That loud noise you heard was the branch falling in our yard

Yep, a giant pecan tree branch falling in our front yard was not on my Monday Before The Wedding To Do List.  I had a full list of things to get done around the house on Monday evening.  I was wearing my wedding day shoes around the house, vacuuming and cleaning the main rooms of the house.  Stephen was cooking an amazing dinner (he'll guest post about it later - would have last night, but life happens) and everything was going as planned.

We were sitting down watching the news (wow, we sound old) in our living room with the curtains open.  There had been a storm roll through about 30 minutes before, but the sun was fighting to come back out when it happened.  Looking back at that 15 seconds I think I froze.  I remember a loud noise, thinking someone had shot fireworks at the house, Stephen moving across my body then heading to the back of the house.  I sat on the couch looking in shock at what just happened in the front yard.

That will change all the plans you had for the evening

Power line and phone line below the tree branch.  The phone line tore off part of our house trim when it crashed down

The large pecan tree in our front yard lost a branch, a 20+ foot branch, right across our front yard.  It missed the corner of the house and Stephen's car by only a few feet.  It could have been so much worse.  A branch falling isn't too bad, but as it came down it took with it the power line running to our house.  You can see the line coming from the house, next to the bent American Flag (which we had just hung the day before.)

Look how big that baby is!  It just missed the house and the car!

As soon as we realized we were okay we ran into the front yard to see the damage.  We had a bunch of neighbors outside at the time and they saw it come down.  All we could see from inside the house was the firework show that the power line created.  Stephen thought the entire tree was coming down which is why he ran, I absolutely should have run with him!

Before we went to bed we had Old Glory back where she should be

One neighbor called the fire department because we had live wires down and some smoking.  The nicest truck of guys got to the house and checked it out for us.  They made sure nothing was going to cause or catch fire in the house and in the attic where the wire had pulled.  They also called Georgia Power from the truck to ensure that they got there quickly since we weren't the only house without power.

Once GA Power had cut our house loose from the power supply, the firemen chopped up the branch a bit for us so we could at least get out of our driveway.  By this point I'd say 30 minutes had gone by.  We were in shock.  Stephen went into what I want to call "Take Care of Shit Mode".  He knew exactly who to call, when to call and what to get done.  I was so impressed.  Maybe this was a test for our relationship the week of our wedding?  Well, if it was, he passed.

I headed out to Publix to get ice so we could save our freezer items because we didn't know how soon an electrician could be at the house.  GA Power could turn our power off, but they couldn't go into our attic to fix the damage inside the house.  But we did know that our meter looked undamaged, a good sign.

While I was gone a stray puppy found Stephen who was working in the front yard.  As if we needed one more thing to deal with.  It was now dark.  This was when I broke down.  I could handle a down branch, I could handle a night without power, I could handle the $1000 I assumed we'd have to pay to get everything fixed, but I couldn't handle having to take care of a puppy.  When we called Animal Control they said they couldn't come out until morning.  I started to cry.  Stephen stayed strong, got a little frustrated with me, but was dealing with the situation without crying.  The second miracle happened that night and someone from Animal Control came to get the dog about 10 minutes later.

That's a good shot of the power cord that ripped from our attic

By this time, around 10:00pm, three hours after the branch fell, we knew Mr Sparky would be at the house within the hour.  We went inside, hung out with the dogs who were terrified and lit a bunch of candles.  Then it was time to wait.  Luckily Mr Sparky showed up around 10:30.   Our electrician stood in the front yard for about a minute just looking at the house.  It was obvious he was not in the mood to deal with the giant problem in front of him.  He got into the attic to take a look.  Here is our third miracle of the night.  When the house was wired for electricity they were lazy and they left about 10 feet of slack in the power line wire.  That means that when the branch pulled it from the house it only pulled off the house and pulled the wire tight inside the attic.  Nothing was ruined, nothing was broken, we saved $2000+.  He only had to pull the wire back into the attic, make sure it wasn't broken anywhere and secure it to the house again.  We called GA Power and they were there quickly and they worked together getting us up and running again by 11:30.

The final bill for the damage was $500 and some change.  FAR better than the $3000 it could  have been if that power line inside the attic didn't have all the slack that it did.  That would have put a damper on our Honeymoon plans...

Once we were in bed looking back at the last five hours we realized how lucky we had beed.  The house and cars had been missed, we were okay, the dogs were okay and someones laziness years before had saved us thousands of dollars.  It could have been so much worse.  Now when I see the pictures of entire trees down across cars or houses I'll have a greater appreciation for what that family is feeling.

We were lucky.  I also learned that how Stephen reacts under pressure.  He is my rock, no doubt about it.

Gone With the Wind: Book Review

On my list of things to accomplish for 2011 I had listed: "Read Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind."  Obviously, I missed my deadline by a few months but the good news is that I got it done!

Not getting the book until Christmas 2011 probably had something to do with my not finishing the book in 2011, but that's not really the point of this post.

I don't need to write an actual review, I have a feeling the story is pretty well known by now.  I want to discuss the main characters and how I feel about each of them.

Scarlett O'Hara:  Before I read the book, I only knew Scarlett from the movie posters I've seen and what I remembered from the movie that I watched as a kid.  I wanted to like her, but I got more and more angry with her as each chapter went by.  She found a way to hurt every person she loved.  And when it came to love, I'm not sure she even knew what love was.  The only thing she really loved was Tara and herself.  While I was angry with her, I also respect her.  In a time when women were better off being dumb and pretty, she wasn't ashamed of her business sense.  She knew how to make money.  At Tara after she fled Atlanta she was able to keep herself, her child, a newborn and several adults alive.  Nobody on the plantation died of starvation while she was there.  She did what she had to do and wasn't afraid of what people thought about her.  She ran two lumber yards better than most men ran their businesses at that time, what her husband thought of her didn't matter.  I think her main flaw was that she didn't understand what love looked like and she thought that what she and Ashley had for each other was love, but how could it be?

Rhett Butler:  He was the best thing to happen to Scarlett, but probably the worst thing, too.  He was the only man who really saw her for who she was and he was the only one who could really love her because of that.  He challenged her and gave her everything she wanted and he was the one with the broken heart.  He, like Scarlett, did what he had to do during the war to stay alive.  I don't agree with all of his business choices, but he survived.  Where he probably hurt Scarlett more than helped her was by giving her everything he wanted, but also by not being open about his feelings for her.  I hate that he hid his love for her.  I'm not sure that it could have pulled her mind away from Ashley, but I think she would have loved knowing that she was indeed loved by someone.  I almost feel sorry for him, but he wasn't crying about his marriage, he was getting is somewhere else.

Ashley Wilkes:  I may like him the least of all of the characters.  He was a brave man, joining the war when he didn't believe in it, but he was weak.  He had an amazing wife, all of Atlanta knew how great she was, yet he was secretly in love with Scarlett.  If he really did love Scarlett and Melanie at the same time, I have no idea, but I don't think he did either.  I think he loved Scarlett because she was what he wasn't - smart and strong.  In Melanie he had kindness and love.  If he had just been a man and not put himself in situations with Scarlett to make her think he loved her, everyone would have been better off.  Scarlett is partly to blame there as well, but he was the married man.  He was lucky to have been wealthy and handsome enough to have women like Scarlett and Melanie in his life.  Without them, he wouldn't have survived the time after the war.  I believe he would have given up.

Melanie Wilkes:  She represented what was pure and right.  She loved unconditionally and with her whole self.  She was kind to others and looked for the good in people.  Where she faulted was that gave too much of herself to other people and ultimately that she wanted another child.  Scarlett thought she was weak until she was dying and she realized that Melanie was just as strong as she was.  Melanie never hid from a fight, with soldiers during the war or from the other women in town.  She stood up for what she believed in and I have the most respect for her because of it.  I believe she knew all along that there was something unspoken between Ashley and Scarlett but because of the love she had for both of them, she was willing to look past it.  I wish Scarlett had seen the good in Melanie before it was too late.

I'm so glad that I finally tackled the 1037 pages of the novel.  Living in Atlanta I was moved by the falling of the city and watching it rebuild through the eyes of Scarlett.  When they would drive down Peachtree Street, I know I'll do the same thing sometime this week.  I know the distance from Atlanta to Jonesboro and while it doesn't seem long to me today, I know that back in days of horses and carriages, it was a much longer journey.  The story was very relevant to me, more than what I imagine it would be to someone who has never been to Atlanta and is living in Portland.  Now I can move on to easy, beach reading for the honeymoon!

When Stephen and I started dating we took the Margaret Mitchell tour of the Oakland Cemetery.  I'm so glad we did and I can't wait to visit the Margaret Mitchell house in midtown.  I pass it nearly every single week and when I lived in Midtown I passed it at least once a day.  She was a brilliant story teller and author and had a way with words.  It's sad that she was taken from us so tragically.

Wedding Planning - Post #18 - Guest Book

If you have read any of the other 17 posts about planning our wedding you'll have noticed that we're doing things a little nontraditional.  Because we were only engaged for four months before our big day we didn't see the need to do any engagement pictures.  They would have been nice to have, but with a 6-8 week turn around on getting any edited and back to us, we would have had to take pictures right after we were engaged if we wanted to use any of them in the ceremony.

One of the places I wish we had an engagement photo is for our guest book.  One of my best friends used her engagement photos and turned them into a book with a lot of white space to be used as her guest book/sign in book.  Check out this page from Jenn Hopkins Photography so you can see what I mean.  How awesome right?

Well, we don't have a full set of professional pictures so we decided we wanted to have a large mat around an 8x10 picture.  During the reception at SweetWater Brewery we'll have a fun picture of the two of us in the frame and then when we have the wedding pictures back we'll replace with a wedding photo for the house.

Source

I found a frame and mat similar to the above at Michael's for about $25 on sale and we were set!  I'm not sure how many times we'd flip though a book to see what our friends and family wrote to us, especially years down the line when we have kids and life gets crazy, but with a frame on the wall we'll get to see the names of our friends everyday.

One of my good friends was kind enough to take a picture of Stephen and I so we would have a nice, new one to display for the first time at the wedding.  You know, something that hasn't been seen on Facebook yet.  I'd add it here, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having an unseen picture doesn't it!

We ordered our picture from Costco which was the easiest process ever!  They have a one hour photo center at the location by Stephen's office so he can pick it up on his way home from work.  That's quick service!

We are officially at one week from our wedding day.  Right now, it is 1:40pm as I type this sentence.  We'll either be getting married right now or will be next in line next Friday.  I hope the next 6 days fly by.  

Why I LOVE Pinterest and How Pinterest Works

I'm not sure I can ever go back to life without Pinterest.  I don't want to go back to the days of buying magazines and tearing out pages for inspiration.  (But I still love magazines, especially food magazines.)  For example, I didn't buy a single wedding magazine while planning my wedding.  I remember friends planning weddings 5 or 6 years ago and going to their house to see the stacks of wedding magazines with dog eared pages and binders of torn out pages with ideas.

Not only is wedding planning SO much easier with Pinterest, but finding new recipes is easy too.  Form healthy to unique to gluttonous and wonderful baking recipes - the list is almost endless.  There are so many blogs out there with recipes that will never make it into a cookbook or website.  I love that I can find them now.  Let's not also forget cleaning and home organizational tips.  Pinterest is full of ways to make your live simpler around the house.  I had no idea white vinegar was so useful until I saw pin after pin of uses, several that I have tried.

Lastly, crafting.  OMG, the craft ideas are overflowing on Pinterest.  I have close to 100 pins on my Craft Ideas board.  Before Pinterest I had a few craft projects in my head, but with Pinterest I've been exposed to so many new things I never once considered to try on my own.  But with links to tutorials on basically everything I could ever want to try, the world has opened new doors to me.  I even registered for a sewing machine on our wedding registry so I can learn to sew to make items for around the house!

Pinterest works like this.  You set up an account and once approved you can search through other people's pins and add them to boards that you have created so you can come back to them later.  When you log in to the site this is what your main page will look like, below.  The pins update constantly and you can see what pins that you have added that have been pinned by others down the left hand side of the page.  Every time I go to this page it is different based on how active the people I'm following are that day.

Think of the boards as the folders you used to keep when you tore out pictures from a magazine.  You did that, right, just like me?  Each board is a different topic and you can have unlimited boards.  At least I think you can, I've seen people with more boards then I could even try to keep track of.  They must be professional pinners.  (Is that a job?  I want it.)  I have boards for Craft Ideas, Wedding Inspiration, Food and Drinks, Holidays, Books I want to read, and several more.  Here is a screen shot of what your account page on Pinterest will look like with your boards.  I have a few more that don't fit on the screen until you scroll down.

My Pinterest page

Into each board you add your pins.  You can see in the image above how many pins I have in each board.  Obviously this changes daily as I add pins.  Each board has a "cover photo" which is the large picture and you can set this to something or it is your most recent pin.  To get inside a board you click on one of the images in that board and it brings you into that section.  Below is my Holidays board.

My Holiday Board

Using my Holiday board above you can see that each pin is linked from another website, shown in the grey below the picture caption.  Each picture gets a caption which you can create.  This caption is seen by all of your followers and anyone searching for a key word that is in your caption.  When you click on one of these pins (photos) it makes it larger so you can see it in more detail and from there you can double click on it and it will open the original website with that content in a new window.  I have a few of my projects posted on one of Pinterest boards and it's fun to see web traffic to the blog from Pinterest.

You can add to your boards in two ways.  First, and the most fun in my opinion, is just browsing through Pinterest.  You can see pins from people that you are following or everything that is being pinned at that moment.  You can even search Pinterest for ideas.  When I put in the search box "red truck" below are the pins that show up for me.  Of course, if you go and search for the same thing it may look different depending on what has been pinned since my search.

When I was planning a baby shower I had a board dedicated to just Baby Shower ideas and I searched through tons of key words for inspiration.  Same for when I was trying to find ideas for how I would wear my hair for the wedding.  I'm pretty sure I pinned close to 10 different photos to my board and I showed them to my hair stylist when I went in for my trial.  Much easier than flipping through several wedding magazines and tearing out pictures or printing pictures off a web page.  It's great when you find a pin that you like and you go to the board where that pin lives and you find other photos that were inspiration to that pinner.

The second way to pin to your board is with a button that is loaded to the Toolbar.  It's so simple to use!  For example, I'm on a blog and the blogger has posed a new recipe that I want to try later.  I go to the "Pin It" button now on my toolbar and it pulls up all of the photos on that current page that I can pin to my board.  I select the picture that I want to pin (make sure it's representative of what the content is) then I add a caption and select which of my boards I want that pin to land on.  Easy as that.

Feel free to search for me and browse around all of my pins.  There is so much out there to see and do! A few of my favorite pins from the past few days:

What a fun trick for holiday decor from Dandelions and Dust Bunnies

A project I can't wait to try!  Using Mod Podge to create a giant "canvas" for the wall from Life as a Thrifter

A tutorial for no-sew bunting that I used recently from Corner Blog.  More on the project to come later.

 If you haven't given Pinterest a shot, don't be afraid.  All you have to lose is a few hours of free time!  Stephen said something that was pretty true yesterday during one of the MANY commercials during the Olympics last night.  He said, "Should I assume that if you have your ipad in your hand I should assume everything you say relates to Pinterest?"  Yes, he's right.

Pinterest does have an App for the iphone and ipad, but I'd rather use the website on my ipad instead of the app. The app never seems to work right for me.  I'm sure they're working on it.

Baked Shrimp Scampi

When we're on our honeymoon we need to make sure our dogs are well taken care of.  We could board them at the vet's office like we did when we went to Boston for my cousin's wedding but Goose is so much bigger than he was in May (which means more expensive) and it would be for 6 nights.  That seems like a long time to be stuck in a crate in a vet's office.  A co-worker of mine offered to take the two dogs to her house so they could play with her two dogs, but they didn't get along as well as we had hoped.  Two dogs (one being Mabel) thought they were the Alpha dogs and in just 30 minutes together there was a tiny scuffle and I would worry the entire week we were gone that something more serious could happen.

When I thought we didn't have another option, one of our friends, who we call Danger, offered to stay at our house for the week to watch the dogs.  Miracle!  It was perfect.  We promised him that in addition to payment with liquor we'd have food for him for the entire week.  I started working on a freezer meal menu and of course I headed to Pinterest.  I found this awesome dish that I wanted to try for me and Stephen and it sounded perfect to freeze.

Baked Shrimp Scampi from the blog What's Cookin Chicago?

Since I followed the recipe exactly this time around (shocker!) please go to the original website for the full details.  It's a pretty expensive dish if the shrimp aren't on sale, but in reality we can get 6 servings out of it, so it's not too bad.  When it was time to put the shrimp in baking dishes, I used one 8x8 dish for the portion that Stephen and I would eat that night and I used a disposable 8x8 dish that I put in the freezer for Danger.  Our dish I put right in the oven and Danger's dish I double covered in foil, wrote the instructions on the top and stuck it in the freezer.

It is such a great meal!  Because we butterfly the shrimp it was so tender.  I'll definitely keep that trick in mind for other shrimp dishes.  For our side we wanted to be a little healthy so we went with Quinoa instead of rice or pasta.  It was delicious.  It's a little salty for me, but I had a lovely glass of milk with dinner and I couldn't have been happier.  I also plan on making some manicotti tonight and doing the same thing - half for us and half into the freezer.  The last meal that I'll make ahead for Danger is a chicken dish with individual serving sizes that go right into a freezer bag.  I used to make it a lot when I was single.  That should be enough food to feed one person for five nights.  If not, we also have a frozen pizza hanging out just in case.

I've never really considered making meals ahead of time and freezing them.  I know there are a TON of people out there who make a month's worth of meals in one day, but I've never seen the need.  Some of my favorite evenings are in the kitchen with Stephen.  However, now that I've seen how easy it is just to split off a dish into two more reasonable servings it might be something I tackle moving forward.

And just because I love this picture so much, here is a picture of the dogs at the dog park this weekend. There were a ton of other dogs and humans at the park this trip so we decided to keep ours in the small dog section.  We didn't want anyone to piss off Mabel.  They loved it.  In a short 10 minutes our dogs were in the grass in the shade, spent.

Goose is finally figuring out how to stay still long enough for me to take a picture of him! Mama is so happy.  He's also been spoiled and allowed to fall asleep in the bed with me a few nights before Stephen comes to bed and then he's put in the crate.  He loves it.  But it's 100% obvious that two humans and two dogs will not be able to sleep in the bed.  It's a good thing he loves his crate.

Adventure Outdoors: The Greatest Store on Earth?

One of our friends was interested in purchasing a handgun and we tagged along for the trip to the store.   I had no idea where we were headed, but I was along for the ride.  I though we'd be headed to either a super small gun shop so the trip would be quick or we'd head out to Bass Pro and I'd have tons of stuff to keep myself entertained.  Alas, we ended up at Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, GA.

Quite the statement... Greatest on Earth?

As soon as we pulled into the old grocery store parking lot we saw the new sign that was posted.  I had to take a picture as soon as I saw that they called themselves The Greatest Store on Earth.  I had no idea what to expect upon walking through the double doors.

Immediately to the right, and past the dinosaur, was the African Safari section.

I'm not sure I've ever seen that many stuffed animals outside of a museum.  As I said, the store is an old grocery store so you have a gauge of the size of the place.  Past the animals was the huge hunting and outdoor clothing section.

Did you know Under Armour had so many outdoor items?  I was shocked to see them there.  I am only used to seeing them in athletic stores.  Way to expand UA.  90% of the clothes are geared to hunting.  Unlike Bass Pro where you have a lot of equipment for outdoor fun, this store is focused mainly on hunting.  I didn't see a single tent display in the store.  I didn't take a picture of the gun selection, I thought that could seem a little suspicious, but go back to the grocery store in your head.  The gun section wrapped around 3 of the 4 walls of the building.  I've never seen a selection that large.  I say gun, but they had rifles, shotguns, handguns of all shapes and sizes, automatics and even a section of bow rifles.  Along with all of that came every accessory you could imagine.  To be honest, now I really want a new laser sight for my revolver.

The boys were busy looking at guns and helping our friend make a decision on how he was going to spend $300 so I walked around to see the rest of the store.  It's not nearly as exciting to me as a Bass Pro, but there was definitely things I've never seen before.  Check out the size of that safe!  There were plenty of other ones even bigger!

I could have easily fit inside that safe.  From what I was seeing, prices of the weapons were pretty good, at least the guys were comfortable buying from Adventure Outdoors and these guys love to do their price research.  (I can't even buy socks without Stephen wondering if I could find them cheaper somewhere else.)

The staff was extremely helpful while we were shopping and one even tried to talk me into a second handgun.  His exact quote, "You have the pretty that homeless guys want to get close to."  I'll take that as a compliment.  I think.  I ended up buying a range bag, eyes and ears for when we go the shooting range.  Note - not all ear protection works, go for the giant ear protection or the ones that go into your ears and expand.

We looked at a few safes for me for next to the bed, but we're going to do more research on them.  A gun safe isn't something we're willing to purchase based on price alone.  Is Adventure Outdoors the greatest store on Earth?  I don't think so.  If you're super into hunting, it might come close.  The checkout process alone, even for my non-weapon items took for.ev.er.  Huge negative for me.

Wedding Planning - Post #17 - Nail Polish

In the great big picture of wedding planning, knowing what nail polish you're going to wear on the big day isn't really top priority.  I'm surprised that I even thought about it this far in advance (two weeks!).  It seems like it should be a spur of the moment decision at the nail salon the day before the wedding.

But you're reading a blog written by me = the world's best planner.  I love to plan.  I love to make lists, I love checking off items on those lists and I love knowing that when the big day comes I won't have any decisions to make because they've already been made.  So here we are at the nail color.

I was lucky enough to have a few ladies from work take me out to get a manicure and pedicure and I used the day to do a "trial run" on nail color.  (I can already see my fiancee's eyes rolling as he reads this post.)  I knew one thing for sure about what I wanted for nail color - I wanted them to be pretty neutral and natural.  I didn't want any bright colors and I didn't want to have the French Manicure that makes me feel like I'm either: #1 - a "professional" dancer or #2 - a flashback to the 80s or 90s.  Neither of those are what I'm going for on our wedding day.  If it wasn't wedding month, I would have totally jumped on the bright, summer color bandwagon.

I always use OPI nail colors because that's what I'm most comfortable with and I've been wearing them for years.  I decided on three different colors and put one on my toes and one on my fingers.

1. Passion
2. Mimosas for Mr and Mrs
3. Second Honeymoon

I skipped Passion all together and went with Mimosas on my toes and Second Honeymoon on my fingers.  Mimosas is a little more white than Honeymoon but I love the way it looks.  Ultimately I decided on Second Honeymoon for the wedding day.  It looks great on my hands and it won't distract from any pictures of the wedding rings.  My shoes are a deep blue and have a peep toe so I think Second Honeymoon will look fantastic.  

I'm glad I got my mani/pedi 2 weeks out because by the time I'm ready for another one it will be wedding time!  

The question I'm getting from everyone now is, "Are you done with all of your planning?"  The answer is yes.  I'm a planner, it came easy to me.  The next two weeks will be spent organizing all of the wedding stuff that's piled up in our dining room, making lists of To Dos for my sisters for the big day and making sure my Day Of Agenda is set.  I know that like any other day, anything can happen on your wedding day, but I'm trying to prepare for anything.  Except rain, I haven't really come up with a Plan B for pictures if there is rain...  Like Scarlett O'Hara, I'll worry about that tomorrow.