The Saga Continues…

My brother texted me last night.

My uncle tried to kill himself over the weekend.

He hasn’t been coping well since my father died and apparently decided that he didn’t want to try coping anymore.  So he took 25 Ambien and slit his wrists.  Totally disregarding his 2 young girls, 2 step children, wife, and military career.

I understand that he’s sad that Daddy is gone… I’m sad…. my brother is sad… a lot of people are still hurting that he’s gone. But none of us are going to end our lives because we can’t deal.

I’m just totally confused at it all… not simply because he thought that that was the only way to make it stop hurting but that they weren’t close.  I get that they were brothers so there’s automatically a special bond there…. but other than that basic brother bond…. that was it.  They didn’t speak.  They didn’t email. Nothing. In fact, if anything it was more of the opposite.  They went out of their way to not speak.

What bothers me most though is that people are putting this golden glow around my dad since he’s gone.  He was a great man.  He was.  But like any other human he had his faults. And its not right to totally disregard those faults like they never happened.  Its like the end of a long relationship.  You need to look back on the good times and smile… but also look on the bad times and remember.  Not only does it make it easier to cope with but it makes it keeps his true memory in tact. It keeps the essence of my father alive to remember him how he truly was and not this picture-perfect person that never existed.  And it makes me want to scream that people keep muddling his memory. Maybe they didn’t know him like I did. Maybe they never took the time to sit with him and talk… but if that’s the case, they have no business being affected by his death at all.

Secondly, I have issues with the fact that my aunt messaged my brother and told him about my uncle but didn’t think that I would care to know.  I realize that I’m not that liked on that side of the family but I still deserve the consideration of knowing that the one person on that side of the family that I do like, tried to kill himself. He’s my Uncle Monkey… why would I not want to know?

Thirdly, I would like to point out that my dad dying and my uncle trying to die should be 75% attributed to my failure of a grandmother. When you have your husband carrying you in and out of the house to go to the hospital because you are too drugged up to walk yourself, when you put up divorce papers on numerous occasions because you are so high that you don’t know what you’re doing, when you beat your children so much it leaves marks because the drugs cloud your conscience… when you do it so often that your children know nothing but prescription drugs and think that that is the norm…. you pass that on to them. And you wonder why you’re all alone?? Get a clue. It hurt me that you wouldn’t even look at me at Dad’s funeral. It hurt me more that you lied to me and told me you loved me while not even looking at me.  It hurt me most that when you “found out” that I was hurt a week or so later, you called my brother to say that you really did love me and wanted to apologize.  You didn’t even try calling me. You selfish, lying bitch. I know you don’t love me.  You never have. Why? Because I’m too much like my mom.  You know what I have to say about that? Good. I’d rather be not loved for being happy, successful, caring, smart, and driven… than be loved for being anyone other than who I truly am.

Shhhhh! I’m sleeping!

I was browsing the 20 something bloggers site and I came across the topic for the January Blog Carnival.

First Kiss.

My. Oh. My. Have a got a horribly embarrassing story for you.

I was in the 6th grade and I thought that I was so cool because I was “going out” with one of my older brother’s friend.  I mean he was 14 and I was 12.  How much more scandalous can you get?

We had been “going out” for about a month when my mom (who obviously had to chauffeur us everywhere at that point) came up with the idea that we could go on a “date” to the drive-in. I don’t even remember what movie was playing because I was too busy gazing starry eyed up at him and knowing that tonight I was going to get my first kiss.  I. was. scared. shitless.  So after the first movie was over and he still hadn’t kissed me yet, I snuggled up to him and pretended to go to sleep.  As my head lay in his lap (told you… scandalous…) (I KEEED.  I was only TWELVE PEOPLE! Get your head out of the gutter.) my mom decided to be all sly and go get some nachos at the concession stand to leave us alone for a bit.  Boyfriend went in for the kill.  Mind you, I was still “sleeping” at this point.  I flipped out.  All in my head. I was seriously about to have a heart attack because he was kissing me. Giving me my first real kiss. And what was I doing? Still pretending to be asleep.  Thats right.

The worst part about it? It wasn’t just like a peck first kiss.  He went from having never kissed me at all to trying to shove his tongue past my tonsils. And I pretended to be asleep the entire time.  I didn’t move a single muscle all 45ish seconds of him dousing my face with his spit. I stayed completely limp.

Boyfriend and I never said a word about it after the fact.  It was like it never happened.  If only I really could erase his memory of that.

New… EVERYTHING! well… almost.

It is officially 2009. Crazy right? This time last year I was single, pissed, and looking forward to going back home to Arkansas for good and finishing school. Now I’m married… back in Hawaii with the guy that I was so mad at… sitting with my beautiful new puppy, in my brand new house, and definitely not back in school. Its weird how thing happen like that.  How everything works out in the end.  I love it.

The only thing not new? T. T is back with a vengeance and really trying to make things difficult. He called the other day to talk about this girl that he was dating that “pulled a Danielle” and hasn’t been sober in over a week and a half. (Okay. SLIGHTLY perturbed by his word usage there.) He was upset because they had been seeing each other for a month or two and it was “understood” that they were exclusive even though there were no titles. (Yea. Apparently he likes the lack of titles.) Anyways.  New Year’s Eve he decided that he would rather hang out with his sister and brother-in-law than his not girlfriend. She ended up hanging out with this guy “that is a total loser” and ended up sleeping with him.  I told him that that sucks but she’s 20 years old and you made it clear that you were not her boyfriend.  She can do what she wants. Everyone needs to go through a crazy phase like that.  Just sucks that you had to have two kind-of-girlfriends that went through it while they were with you.  The conversation followed that path for the next hour and 15 minutes. —- Fast forward to later that night. He called again.  Drunk. In Fayetteville. Heading to the casino in Siloam.  I thought this was a normal call until he asked if I had him on speaker.  Of course I didn’t. He then began to tell me all about how he knows that we are made for each other and how mad he is that I had to go to Hawaii and get better then get engaged and not give him a chance after I was sober.  He was saying that Justin isn’t good enough for me and theres no way that I love Justin more than I loved him.  I told him if he really meant all that he said that he would call back the next morning and tell me that he meant it. Sober. And well aware of his words. (Not that it would change ANYTHING.) He called. He meant it. He was sober for the very first time telling me how he really felt. And it was far too late.

The Ultimate Daddy Issue.

I’m not sure if it was clear in my last post but I wanted to explain my absence.

On the 30th of November I got a call from my step-mother saying that my dad was sick again and that she would like for me to come and help her out because the kids were getting out of hand.  I was “busy” of course.  I didn’t want to be an enabler. I didn’t want to make it okay for him to be sick.  I wanted him to realize that he had obligations and there wasn’t going to be anyone to bail him out of those obligations.  He chose to be sick. He chose to neglect his family and remain addicted to prescription drugs. He chose it and he would have to live with it.  I was tired of making excuses for him or not making excuses and just being embarrassed of his actions and that nothing seemed to be good enough to make him want to be better than he was. 

I laid around all day and life went on as normal. 

8:00 am on the 2nd of December my step mom called again.  I wasn’t busy… I was sleeping. I woke up just long enough to press ignore and go back to sleep. Again, I refused to be an enabler. I refused to bail him out. Twenty minutes later I woke up to her calling again. I wondered why she wasn’t calling the kids’ nanny and why she absolutely had to keep trying to wake me up.  It couldn’t be that bad.  I went back to sleep after hitting ignore one more time. Ten minutes after that my mom came to the couch where I had passed out the night before and woke me up.  She was crying.

“Shit.  He must really be legitimately sick this time….”

She told me that we needed to go upstairs and that I needed to sit down.

We went up to my room.  I sat on the edge of the bed. And my world came crashing to a halt.

My dad had died that morning.

He was 43 years old. 

What sucks most about this?

I’m still mad at him… even more mad than I was, if thats possible. 

Yes, I miss him.  Yes, I love him. And yes, I’m still so very angry with him.

I’m angry that he left the way he did. I’m angry that he’ll never have the chance to get better. I’m angry that he missed my wedding by 2 short weeks. I’m angry that he left my little brother and sister without a father when they are so young. I’m angry that most of my memories of him aren’t all that pleasant. I’m angry that he deprived my unborn children of a grandfather.  I’m angry that I can’t listen to a Garth Brooks song without thinking of the funeral and crying. I’m angry that I can’t watch a Robin WIlliams movie without getting upset because they look and act so much alike. I’m angry that he didn’t want to get better.  I’m angry that I’ll never know why I wasn’t worth him putting himself into rehab like he promised on multiple occasions.  I’m angry that he left me angry.

Do you know what my only vivid Christmas memory of him is…? The time my mom and I were trying to put up the artificial Christmas tree and we couldn’t get it straight so we woke Dad up from a nap to get him to help real fast…. He threw the tree across the room.

Then there was this one time that his wife called me saying that I needed to go pick up his truck from Wal-Mart.  He drove there so drugged up that he couldn’t look straight and took my little brother with him on top of that.  He had went to pick up more prescriptions. The police escorted him out of the store and took my brother from him. 

More sad than that was that it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. Back when I was in middle school my dad’s doctors stopped feeding his problem and wouldn’t prescribe him anymore. I didn’t know that he had a drug issue at this point. I was still Daddy’s Little Girl. He started detoxing and began to have hand tremors.  Being a lab tech and having hand tremors isn’t the best thing for your career.  So late at night when the clinic was closed he would take me up to the lab and I would do the tests for him. He would stand by me and tell me exactly what to do but I was the one who did it because he would have spilled all the blood. On our way home late one night/early one morning, we were driving on the highway through town. I said “Daddy, how about driving on the actual road?” “Danielle, I am!” “No, Daddy you aren’t!  Look!” We were well over on the shoulder and extremely close to landing in the ditch. He swerved and somehow we made it home.

He used to get chronic migraines and it was like waking a sleeping bear if you ever happened to get so unlucky to do that. Then it was his stomach. Then his back. Then his legs. Migraines again. Stomach. Back…. and it goes on. 

When I found out that dad had an issue it had been nearly 7 years into his addiction. My mom took my brother and I to our grandparents’ house across the state. We went back to pack up our things…. the garage was collapsed because my dad had gotten angry that my mom had hid his medicine and called all the pharmacies in town to warn them to not give him any. He had drove his truck into the side of the garage in frustration that he wouldn’t be getting his medicine. Walking inside the house was a nightmare.  Our library was a disaster area.  Every single book and paper was torn off the shelves and littered the floor.  Family pictures and old love letters thrown down as if they meant nothing. 

I never got to see him get better for long.  After the divorce was final he was better for a little bit. He found someone he loved and his only vice was his daily glass of boxed wine. He was better for around 2 years… I was jealous that he wanted to get better for his new wife and stepson but apparently my brother, mother, and I weren’t good enough.  After that 2 years was up though… he seemed worse than before. It seemed as though nothing mattered to him at all anymore.  He gave up his job and applied for disability. He didn’t want to be around any of his kids. He sat back in the sunroom and slept. 

I’m not sure how but I think that he must have known that something horrible was going to happen because about a week before his death I was over spending time with him…. and out of the blue he looked at me and asked me to promise him something that I didn’t even remember until I was looking down on him at the viewing.  He said “Danielle.  Promise me something.   This is very important and I need you to not forget. If something happens to me I want to be buried with my mason’s ring and apron. Now, Danielle.  Pay attention. Your grandmother didn’t want your grandfather buried with his.  But it is VERY IMPORTANT to me that I am.  Please make sure that if something happens to me that my apron and ring are with me.” They were. I actually think that that was the last time that I saw him too. 

It really upsets me that all of those bad things sometimes overshadow my good memories of him… like when he took my to my Girl Scout Troop’s father-daughter sock hop and I wore his high school class ring around my neck and we danced to “Earth Angel.”  He begged the DJ all night to put it on… and finally on the last dance he did. Or the time when we were at this wedding and he kept dancing with me to “Shout” and then he let me slow dance with him while I stood on his feet. Or the time he drove all the way out to Hot Springs to watch me lose at Miss Teen Arkansas. Or the time when he grew a ponytail because Duncan McCloud had one and my mom and I begged him to cut it so after weeks of begging he finally did. Or the time when he came with Justin and I to Rogers because he wanted to be there when the JP pronounced us husband and wife officially before the wedding. Or the time he finally gave Justin the “she’ll always be my little girl and by the way I don’t have a gun… I have a samurai sword” talk. 

…. So now I guess I face my biggest daddy issue of all.  Forgiving… without forgetting.

Beautiful Imperfection.

Its amazing the amount of things that can happen when you aren’t paying attention.

In the past year, I moved, went back to school, got re-engaged, dropped back out of school, got in a wreck, got a new car, decided said new car was a junker, got married, got in another wreck, lost a best friend, gained a new best friend, lost my father, got married again, and am now awaiting another move in a week.

Today is December 22, 2008 and I have been legally married to my husband for nearly 3 months now even though we just had the wedding on the 18th. It was beautiful. Of course there were a few things that didn’t go perfectly but really that’s part of what made it so beautiful.

As I sit here at my new mother-in-law’s house and watch my husband sleep in his signature pose (mouth WIDE open), I can’t help but realize how lucky I am to find a match that fits me so well. No, he’s not perfect. But neither am I. We argue… we fight… we definitely disagree on some things… but all in all we are each other’s perfect balance.

Its odd to think about how one minor decision changed on either side could have altered everything. Now I couldn’t be more thankful for my past drinking problems and his failure to even show up to his classes.

Not only has my marital status changed, but so has my religious status. A self proclaimed atheist mere weeks ago, I’m ready to start believing there is a God again. I’m still not so sure about this Heaven and Hell stuff… but I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no way that all of the things that happened to get me here writing this today could have happened without a little guidance from the giant puppeteer in the sky.

Also, if there were no God… then how could I feel my dad watching me right now as I type? I miss him. More than I thought I would, to be honest. I guess its the old saying that you never really know what you have until its gone. Yes, he made many many many mistakes and for a while I really and truly hated him for it. But it was another one of those things that had it not happened, my life would have been drastically different and I’m 100% positive that I wouldn’t be sitting here next to my prissy little puppy and snoozing husband.

Now, I’m about to head back off to Hawaii. The one thing that crosses my mind? How desperately I’m going to miss my mom. There are other people and things I’m going to miss here… but my mom. My mom has been my rock for so long and kept me grounded and heading in the right direction. She’s not perfect… but we’re developing the perfect balance in our relationship more and more everyday. Its so easy to take people for granted until they are taken away from you. I know that my mom will always be there for me… but its different when you are 4,000 miles away. I’ll just have to keep my promise of no babies until I’m back in the Continental so she can spoil them properly.

In a messy room… filled with dirty clothes, beer, game cords, not much money, but a whole lot of love… I must say that I am easily one of the luckiest people in the world.

I don’t want you to walk me down the aisle.

I told my dad last night that I didn’t want him to walk me down the aisle.  His response? “Whatever, Danielle.  I guess thats your prerogative.” I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that he didn’t get really upset or to be offended that it looked like he really could care less. 

On top of telling him that he was most likely not walking me down he aisle, I decided to go down the rehab road again.  He of course said that he didn’t need it.  He is truly convinced that he has MS. One of the most difficult illnesses to diagnose. Of course. FYI- He doesn’t have it. Having 1-3 symptoms of 15+ does not mean that you have it.  Its ridiculous that he’s even suggesting that. 

His wife is going to leave him.  And as much as I don’t want to see him alone- I’m encouraging her to leave him. She was very well financially off before she met him and now he is continuing to drain her savings.  I used to feel sorry for him but now I really don’t.  We have given him every opportunity to get better. There is no way that someone is that chronically ill all the time.  And each time its something different! All you have to do is say “Hey.  I messed up.  I need to go to rehab to finally get this out of my body so that it doesn’t want it anymore.  I’ll be back in 6-8 weeks” Instead basically what he is saying is “I don’t give a flying F**k that I have a three sons and two daughters that need me. My drug needs are more important than all of that”

I told him that if he continues on the road that hes on that Jillian won’t want him to walk her down the aisle when she gets married either.  And she actually may have her new dad do it instead.  He said that he knew that was a possibility but there was nothing that he could do about that.  

At that point I was speechless.  It amazes me that someone can be that self centered to not care that the biggest moment of each of his daughters’ lives they don’t want him to be apart of.  

I asked him what he was going to do if his wife left him.  He said he guessed he was just going to have to live in a cardboard box because he has nothing now other than some clothes and a truck. And its true.  Very very true. He really would have no where else to go. And if she leaves him because of the crap he is pulling now, I’m not going to feel sorry for him.  It would totally be his fault.  

Whatever. I’m through trying to get through to him that he’s already given me some serious daddy issues and is well on his way to giving my 3 year old little sister some daddy issues.  I’m done trying to convince him that he can help himself.  When he wants to be well, he is.  How he can’t see that, I’m not sure…. But I’m done.  I’m SO done.

The best 10 days- EVER.

I’m married.

True.

No, I’m not lying.

Yes, I was/am scared shitless.

Yes, we are still having the wedding in December.

Justin went back to Hawaii today.  I’ve decided that instead of wallowing in self pity… I’m going to blog, work out (Since I gained like 8 lbs while he was here), help mom clean house (Since I live with her now…), then repack my room and get it all ready to put in the pod and ship off to our new home.

So happy thoughts.  Happy thoughts.

Highlights from the engagement party:

My cousin's baby showed me why I should invest in birth control. I don't like baby slobber... and they slobber a lot.

 

Yea... I was that happy with him here. We are just too freakin' cute. :-)

My mom likes pictures where you aren't looking at the camera.

Again... look over there!

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy

I love him. My husband.

Randomosity.

 

He is so sweet to me....

What am I the Wizard of Oz? Need a brain? Need a heart? Here take mine.

I realize that I have been gone for far too long and that I perhaps have lost ALL of my regular readers… but honestly, that was a price that I was willing to pay. I had to make certain people forget that I had a blog. Hopefully it worked. Hopefully they don’t check this anymore. And again… hopefully I can get back to spilling things out like I was prior to my big outing. Because honestly- I need this blog. I need it as an outlet to let myself know that Im not as crazy as I feel. That there are other people out there that go through similar things. Writing in my journal over the past few weeks has helped a bit but not near as much as this was.

So back to where we left off- I’m honestly not sure where to begin… so much has happened in the past month that its been slightly EXTREMELY overwhelming. Guess that means only one thing. Bullet time.

• I bought a new car. 2005 Altima in a Charcoal Gray. Its so pretty and exactly what I wanted. I managed to flirt enough that they pushed me down to 7000 below internet price. I began to regret that flirting decision when the 40 something financial guy from Toyota started stalker calling me to go to Padrissimo (a Hispanic Dance Club) ANYWHO. The next morning after I took my perfect car home it started smoking. Long story short- I’ve been in a rental car for the past month as they put in a new engine.
• Rental Car. Right? That was smashed into a pole last weekend after I made a bad decision to go drink 3/4 of a fifth of Smirnoff and then go joy riding to my old sorority house. WHY?! Who knows… but I am so broke now that its not even funny. Its horrible to say but I am very very fortunate that is all that happened. Thank God there were no other cars involved nor the police. THAT would have been really bad. I am not hurt either. I didn’t even know that I had wrecked until the next morning. I wouldn’t say that I am lucky that it happened.. just fortunate that that was ALL that happened.
• Resulting Consequences? $500 paid to the rental company and the wreck go on my insurance. Fiance has prohibited drinking and “strongly discourages” me hanging out with my best guy friend from here. He said that if I touched another glass of alcohol until he thought I was ready that the wedding was off. Needless to say- I gave my roommate my alcohol and told her to have it drank before the end of the week or it was going down the drain. It was gone 2 nights later.
• J forgave me and we began to move on. Things were tight but we were making it. All we needed was to sell my car back in Hawaii and we were home free. 3 days after the accident Justin called and told me that my car was totaled. He had taken it to go show it to a chick in the military that was really interested and it wouldn’t start. He took it to the shop and they told him that the repairs would be about $2000… blown head gasket among other things… the car is only worth about $3000. So the best deal we could manage was to give it to someone that agreed to tow it off the mechanics lot for free.
• Oh, and did I mention that my alcoholic escapade, the wreck, the car not being able to be sold and my car tags being due all occurred within the same week and couple days?! Yea. BAD WEEK.
• Yea. I’m broke. I have School bills to pay that I was forced to put on my credit card. Thats a good $1300… now that the car didn’t sell I have to put my sales tax for my new car on my credit card as well which I’m anticipating to be about another $1000. Then somehow I need to buy Justin’s wedding band which is another $850ish. ANNNNNNNNNNNND we need to ship my car back to Hawaii in December which is $1500. ANNNNNNNNND we need to furnish our new house. Yea. Broke doesn’t QUITE describe that loads of crap I’m wading through.
• Solutions? I’m moving back in with the parentals until the wedding. Yes, its only 2 months but I still feel like a serious failure at life. I’m selling all my pageant paraphernalia on ebay. And signing my life away over to odd jobs. Earlier this week I babysat my demon half-siblings. And tomorrow I am pulling weeds for my mom and cleaning her resource room. BLEGH. NOT FUN. But you do what you have to do right?
• And here’s the real kicker and the thing that really is going to save or destroy everything. The top secret mission. Justin and I are getting married when he comes in town this weekend. As in going to the justice of the peace and signing the paperwork. I know this sounds silly considering we are so close to the actual wedding… but we both know that we are getting married and he gets paid an extra $2500ish a month for us being married. And obviously as you can see in the earlier bullets that we could really use that extra money. So thats how its going to save everything. It could seriously get destroyed though if my mother finds out. I’m doubting that she would be as obliged to pay for the wedding if she knew that the reason that there was the wedding was already taken care of. Now I thought this would be easy to hide from her until my father made a good point. Legal things are put in the paper as public record and there is nothing that you can do to get them out of there. All it would take is one of her nosy friends to be looking through there and then we would be screwed.
• OH and another thing. My laptop died. Like not the battery died. The computer itself is dead. Gone to a better place… dead. The screen refuses to come back on. I called a repair place to get a quote and he said about $250 I decided at that point that it was better to call it a loss and save up for a new MacBook when possible.
• My. World. Has. Been. A. Black. Hole. Of. Despair. Seriously. Black. Hole.

The only thing that has been bringing light into my life is knowing that I get to see J in LESS THAN FOUR DAYS!!!!! And I’ve recently become sucked into Twilight. I read the first two books in 3 days. I’m about three quarters ways through the last book. I fracking LOVE those books. I want to be a vampire and I want to make out with Edward Cullen. I’m going to find him. End of story.

It’s never safe to be nostalgic about something until you’re absolutely certain there’s no chance of its coming back.

I interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring you a blast from my past.

I realize I promised an awesome link post but I got caught up in buying a car. (Which I shall discuss later) But I’m almost done with the post…. so just keep checking back…. but until then-

I have to say that nostalgia has hit me hard.  As in… I miss everything.  

There’s a great quote that I found about nostalgia when I was looking for an appropriate title to this post- Nostalgia is a seductive liar.

I agree whole heartedly.  Right at the end of freshman year my BFF and I made videos commemorating our year. I mean Lets get real- my freshman year sucked…. I was drunk 85% of the time, I got my heart broken, I failed all my classes, had many nights that I’d rather forget and then some I wished I remembered.  But every time I look back at these videos, I can’t help but want to go back and call all of the old gang and get wasted and remember all those crazy times. 

My two best friends in the entire world from that year and I don’t even speak anymore…. its sad to look at these videos plastered with pictures of us and then realize that they aren’t there anymore. Its weird to see how someone who is such a huge part of your life can be non-existent in it in a matter of a few weeks. 

But.  I’m getting married.  And I couldn’t be happier. Everything that I’ve done and experienced has lead me to this point and I am so happy that I’m moving on with an amazing person.  Just today there is that little thing in the back of my head that longs for being a child again so I don’t have to worry about bills or the future.  All that mattered was right then, the cutest guy in the room and how much was in my flask. 

What about those videos that BFF and I made?  Well I’m glad you asked.

This goes out to all the engaged (or hoping to be eventually.)

It seems like the wedding planning NEVER ends.  Don’t get me wrong… its fun.  But believe it or not- there are times when I really don’t want to think about who is coming and if they are bringing kids, what kind of appetizers to serve, who’s going to make those appetizers, whatdressshouldthebridesmaidswear,whattuxshouldthegroomsmen
wear,howamIgoingtofiteverythinginmybudget,ifI’mgoingtohavekickass
backandshouldersformykickassstraplessdress,ifmyabsenteefianceis
goingtolikeeverythyingIchoose, among others. It. Gets. Slightly. Overwhelming.  And by slightly, I mean that it feels like there is a big meteor about to hit Earth and the whole world’s survival depends on if I choose the right size lilly for my bouquet.

SO- I have decided that I am going to begin a blog series on different wedding websites and ideas that I’ve found.  Hope you enjoy!

Today, I am starting off with just random ideas that I’ve found in the past few months that my FH (future husband- EEEEEK!) and I plan to use on our big day.  

*Favors-Since we aren’t having a huge wedding we decided that a cute idea for our favors would be to have a tall clear cookie jar filled with my grandma’s AWESOME fudge and then another one filled with her AMAZING divinity.  Then we are going to have the recipes on little slips of paper in front of the jars so our guests can go home and make it for themselves too!  This could also work to have your mom’s cookie recipe and his mom’s brownie recipe or anything like that.

*Custom Monograms– momentsofelegance.com makes custom monograms for about $35 each and then emails you the copy.  You can use this and take it to Kinko’s or any other printing store and get them printed on your DIY invitations, programs, or get iron on transfers made for your runner or t-shirts and bags.  You could make this the “theme” of your wedding. 

*Trivia- I found these adorable place card holders on sale.  I had NO idea what to do with them though since we aren’t having assigned seating since there are so few people that are going to be coming.  So my mom and I had a brainstorm in the isle and came up with the idea of having random trivia placed on the tables- including the ones with the food.  For example, one will say “Justin and Danielle had their first date on August 24, 2007” and another will say “Justin and Danielle have a min-pin puppy named Bo.”

*Advice Boxes– I think my mom came up with this idea.  We are going to have advice for the bride and advice for the groom boxes.  Now this has probably been done tons of times… but what makes ours unique is the decor of the boxes.  My future sister-in-law and I took a trip to Hobby Lobby and got two round craft boxes.  One tall and skinnier… one shorter and fatter.  The tall skinny one is OF COURSE the brides. We painted the cardboard colored box white and stenciled “bride” on the top.  Then, we added a veil.  We bought about a yard or two of tulle and glued what looks like a long viel on to the back of the box.  For the groom’s, we painted in black and added a strip of white ribbon right under the lid and to that ribbon we attached an old bow tie that we found.  For the buttons we used small gems and just put three going down the box.  We stenciled “groom” on the top of this one.  Cut slits and we were done!  I’ll add pictures of this one when I get home since they don’t sound as good on here… but for now- trust me that they are ADORABLE.

*Signs- our location is out in the middle of no where.  We rented out a 2-story colonial house.  So we are going to have cute little signs leading the way from the two ways that our guests will be getting there.  It’ll just say things like “Justin and Danielle are getting hitched!” then have an arrow leading the way.  Very rustic looking.

*Growing up Pictures- My FH and I didn’t have a very long courtship… and in the bulk of that we weren’t very happy with the way that we were looking.  So we don’t have many pictures of us together but we both have tons of cute growing up pictures that I wanted to find something to do with.  I have decided on one of two options- the first of which being the standard photo slideshow projected on the wall with some of the music that we really want played.  The second of which being a photo line.  Drape ribbon or clothing line or fishing line or whatever and attach the actual childhood pictures of both of you with a clip so that your guests can enjoy them as long and as often as they want!

Next post- Great Bargain Websites and ways to cheat the over priced wedding market!