A bit of a summary –

A few weeks ago my old college roommates came down to visit and experience what I like to call, my “whirlwind DC tour.” I LOVE having guests visit, and try and make them see as much DC has to offer within the typical 48 hour weekend. This all means I’ve climbed the steps of the lincoln memorial, gazed at the capital dome ceiling, and ooh’d and ahh’d at the first lady dress collection several times. Oddly, it doesn’t really get old for me. I’m a museum-holic so maybe I’m just crazy.

Obligatory Washington Monument pic

Last weekend Keith & I made our first of many, many, many trips back to good ‘ol Massachusetts. I have to say as much as I’ve loved living in the mid-atlantic this past year I definitely miss New England summers (and LOBSTER!). This past weekend several activities went down. We chose our wedding reception menu. This was far easier than I thought it was going to be. Keith wanted beef with bearnaise sauce. BAM. Filet Mignon. I wanted some sort of white fish. BAM. Chilean Sea Bass. We had a ton of suggestions for passed appetizers. This all was set and done within 45 minutes.

The rest of the weekend was spent trying on my dress for the first time (the real dress, not the boutique sample), doing some floral arrangement tweaks, and making lots and lots and lots AND LOTS of invitations. Wedding planning has seriously opened my eyes to how crazy lucrative the wedding industry is…paper. costs. so. much. I found my dream invitations and they added up to about $15/piece (multiply that by 120, hire a calligrapher for $3/envelope, and add stamps). So, I got a ton of help from Keith & the parentals and we decided to make our own dream invitations. This is a HARD process. It is VERY economical, but I would only suggest this to anyone who had a lot of support and the right tools. My parents own a paper slicer…totally random, it was my grandfathers and probably 50+ years old, but it was VITAL. I sliced so much paper on Friday and Saturday. Keith cut a ton of ribbon, my dad glued and went out to get food every once and a while, and my mom calligraphy’d (a very handy talent I have to add!)

This is me on a few hours of sleep but still attempting show my pure excitement for the final product…

Sorry! Can't see it yet!

This weekend was spent taking a break plus a bit of light work reading in the ASCE 7 wind load code (civil engineering reference…). I’m attempting to gear up for this upcoming weekend, where, you guessed it, we’re driving back to MA again for my bridal shower! It should be another crazy weekend but I can’t wait!!

Nationals Fans

After the Nationals game we booked it to the Capital West Lawn for the PBS July 4th at the Capital concert. We were too late to get prime seating but we managed to wedge my sleeping bag against a stone wall and claim a 4′x2′ space. Our friend Lindsey met up with us for a bit, and after we watched the concert for 30 minutes we headed down to the Mall where we stood on the sidewalk and caught the fireworks (you were definitely out of luck if you thought you were going to be able to claim any small tuft of grass 15 minutes beforehand).

Fireworks over the Washington Monument

Overall a great Fourth experience.

Wedding Update – I managed to design our entire invitation suite. The parentals just need to print and I need to assemble. (I write assemble like it’s easy, it will 100% not be). As a sneak peak there are 200 peacock feathers lying around our apartment, stacks and stacks of ribbon, and a lot of wax…oy.

As a bit of background, 24 has been an oddly big deal for me. Somewhere around age 9 I decided that 24 was my favorite number. Yes, it is the day I was born which makes it an obvious choice. But secondly, it is just a nice even, divisible by a lot of numbers, number–1,2,3,4,6,8,12,24 so many!! Yes, this is how I thought at age 9. You will totally understand this considering this is the cake my parents made me last year for my 23rd birthday–

Super Prime

…and for my 21st I got the Fibonacci series on my birthday cake (yeah, that was sort of stolen from the movie 21, but the parentals still made a good effort).

Anyways, I had a great day at work then when I got back to the apartment, Keith had a ton of very nicely wrapped boxes which included the golf gear I’ve always wanted – polo shirt, pink ribbon golf balls, and SHOES. I then continued to change into my favorite sparkly top and headed out on the metro to a swanky Pennsylvania Ave restaurant Keith picked out. We walked inside to find several friends sitting at the bar and a reservation for 10! I was THRILLED. If you know me you know I’m slightly obsessed with surprises, so this was fabulous. I cannot tell you how excited I am for my upcoming bridal shower, I am PUMPED to see what all my best friends put together because it is bound to be amazing no matter what.

the dinner party

Afterwards we checked out a fun bar I have never been to; although frankly, my bar hopping in DC has been extremely limited – the resultant of becoming a “mid-20s adult” perhaps?

Saturday I managed to somehow be up for 9am and drive with Keith to a “first time homebuyers” class. This proved to me that I had no idea how difficult and intense buying a house can be. It got a bit boring, so we left after and hour with our PowerPoint/glossary packet to go to Barnes and Noble and just buy a good looking book on it instead. This day ended with us concluding we’ll definitely be waiting at least another year to figure this whole process out (despite how much I cringe every first of the month realizing that I’m throwing away my money to pay my landlord’s mortgage).

OK, get ready for it…remember THIS post?! The best part of Saturday was trying on these at the Tysons Corner Nordstroms (amazing, btw)–

Jimmys (the store had the wrong color)

And receiving this at my doorstep yesterday–

birthday gift to myself

This was seriously a tough decision, but thanks to my Chase Visa points, some birthday checks, and somehow being under budget on our wedding attire budget this seemed somewhat justified. Yes, still a bit excessive for me, but I consider it worth it.  Plus the fact that I get to wear these babies at every fancy event in my life ever again felt pretty good.

Sunday was spent golfing in my new snazzy attire. Monday I woke with an awesome flu-like cold probably from having way too much fun all weekend. But at least it held off until Monday am I right?

3 months to go. My next post will probably consist of me cursing myself for not buying invitations and instead trying to do them myself b/c I somehow think I can do it better.

to be continued…

I am not a frequent flier. I visit the airport perhaps a few times a year as of late; however, I pride myself in somehow being able to avoid any type of extreme delay. So “extreme” delays did not cross my mind when I scheduled a 7pm flight out of DCA to land in BOS at 8:30pm and see the movie Bridesmaids with several of my own bridesmaids at 10pm in the city that same night.

Insert movie photo here b/c I have no other interesting pictures to show this post...

Murphy’s Law just happened to be on my side this weekend. Everything was all good until after the baggage check-in attendant told me if I was 2 minutes later he would not have been able to help me. Irony considering I had to wait another 4 hours until I even knew what gate to go to or before anyone knew what plane my bag was supposed to be on.

I typically try to stick with JetBlue because they have comfy seats, offer you free snacks and Dunkins coffee, and have the badass flight attendant that stole those beers last year. Alas, I care about affordability more and was flying Delta. I haven’t flown Delta since a Disney World trip in elementary school, but it happened to be the cheapest thing out of DC (although nothings ever cheap when flying out of DC, that’s why you go to Baltimore…wow, another brownie point for Baltimore, maybe they’re moving up the ranks in my book).

After almost starting to cry in the middle of the terminal b/c at this point all hope of hanging out with my friends at the movies had disappeared, I was able to board the plane with free Delta voucher in hand (I learned the free-voucher cut-off is typically a 3+ hour wait).

By the time I landed in Boston it was about 12:30am and trusty Maid of Honor Elizabeth was waiting outside with mutual friend Amanda in tow. I probably couldn’t have been happier with these two, sitting through the McDonalds drive through line at 1am and gossiping in the kitchen until 3:30am. Thanks you two!

My cousin’s bridal shower was the following day (the primary reason I was back in New England to begin with), and it was great. Alyssa received so many fabulous gifts and her maid of honor’s mom was a caterer extraordinaire.

By this time I was kind of bummed I didn’t get to see Bridesmaids. This has been a downer moving away from all my old girlfriends – no more go-to chick flick friends. But somehow Saturday night I ended up in a packed theater of 20-something females with my mom and dad watching it. 1) We’re crazy, 2) My parents will pretty much do anything if it means getting to hang out with me when I’m around. If you know my mom she has a pretty recognizable laugh, or should I say “snort”. Thankfully, the movie was pretty hilarious and everyone else was laughing and, or snorting. I think my dad might have even chuckled a bit.

To close I need to stop having these wedding nightmares. It’s getting a little ridiculous. It used to be the same situation – I’d wake up, the wedding would be that day and I wouldn’t have anything done, no invites, no nothing. Last night though my dad somehow changed into jeans and was totally not dressed right to take me down the aisle which is very unlike him and it really bothered me! (well the version of me in my dream). Hopefully these will eventually go away…

okay, out. for real.

Second, I know need to update more often, every once in a while I get a “Jen, you need to update more often” from friends who apparently enjoy reading my life ramblings.  Maybe I’ll force out the once a week thing again. Somehow that was much easier in grad school when I worked way more than I do now. Speaking of work, I’m still finishing up some stuff with my old job which makes my weekends far less enjoyable than they should be. With summer coming, hopefully I’ll soon be golfing or relaxing on the beach most weekends.

So as an “insert post here” post, aka throwing in everything I’ve done really quickly since my last post, here it goes:

• I managed to make Au Gratin Potatoes for our first Maryland Easter that were even a tiny bit better than my moms
• Went to a Red Sox / Oriole’s game in Baltimore. Despite my previous dislike for Baltimore, their stadium is AMAZING. Such a nice classic feel to it, with a bit more cleanliness when compared to Fenway (plus the tickets were far cheaper).
• Played PAINTBALL! This was far more fun than I originally thought. I was the one who went out of her way and planned the whole event–bought the Groupon tickets, invited Keith & our other DC area/WPI alum friend Chad, and set the date. However half of me continued to tell myself “why did I just pay to go get sore, hurt, and bruised.” Well luckily 1) Groupon is amazing and we only paid $20 each for the entire day + rental equipment + paintballs 2) It was us and a ton of other walk-on people which ended up being a ton of fun and not too many bruises.

Survived with only a mask mark...and lots of paint splatters

AND, the save the dates were finally sent out. Marking one more thing to get checked of the list and one more step pushing us towards this big wedding thing in less than 5 months. My parents like to offer to help with every little thing possible. Being 300+ miles apart makes this a bit difficult. But somehow Keith and I were able to put together the below design (with some initial template guidance from Wedding Chicks and photography from our amazing Molly Anne) and send it off to my mom who printed and placed magnets. My poor dad was stuck for several afternoons writing “2″ on 100 tiny hearts and gluing them onto the calendar. I don’t have a good picture of it for here, but they also continued to put together a digital collage of all our engagement photos and insert them into the envelope flap to create a custom-like envelope!

Due to the costs associated with putting together a wedding, and the fact that we decided to put most of our investment into location and food, Keith and I have resulting to do-it-yourselfing what we’re able to. Buying those save the date magnets can be $1-$2/card. Which seems okay until you multiply that by 100 (just wait until my invitation post which can be $10 * 100+ guests, YIKES!). Now in the end, I’m not really sure if this DIY saved much money at all. The printing was free, but my parents went through the trouble of buying paper, envelopes, magnets and postage (as awesome as the parentals are, they’re not as crazy as my receipt-pack-rat-keeping self, so I don’t think I’ll ever know how much they paid, I seriously had to make up a number just so I could put a number on my crazy excel spreadsheet). However, I have to admit, no save the dates that I saw really wow’d us, so we had to go with doing it our own way. This has already been underway with the invitations as well. So we’ll see how that goes…

The wedding shoe has become a bit of a dilemma for me. For some unknown reason I have suddenly been drawn to the most expensive shoes I’ve ever encountered. I believe weddings have this power over you – to buy the most expensive food, invitations, dress, ballroom dance classes, etc, etc. It just keeps adding up.

But after turning down my dress at Vera & doing the responsible thing by finding my dream dress for $6,000 less at a local boutique, I feel somewhat entitled to an unnecessarily expensive shoe. Is that so odd?

After re-doing the budget last weekend I’m a bit apprehensive to actually spend money on something that will be insignificant to the rest of the world. But I can dream, or just post pictures.

Kate Spade Flat

Ahh the Kate Spade flat. By far the most economical of shoes. On sale at Neimans and providing comfort all night long. But because I’ve caught the wedding bug I seem to have this dream of buying this in ADDITION to the ceremony heeled shoe.

Kate Spade Slingback

Okay, you start to see a theme. Gold & sparkly. This shoe fascinates me. I found the navy version recently which I love considering navy is the main color. If I decide to go with navy over gold, this may be the winner.

Kate Spade Pump

I have issues with heels. Measuring in at 5′-9&3/4″ I don’t really need much heel help. I recently saw these skimming through another wedding and realized they are currently marked down $100+. Sacrificing crazy tallness for a bargain? Perhaps.

Louboutin Pumps

Oh Louboutins, I really wish I liked you. I’ve tried extremely hard over the past several months of blog skimming, wedding stalking, shoe shopping to fall in love. Yes, all these shoes are amazing, but come back to me when you make a wedding shoe with a heel I won’t kill myself in. I guess my dislike will save me mad bills.

Jimmy Choo Peep Toe

And this is the dream. I must have shoe searched a good month before I discovered these at Nordstroms in silver and then JimmyChoo.com in gold–perfection. Sparkly. Gold. Small Heel. Peep Toe. Beautiful. Re-wearable for all evening events. Somehow this shoe has everything I could want. Coming in at $495 and looking over at my wedding budget excel spreadsheet this may not work out too well. Serving guests filet mignon? or Jen gets her shoes; Having a string quartet? or Jen gets her shoes; Buying awesome bridesmaid gifts? or Jen gets her shoes.

Seems a little ridiculous comparatively. Maybe I can start walking 10 miles to work versus taking the metro. I don’t know. Fiance and I have come to the point where there’s not too much else to cut back on, so we’ll see how this all plays out.

I am here to announce that Baltimore is far sketchier than Worcester. I’m sorry to say it Baltimorians, maybe that corrupt mayor had something to do with it, maybe all that money that went to revitalizing only inner harbor did it, but sadly some sections of Baltimore top my list of the most impoverished places I’ve been to in America.

Baltimore has fabulous history – one of the first great cities of America, Fort McHenry is where the Star Spangled Banner was hung and the song was inspired, the Inner Harbor/Downtown Baltimore is gorgeous. However no one appears to pay attention to the outer side streets and neighborhoods of plywood boarded windows and trash dumped along the railroad tracks.

Ok, to get off of my soap box for a bit. I encountered some interesting things on my last week at my first job. I inspected bridges among other things. This made for some fun field trips to un-fun places.

Waiting for their Owner

After I showed Keith this quirky photograph he claimed that the guy who set this up was probably a serial killer, because they organized things like this. Way to go Keith, freak me out the day before I have to go out there again. Criminal Minds is on t.v. far too much.

As many people may know, the underneath of bridges are typically where the homeless hang out. Rightfully so, it provides some sort of shelter and typically no one’s rummaging through your stuff…well on days that bridge inspectors don’t come through. I came across couches, beds, tables made out of dirt mounds, more of which seemed to appear each day I’d come back.

The circus was also in town which mean Barnum & Baileys train was parked on the railroad tracks nearby. Made for an old school-days-gone-by nostalgic kind of feel. Maybe I’m reading into it too much.

Well with that, I’ve moved on from the old job and onto the new. With kindle in hand I’m attempting to read more literature rather than just collect it on my ever expanding book shelf. Somehow I’m also in an attempt to save the world by parking Ernesto IV in the driveway and take public transportation to work everyday. Someday I may sell Ernesto IV – Honda Accord extraordinaire. We’ll see how that goes…

To somehow wrap this discombobulated post up I hosted a WPI Admitted Students event in DC last week in which the parents were worried about their son moving to Worcester – an apparent sketchy city spread with gangs and where violence abounds 24/7. No idea where people gather these facts.

Parent – “So is Worcester the same as say…Baltimore?” Me – “No, Worcester is far better”

More on wedding planning, book reading choices, exploring the new town, and maybe even some house hunting posts for the future…

PRO -This neighborhood is fabulous. A sure go-to neighborhood for families with a giant park and school within and cute houses everywhere. At Christmas there was a giant tree lighting where Santa came, Frank Sinatra blasted through speakers, and free cookies were given out.

CON – I soon realized, this neighborhood is, in fact, too cute. I have fallen completely in love with it and in turn started searching for real estate within it. Despite the economic turn down, the street I live on is completely unaffordable for our young 20-something selves.

PRO – The basement is big and cheap

CON – It’s a basement…and I have no desire to live in a basement once I’m married.

PRO – There’s chickens, quaint right?

CON – Sometimes I think they’re out to get me–

I figured out how to imbed a link…definite win of the day!

(In other news, this week I quit 2 jobs and will start working another in 1.5 weeks. More on this later.)

I’ve had a major obsession with wedding photography of late, basically because it’s inspiring and gives me somewhat of a direction in planning over the next 7 months. So mix checking out wedding photography and playing with my scales during lunch this is what happens–

 Samsung Intensity aka Worst Cell Phone In the World

Figured some of you may enjoy that.

See?! I blogged twice within a month! Trying to keep it up…

As I finally switched license plate to the correct spot today, or rather Keith did, because Jen + the pliers equated to this–

Bloody Blister

I thought how ridiculous it was that it took me 6 months + 3 trips to the registry + 2 different licenses + putty + duct tape + $1800 gone + a fat finger to finally consider myself a Maryland resident. I truly believe the registry of motor vehicles (or MVA, as known in Maryland) sucks the life out of you.

MVA Trip #1 – For working with people constantly, the MVA might just have the worst customer service ever. Keith & I arrived at the MVA back in October (roughly) a half an hour before it opened on Saturday and continued to stand in the exponentially growing line outside until 9AM. Once we finally got inside and up to the counter we didn’t have enough documentation. YOU NOT ONLY NEED YOUR PASSPORT, YOU NEED A CABLE BILL, SOCIAL SECURITY CARD, AND RENTAL AGREEMENT (AT LEAST!). Did we read about this anywhere? No. Did anyone care to inform us? No.

MVA Trip #2 – Ok, I managed to gather up all available proof that I am 1) a person 2) a citizen 3) live in Maryland 4) work in Maryland. Keith & I make it in, we get up to the line. I manage to pass onto the benches (hurray!). Keith, not so much. Apparently a notarized, stamped, and sealed birth certificate is not good enough. Keith complained sending the employees into a frenzy who would not help us in any way possible. They asked him to leave. Keith never got his license that day. I did after I paid about $40…and as we drove away I saw my birthday written in stone as July 24th (my birthday is in June).

MVA Trip #3 – Keith got an “official” birth certificate. It had some fancy border and cost some money. Apparently the MVA took this as legitimate. I rejoined to re-do my license once again. I had an awesome picture, so of course I assumed that I wouldn’t have to do another picture. No. no makeup, big coat and hair all over the place. I guess the redo still somehow turned out ok. But note that the MVA does not keep your license photos on file.

Inspection – As I mentioned, Ernesto IV is a Honda that was born when I was in Kindergarten, aka a very long time ago. It runs well, gets me to work, and I am thankful. However, the State of Maryland did not agree. Unlike Massachusetts, Maryland requires ONE inspection before you register your car and it is INTENSE. Ernesto IV came back with bad breaks…okay that makes sense. AND I had some rust & a small crack in the bumper. Horrors, Maryland thinks a small child could walk in front of Ernesto IV and somehow swipe themselves against my bumper and cut open their arm = blood everywhere. Children, please stay away from my car. Parents, why you would let a child RUB up against a car doesn’t make sense to me. Anyways, the inspection mechanics quoted $200+ to fix the rust and crack. This led me to the auto store to pick up some putty. The putty I bought was bright red. My car is gray. I did not plan this. The putty didn’t fully fix the crack, so duct tape had to do. Maryland, you officially ghetto-fied my car to levels I didn’t know possible. Oh, and the breaks were $1300.

Insurance – I had Metlife in MA, it was $400/year (this is what you get for having a VERY old car). I called to switch my insurance to Maryland. The quote was SIXTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. Therefore, I did what anyone would do, called Geico (they have great commercials right?). Geico gave me umpteen discounts and I ended up with insurance for just under $200/6 months.

MVA Trip #4 – I had to make this one during work as Registration doesn’t happen during Saturdays. The closest MVA to my work was 30 minutes away. Ugh. This trip was fairly uneventful. Small wait time, smooth transaction, one negative = $200+ for new title/registration.

Plate Transfer – One positive – I LOVE the Maryland plates. They were changed recently to highlight the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner. Fireworks, patriotism, color everywhere, I love the license plate. AND I thought I could easily transfer my plates due to the wonderful nesting doll-like hammer I received for Christmas–

Before

BAM!

Again no. I managed to change the back plate, but sheepishly asked Keith to use his muscles on my front plate. After this ordeal was done I learned I put the stickers on the wrong plate.  This brings me to today when I took the pliers to the bolts and my finger decided to get in the way. Once again…Keith takes over while I dose my finger in alcohol.

FINAL PRODUCT –

Results