subject:mahhwidge

what.
a.
weekend.

after 4 days in hotlanta, visiting my sister, we made the stormy trek back to cincinnati thursday.  graham and i tried to watch the meteor shower when we got back, but it wasn't dark enough anywhere and then he got tired and fell asleep in the car.  sweet boy.  he starts middle school tomorrow, which breaks my heart a little - i'm not ready for him to get older like this yet.  :(

 friday was my shower/bachelorette party, which was a blast.  almost all of my homegirls were in attendance, gave me lovely things, fed me food and drinks all night.  we danced.  we chatted.  we made new friends.  it was pretty much as perfect as it could have been with the circumstances surrounding it and the folks who could not attend.  and i owe some BIG thank yous to the jens, karen and joanne, for picking up where others had left off and making a party happen [and jen s. for driving me around without even a drop of anything that wasn't just a diet - you're amazels, and you know this, but i just had to remind you of your awesomeness].  my ladies were amazing.  as soon as i get some photos, i will post them, as i was not entirely in a state to take any.  :D

saturday i recovered for a while, picked up my wedding band that was being resized at the jeweler [yay!!], then went to our friends' house to watch a sweet informative video we all made for the best man's impending wedding, so that was fun.  it was pretty hilarious.  they are getting married at red river gorge and making a weekend of it, so this was a fun way to let everyone know some of the rules and what to expect for the weekend.  tons of folks worked on it, and it turned out really cute.  it's too long a video to post, so just take my word for it.  ;)

this afternoon, after having lunch with mike's dad for his birthday, we went to send our well wishes to my friend constance and her brand-spankin' new husband joseph at their reception, which took place at mayday.  i'm a moron and forgot my camera, so i can't even post any pics of this lovely, low key, dancing-all-afternoon festivity, but i can tell you that it was exactly the kind of chill event i hope to see at my own party.  friends, family, food, dancing...  it was dreamy.  and muggy, as cincinnati will often be [especially this summer, for some reason - ugh].  in any case, a huuuuge congrats to connie + joe!!!

i also ended up having an impromtu photoshoot with the ever-talented scott beseler in the balmy upstairs of mayday.  thank god for that giant, industrial fan [it made me feel like i was in a bollywood movie, admittedly].  he was taking pictures of my birdleg™, to be used for an article that is going to be written for soapbox media, a local, urban-focused online 'zine., so be watching for this to come out.  i learned today that i am pretty camera shy, so i will have to warn our wedding photographer of this, i suppose... scott was pretty easy on me though.  :)

hope you all had a great weekend - aside from a few hiccups, mine was pretty righteous.  now to kick back, eat some pizza rolls and gear up for the week, which includes second cake tasting, marriage license procurement and a mess of DIY thingies.  sigh.  wish me luck!

a little change'll do you good

so i changed up the blog a little...  not sure why, exactly, i just felt it needed a little facelift.  i'm also not sure how long it's staying, due to the ginormity of this e.j. bellocq storyville gem, but i really liked her - she seemed relaxed/intoxicated and is in some killer tights, so, for now she stays.

today mike and i had brunch with some lovely friends at their lovely home in the burb where i work.  mimosas and homemade strata and coffee cake, and it was quite a good reason to visit madeira, unlike most other times i might be there.  it will be a while until i am back, however, as last night was my official last shift, and i am now on medical leave for the healing of the foot.  anyway, i digress, we'll talk about that shortly.  after our lovely brunch, we decided to do some big day errand running, and we got some major things crossed off the list.  namely the invitation.  as a gal with a background in print, i had a really huge block when it came to designing our own invite.  i was having nightmares and cold sweats, and i kept seeing things that would make me change my design, then i'd change it back, then, oh look!...  sigh.  we accidentally selected a lovely one from a book and ordered them up today, and i couldn't be more relieved.  they are just the cutest, and it takes a huge weight off my shoulders just knowing that this is one more thing i don't have to mess with.  we are customizing slightly, however - i'm hoping to shun the boring ivory envelopes provided with a stack of sweet colorful stunners that i picked up at poeme last week for a song while mike was away in denver at the conference.  the only thing i have to do now is address the envelopes while we wait for them to arrive, and that makes me feel really great.  i also got mah shoes recently  :)

yes.  they are bright pink.  magenta, even.  and shiny.  now, for those who know me realllly well, you are probably wondering to yourselves if i've officially lost it or not.  fret not, i haven't.  they are just terribly cute [and comfy too!] in person, which is really important for a bride-to-be with a foot injury.  i also found my 'something blue' last week, in the way of a sweet costume ring that is terribly big and awesome and sparkly that i nabbed at toku baru, as well as a cute makeup bag with deer and burning trees on it [my reward for cleaning out the medicine cabinet and scaling back on the makeup drawer while mike was away].  so, shoes and 'something blue' are marked off the list, dress is at the tailor, invites are ordered, cake tasting round II is being scheduled tomorrow [after my dentist appointment - my teeth will be fixed tomorrow!  no more snaggletooth!]...  i have to gather up the addys for the invites and make a save the date for the open reception.  i'm thinking these two things should happen soon.  we also need to get our bands and find out how to acquire this whole marriage license thing, i guess.  :D  one day at a time.  thankfully, i have more days free to do this stuff now while i sit on my rear and let my foot heal before my doctors appt in august.  because no one wants to have foot surgery right after they get married.

hope y'all had a great weekend!  check back often, because now that i'm on medical sabbatical, i'll be posting up a storm!

<3

in the wee small hours of the morning...

as i begin this, allow me to say that it's currently 4:54am, and i'm sitting outside my place of employment using my babybook™ and starbucks free wireless.  i closed last night, therefore, i'm pulling a what i lovingly refer to as a clopen [close, then open].  i was just here like 4ish hours ago.  one of my coworkers called late in my close shift very ill, and thinking that i was going to be up all night anyway, i took the shift.  why was i going to be up all night, you ask?  well, mike had a red-eye to denver this morning.  i was going to drive him to the airport so he wouldn't have to park, but after a lengthy discussion, the realization that his parking would be reimbursed, and my decision to take this shorty open, he drove himself.  so also as i type this, he should be safely arriving in dayton for his 6:30 flight.  sigh.  another financial aid conference, another 4 days without seeing his handsomeness.  i decidedly hate financial aid conferences.  they steal my love much more than i need them to.  be prepared for some grumpy few days, if you happen to cross my path, i suppose - i'll try to be my usual sweet, but it's hard to smile when mike's away. 

so...  wedding stuff.  i'm sure you're curious, since it's been a coons age since i've blogged.  work schedules and soreness are to blame for my absence, so please accept my sincere apologies.  currently my dress is at the tailor, shoes have been purchased, invites are in the works, flowers are being negotiated, and we've still not found a suit for the wee graham.  mike's got his though, so we're set there.  recently, we discovered that we can now have our little shindig at the NEW sign museum spot, which is very exciting, as it's much more accomodating for these things.  the older space is set up a little oddly, so it's a big sigh of relief that we can have it in the new space.  we took megan, the coffee lass, over there to see about setting up, and she was probably just as excited about it as we were.  she just kept saying, "the pictures are going to be amazing...."  i can't wait, seriously.  our families will even maybe forget that we're not doing the church thing once they get in there and see just how cool it is.  maybe.  ;)  right now the focus is the invite, since we're officially only 2 months out.  2 months!!  i can't believe it's so close.  i know these 2 months are gonna fly right by, i just know it.  i am beside myself with excitement, i just want it to get here, honestly.  as much fun as wedding planning seems, it's a lot of work, with a metric ton of decisions, things to consider that you never thought you'd have to consider...  ugh.  i'm just really looking forward to it all being over and just being mrs. mike and having some peace and quiet in my life.  :)

well, it's just about time to make the donuts.  looking forward to an iced coffee or two, a [hopefully] quick morning so i can go home and sleep, finally, and wednesday, because that's when mike flies home.  i'm really, really looking forward to that. 

have a great sunday, everyone!  and i promise it won't be so long next time.  :D

remembering jesus

so, as you may already know, i live in the magical, muggy ohio valley city known as cincinnati.  about 30 miles north of here, in monroe, ohio, a neon megachurch erected a GIANT 62-ft statue of [half of] jesus emerging from a pond in the middle of a field, directly on the side of I-75 in 2004.  it had [rightfully] earned several nicknames since then, my favorite two being  butter jesus [for the statue's weird buttery color] and touchdown jesus [for the 'touchdown' pose his arms made], though it's technical name was 'king of kings' or something of this nature.  it looked like this:

and there he is, in all his glory, complete with a cross and what i only imagined to be the ten commandments-type 'tablet' or something in his mostly submerged lap.  the structure you see in the background is the weird neon megachurch.  neon because, well, at night, it's lit by neon, like all good megachurches should be... er...  not really.  there were MANY jokes about this statue around these parts, and across the country, just google one of his two nicknames to find some.  anyway, we had a wicked storm tonight, sending most of the tri-state to their basements, complete with tornado touchdowns [pardon that pun] and severe thunder, lightning and loads of rain.  apparently, it wasn't the best idea to put a fiberglass statue in front of a pond in the middle of a mostly-open field, however, because jesus totally got hit by lightning, caught fire, and completely burned [or melted, if you were one to call him butter] to the ground, leaving just his inner structure.  here is what butter-turned-toothpick jesus now looks like after tonight's storm:

 photo credit:  vincent rush

robot toothpick jesus and neon.  crazy.  i guess God was serious about that 'false idols' thing, eh? 

RIP, touchdown jesus.  i will miss all the jokes that cincinnatians made about you.  i will be glad to not see you along the highway when i take road trips, however, but i will still yell "touchdown!" as i pass, like i always do.  and megachurch?  take it as a sign.  real jesus did not like your butter jesus, which is why he smote it.

two saturday nights in a row?!

working for the corporate retail giant that i do, some of you may already know that i hardly ever get a saturday night off, let alone two consecutive ones.  it's really unheard of.  but its true, i just got home from work, and i'm off by 5 next saturday.  unreal.  good timing too, as next weekend, mike and i celebrate 3 amazing years together!  it's somewhat hard to believe that we've been together 3 years.  on one hand, it often seems like we just started dating.  on the other, it feels like we've known each other our whole lives.  i think these are both good things, a nice balance.  in any case, the 3 actual years together have been some of the best of my life, even with all the craziness that's happened outside of our relationship in my life.  i am quite thankful for him, and i am looking forward to celebrating many, many, many more anniversaries with this particular fella.  he makes me a better person, and he makes me want to be a better person.  i'm a terribly lucky gal.

i had a great conversation this morning with my dear friend, karen, and she reminded me that i haven't given the update on foot status on here yet, so my apologies, dear readers.  i've been a little skattery lately, in addition to working too much.  so, to kill whatever lingering suspense is out there, here is the scoop.  primary doctor called foot/ankle specialist fella to clarify this weird diagnosis.  he then called me to give me said clarification.  i have tendon damage, a bone out of place due to tendon damage, and significant arthritis.  i will likely be getting not-so-foxy arizona brace at some point this week, which i will have to wear for 3 solid months.  after 3 months, if things are not repaired as they should be, i will likely have to have fairly extensive foot/ankle repair surgery.  now, if you are paying attention, this puts us quite close to impending wedding day thing.  so the plan is to wear the dumb brace thing, go back in 3 months, and if they say i need surgery, mike and i get married, go on super fun honeymoon, and then i will have surgery after that.  we're all hoping, however, that dumb brace thing will do what it's supposed to and my body does what it's supposed to and then everything will be cool and the gang and i won't have to go under the knife for the 15th time.  because that's just way too many times to go under the knife.  i'm trying not to look too far ahead, however.  day by day, and we'll just see.  as of the moment, all the rain we've been getting which causes the wonder that is cincinnati humidity is making the day to day quite painful for me.  i'm dy.ing. at work.  i'm usually laying in bed awake for hours in the morning waiting for the pain to mellow enough.  it's not a fun place right now.  none of my docs seem to know if i'm going to be able to work with this brace thing yet, so it's a 'wait and see' game.  we'll find out this week, i guess.  if not, i'm going to be out of work for 3 long months, which would really suck.  let's hope this doesn't happen either, eh?  otherwise, i'm going to be calling people too much and pathetically asking, "so, what'cha doin'?", and nobody wants that, including me.  i try to have standards.  :)

so there's the skinny for all of you who were waiting for me to get my act together.  as soon as i get the stupid brace thing, i promise to take a photo of it and show you just how awful modern healing orthotic devices can be.  in the interim, mike and i are gonna go grab some dinner and hit the town for a little socialization this evening, in what might be my last weekend without the brace for the summer.  boo.  hope you're getting into something fun this weekend, y'all!

hello cheesy!

so, when you sign onto wedding-organizational-type sites, they do this horrible thing where they tell you how many days until you get married.  today it told me that i have 108 days.  hence my internet quietness.  we had to get our butts in gear a little, so my apologies for absense.  i'm back.  i get a little stressed with tickers reminding me of impending deadlines...

we've been getting a lot of the smaller, more tedious things taken care of.  we have a finalized guest list for our extremely tiny ceremony, which led us to start a cheesy website up for details about the reception and other self-absorbed things [although it's pretty cute in design, as it's a whimsical depictation of SF, which is where we want to go for our honeymoon, done by the design mavens/sisters at hello lucky!].  although the wedding website thing might be a little cheese, it is completely justified to me, based on a few things, such as RSVPs without paper, tracking RSVPs, this sort of thing.  i digress.  we have registries.  we've also finalized the mental idea of our invite for our families, nailed down some cute decorating ideas, found a bartender for the ceremony, 2 djs for the reception, a band, that sort of thing.  we still have to send out some checks.  sigh.  all in due time. 

in the interim, all of your questions and curiosities can be answered right here.

hello, cheesy website.  :)

we got our website at mywedding.com, as it was free and not completely aesthetically lame.  

we suggest you do the same.

LOST and a broken heart

so i'm a LOST junkie.  it's true.  i tried watching it a few years ago, and got really bored with 'the hatch' dragging on for as long as it did, so i stopped.  then mike and i started from the beginning through the beauty of the roku [we love you, roku!], and it was o.v.e.r.  we were like fiends, ripping through seasons in mere days, anxiously awaiting the next season to come out on netflix ["wait, i have to wait 2 whole weeks??!!  nooooo!"].  it was bad.  tonight was the last episode before the multi-hour sunday final event, and i'm scrambling to find someone to cover me at work so i can be home to watch it.  it's a sickness, i tell ya.  and i'm not even really a t.v. person, but it's just that good.  keep your fingers crossed that someone in the starbucks corporation understands my need to be home sunday night.

so last thursday on facebook, i had a status update in which i said, "jill *****'s heart is broken", having not thought ahead of what people might assume.  it just was.  no, mike did not do anything to hurt me.  i recieved an onslaught of love and support from friends, which was amazing.  i really do have the best friends a girl could only wish for.  the cool part of this is that it's my reality, so that is very rad.  i will now share with you, my beloved readers, why my heart was broken.  some of you already know this.  for the rest of you, it's like so...  [be warned, this might be a long one]

as many of you know, i did the reggae run last october, after i got the new leg.  it was rather important to do this particular 5k, as it is done in memory of maria olberding, who was actually mike's cousin.  she was brutally murdered by some looney kid from kentucky while running her usual route through ault park.  he's still locked up.  she loved reggae music and running, thus the bird of the memorial run.  it's a massive event, and pretty much every relative mike has is in town for it.  ault park being as hilly as it is, this is not an easy run, even for skilled runners, and since i've never acutally ran and i'd never done a 5k, i decided to walk it.  mike, my mom and my brother walked it with me, but mike stayed at my side the whole time because he's awesome like that.  i finished it in 1 hour 7 minutes, which may seem like a long time to some of you, but don't forget that i'm on one wheel, so i was quite proud of my time.  i ate what seemed like an entire animal's worth of meat things after, then we had a few beers and enjoyed the reggae band with some of mike's family members.  it was great.  once we got home and i took off my shoes, however, i had this extraordinary pain in my legs.  i could barely walk and i was in tears. 

i made an appointment with my primary, and he sent me for xrays, and decided that i had a stress fracture.  i did the things he told me to do:  elevate, ice, rest, compression, etc.  this went on for a few weeks, but my pain never let up.  he sent me to see an orthopaedist.  orthopaediest sent me for an MRI.  the MRI showed two torn ligaments, so i was put on sabbatical at work for 6 weeks while i donned a rather unsexy boot thing that took a one-legged gal like myself a little while to get used to, since no part of my body was actually touching the ground anymore.  6 weeks later, i went back to work, and it was like i never was off at all because it still hurt.  i just dealt with it for a while, and finally got so tired of the pain, i went back to primary doc and asked for a second opinion.  he sent me to foot and ankle specialist fella. 

after 3 weeks of painful waiting, i went to see him on thursday.  he took new xrays, and he delivered a heavy hand of bad, bad news.  now before i get into the bad news, i have to preempt with 2 things:  [1] my worst case scenario was that they were going to tell me that i was going to have to have surgery to repair the 2 torn ligaments, and i've already been under the knife more times than most of you have had, combined, and [2] mike was out of town at a financial aid conference in newark, ohio, which is apparently the armpit of ohio.  in any case, he was not here.  now for the bad news.  foot and ankle specialist fella came in with one film from the fresh round of xrays and said, "well, it's certainly not a twisted ankle..." as he put the film onto the lightbox and flipped on the switch.  he then points to two bones and begins to tell me that they are deformed, either from overuse after 32 years OR [and this really messed me up] it could be related to my other birth defect, meaning it was just always like that, since the day i was born.  say what??  now, this was sort of the equivalent of him telling me that i was adopted or something.  pretty heavy stuff.  and i was then in shock, as he continued, telling me that i would need to wear an 'arizona brace' for 3 whole months, and at some point in my life, the pain might get so intense that i would consider foot surgery to fuse all the bones in my foot together, leaving me footless.  wth.  i floated out of the room, fighting back tears.  as i made my follow up appointment, i texted mike to see if he could dip out of the conference, and started to feel tears streaming down my face.  i fled the office, booked it to my car and broke down crying as i answered mike's call.  i sobbed through the whole conversation, drove myself to work, collected myself, clocked in, worked the shift, then went to karaoke, where i did not sing, i just drank.  worst news ever.  even worse than ligament surgery, and that's bad.

today, i called my primary, explaining what i was told.  he was going to call the foot and ankle dude and convo about it, then call me back tomorrow to discuss.  at this point, i have no idea what's happening.  i know that my not-sexy arizona brace is being priced out for the making, but that's it so far, so i am hoping to know more tomorrow.  i am also hoping for a 4th opinion, that 4th dude will agree with 1 of the 3 diagnoses i've been given, and that this pain will go away soon, because i can't really take it much longer.  it's made me grumpy and distracted.  i don't like either of those.  i need answers.

so there you have it, kids.  the source of my broken heart.  and foot.  or not.  to be continued...

nelsonville MF

got back late last night from the nelsonville music festival in scenic hocking hills, near athens, ohio.  awesome times, really tired.  here's my recount.  enjoy!

the crew:  cabiners were gregg [the best man] + fiancé emily, kevin + allee, me + mike.  also from cincinnati, we had dan + leah, chris + kristen, dan [who owns the fabulous park + vine, cincinnati's green general store], steve, alena, jenny, timmy, as well as a few others.  i will list them as soon as i can remember.  :)

the cabin:  we stayed at the settle down cabins.  it was a lovely place [at first, i'll get to that later, though] with an equipped kitchen, 4-6 person hot tub, a grill, a firepit, a picnic table, and at least 2-3 sleeping areas surrounded by woods.  very private.  pretty affordable.  the pros:  close proximity to the fest [about 6 mi], nothing like the campgrounds at the festival, indoor sleeping for up to 6, shower and a hot tub to soak your tired festival feet, clean, all towels/plates/cups/etc provided, cable tv [that we didn't even turn on], secluded, etc.  the cons:  the hornets nest on the porch [bee allergy - yikes!], the brown recluse that was found on the futon/sleeper [yikes again!], the long, hilly, windy road leading to the cabin and the tiny, not-quite-visible-from-the-road sign indicating you've arrived at the cabin, the shotty craftsmanship that left no mystery when other folks are peeing or brushing their teeth, and a queen bed that felt somewhat like you were sleeping on bags of trash covered with rubber sheets disguised as a mattress.  not the most comfortable.  and loud.  any movement will be heard by other guests, so keep that in mind if you stay with other folks.  onto the festival part.

the festival:  good turnout but not terribly crowded, which i loved.  parking was very close to the stages [great for an injured handi-girl], and if you're a camper, that was really close too.  good food options [my faves include o'bettys red hot weenies, the funnel cake, seriously a-mazing poutine, and cold-brew iced coffee. ahhh...], i was actually able to have a chair and close to bands/artists, and the line-up was terrific.  the beer was sort of terrible - the choices were marietta brewing company, jackie o's, crap domestics from anheuser busch and pbr.  apparently marietta and jackie o's are typically good breweries, according to our resident in-tow beer distributor/brewer/snob gregg, but those places musta sent their swill, because i was resigned to drinking the pbr due to it's superior flavor.  yes, it was that bad.  and the vendors.  tents full of hippie junk/clothing and really bad paintings, for the most part, but they had decent vinyl [according to my vinyl-loving fiancé] and the merch tent was solid, so if you go and hate hippie garbage, avoid the rest of it.  one more thing:  the weather was perfect.  i mean, perfect.  warm and sunny, but breezy, no rain, the sort of weather that makes you want to nap outside.  it could not have been better.  let's talk music now, shall we?

the music:  the new finds were moon high and samantha crain.  both were really great.  the bigs were big, however.  friday's closer was man man.  they were high energy, lots of fun.  everyone was dancing.  that was my third time seeing them, and they just keep getting better and better.  awesome show.  saturday's 1st highlight was seeing loretta lynn live.  yes, you read that right.  loretta lynn.  the coal miner's daughter.  country legend.  now that was pretty crazy.  her stuff was awesome, but i will say this:  she needs to leave her drunk, attention whore children at home and far, far away from her set.  i get it, she's old.  she can't do a whole set.  that's fine.  what she doesn't need, however, is the circus-y filler provided by her talentless, coattail-riding, drunk and fame-hungry adult children.  they.  were.  terrible.  not only that, but it sort of ruined the whole 'seeing loretta lynn live' thing for me.  it was a darn shame.  my grandpa would have been so sad about it.  the biggest surprise of saturday was ms. sharon jones and the dap kings.  my god.  i knew it would be good, i just didn't know it would be good like that.  it was fantastic, VERY high energy, lots of fun, tons of dancing, an encore that wasn't supposed to happen, they were a-mazing.  they are actually playing in the tri-state monday night, but from what i heard tonight, i think it's sold out, which is sad, because everyone should see them.  yes, everyone.  they were that good.  swell season played sunday, to close out the festival, which was perfect.  they are excellent live, and very engaged with their audience.  great show.  just so great.  i felt 'included' at this show, which is rare for indie-rock shows, as most musicians are somewhat aloof to the fact that you've just paid $xx to see them play.  it was refreshing.  you may be saying to yourself, "jill, where have i seen these two before?"  well, if you've seen the movie 'once', that's where.  and that part was quite apparent at the festival.  glen hansard [the dude, also from 'the frames'] was sitting in the grass less than 10 feet away from where mike + i were chilling for one of the shows.  we witnessed many a rabid fan swarm him, armed with cds, dvds and sharpies, when it was clear that all the poor guy wanted to do was see a show while he was there.  poor thing.  we were so disgusted by it that we relocated.  we wanted to catch drakkar sauna, but it was packed, so we didn't.  next time.

so that's the jam.  all in all, great time.  LOTS of cincy representation, so that was also very cool.  met some other cool people.  you should go next year, regardless of the lineup, as it was quite a pleasant festival experience.  be warned that there are quite a few hippies there, however, and that hula hoops seem to be the current 'glow stick'.  otherwise, it was a blast.

mad love to all of cincy who helped make the weekend fun for me.  you know who you are.  <3

stay tuned this week to see how jill will turn a basic anthropologie headband into an appropriate piece of head-garb for the big day!  it's DIY mayhem!

blargh

sorry, i've been watching a fair amount of 30 rock on the roku lately.  :)

though i've been up since 8:15ish, i've yet to get out of bed.  michael left sometime this morning for a financial aid conference in beautiful newark, ohio and won't be back 'til later friday, and it's pouring.  i just don't understand why we're getting march rain in may in cincinnati right now, but i can safely say that i'm over it.  it makes me hurt, so just stop it, rain, ok?  my bed feels warm and cozy [though empty], and here my foot doesn't realize how much it hurts, so here i stay.  i don't have a ton on my to-do list today anyway.  i keep going back and forth between going back to sleep and getting up for an iced coffee.

yesterday, i got to spend the afternoon of my day off with bestie and future officiant girl, roberta.  she, her husband tom, baby julian and i went to Amma's Kitchen for a delicious vegan indian lunch, then after tom and julian went down for naps [tom works overnights], birda met me at anthropologie for some girling out.  i got this cute headband that i may turn into a wedding hair thingy.  i swooned over these shoes.  after that, we hit up whole foods and i got an iced coffee and a cannoli while she got a few necessities.  it was nice.  oh, i forgot, i also found this crazy paper flower installation in the window of a banana republic.  i ran in to ask if i could have it, but one of the managers had already called dibs on it, so now i'm on a mission.  it's a stunning arrangement of paper ivory flowers, perfect for what mike and i are doing for the wedding, so i *must* score a few of these.  or at least one.  i'll try to photograph it so i can post it, but you would notice it right away because it is sooo lovely.  if you happen to live by a banana republic and somehow score one of these for me, i promise to do something extra-super-special for you in return.  :)

well, it's after 11.  guess i should put myself together, put on my wellies, get an iced coffee and try to salvage whatever is left of today.  tomorrow afternoon is round 2 of foot specialist appointment, so i'll be sure to post the results of this as soon as possible.  my schedule sucks the rest of the week, it looks like this:

• today:  pack, run some errands, work 3-11:30, miss michael
• thursday:  foot/ankle specialist @ 2, work 3-11:30, karaoke, miss michael
• friday:  work 11-5, hug michael and welcome him back, leave for nelsonville!  yay! get home sunday.  business as usual.

stay dry, y'all, ok?

to all the mommas out there...

hope you had a lovely mother's day today.  i know i sure did. 

even though i was shackled to the green apron for a few hours today, i got to spend the majority of my day with the two most important men in my life, as well as time with my own momma.  it was pretty great.  there were also two little 'reminders' [from our mothers] about the impending family that's about to go down:  a mother's and 'future-father's' day gift of new towels from my mom, and a lovely card from mike's mom signed, "mom g and dale" [dale is mike's step-dad].  it was pretty cool.  something about hearing the prior generation hint positively about the big event made it very real, for some reason.  quite different than hearing it from our friends.  it was a good thing.  :)

so, to all the experienced moms, new moms and moms-to-be in my life, i hope it was a day filled with joy for you... a little reminder that what you do is very important work.

me + my little man, via my facebook

the story about the leg

so, it occured to me by way of a conversation with my friend katie freshley [hi katie!] that some of you have never heard the story of the bird.  or birds.  as in the ones on my leg.  allow me to share, because it really is an incredible story.  and so we begin...

last summer, i started the process of getting a new prosthesis.  most of you know i am down one wheel.  this was due to a friendly, rare birth defect known medically as proximal focal femural deficiency, or to us commoners, she was born without a femur.  it's pretty uncommon, mostly cropping up in kids who's moms took the thalidomide to curb morning sickness, but instead, ended up with babies who had deformed extremities.  not my mom, however, she didn't do drugs.  for those of us who's moms didn't do drugs, we are just the 1 in 4,000,000 lucky ones.  so anyway, it was time to get a new leg, and i headed to my covered prosthetist to start the process.  it is a process, by the way.  my prosthetist, or leg dude, as i like to call him, informed me that because of the high tech substrate they use for the exterior, i could have some sort of prettiness on it in lieu of the boring black shell that would house my residual limb.  this thrilled me.  as a designy girl, i was on this like white on rice.  the issue came with the endlessness of it...  what would i want on there for the life of my leg?

i gave this some serious thought.

there was one clear choice, at the end:  as an avid charley harper fan, and a bird enthusiast, this had to be the thing.  my leg dude told me it was easiest done with fabric, so i went on a massive search for charley harper prints on fabric.  the issue here was, though it existed, it was tied up in a lawsuit between the fabric maker [design maven and harper fan todd oldham] and the company he made it for [a la-z-boy furniture series].  no dice.  i decided to contact fabulous frames, a local framing chain, to see if they had a solution, being a major retailer of charley harper things.  i spoke to a gal named megan carl, who invited me to come see her and figure out what we could do.  so i went to see her.  after a jovial conversation [it turned out that we had a mutual friend], she said they have no fabric, however, she got the blessing from her father [the company's owner] and brett harper [charley's only son] to use the images and print something on a vinyl-type substrate.  we then contacted queen city reprographics, where i telephone-met michael cipolloni, who became my guy through the process [as it turned out, he and i had a bunch of mutual friends as well, although we had never met before].  he was a harper fan too, so that was cool.  megan gave me the password to their FTP site, which housed every harper .psd you could ever imagine.  i about fell over.  from there, i dumped the birds into photoshop, isloated them from their backgrounds, resaved them, sent them to michael, and waited.  a million phone calls with michael later, i went to my leg guy to take my newly-finished leg for a test drive, and when i got there, the birds were on it!!  i had no idea they were going to be there at that point, so it was quite the pleasant surprise.  it looked a little something like this:

photos courtesy rob @ charley harper studios, via their blog


sweet, no?  :)

the technical aspect of this is incredible.  cincinnati reprographics sent over some dudes to the leg dude's office to actually apply a sheet of some vinyled material, much like in the way you would see on a metro bus or something like this.  pretty rad.  the birds are all charley's, mostly from his ford times era, on a neutral background.  i was so excited, you have no idea.  i was invited by rob and rena to come tour the charley harper studios, which is oddly about 10 minutes from my house, and that's where these photos were taken.  after the studio tour [whoa!!], i was then taken on a tour of the home of charley harper.  [!!!!!!]  i was floating through the house, i didn't want to leave.  if you've never seen it, it's the most immaculate example of midcentury modern classiness tucked away deep in the woods of one of the most unassuming neighborhoods cincinnati has to offer.  stunning.  i feel like the luckiest gal alive having had the opportunity to tour the home of one of my heros... this never happens.  well, i guess it can, but it really doesn't, you know?  awesome.  a few months later, the circle comes complete, as mike and i were shopping at whole foods.  we were walking down an aisle, when suddenly someone with a slightly familiar voice asked, "is your name jill, by any chance?".  i turned to the fella, who had a huge grin as he introduced himself.  his name was michael cipolloni.  i gave him a hug and showed him his handi-work.  it was rad.  :)

and there it is.  the story of the leg and the birds and the amazing people that made it all happen.  pretty great, eh?  :)

the coolest thing ever

last night, mike and i went to a 'screening' at the american sign museum [yes, the place where we tie the knot, for you attentive folk].  they were donated 100s of reels of old 16mm tins and we sorted through some of them last night.  unbelieveable.  rare animated sequences done by douglas leigh, who was basically the creative behind times square.  he basically was the brain behind all of those light up signs.  now, i already have this love affair with times square.  it basically stems from a photograph of my grandparents, a dress of my grandma's that i now own, NYE, an engagement.  so lovely.  i think my mom has the photo, so if i can, i will post it.   but i also love old signage.  in any case, the viewing was so cool, and it was just really special to me to get an inside look at the man who created the magic that my grandparents fell in love to.  seems universally satisfying to me.

 old times, via times

what the heck happened to april??

so i blink, and it's may.  jeesh.  how about that...

mike and i spent pretty much the whole day shopping and eating today.  despite the fact that it rained pretty much all day, we poked around the city looking for clever solutions for displaying bread puddings, decided on colors [since we know my sister is keeping the dress], ate, had coffees...  it was cool.  i'm not sure why, but i have really been a big grump lately.  maybe because of the excruciating pain i've been in lately?  maybe because my job sort of makes this foot pain worse?  maybe because we're in retrograde?  whatever the reason, i don't even like myself right now, so i can't imagine how badly mike wants to lock me in the basement until i stop being a terd.  i don't want to be a terd, but i'm just terribly grumpy and distant and things like this lately, and i'm not even sure why, let alone how to process this and move on.  it's frustrating.  sorry, i digress...  i felt this was important to mention, however, because there was some grumpy between mike and i between the foods and coffees and wedding stuffs.  moving on.

we also decided officially today that we are going to be honeymooning in...  [drumroll, please]
sunny san francisco!  i am horribly excited about this.  i have always wanted to go + neither of us have been there + we have some close friends who used to live in the mission, so they can give us the best 'must do' list of all time [hi jacob + jen!] + we have other friends who have visited/stayed for internships/etc.  the best part?  we know no one who actually lives there anymore*.  totally on our own.  austin was also a solid contender, for sure, but since i have about 30 friends who live there, i figured it would be best to wait and just 'vacation' there, rather than spending our honeymoon with our favorite austinites.  [sorry, austin loved ones - we'll be there soon though, and i still love you!]  so, september 23, we will board a plane and head out to san fran.  so terribly exciting!  if you have any suggestions aside from the massive list i'm going to get from jennifer, please leave me a comment - i welcome any and all ideas!

* i stand corrected, though krista *technically* lives in oakland...  see you in the fall, herbe!

dress drama

so after much ado with the ebay seller re: my sister's dress, it should be on the way.  the debaucle was this...

she paypal'd the seller, then noticed in super tiny print at the bottom of the auction that the dress did not come complete with the sash.  my sister contacted the seller, asking where the sash was and why then did the photo of the dress [taken on a form, in her house] was shown with a sash if there was none.  the seller took several days to reply.  seller told her that she'd refund my sister if that was a dealbreaker and that the dress never had a sash, but not explaining how the photo of the dress with the sash happened.  oh well.  after some emails and phone calls between my sister and i, we decided to go ahead with the dress and if it worked without, then ok, or we can always just fashion another sash or something, and if not, we'll just resell the dress or what have you.  she should get it by thursday, so we'll find out then.  first major snag.  i'm ok with that being the only one so far, however. 

kara will look so pretty...  in a dress that she will actually be able to and want to wear again.
awesomes.

h

here comes the 'maid...  all dressed in green [not red]  :)

bad, bad blogga

sorry, y'all.  between having out of town company last weekend and the end of a term, i've been a terrible blogger.  please forgive me? 

one of the reasons i've been such a raging slacker is pretty cool, however.  i have secretly been apprenticing with miss angela gallo at her tasty northern kentucky cake shop known as three tiers!  sorry for keeping it on the DL from you guys, but we just needed to see how it worked out first.  i'm helping her and she's teaching me.  it's sort of the awesome.  and her cakes are bangin', so if you're ever around the bellevue area with a sweet tooth, or you need some sugary magic for your next shindig, you should check it out.  there's even some vegan options for you dairy-free folk.  saturday, i had a banana cupcake with chocolate italian buttercream frosting and a lemon cupcake with lemon italian buttercream frosting...

um, yum.  and i don't even like cake, y'all.  but yum.

three tiers magicalness

in other news, we may have found 'the dress' for my 'maid.  on ebay.  for [get this] $60.  aaaand, it's the short, colorful version of my dress.  how perfect is this??  the color isn't exactly perfect for an early fall wedding, but who cares, really?  i defy you, seasonal expectations!  we do what we want to!  because it's our wedding! 

yeah.  take that, tradition.  in your face.

cuteness

ties for him and little him.  awesomes. 
this is more than likely our tie person, methinks.

via etsy

TUESDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK TIME!

since the belle and the beau can make any sort of tie, which should the boys wear?

hehe.

oh, dan... timmy... eric... leah... sarah... and of course, michael.  because i'm LOST without you...


this one's for you.  :)

dharma initiative alarm clock, via think geek

type = bashert

lately, i've been hankerin' for some new ink.  the last tattoo i got was the ohio on the top of my foot, and that's been years now, so i've been getting the itch lately to get back in the chair and to hear the click and buzz of the gun.  i have been wanting a type piece forever now, and yesterday, i think i managed to figure out what type piece i'm going to get. 

a few years back, i used to work at a jewish non-profit agency.  there, i met a girl named tamar, who was orthodox, and taught me the ways of judaism.  i was her first trip through a drive thru window.  she taught me about basherts.  in yiddish, bashert means 'destiny', most often used in the context of one's divinely foreordained spouse or soulmate.  i didn't believe in destiny or soulmates, pre-mike.  i still think the term sounds hokey in a way, but i understand the meaning now, for sure.  mike and i are quite kindred.  since the beginning of our relationship, we've joked and spoke of being each others basherts.  we often share a brain.  he is, in a non-hokey way, my destined one.  so rather than getting all ghetto-billy/kiss of death and getting mike's name tattooed on me somewhere, this is a nice, more personal alternative:

in some sort of cute scripty type like so.  or handwritten-y.  as a type junkie, i'm still hashing that part out, as well as location on my person, but i'm pretty sure this is the winner for fresh ink.  [by and by, basherte would be the lady version of bashert, for the fellas, it's basherter]  now i just need to make that appointment...

yes, you!

so far, i've been mostly talking about the private, family ceremony so much that i've neglected to fill you in on the important part.  the party.  we have confirmed with the powers that be that we are officially having our public reception/party/get-down at the northside tavern!  this is pretty special, as mike and i met here the 2nd time, and it's also the spot where he popped the question.  we will be making a special invitation for this event, so be watching for this.  yes, that means you too.  everyone is welcome.  we want to celebrate with everyone who wants to be there, so come.  :) we're still working out the details of this thing, but i wanted to fill y'all in on at least this much.

i'm a bad blogger, as i missed the TUESDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK, but i was also mourning, as you may remember.  my apologies.  to resume, and rebound my status as a good blogger, i now present the TUESDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK!  and here it is:

would it be dumb if mike and i were to make the tavern reception party a potluck?

gypsy psychic lady

man, what a weekend. 


friday was justly sad.  i spent the day in the company of old friends and blanket confusion.  no one really understands suicide, especially when it's someone who loved life so much.  i just can't wrap my head around it yet, and i don't know if i ever will.  it was amazing to see the amount of folks that tony touched.  i will never forget that.  i will never forget him.


saturday i just worked.  well, we went to buy some plants and seeds first, but then i worked.  a funny thing happened saturday though, and i have to tell you this story.  it's pretty great.  mike's real dad lives in florida half the year, so mike just told him saturday that we were getting married.  his dad is apparently not a fan of this, for whatever reason.  i was hurt.  i tried to get over it.  i went to work.  mike visited me at work, with food, and said, "so i talked to my mom today, and she told me that kristin [sister] was in new york on business, and the group of them decided to go see a psychic."  mike continued,  telling me that the psychic told kristin during her reading that she saw an event happening in the family late summer, and although there were going to be some that weren't supportive of the event, that it's a good thing and "they are going to last".  :) 


thank you, crazy new york gypsy psychic.  i like you.

about life.

sorry for missing the tuesday question of the day, y'all, but...

bad news x2 on tuesday:
 - i found out about the apparent suicide of a friend. 
godspeed, tb.  you'll be missed more than you ever knew.  thank you for the ride home, and i'm glad we got to bond over our dads.  i will never forget that.
 - woxy.com is now defunct.  for any of you who know me, you know this is a blow as well.

i had to reconcile these two things on the couch with mike.  he's such a great fella in times like this.  i swear i will resume blog stuff on the quick, my friends, i just need a minute, you know?  see you friday after the funeral or saturday.  thanks for your understanding.  sorry for the absense, but life happens, and sometimes, it happens sadly.

rip, tony.

namaste, tony,  by robyn roth

c'est la vie

i've got a french test in the morning.  and a paper to turn in.  and then i have to go to the dentist.

found on the internet when i image searched 'french test'

BUT...  when i get back...

it's time for TUESDAY'S QUESTION OF THE DAY!  i know you can't hardly stand it!

sleep well til then!  :)

but who will marry the reverend?

many of you know that some time ago, i got ordained online through the internet miracle that is the universal life church and i have married several couples already.  even though i get nervous, i really actually love marrying couples.  it makes me feel great knowing that i had a hand [and signature] in something really special for others and it gives me great joy.  if you didn't know, well, now you do.  it's true, i am a reverend.  i like to marry folks.

one of the most frequently asked questions we've been getting is 'so who's going to marry the reverend?'

mike and i have had several discussions about this, in fact.  since it's impossible for me to marry us, we had to consider who was going to be doing our ceremony.  mike is a catholic, and i am a protestant.  going to the courthouse seemed like a bad idea, though i've considered it several times during this whole wedding planning thing.  we had a few volunteers, actually, which is awesome, but we knew in order not to be jerks concerning the folks, we needed someone close to us, semi-theist, and who would give the ceremony the propers while being on good behavior in front of the 'rents.  not saying anything bad about the volunteers [hey, dan!  hi, erin!], it's just that there seemed to be one person in particular who was really perfect for the job...

her name is roberta thorp.  she and i have been friends since 1998, where we met at a crappy job, and we've been quite close for ages.  so close, in fact, that she, her husband tom, and baby julian, live next door to us.  we were there through each other's relationship crises, crappy jobs, highs and lows, pregnancies, and i was a birthing coach for her delivery, so yeah, we are pretty stinking close.  we are doing an intimate, family ceremony so it only seemed fitting to have someone like family doing the honors of signing our papers, and roberta is family to us - i actually became a reverend because she asked me to marry her and tom; when we asked her earlier tonight if she'd return the favor, in which she excitedly and gladly accepted.  i am thrilled to have her and her family be there with us as we do this thing.  it really does mean the world to me.

tipsy me + roberta, my birthday karaoke madness 2009 

photo by nic zippanti's iphone awesomeness

a box on my porch, a text from michael...

... the accidental dress.

yep, it arrived today, the fluke of a bargain i stumbled upon. i really thought a dress that i found online for a song would never actually work - it would need too much alteration, it wouldn't look good on me, it wouldn't look like the photo, etc. i stand corrected. my $100 gamble paid off, i discovered, as i ran upstairs opening the box, took it off the hanger and slipped it on. the length is perfect. the skirt is full [but not poofy] and beautifully lined to hide all the bad stuff. the bodice of the dress needs to be taken in an inch or less. the sash is wide and long. the ivory is the perfect creamy shade. i am in love. i now have the unfortunate pleasure of giving lucia the bad news, but as a girl who loves a bargain as much as i do, i hope she'll understand. i now have my dress!

lesson learned: don't be afraid to try something unconventional. frustrated by the lack of options and the high price tags, i found a stunning, affordable dress online for TONS less than retail. there are other sites too, for not-so-conventional dresses that are totally bride-appropriate. it's not about being cheap. it's about finding what works for you, while not buying into the idea that you have to go wedding when you're having a wedding. consider destination dresses, vintage, regular retailers that have white dresses, etc. you don't have to go to david's bridal or a boutique to find something lovely. sometimes lovely shows up in some really atypical locations.

still high from feeling the silk tricotine against my skin, i am going to now get ready for dinner and a rock show with the mike. there is this running joke with cincinnati kids and northern kentucky kids that none of us cross the river to go hang out 'over there'. tonight, mike and i are actually crossing the river, having a nice dinner somewhere on main strasse, then to molly malone's to catch our friends, mallory. they are awesome. go see them play if you don't know.

hope you enjoyed the sunshine today! happy first of spring! <3

happy friday!

even though i have to work tonight, i have most of the day off, so in between bouts of sunshine i wanted to pop in and say hi. in my errand running, i am [hopefully!] picking up my ring from being resized, and maybe even looking for a gift for my one 'maid [hey kae!], but mostly just enjoying the warm on my face. cincinnati becomes pretty intolerable in the winter, so the city is alive when the sun comes out. i just want to lay in some grass somewhere with my eyes closed.

hope you all have a lovely weekend. do something fun before it rains next week.

via oh joy!

i love lists!

for anyone who knows me, they also know that i am an avid list maker. i love the feeling of making a to-do list, then crossing things off. it's so satisfying. we've been doing a lot of crossing off on our impending nuptuals list this week. it looks a little something like this:

find a venue
put down the deposit at take the cake
find a photographer
find a florist/flower source
start the dress process
narrow down dress choices with sister
start researching food options

isn't it lovely? :) sometimes i like to think that you have to do a lot of work for the right thing. other times, like now, i like to think that the universe is thanking you for making the right choice, and so it clears a path for you. literally, in 48 sweet hours, mike got his suit, we ordered a dress to check out that we found for a song, we were generously offered a venue at a price we could not refuse, we have a photographer willing to work with our budget, and babysis™ has it narrowed down to 2 dresses, both of which we like, so it really doesn't matter which one she picks and to pick the one she'd want to wear again and again. that will determine the other color in our palate. [i'm obviously very relaxed about this stuff.] mike and i have hashed out some other secret details that i cannot share yet. you'll just have to wait. :)

what i can tell you is that saturday september 18, 2010, i will officially be getting hitched to a very amazing man! the date is set. i couldn't be happier.

this weekend and next week are all about catering and flowers, i suppose, according to the list. i'm going to be researching alternatives to florists that charge 30% more just because you put the word 'wedding' in there. should be fun. my first stop is to find my own flowers. :) i'm also going to price out my friend, amy, as she reminded me recently that she's in the biz. i guess we need to hash out what we need them for first, eh? other than my whopping 2 bouquets, what else do i need?

tuesday question of the week

as i write this, mike and i are gchatting in another screen as he is composing an email to one of the venues with last minute questions before we say yes. i am so thrilled with the details that are being hashed out these last few days - it's making it easier to breathe! i was sort of getting convinced that my original mission was not possible, that cincinnati was just so far gone that there was only one way to skin the wedding cat here, and that was starting to really bum me out. fortunately, i have an inspiring future husband person and a perserverance that gets to be downright annoying at times, and things are starting to turn in our favor. :)

in other news, we have a delicious date with a possible photographer tomorrow evening at the glory of northside which is known as melt. fitting to have it there, as he shot the images you are seeing if you followed that link. :) we are in the process of sitting down with a few photographers, so if you are/are dating/are siblings of/child of/parent of/ know of/etc. a photographer who needs work and takes lovely photos, send me an email!

i now introduce to you: jilly's tuesday question of the week! why tuesday? why not! [plus i'm usually off on tuesdays, so it works out that i can post right after french class. woot!] every tuesday, i will ask you some burning question - it might be about weddings, a house project, dream interpretation, parties, existentialism, food, whatever, but i just like to see what's going on with my readers. :) ready for it? cool. here it is:

jilly's question of the week:
mike and i are having bread pudding rather than wedding cake.
we have 4 flavors decided upon.
if you were going to pick the flavor of our 5th one, what would it be?

highs + lows

the lows:
so i spend a chilly cincinnati day off feeling sort of crappy and running errands. one of those errands was to try on some dresses. as you may remember in a previous entry, you may be asking why i did this. well, simply put, i had no idea what size i was or what was out there. i found a 'destination' dress online that was supposed to be at bridal and formal, so i decided to go and see it, but when i got there i was informed that it was, in fact, not there. nor was there amazing customer service, fyi. the young DAAP grad who helped me pick out some dresses to try on was lovely. her desk-hovering boss lady was not, however. one of the dresses i tried on was inspired by this dress i had seen while trolling, but it was made by maggie sottero and had a pink tag, which meant that it was the sample being sold off because that dress is being discontinued. while it was still a small fortune, it was also one of the only things i've seen that is both 'bridal' and 'lovely' simultaneously, and it looked cute as hell on me, so i actually started to consider it. i failed to get the model # while i was there. i ran a few more errands, including dropping off the rock for resizing, which is now going to take 5 days, rather than the 2-3 i was told, based on the design of the ring. frustrated by the insanity of dress after dress, delays in getting my stunning ring back, as well as mending from what might be the onset of flu, i then retreated home and got directly into bed. i stayed there for a while, talking to my sister, trolling the internet for the model # of that maggie sottero dress to get the 'what do you think of this one' email going with the sister, but to no avail, so i decided to call bridal and formal and get the number. i was told by not-so-nice boss lady that she would not be able to look for the dress because i had failed to place a deposit down on the dress today. say what? i didn't put $50 down to 'hold' it because: [a.] i went alone. i didn't have anyone there to back me up or tell me i looked pretty, except for the associate, and she doesn't know me from a hole in the wall. all my friends have jobs where they are required to work on mondays, jeez. [b.] even though my $50 could be transferred to a bridesmaid dress [not happening, since my *only* maid lives in atlanta] or a MOB dress [also not happening, as my mom isn't going to be buying anything from there for my casual-fun-party-marriage thing, especially now, lady], i didn't want to gamble it like that. and since when do commissioned sales associates deny working for a customer? after pulling my jaw out of my lap, i coldly replied, "so... because i didn't put down the deposit, you can't find the one maggie sottero you have on clearance so i can email the model # to my sister so she can give me her opinion on it from atlanta?? ok, well thanks for your help." at that point, she verified my info and said that she'd have sweet DAAP girl call me 'if she remembered'. i'm still waiting on this call... and am no longer interested in anything to do with bridal and formal. good thing i didn't put down that deposit today, eh? ;)

highs:
i was really annoyed and feeling ill. mike came home and made me soup and poured me a glass of apple juice, because he's awesome like that and that makes me really, very lucky. resting did me good, as i started feeling slightly less flu-like [yay!], and then i got back to internet trolling. then this miraculous thing happened. i was frustrated [as i mentioned, oh, about 10 times so far], and right in the thick of this frustration, i found a wedding dress classified site with a dress that i actually like, slightly bigger than my size, for sale by a girl who tried it on once then decided to wear a tea length dress instead, selling for a meager $100. yep. one measly banjamin. i emailed her promptly. now i wait. maybe i can pull this off after all? here's to hoping!

a lack of bourbon

so the j crew dress fitting went well. she tried on 4 or 5 styles, and i got 3-way photos of each sent to me via the miracle of iPhone, and now we're trying to narrow it down to one. currently the favorites are as follows:

the lorelei
the twist tank

the sophia
the serena
the sydney

she liked all of them enough, actually. we have plans to go visit her within the next month or so-ish, and when we do, we will go back with her to see which one will make it to the party. to be continued...

in other news, a refrain from going out on a saturday night: mike and i decided to just stay in on this daylight savings night and hash some things out before this 6 months turned into 6 weeks. we're very close to selecting our venue, as well as working out food options and budget. i will be letting you know as soon as things get a little more solid on these items. stay tuned!

'maids... er, 'maid

due to the simplicity of this shindig, and the smallness of the guest list, mike and i have decided to only have one witness each. that one person for me is, and always will be, my one and only sister. she is taller than i and most folks think she's older than i, but she is still my baby sister. born 3 days short of a year after me, we are 'irish twins', and are the same age for 3 days every year. pretty cool.

this is me, my dad and my sis, at christmas 2009

lucky me, my baby sis, who lives in atlanta, has a j crew bridal location about 15 minutes from her abode [lucky because there are only a handful of them in the US to begin with], so this morning, she has an appointment at j crew to try on her future maid's dress. we settled on j crew due to the simplicity of the dresses, the wearability/not-so-wedding aspect, and relative affordability. she is trying on about 6 different styles. since there's only one maid, and i wanted her to actually be able to wear this dress again, i actually let her pick it out. she was thrilled. she's been a maid quite a few times, and has ended up with a collection of dresses she'll never get to wear again, so this time, i want her to have a keeper. she's sending me photos of her in the dresses, so as soon as i get those, i will post them. i can't wait to see her in them! :)

st. lucia

as i've browsed wedding dresses, i've found that i'm not really inspired by many of them. they just look like... wedding dresses. hm. i guess what i'm trying to accomplish is less of a wedding, and more of an event or party or good time, so it just seems a little silly to be parading around in a big ol' ball gown thing with a forever long train. i found a whopping 2 dresses that i did quite fancy, however, thanks to the internets. sadness came over me as i soon realized that one of them is no longer made, and hasn't been for some time, and the other one was going to cost me my second born child.

thank god for my amazing friend, lucia: derby girl. woman of character. drinking buddy. mom extraordinaire. seamstress for the band... and for jilly. yep, this hellpot of amazing has graciously offered to make me a dress, based on the two dresses i sent her photos of. she's trying to jumpstart a career in self-employment making pretty things for people, and she's going to create my dress. awesomes. and she's been sewing since 'nam. back when she was a married lass, she would openly tell remind me that mike was a 'tall drink of water' [since she's not married, she never says it anymore, as 'it's not appropriate now since she's single again'. see? character.], that she was convinced that we were meant to be, and in spite of my opposition to marriage once upon a time, she was going to make my dress when i finally said yes.

and here we are.

i can't really post pics of the dresses, as i don't want to give too much away and all that, but sewing will commence within the next few weeks. she is making me a mock dress, so we can fiddle with that to get it right before she starts crafting with the fancy fabric. i am thrilled beyond words that such an excellent lady is making something so important for me. and i can't wait to wear it. in the meantime, if you need a rad lady to make something for you, you should email her at luciajackson30[at]gmail[dot]com and hire her for your next party dress. :) or at least go get a drink with her, because you are guaranteed to have a blast.

venues and catering and drinks, oh my!

this week has been devoted to the search for a venue, primarily, with the start of a secondary search for photographers. i'll have to admit, i was ready to toss in the towel already. see, as locals would soon realize after engagement, cincinnati is a weird town. we have all this history in our city... that's sorely neglected, for the most part. there are very few cool, non-church, restored, not-breaking-the-bank locations to get hitched in this town. we have a lot of really lovely parks in cincinnati. we have a dirty river. we have an aquarium [well, newport does, anyway]. we have a banging contemporary arts center. mike and i were looking for something a little less traditional, however, as you may have read somewhere. currently, we have a top 4 for locations. they are as follows:

1. lightborne. this is where mike and i met for the first time, during a labor day fireworks party, so yeah. this could be pretty special. they are actually a video/motion graphics firm, so even though they don't do weddings, it's a modern, creative space with a killer rooftop terrace. and we have a few friends that work there, so they are checking in to see if we can do this. we would have to find a caterer and someone to play bartender, but the view is pretty spectacular.

2. the american sign museum. mike is a docent here, and i think the pics would be phenominal for someone looking to host a wedding a little off the beaten bridal path. you have to come up with your own catering/cocktails, but just think of all that vintage signage and neon illuminating the backgrounds of wedding photos...

3. arnold's. the oldest bar in cincinnati, they have a sweet, vintage inside, but the real treat is the brick-walled patio with a retractable roof [in case of rain]. there is also a partial gazebo for your ceremonial bits, and they cater on-site, so no need to be moving the food around or anything. the owners of arnold's [a married couple, who also got married there :)] have promised via telephone that they will work with any budget on food/drink costs, and there is no cost for the use of the sweet patio, already equipped with stringed lights and everything.

4. the parlour of the historic southgate house. prior home to the inventor of the tommy gun, this historic mansion-turned-local-rock-venue has been a rock home away from home for mike and jill even before we were mike and jill. in fact, i used to see him at shows there so often, in my head i used to refer to him as 'cute southgate house guy'. seems fitting to do some knot-tying here. the bar is available, but food is not, so catering would need to happen here as well.

so there are the frontrunners for venues for us, at the moment anyway. tune in soon for venue booking finalization stuff and also for jill's handy reference tool outlining venues, costs, food costs, etc. for just about every place to have a wedding in this city. i surveyed facebook peeps for suggestions and compiled info on each so you don't have to, and i'm creating a downloadable file for your reference. you're welcome. :)

stranger danger

i guess i should tell you a little more about us, eh?

• no, we are not alcoholics, first of all. we are bourbon fans.
• second, we are also not pregnant [shotglass wedding was just a rad name that mike suggested - he's my idea man. i call him this all the time. it is in, no way, affiliated with the shotgun wedding or unexpected babies].
• we are an early-30-somethings couple who reside in a small historic 'hood in cincinnati.
  
• this is #2 for both of us, actually, as our former spouses were not of the faithful variety.
  
• we have been together 3 years this june.
  
• we met twice, both times through the same mutual friend [hi jason!], but something like 4 years apart. the first time, we were both spoken for by others. not the second. woot!
  
• i have a 10 yr old son from husband #1. he is a-mazing. he is also going to be walking me down the aisle, and this, so far, is my favorite thing about impending nuptuals, aside from the man i am marrying, of course.
• i was a bartender for 8 years [further explaining the shotglass]. so i know a lot of people, and a lot of people want to come to our wedding. this is not happening, however. a lot of people are coming to our reception. only our immediate families and a handful of our super closest are getting an invite to the ceremony. it was really, really hard to make this list, but our budget just doesn't allow for our massive extended families and equally massive list of friends. we hope they understand.
• we are tenatively planning a september 18th wedding. the location has yet to be determined. we're working on this. i'm actually creating a spreadsheet on this, not kidding.
• this event is my personal mission to do the following: marry my awesome fella, not spend a ton of money doing this, and having the event go in a way that is not cliché/tacky/taking ourselves too seriously/showing our poverty hand/hurting anyone's feelings.
  

well, i guess that should be fine for now. no more stranger danger.

i got engaged last week.

he's my bashert, and i adore him.

so, i did what any average self-respecting gal would do, and started trolling through the abundance of wedding porn on the internet as i began my research for our intimate fall wedding this year. as i started the process, i became immediately frustrated with the lack of creative options my city has to offer in the way of alternatives to big productions that are really expensive.

ever-so-determined NOT to have fake moustaches and at my reception and sofas in fields with balloons in my engagement shoot, this is a landing place for my wins and losses with big bridal [and the big bridal that used to be known as DIY], ideas i've stolen that aren't typical, stuff about the little house we bought and are working on, and whatever else i feel like talking about. this blog is my quest to have an original, affordable wedding in the midwestern ho-hum status quo of cincinnati... and also to keep me motivated to not just go and elope. is it possible in this day and age to have an original, creative, DIY wedding that does not look like a martha craft project? i'd like to think that if anyone can do it, these kids can:



we are jill+mike and we don't want a dumb cincinnati wedding. we met twice, once at a party and once at a bar. second time's a charm. we love bourbon, naps and old things. we don't want to spend a ton of money on a wedding when we could use that money for a honeymoon instead. we don't want bridal-rama shows. heck, we don't even like cake. we want to have a ceremony, though, and are on a mission to make this knot-tying something that isn't a massive cliche. we just want to tie the knot in a way that is truly 'us' without going overboard. is it possible?