morning when I woke up (I didn't have to work today so I slept until about 10:30).  But I was surprised as ever to see one lone man working a Bobcat IN THE RAIN! He was clearing up the area where our sidewalk is supposed to be. A while later, another man joined him and they began framing out our sidewalk and driveway! It eventually stopped raining and now the sun is out full force.  And guess what? Our driveway and our sidewalk are ready to be poured! They just finished framing them about 20 minutes ago.  Now, with the forecast still saying rain until at least Friday, I'm not sure when that will happen but I am happy to at least see that we are making some progress! Thanks for the positive thoughts everyone :)

Frustrations

I am full of frustrations lately, so this is a venting session :)

First off, since it's the point of the blog, I'll start with the house.  We did finally have our "30-day" walkthrough last week, after 2 months of living here.  I couldn't take off of work so Gary was here to handle things.  We really didn't have many problems to address, just a couple of odds and ends that had been noted at the pre-settlement walkthrough but hadn't been attended to yet.  The only big issue that I had involved the bathtubs.  A few weeks ago, I wasn't feeling well and I needed to relax, so I decided to use our bathtub (oversized garden tub) for the first time.  I grabbed a book, some bath bubbles, a candle, and a glass of wine and settled in for a nice long, hot, bath.  Well, it wasn't exactly what I expected. The water slowly drained out of the tub until I was left sitting in just an inch of water.  And this was after only about 30 minutes.  So I then tested out the other bathtub (standard size) and the same thing happened! Well, when Gary mentioned this to the PM and workers at the walkthrough, I guess they misunderstood what he was saying because they said it was fine and didn't do anything to fix it! After I lashed out at Gary, he called the PM back and explained exactly what the problem was, and they're supposedly ordering a part.  But since this happened with BOTH bathtubs, I would advise everyone to check your tubs and make sure they hold water!

The other house thing is the exterior stuff.  Up until less than 2 weeks ago, they hadn't even backfilled the dirt up to our house.  So they decided last Wednesday that they would bring a backhoe over and dump a bunch of debris and rock-filled dirt everywhere, smooth some of it up to the house, and then leave the rest of it in huge mounds all over the yard.  And guess where that dirt still sits? On top of that, that same day they removed all of the small rocks from the driveway and taped the driveway off, telling us that they would be pouring it in the next few days. Now I watch the news and I knew what the forecast looked like..rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain...so I thought they were crazy.  So now we have a muddy, mounded dirt-yard and our driveway is unusable.  But, the kicker is that the neighbors across the street (who moved in a week after us) and the house two doors down (who closed this week) got their driveways poured on Friday! WTF? I just don't understand why our house is being completely neglected.  Of course it was gorgeous yesterday and today, and supposedly it may not rain tomorrow...but the rest of the week calls for rain! I swear if I have to go another week parking in the street and nearly twisting my ankle every time I try to reach the garage, I am going to have a freakout.  At least our neighbors are nice...we met the new couple today and they're pretty young also and have two little kids.  I think our street is going to be pretty fun :)

Gary and I decided to be productive today and we went to Lowe's and bought one set of faux wood blinds.  We wanted to make sure he would be able to put them up before we bought all of them! So we went home and we were so excited to actually hang blinds...we opened the box and none of the hardware that was supposed to be in there was there! Ughhhhh so now we have to take those back tomorrow.  Just a minor thing but frustrating! Also all day today our cell phones have not been working around our house.  When we got about 2 miles away we could get a signal but not here.  Again, frustrating.

As for wedding venting...if I have another bridesmaid-related problem I'm cuttting out the bridesmaids! (just kidding in case any of you are reading this!).  First it was the dresses (previous post).  Yesterday, I went to pick up their shoes from Payless.  They were the dyeables shoes, and they were supposed to be the perfect cream/tan color that I wanted.  Well, in the store they looked great...perfect..then I got them home and in natural lighting they are purple! No mistaking it, they are purple.  I went back to Payless and was told I have to talk to the manager, who isn't in until Tuesday.  I have no idea what I'm going to do if they can't be fixed.

Now finally, good things! Work has been super busy, but luckily we only have 4 days this week and 3 days next week and then school is over! Unfortunately, I have a LOT of paperwork to do before that time..which is why I'm writing a post right now (procastinating!).  My bachelorette party is this Saturday so at least that's something fun to look forward to.  After that, it's more wedding planning and details.  It will be here so soon!

Levin furniture Living Social deal!

Just wanted to quickly pass along this deal on Living Social for those of you who are in the Northeast Ohio area.....$35 for $125! Only 55 hours remaining! I bought one and Gary bought one also...hopefully we will find a coffee table/end tables that we like!

http://livingsocial.com/deals/37121-125-to-spend-on-furniture-and-mattresses?msc_id=90&pid=36930113

Sorry for my absence!

Wow I have been absent for awhile! I have been extremely busy with wedding stuff....writing 80 thank you notes for the bridal shower, getting addresses, addressing and mailing invitations, booking the honeymoon, finalizing song lists, alterations appointments, shoe shopping....it never ends! I have a few things to write about:

Bridal Shower

My shower was amazing! So many generous people...not a single hitch! Instead of writing a novel about it, I'll just share with pictures...

Opening gifts

Bridesmaids: Erin, Christina, Amanda, ME, Stephanie (sister-Maid of Honor), Kristina (sister), and Amy 

My ribbon bouquet! Nice work Amanda and Christina!

The only thing in this room pre-shower was the chair in the corner

Part of the gift from my sisters...a breakfast tray :) 

We are still trying to get organized from the shower.  The kitchen seems much smaller now than it used to! 

Dress Fittings

What a bunch of drama.  Everything is fine with my dress, in fact I had my first fitting last week and it doesn't even need to be hemmed! It fits perfectly and I am soooo happy with it! The drama has been with my bridesmaids dresses...they are huge! So when we met with the alterations lady at the salon, she was a complete bitch and was basically telling me that they couldn't be altered the way I wanted them.  I wasn't asking her to recreate the dress, I was simply asking for them to look how they're supposed to look! Anyway...long story short I could only put up with her attitude for about 30 minutes...and then I had a breakdown.  Yep I had a bridezilla moment and yelled and cried in the middle of the salon :) At the time we left, there was no resolution and the woman was still being a bitch.  Tomorrow we have an appointment with another alterations woman from the salon and she thinks she has a solution that will please me. But if not, we are just going to have them altered elsewhere. 

The house

I realized that I never posted any pics of the furniture.  Nothing else has changed inside the house at all....still white walls and no blinds :) I think our neighbors are enjoying seeing what we are watching on tv and watching me kick butt at rock band!

We still haven't found coffee table/end tables that we like, so the ottoman just kinda moves around between the two pieces

View from the kitchen

We still haven't met with our PM for our "30 day" walkthrough.  It's now been 2 months since we've closed. I talked to our neighbor yesterday and he hasn't had his meeting yet either.  We don't have any urgent issues, but still....it seems like we should have met already!

The wedding is now less than 6 weeks away and boy is the to-do list getting large! I have appointments tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday....and appointments next week...too much to do! I just can't wait until June 2nd when school is over for the summer and I can finally have some time to get things done!

I felt like I should write a post..

Oh American Idol, you just broke my heart :(  I love Paul McDonald!

Sorry...as I clicked "write new post", the results were being read on my tv.

Anyway....sorry for my absence as of late. I have been soooooooo busy! My bridal shower is on Saturday and I have been doing so many final details for that.  And I have been managing to not check my registries at all to see what people have been buying me!

I have no new pictures...I'm sorry! But our couch/ottoman/chair are amazing! They got delivered on Saturday morning...way too early! Why have all of our deliveries been at the earliest part of the delivery window? Seriously if you tell me 8:15-11:15, you don't need to show up at 8:15 on the dot! Anyway, so on Saturday night, we went to a bonfire at a friend's house, and I had a little (lot) to drink.  When we got home, we started watching tv and I fell immediately asleep on the couch, and apparently refused to get up! So the first night the couch was in our house, it got slept on :) It was soooo comfy!

I promise I will get some pictures of it this weekend! We are still trying to figure out the layout and how we want the room to look.  And surprise surprise, we still don't have any blinds!

On another note, I added two new blogs tonight.....geeeez these blogs are EXPLODING! It's getting really hard to keep caught up if I don't check it every day! I am going to fall severely behind this weekend, so I apologize in advance for not commenting on anyone's posts!

Spring Break

I've been on spring break this week.  I would love to tell you that I have accomplished a ton of things at the  house, including blinds, painting, other decorating...etc.  But, I haven't.  I have been staying up late, sleeping in, and handling stuff for the wedding. I did buy all of the votives and floating candles for our wedding, as well as the program paper for the ceremony..Michael's has some pretty good coupons on their website right now if anyone is interested.  I used the 30% off entire candle purchase as well as 40% off wedding items.  www.michaels.com

Just a note about our washer/dryer: The frontloading model that we got (Samsung) is completely perfect for the second floor laundry.  It has a "Vibration Reduction" technology and it really is quiet...no problems with the house vibrating yet.

I have been working on the slideshow for our wedding all week.  We are going to have pictures of Gary growing up/with family, then pictures of me growing up/with family, then pictures of us with friends, then pictures of us together.  I am completely stuck on song ideas for my part of growing up pictures! I don't want it to be sappy, I don't like country, and I want it to be fun.  Gary's song is going to be Queen-Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy. Does anyone have any suggestions for what my song should be?????? I've been going crazy listening to song after song trying to figure this out.  I will take ANY suggestions! It just needs to be something upbeat and fun, about a girl :)

I will post again after Saturday when our furniture gets delivered! I'm so excited to finally have something other than an air mattress in our living room!

Wedding stuff, and a picture of the mudroom

FirstTimeBuilder had asked for a picture of how the bench fits in the mudroom.  I am at my parents' house so I had Gary text me a pic...please excuse the stark whiteness of the walls! There's been a lot of discussion going around about painting on here....we are not going to wait for the 10-month to paint, but we aren't doing it anytime soon. We just have too much else to focus on right now! Anyway...

It fits perfectly on that little wall.  And then we are going to get probably some kind of coat rack or something for the corner (where that shoe is)

We have had a lot happen this week! On Tuesday we went to Best Buy, ordered the washer/dryer (thanks Mom and Dad!) and bought the television/tv stand (thanks partially to Gary's grandparents!) Of course Gary insisted that since the tv was in stock, he HAD to make it fit in his car and had to take it right then. So we did---tight squeeze in the SUV but we made it home! It only took us an hour to put the tv stand together, and about 10 minutes to get the tv all hooked up.  Why people pay $200 to have Best Buy do that stuff for them is beyond me.  

From Best Buy

This was actually much easier to put together than the bench! Gary did not like it in the store and was afraid that the tv would sit down too low, but I convinced him otherwise...and now he loves it! 

Yesterday, I had a hair appointment and figured things out for the wedding day. I have had it in my hairdresser's book for the past year, but we actually discussed details now, such as time, number of girls coming, makeup, etc.  Before I left, I made my next appointment---last one before the wedding, and the one where we will practice styles! Wow that made it seem incredibly real that our wedding is less than 3 months away! 

Today after work I met my mom at the florist and we played around with centerpieces.  Now as I'm sure a lot of you ladies would agree, I would LOVE to have nice big floral centerpieces. But it's just not in the budget, and not worth the money.  So this whole time I've pretty much decided that we would do some sort of flower/floating candle thing.  We bought some candles, some rocks, and other decorative things a few weeks ago to take today...and here is what we came up with:

half of the tables will have floating pink lillies with floating candles and green sea glass on the bottom (not very much sea glass in this bowl, but you get the idea)

And then the other half of the tables will have submerged pink hydrangeas (she only had a green one available at the shop so use your imagination), with floating candles.  Not sure if we will keep the sea glass in these as well.

And then around those there will be 5-6 votives.  Still need to figure out about mirrors for underneath them..the florist does not supply those so we need to check to see how much we can rent them for from the venue. After that we went to the cake shop and went through books and books of wedding cakes. I think I have an idea what I want it to look like but still need to look some more.  

Oh and Levin called to schedule our delivery for our couch, chair, and ottoman! Next Saturday :)