January 30, 2010
Prints
I went to Wal-Mart and had all 42 or so pictures printed so I could put them in my photo album. It only cost me $14.00! Do you know what this means? Forty-two copies for everyone! Woo!
My only problem now is figuring out who wants which picture (if any) so I can have those printed. I’m sure I was told, but that was months ago and I no longer remember. My only problem is that when I call people to ask a question, they want to talk. Now…I hate talking on the phone. Cell phones are one of the world’s treasures that I could definitely live without. Half the time, I can’t even hear what’s being said on the other end and asking, “What?” gets annoying. So they’ll probably get their pictures around Easter.
I wonder how many other people are out there who have trouble motivating themselves to do their wedding-related things. I try to get as many people as possible to do this stuff for me. I’m busy and often in class throughout the hours most places are “open for business.” Anyone else rope their family members (or fiancee’s) into completing tasks for them or is it just me?
January 25, 2010
The Arrival
As you may recall, Zach and I bought our wedding bands a couple days after Christmas. We carried his out of the store, but we ordered mine (because the one on Kay’s website looks just like the ones in the stores, but it’s about $400 cheaper), so we had to wait. The woman who helped us pick out the rings told me that it would take three days for my ring to make it to the store. I realized after we walked out that Zach and I were going back to Morgantown the next day, so I wouldn’t be there to pick it up. So I went back and I asked if I could stop the shipment and have it sent to the Kay’s in Morgantown. I was told that when they called me to let me know that the ring had arrived, I could ask them to forward it to Morgantown. I left the store and Zach and I went home.
I got an email a couple days after the supposed arrival of the ring, which let me know the ring was at the store and needed picked up. I called and asked them to forward it to the Kay’s in the University Town Center in Morgantown. The woman fought with me every step of the way (apparently they don’t get credit for it if I have it sent somewhere else). Here is basically how the conversation went:
Me: Hi! *note the fake, but still highly enthusiastic, happy tone* I just got an email saying that my ring was in your store. Could you check and make sure it is? It should be filed under “Hartman.”
Kay’s Employee: Just a second. *pause* Hartman?
Me: Yes, ma’am.
Kay’s Employee: Yes, it’s right here.
Me: Great! I was told that I could have it forwarded to the Kay’s where I’m at now. Can you do that?
Kay’s Employee: *pause* Let me check. *longer pause* I guess so. But you haven’t seen the ring, yet. I don’t want to send you a ring until you’ve seen it.
Me: Well, if I see it and there’s something wrong with it, can’t I bring it back?
Kay’s Employee: *another pause* Yes, I…guess you could do that.
Me: Good! I would like to do that, then.
Kay’s Employee: OK, then. *she is quite obviously no longer happy to be talking to me, by the way* Where would you like to have it sent?
Me: To Morgantown, West Virginia.
Kay’s Employee: And which Kay’s in Morgantown?
Me: The one in the University Town Center.
Kay’s Employee: OK, so the University Town Center in Morgantown. I will send that out.
Me: Oh, thank you very much! *I sort of sound like I’m talking to my cat…only I’m not making kissy noises*
Kay’s Employee: You’re welcome. *we both hang up*
Yes, I maintained that level of false enthusiasm throughout the entire conversation. Those of you who know how much I hate being fake nice to people know what kind of a feat that was. But people respond better to nice, happy people. I figured faking my way through that conversation would help move along the process.
This conversation occurred on the Monday after New Year’s. That Saturday, Zach and I went to the University Town Center to see if the ring had arrived (I didn’t feel like calling…and I was pretty glad I didn’t, because it would have made what happened next much more difficult). The ring was not at the store. I told gave her the date that I called Partkersburg and she said that the ring would have shipped the next day (Tuesday) and been there the day after (Wednesday), so she didn’t understand why it wasn’t in their storage. Her supervisor called Parkersburg and was informed that they did not have the ring and also that they never received it. Now after reading the above conversation one would have to say, “Bullshit, they never received it!” right? Right. I KNEW that they had received it. My first thought was that I was glad I’d gotten the insurance on the ring. My second thought was that the insurance didn’t count if the ring was lost. My third thought was that if the store had lost my ring and was not going to replace it, I wasn’t sure that I would have the strength to kick all of the ass that would need kicking.
I recounted the conversation to the supervisor and she asked that they look for the shipping information. They had that. And what did that slip say? They had sent it to Charleston. Apparently the mall there is called the Town Center or something similar. I can understand how they would be confused, except that I clearly said “Morgantown” and the woman I talked to clearly repeated “Morgantown.” I’m not sure how this happened. SO! They called Charleston and asked that it be sent to Morgantown. We were informed that the ring would arrive sometime the next week.
The next day, I came back to school. Thursday, Zach sent me an Instant Message saying that he picked up the ring. This weekend, he came to visit me and he brought the ring so I could make sure everything was OK.
Here it is with my engagement ring.
I am extremely happy with it. Now I just need to get the insurance policy off Zach and put it somewhere safe. =D
January 13, 2010
Congratulations?
One thing I cannot stand about being/getting engaged: being congratulated.
Seriously? Is it some HUGE feat to get engaged or married? Do you really think I had to cast some complicated spell in order to finally get that marriage proposal out of some guy? Millions of people get engaged or married. It’s obviously not hard. Anyone can get married…just look at some of the disasters that come out of Vegas (I know this is beating a dead horse, but…Brittney Spears, anyone?). Getting married is so easy. What’s difficult? Staying married.
I’m not married yet, but I’m not naive enough to think that it doesn’t take work. I know it takes work. A lot of work. Hell, being in any kind of relationship takes work (that is, if you’re being honest with one another and not trying to be what you think s/he wants you to be). But it’s different when you don’t see each other all day every day. Or if you live together and you know that you can leave whenever you feel like it, or that your partner can leave whenever s/he feels like it (not that that’s bad…at least you don’t end up in some horrible, miserable marriage). And girls are much less bitchy because they want that damned engagement ring (I noticed that when my frienemy’s and roommates were trying to get their boyfriends to propose, they were sickeningly sweet to them…when they were taking a rest from the nagging). Both participants are careful. Once you get married, you learn who the other person is…once it’s too late to leave.
Or at least that’s what everyone around me will have me believe about marriage. I guess I’ll find out whether or not it’s true in a few months!
So, yes. It annoys me when people congratulate people on getting engaged or married. You want a congrats out of me? Call me in fifty years and tell me honestly that you’re still happy with the decision you made. Then I’ll congratulate you. You earned that.
December 30, 2009
Ring Shopping
The day after Christmas, we purchased our wedding bands. We actually had no intention of buying that day, but we got talked into it. Or maybe we talked ourselves into it. I don’t quite remember. We left the store with his, but mine had to be ordered (because I wanted one that was less than $500 $400 $300 and all the cheaper ones were only available online). She said it would be here in three days, but it is now the third business day and it is still pending shipment. Bah. I stored Zach’s band in Mom’s dresser (everything is safe in there…mostly because you can’t find anything in it – it’s like a larger version of her purse), which means I have neither band with me. So I’m posting the pictures from Kay’s website.
Zach's band. He thought the ones with gems and little designs were too girly. I agreed.
My wedding band. I thought the plain ones were so boring with my engagement ring. This one is nice.
They’re nice. I can’t wait to see what mine looks like in person. If I don’t like it, I’ve been told I can send it back and get something else. Good.
Edit: I got an email saying it shipped out, so yay! And Zach doesn’t think that it is the third business day of the week. Monday was a holiday for WVU, so he thinks that maybe it is the second business day. This has been an ongoing debate. Can anyone clear this up?
December 16, 2009
The Ultimate Trade
I’m too tired to do a great prose on this, though I had intended to. I guess it’s more difficult when I’m not doing it in order to procrastinate on an assignment. Anyway….
I woke up Sunday morning and went into the kitchen to get something to eat. Dad followed me in and stopped me before I could sit down in the living room with my cereal.
“I had the worst nightmare last night,” he said to me. Saturday Mom had dragged us to the mall and then told us she didn’t want us around, so we had gone to Outback and sat at the bar until she was ready to leave. I had impressed him with my beer guzzling skills and he had been getting all buddy-buddy ever since. Still, hearing about my father’s nightmares creeped me out, considering we had gone through the majority of my life barely saying a word to each other…and what we did say, we shouted. I tried to look interested and non-creeped as I shoveled cereal in my mouth as an attempt to not have to respond. He bought it and continued his story. “I dreamed that you and Zach had a baby.” Let the weirdness persist. I raised my eyebrows. “You know that if you do, his parents are going to want to put it in Steelers shit, right?”
“Yeah…” I figured out where this was going and suddenly realized that he was not sharing this in order to tell me all the intimate details of his life. Thank God.
“I dreamed that I bent over to pick him up and was horrified to find him wearing a Steelers shirt.” His eyes got wide. Yes, this was his worst nightmare, but it was entertainment for me. “STEELERS! On MY grandson! Promise me that’s not going to happen.”
“K.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.” Sort of.
“You sure?” I nodded. “OK.” He walked out of the room and I finished my breakfast. Mom walked into the room as I rinsed out my bowl and set it in the sink.
“Did Dad tell you about his nightmare?” I asked her. She looked at me a moment and shook her head. This is where I inherited my conversation skills. I explained the dream to her and she laughed.
“If they get him clothes, you can’t just not use them,” she said. I knew this, but also beginning to feel very uncomfortable with everyone attaching a gender to my hypothetical child. The gender didn’t matter, but…I wasn’t even married yet. Creepy people.
“So I use Steelers clothes when I’m with them and Browns when I’m with you.” Simple solution. Mom smiled.
“What if you’re with both of us?” Zach and I had been together for three years and my father hadn’t met either of Zach’s parents. Mom only had because she worked in a grocery store. You meet everyone in a grocery store. It was probably accurate to assume that our parents would never be in the same room again after the wedding.
“Then it wears what I want it to wear.”
Micah already pointed out to me how strange it is to refer to an unborn (unconceived) child as an it. It’s also my hypothetical child, so I’ll call it what I want. Get off my back.
December 9, 2009
One problem solved.
Micah and Helen offered to help me carve the pumpkins next year. I’m so excited.
November 28, 2009
Another Engagement
I conversed with Zach’s mom the other night. She was able to get a contract for the Elks (YAY!), so I looked over it. It’s in her name (his parents are members, so we decided it would be in their name, but that we would pay for it), so she signed it for me. She also sent the down payment, which was nice. One more thing we don’t have to worry about. =D
We all had a nice Thanksgiving. This is the last one we’ll have where we’ll be separated – next Thanksgiving we’ll be married (YAY!). We did not have dinner together – he ate at his parents house and I ate at my aunt’s. Pap’s white blood cell count is low because of the chemo, so we decided it would be for the best if we skipped their house this year. We didn’t want to risk giving him a cold we didn’t know we had. I went over to Zach’s later that night, though, to borrow his sister’s Kodak printer (because mine won’t work, for some reason).
Speaking of his sister, her boyfriend proposed over dinner. So exciting! 
Andrew, Jessica, and the ring.
Now all of Lisa’s kids are engaged. Zach’s brother, Ryan, also got engaged a few months ago, but I have no picture… and I don’t know his fiancee, so it’s more difficult to get excited. I know Andrew, though, and I’m so excited for Jessica. I’m glad she found such a nice guy.
That’s pretty much the update. Rumor has it we’re putting up Christmas decorations tonight, so…off to get excited about that.
November 23, 2009
Reservations?
I’ve been thinking about it for a while and have decided that I have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with non-family out-of-town guests. I know it’s a year away, but I think I should be thinking about this. Zach and I both have some friends who live in Morgantown, Fairmont, Washington D.C., Wheeling, etc…and there are no hotels in Sistersville. The Wells Inn has been closed for the season for…over a year. There’s a tiny motel in Paden City, but I don’t know if that will hold everyone. And it’s a ten minute drive, so I’m worried someone will drive drunk and have a wreck or something.
I’m not worried about family. Zach has relatives in town who can house his out-of-town family members, and I have relatives in town who are intending to house my out-of-town family members. I just don’t know what to do with our friends. =(
November 18, 2009
I’ll tell you why we do it.
The topic of wedding rings came up on the Wedding Bee forums. One of the brides on the forum mentioned that her fiancee doesn’t want to wear a wedding ring after they’re married because he finds jewelry uncomfortable and unmanly. She’s upset about this, for obvious reasons, and asked the rest of us (as they always do) if this problem had come up. Not too surprisingly, he’s not the only man who feels this way about wearing a wedding ring, though he does seem to be more adamant about it than some of the other women made their fiancee’s seem. One woman said she was able to finally convince hers to wear one and he grew to like them.
Now…I know that wedding rings are a cultural thing. A lot of people wear them and a lot of people don’t. Many people wear them to symbolize their love (or at least that’s what they’ll tell you), others wear them because society sort of expects it anymore, and some people don’t wear them at all. I had a teacher in high school who, instead of wearing a wedding ring, made a cross with his wife out of two pieces of driftwood they found and put together. The cross hangs in their living room or something.
I will admit that one reason I want Zach and I to wear wedding bands is that I think they’re pretty (yes, I’m being impractical on this one thing – sue me). I know a lot of people don’t do the engagement ring thing because it’s impractical and a waste of money, but I like them. Sure, for the first two or three months, I would take it off when Zach wasn’t around, set it on my desk, and glare at it. It wasn’t because I disliked the thing, it was because I’d never in my life worn a ring on that finger and it felt weird and unnatural. It took me a long time to get used to it. So in that sense, I understand where this woman’s fiancee is coming from. Rings feel weird when you’re not used to wearing them.
However, the second and biggest reason I want us to wear wedding bands is because society expects it. Usually the expectations of society don’t fall high on my list of priorities, if they’re on there at all. But this one is important to me. When I explained this girl’s situation to Zach, he immediately said, “I bet I know the real reason he doesn’t want to wear a ring.” I had a pretty good idea of what he might be talking about, but I asked anyway. “He wants to be able to get away with having affairs,” he told me. Ah. Yes, that’s what I had figured. He had a good point, though. I know Zach has no intention (at least at the moment) of cheating on me. Neither now or while we’re married. That does not mean another woman will never come on to him, though.
I remember that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray lost his wedding ring and some girl at the airport hit on him. She felt embarrassed, though I didn’t feel she had much need to. Without a ring, how was she supposed to know he was married? Yes, he told her, but how annoying would that be to have to do it constantly? The easiest thing to do is wear a ring, which lets everyone know you’re married without the situation getting awkward. If a girl were to hit on Zach, all I could do is hope that he tells her that he’s with me. Unless one of us tells her, I can’t be angry at her – how else is she supposed to know? At least if he’s wearing a wedding ring and she knows he’s married, I can feel perfectly justified in beating the hell out of her.
This is why I feel married couples should wear rings. It doesn’t have to be a conventional ring. Some men get “rings” tattooed on their fingers to avoid jewelry. Hell, buy a cheap ring from Wal-Mart, or even one of those fake $15 rings. I’m sure there are all kinds of ways to get out of spending a lot of money on a ring you’re uncomfortable wearing. But it’s really considerate to the rest of society, who rely on those rings to let them know from whom it’s OK to accept drinks.
November 13, 2009
Bride and Groom Strawberries
While I was playing with my StumbleUpon button (if you don’t know what it is, you need to get Firefox and then look for it in Firefox customizations – it’s great) and I stumbled upon (funny that) these awesome wedding favors – chocolate covered tuxedo and wedding dress strawberries. The woman who wrote this went through step-by-step how to make them, which I think I will try to replicate when I go home for Thanksgiving.
- The finished project. Aren’t they pretty?
If I end up trying to make these, I’ll take photos and share them with you. I will also create a step-by-step “tutorial” myself if it turns out I find an easier way to do it (probably will not happen).
