Over the weekend, I was going through my big box o’ craft supplies and I found these stamps:
I should start using them while they still apply. In four short months I’ll need HS stamps!
Tomorrow night, my good friend, Allison, and her husband, Jason are coming to dinner. While we love hanging out with them for any reason, tomorrow’s dinner has a special purpose. Jason is a graphic designer (the very same one who helped me spiff up my site here) and he will be designing our wedding invitations.
We loved the invitations Jason designed for his own wedding last July, so he was “locked in” as our wedding-invitation-doer before I even had a ring on my finger.
I’ve been slowly gathering thoughts and ideas – via Pinterest and Etsy, of course.
First, Will and I love invitations with “pockets” to keep all the inserts in place. Allison and Jason had such an invitation and we loved it. Here’s some gorgeous inspiration from Etsy store Little Spark Creations:
I also love a good touch of whimsy, like this delight from Stelie Deigns:
As a Chicagoan, I fell immediately in love with this Chicago-centric invitation set by Swiss Cottage Designs:
I can’t wait to see what Jason comes up with! It’s seriously awesome to have such talented friends.
Lately, I’ve been on a purging kick. Inspired in part by the necessity to make space for the lovely gifts we got at my shower last weekend, I’m hell-bent to get the excess stuff out of the condo.
The main offender is the second bedroom. As I lived in the condo first, my stuff takes up most of the closet in the master bedroom. When Will moved in, I gave him some shelf space there and we put the rest of his belongings into the second bedroom; transforming it from “useable space” to “enormous closet-room.” Now that we want to reclaim this room, I need to cough up more master bedroom closet space so we can even out where things are stored.
This past weekend, I took our box of Christmas decorations down to our storage space. To be clear, the decorations had been down since Epiphany oh heck, Valentine’s Day but it took me until Easter Weekend to haul the big red-and-green Rubbermaid storage tub downstairs.
I moved my DVDs (remember those?) to one big case so my box sets of the entire series of Gilmore Girls will take up less space. Don’t even tell me I can get rid of the DVDs and watch that stuff on Netflix. Baby steps.
In cleaning, I’ve noticed one odd thing that Will and I seem to store for some time of Nuclear End Times. Hard Candy. Apparently neither of us can pass up a bowl of peppermints at a restaurant or lollypops at the bank. However, neither of us eat them, either, so they sit endlessly in drawers.
Will and I have bags and bags of stuff to donate. Luckily, Brown Elephant – local charity of choice – will come by to take your cast-offs to their new home. I’m setting up an appointment for later this week.
This expression is most often used to indicate that a (married) woman and her husband are expecting their first child. Pre-baby, the two of them were a “couple.” Now, infant in tow, they are a “family.”
But I feel like Will and I are already a family. Unmarried and childless.
[I know things will change when we do have children, but I feel confident that we will be adding to our already-established family.]
Will is my rock. He’s my partner, my confidante, my biggest fan. He’s my family.
Perhaps my definition of “family” tends towards the inclusive. I was delighted to join Will’s extended family and was thrilled when they responded with equal vigor. Will made my heart melt recently when he commented that my sister was “his sister, too, now.” I suppose none of these relations are “official” until October 20th, but that doesn’t have any real impact on my feelings.
I’m also very open to the idea of non-relatives as “family.” There are family friends on my side and Will’s that are loved and cherished regardless of genetic connection.
This may seem like semantics, but we all know how much I love words and their meaning.