lush

10 years ago (wow. I'm old!) when i came to europe to backpack for the summer, i fell in love with this little cosmetic/bath stuff chain called Lush.  at that time, we didn't have Lush in america (i think back then, the closest one was in canada), but it seemed like i could find one in almost every city we visited in europe. the place was incredible - i could have spent a fortune there, but luckily for my bank account, my backpack didn't really provide the most hospitable environment for bath bombs and pots of blueberry face masks, and shipping boxes of it home would have been insane.

on a nearly daily basis, something reminds me that there isn't a sephora in this entire country - i've bitched about this before, and i'm still not over it, but i was shopping in cambridge on saturday and came across my old buddy Lush, and it's helped a little with the pain.

the thing i like about lush is that everything on the label of ingredients on their products is something i can easily pronounce. hell, most of it is stuff that you can find in most well stocked kitchens.  i'm not a vegetarian or a vegan and i'm not going to get all over someone's ass for using aerosol hairspray, but if i can get something that i LIKE that does what it claims to that doesn't involve applying/ingesting something completely chemical, then i'll do it. so i ran into Lush, and it was as wonderful as i remembered it being. there was so much stuff in there, i could hardly wrap my head around it, so i just gravitated toward the things i instantly recognized.  i got a couple of bath bombs, some lip balm, and a blueberry based face mask (which i used today and it was INCREDIBLE) - and then i stumbled upon the table with the salt body scrubs.

a sales guy walks up, and is doing what sales people do: trying his hardest to convince me i NEED this salt scrub - he tells me how he loves it, how it's their "best selling product," how he uses it almost every day - and he does that thing that i usually try to politely decline, where they grab your hand and apply the product to it and awkwardly rub it in and wipe it off (that kind of stuff is precisely why i ended up working in the stock room at victoria's secret and not on the floor - because i refused to be the creep who was rubbing skanky lovespell lotion all over strangers arms while trying to convince them that it was the perfect scent for them, even though i thought it smelled like a drunk prostitute....), but the scrub felt so good that i really didn't mind - and then he says something that MADE me buy it - he says "you can even use it in your hair! see? i use it in my hair! it makes it soft and shiny" - and it was true. his hair did look very soft, and it was very shiny.

why did THIS make me feel like i HAD to buy it? because i didn't believe it. i thought "that's the most absurd thing anyone has ever even suggested to me - to put a freaking SALT SCRUB in my HAIR" - but i DID check the label and they do actually suggest it for hair,  and  i'd already decided that i DID need a body scrub (i'd been thinking it for days, actually), and i liked this one enough to buy it, and since i was buying it, of course i'd totally put it in my hair so i could witness it NOT working, and then have my own private "i told you so, sales guy!" party in my bathroom.

so i got my little jar of Rub Rub Rub:

so i'm in the bath today and i'm having this really hard time even getting my hands, with their little puddles of the scrub, up to my head - it felt wrong and unnatural - i kept thinking that the harshness of the salt would break my hair, and giant chunks of it would fall out of my head - but i took a deep breath and did it, and it was strange....at first it was like i'd gotten out of the ocean, tripped, and fallen backwards into the sand (i can attest to this, since it's absolutely happened to me), and honestly it was kind of gross and annoying, but then i did what the directions and the sales guy had told me to, and rubbed it into my scalp - it felt AWESOME - and there was even a little bit of a shampoo-like lather going on - you can feel some of the salt starting to dissolve, and it's really neat.  i rubbed it in for probably around 3 minutes, and then rinsed - my hair felt the way it feels when you've been swimming in the ocean - i don't really know how to explain it aside from saying it was a little stiff, and a little more tangled than usual - i DID follow up with a tiny bit of conditioner on the ends of my hair, just to help with the tangles on the ends.

anyway,  none of my hair fell out, and when i dried it, it felt AMAZING. my hair is so freaking soft, and has a more noticeable shine - it's as soft and shiny as it was after the last time i had some shine/deep conditioning treatment done to it the last time i was at the salon that cost me 3 times as much.....so if you have a lush nearby, go try this - and pretty much everything else they make, cause it's awesome, too - and if you have a sephora where you live, well, i hate your guts.

new obsession

i'm suddenly obsessed with this necklace by three sisters jewelry design....

i don't know if it's my impending overseas move or what, but the fact that you can have the latitude and longitude of your "home coordinates" stamped on one of the charms just really tugged at my freaking heart strings. the compass and the st. barbara charm (though my husband isn't an artilleryman) are nice touches as well....love it.



...wonder if i could change ol' barbara out for a st. christopher.....

control

so i've been a bitchy, sobbing, snappy mess for a good chunk of the last few months, and it's time i just get a grip and take control of the situation.

when i woke up yesterday morning, i told myself that i was, from that moment on, going to make a large effort to calm the hell down and stop being SO stressed about the wedding. I'm a little over 24 hours into it, and i'm not sure how well i'm doing, but i can say that i haven't blown up at anyone over anything today (and believe me - there were moments of biting my tongue and mentally counting to ten and all that crap), and i've only cried once (this might not seem that impressive to you, but i typically cry over something trivial at least 3 times a day. ha.) and the crying, for the record, was completely unrelated to the wedding...

i'm feeling better. more hopeful, i guess. more like everything really IS going to be fine. i never envisioned myself ever getting THIS worked up over a wedding, but i have - but it seems like with each day, a new task is completed, and with it, a little stress is relieved. there are still tiny, trivial things that are finding ways to grate on my nerves, but i keep reminding myself that they will work out as well....

part of what's helping is that we've done some exciting things the last few days - for one, we ordered our wedding bands! nothing says pressure like picking out the accessory that you have to love enough to wear every day for the rest of your life with EVERYTHING, but we both made our decisions pretty quickly - the one i chose is the one that was designed to go with my engagement ring (the only decision i really had to make was to have diamonds halfway around or all the way around - i went with halfway....), and gene has pretty much had his ring picked out for months....and while spending that much money in that short of a time is enough to make your head spin, i suppose it's worth it....

we picked out the suits for the groosmen/ushers last week as well - this is something that's been a big stress to me, because i felt like the wedding was coming so quickly, and we still didn't have a suit picked out, so it was a pretty big relief to get it off my shoulders and off my mind - it literally took 10 minutes to pick them out, so i guess maybe i shouldn't have been such a spaz about it, but who knew it would be THAT easy? i mean, it took months of looking for bridesmaids dresses before i found one that didn't make me want to puke, and even longer to find one that i thought would work for the wedding....apparently suits are pretty generic....

we finished up our registries. finally. a month or so ago, we registered at all the typical places - bed, bath and beyond, dillards, williams sonoma....but there are a few stores in my hometown that have bridal registry, and i hadn't quite made it around to all of them to set registries up, but we got it done. gene seemed totally uninterested in the registry process (except when we were at williams sonoma....the $600 espresso machine on the registry? thats ALL gene.....), but i suppose that's the norm for guys. He seemed more concerned about where we are going to PUT all the stuff we get.....i mean, let's be honest - we live in 1,100 square feet with minimal storage space....not much room for extra stuff.....but i have to keep reminding him that someday we WILL have more room, and that the stuff we register for isn't necessarily for right this second - it's stuff you'll use for years - some of it forever....and until then we will just, uh....store it....at my mom's house. HA!

engagement pictures were supposed to happen last week - some unfortunate, unavoidable crap happened, and we had to reschedule for this thursday - in the grand scheme of things its not a HUGE deal, but still kind of an irritating set back....i did get some beyond awesome shoes for them though, so i'm pretty excited about that....

speaking of shoes....this is something that's been on my mind for like, a year - even before i bought my dress, i was worried about finding the perfect shoe - i've gone from one end of the spectrum to another, and i have been to dozens of stores and looked at thousands of shoes....after a lot of disappointment of not finding something that was "just right," i finally found my wedding shoes - check out these beauties:

THIS is my wedding shoe! it took a freaking miracle to find them in THAT color in MY size, but it all worked out and they came in and are fabulous - the only concern i had was that they might make me taller than my dad (they are 4 inches tall!), making our walk down the aisle kind of awkward, but luckily they don't - i'm more excited about my shoes than just about anything....

i've also decided that midway through the reception, i'll probably change into a different (short, but still white (or maybe a very muted pink...) and sorta bridal) dress - mostly because i figure that after being in the dress for half the day, i'll be exhausted and hot....i realize that a lot of people will find this to be crazy because, after all, you only get to wear a wedding gown once in your life, but i have pretty fond memories of feeling that way about my prom dresses and then literally counting down the seconds until i could change into something else - let's be honest - wedding gowns are beautiful, wonderful things, but they are not designed for comfort.....i'd kinda like to close out my reception at least sort of comfortable, and definitely able to go pee without having someone help me in and out of the stall, or having someone hold my skirt up over my head.....of course, this presents the stress of finding another dress, but whatever....i think i can handle it....maybe. possibly.

so for the first time in a while, there's some positivity from me. i'm gonna try my hardest to keep bridezilla down as much and for as long as i can.... emphasis on the word "try".....just kinda got to keep reminding myself that this is supposed to be fun, and to keep my eye on the important things....as hard as it might be and as cloudy as it all gets sometimes.....

they should seriously make pills for this.

crappiest blog entry....ever.

so, a month has practically gone by (actually, almost exactly a month!), and i haven't posted anything on here. i guess i've been busy.....here's the cliffs notes version of what the hell has been going on.

Gene got home very late on the night of the 15th of January (i guess technically it was the morning of the 16th....), and things have just sort of been busy since then. I took an entire week off of work so that we could spend some time together and get re-adjusted or whatever, but to be honest, we were fine as soon as we saw each other at the airport. I didn't feel any of the awkwardness or uncertainty that I'd sort of previously feared, and I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual. we were both just kind of instantly back where we left off, and everything just went pretty easily and naturally.

the first week he was home basically consisted of him being in a weird sleeping pattern and us eating at restaurants that he'd missed since he'd been gone. we went shopping quite a bit, spent some time with keira, went to see my parents......it was a busy week, basically.....

last weekend we went to dallas (technically frisco) to Ikea and bought some furniture, which was an absolutely mind-boggling experience - i'm obsessed with ikea, and while i realize that their stuff is mostly not going to last me for the next decade, i'm okay with it because its so affordable that i can buy it and when it gets scratched or breaks in half in 5 years, i won't cry about it. not to mention that if our tastes change in the next 2-3 years, we won't have any of that "WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING" buyers remorse over our stuff, cause we can just toss it or move it to a spare room/sell it/toss it in a dumpster/leave it in somebody's yard as a weird prank and not feel any pain over it - anyway, we ended up with some awesome stuff, but let me tell you this: if you haven't been to an ikea store, and you ever plan on going to one, you need to make sure you have an entire day to devote to it - i'm serious - i thought "how long could this possibly take? 1 hour? 2 hours?" try 4 HOURS. four fucking hours to pick out 5 things. it was insane. i like to compare it to disneyworld, actually - for grown ups - its like, there's all this hype, and as you walk into this gigantic building, you feel your heart race....like a dream coming true....in fact, as we were eating breakfast (yeah, ikea has its own little restaurant), i got so excited i was bouncing in my chair, and staring at gene as if to say "PLEASE HURRY UP AND EAT THAT BACON!" - and then you're off - and it starts off all fast and furious, and everything is awesome and amazing, and you want to stop and look at and touch EVERYTHING, but then, an hour or so in, your knees start throbbing, your head starts spinning, and you're trying not to let the person you're with see you checking out the routes to the nearest exits.....

not to mention the drive to and from frisco isn't that fantastic (gene and i are both admittedly not into "long car trips")......

let see, what else has happened in the last month....

i finally (after a MONTH) got my engagement ring back - it had to be sent off to be resized, and i almost had my very first (okay, second) bridezilla moment over it....

we went to the races at oaklawn with my family last weekend....it was.....we'll say interesting.....

i've gotten FOUR snow days off of work, which is absolutely unbelievable and insane to me.

....i think those are all the highlights......

so now that gene is back and we're all settled into a normal routine again, i have to get back into wedding planning mode - i was SO far ahead at one point, but now i'm behind. I have to order more save the dates and get the ones i already have out by the end of this month - i gotta get bridesmaids dresses ordered, make gene pick out a suit for the guys, start looking for shoes, meet with the museum people again, start making decisions about the reception menu.....and thats just the top of the list - i don't know what i'd do without my mom - she's taken on so much of this responsibility, and i know that she's already got so much on her plate right now - hopefully neither one of us will implode between now and june 26th!

so that's the last month in a giant, confusing, mixed up shell. hopefully my next entry won't be so all over the place.

NSFG part 2! (GENE, SERIOUSLY, DONT READ THIS)

so today i went to a bridal boutique here in little rock called Proposals to look at wedding dresses. i didn't go to buy a dress - in fact, i was only going there to convince myself that the dress i'd found a few weeks ago at low's really was "the one," and so that i would avoid "buyers remorse," because i could always say "i looked more than one place, and i'm sure this is it"

to be honest, when i walked into Proposals this morning, my heart wasn't in it. I was just kind of going through the motions and just getting it all out of my system, so to speak, and i thought this would be a quick, easy, painless thing that would just make me rest a little easier - and things started out innocently enough. i tried on a few dresses that were so-so, and some that made me laugh hysterically, and some that were just so ridiculous that i couldn't even come out of the dressing room. i even found a couple that i sort of liked that with a few small tweaks could have worked out just fine, and then the most unexpected thing happened.

i found THE DRESS......and its NOTHING like the one i thought i wanted.

i'm not sure who picked it out. not sure who found it in the racks of gowns hanging there, and honestly, had i seen it on the hanger in the rows of dresses, i probably would have pointed and laughed at it and just completely dismissed it, but someone pulled it out, and i had promised myself i would try on anything and everything, and i'm glad i honored that promise to myself.

i tried it on, stepped out of the dressing room, and for the first time in this entire bridal/wedding dress shopping experience, my mom cried. i've seen moms cry on t.v. when their daughters try on wedding dresses, but i really didn't expect my mom to do it. we aren't the kind of woman who cry over organza and tulle, but there she was, crying in the middle of a bridal boutique. i didn't get what the big deal was, and then i got on the pedestal and looked at myself, and then *i* started crying. i had a moment. i actually smiled and danced (i totally did the robot in my bridal gown) and laughed and just knew that THIS was it.

i've listened to brides and bridal consultants spew the line of "when its YOUR dress, you just KNOW" and honestly, i've felt like that was a bunch of crap. I've never tried on a shirt or a pair of pants or some underwear and gone "hey, you know what, THIS IS IT," and those are things i'll get to wear a bunch! up until today, a bridal gown was, to me, nothing more than a really expensive piece of clothing (that i'm only gonna wear once), and while i thought that i'd probably have a feeling of "okay, this will do just fine" i didn't expect to feel like "this IS MINE - this is IT - this is RIGHT" - (in fact, the only time in my life i've ever felt that way about anything is when i met gene) but i felt it, and while its nothing like i'd pictured in my head, and pretty different from what i had in my head when i woke up this morning, i know that it's my dress, and i'm super excited.

this isn't the best picture, because honestly, a camera can't do it justice - plus, its just not as pretty on a hanger as it is on a body, but i think its still beautiful, and i'm so excited. i think it's perfect for what we are doing - an outdoor, summer wedding in a courtyard - and it's light and airy and romantic.....i'm gonna make a small change (we are going to give it a sweetheart neckline) but other than that, it's staying the same.

ugh. i'm totally bummed at the low quality of the pictures here, but i guess they'll do - i wish the ruffle was easier to see....here's one thats more from the side:

so now i have MY dress - next up...the bridesmaids!!!!

at least now my stress level has dropped about 20 percent! ha!

the dress - this post is NSFG (not safe for gene. ha.)

I have an appointment at Low's in brinkley on the 21st of this month to look for dresses - I actually made the appointment over a month ago, and to be honest, I've been on the verge of hyperventilation about it ever since. Dress shopping makes me nervous and anxious like nothing else I can think of - even more than the guest list! It's not something I've been looking forward to at all, which makes me like, the strangest bride to be on earth.

Since i got engaged, whenever i run into someone that i havent seen in a while, the first thing they ask is "what does your dress look like?" - when i tell them "oh, i don't know - thats really the last thing on my mind, and I haven't started looking yet," i get this look of horrified puzzlement and i can almost see the wheels turning in their head as they calculate how many months it is until my wedding day. trust me, y'all, i'm well aware that the clock is ticking. loudly. right in my freaking ear.

if i'm being honest, i've always had these elaborate dreams of wearing a vera wang on my wedding day. most specifically, THIS vera wang:

ahhh. the vera wang diana.....this picture has been on my fridge since days after i got engaged - i see it in magazines and scream.....there is a girl on a bridal message board who bought this, and i don't even know her and i hate her guts.....unfortunately for me, this dress is way over any amount that i feel comfortable spending on a wedding dress - and believe me, i've seriously considered it - i've even figured out ways i could actually afford it, but i've grown to be much more reasonable than to drop that much money on something i'd wear one time. I know myself well enough to know that if i did find it, try it on, love it and buy it, that even though i'd be happy, 3 months after the fact i'd think "wow, i could have done so much stuff with the money i spent on that dress that is now preserved in a box in the top of a closet at my mom's house" - I realize that wedding dresses are expensive, but some of her designs go above and beyond the span of a reasonable dress budget, and when you factor in a veil and alterations and shoes....its enough to make your head spin....so i gave up my vera wang fantasy, and i've focused on finding something i can not only afford, but also not feel guilty about.

so a couple of weeks ago, i had to go to helena for just a few hours one day - on the way there i got this overwhelming urge to try on wedding dresses - like something was pushing me towards a bridal salon - Low's is just an hour away from where my parents live, right between helena and little rock, so i called my mom to see if she could take of a few hours of the afternoon and go look with me - she said she could, so i called Low's and they fit me in.

i say they "fit me in" but really, i was the only freaking person in the place...not that it's relevant.....

i didn't go in with the intention of finding "the dress" or even to buy anything that day - i fully intended (and still do) to keep my appointment on the 21st. This visit was simply to help me break through the anxiety, and to maybe get an idea of what direction i'd like to go in.

we walked in and i had to fill out some silly little form, and then the consultant came out to greet us. i say "greet," but really it was more of a "hi, my name is _______.....whats your budget? okay, lets go" followed by an ushering up the stairs. i wasn't really given a chance to explain what i liked or what i thought i might be looking for, but i didn't really have much time to object or interject, so i just went with it - (overall the experience was lackluster and not what i expected at all, but thats a whole other post - at the time i thought "well, this isn't my real appointment anyway, but later i realized that THEY didn't know that....but i digress) the minute we hit the top of the stairs, i saw this horrid $5,200 creation that was extremely low cut in the front and looked like someone slaughtered a stark white parrot and then glued its feathers all over their wedding gown along with a million little crystals, except on the giant slit in the front (who has a slit in their wedding gown??? and i made some sarcastic remark about it looking like something a lounge singer who works part time as a stripper would wear, which the consultant didn't hear, or at least pretended not to), and then right next to it was this little number:

i took the next picture in the dressing room when the consultant was off doing something else - you aren't supposed to take pictures, but i saw the opportunity and i took it - i think i was actually wearing some god awful mermaid-esque glitter bomb explosion when i took this photo....or maybe i was in the one that i said looked like wilma flinstone...i can't remember, but it's not important anyway....

i jokingly said to my mom "HEY. THATS MY DRESS!" and so the consultant took it off its little display thing and put it in a dressing room for me to try on. of course, its a tiny sample size, and i'm totally NOT a tiny sample size, but it fit well enough for me to see that its incredible and i love it. not to mention, it's price tag is way below what i'd initially expected to spend on a dress, so thats a bonus. it's everything i'd said i wanted - simple, comfortable, classic, and not stark white. AND IT HAS POCKETS.

however, as i stood there, i thought "seriously, this is the first dress you've tried on. this can't be "IT" - so i tried on a few more, and i tried on a wide variety - lots of sparkle, giant princess skirts, ones with sleeves.... but stayed completely fixated on this dress, and i've remained completely fixated on it for the last, what, two weeks.....I'll look through magazines to see if i can find anything better, and when i think i have, i just grab my phone and look at this picture, and i'm back on this dresses team.

I've had at least one conversation a day with my mom about this dress since i tried it on (i'm certain i'm about to drive her crazy about it), and her advice to me is some that i'm definitely taking - I'm going to visit a couple of places around here in little rock and try on other dresses before my appointment at Low's on the 21st. that way there will be no shoppers remorse, and i won't spend time wondering if i would have found something better if i'd just kept looking. maybe i will find something better, but for now, this is IT for me, and it's a weird comfort to know that its there waiting when i'm ready to make the decision, and knowing that it exists is going to make any other dress shopping a lot less stressful.....and i can't help thinking how funny it will be if the dress i choose is the very first one i tried on...

bridesmaid dress rant.

can i just say something and be completely honest?

bridesmaids dresses are horrible. absolutely, totally, completely horrible. 

i haven't seen a single thing in any of these magazines yet that i looked at and thought "yes. THATS something my friends will look good in AND like wearing"  - i mean, seriously, either everything is too matronly, too tacky, too wrong or just looks like there was some extra god-awful fabric lying around, so someone said "damn, i guess we can make a bridesmaids dress?"

i'm not one of those brides who wants my bridesmaids to look bad in order to make me look better.  I want them to look and feel pretty on my wedding day, and even though it sounds horribly cliche, i would love to find a dress that they would be able to wear somewhere again - 

i've seen a lot of the generic strapless, A-line, satin dresses, and i just think they are plain and too boring.   I'm getting married outside in the summer, so obviously i don't want my girls in anything long (i really don't want anyone sweating to death!) so i'm probably going to go with something tea length - the color i'm looking for is a platinum gray (why are ALL the bridesmaids dresses i see in really loud obnoxious colors?!?!?!)  and when i HAVE seen one and thought "okay, that could be cute" i soon discover that it only comes in really random, really ridiculous colors (you will never convince me that there is a large market for a color called "sherbet" but they make EVERY dress in it for some reason).  i also have bridesmaids who are all very different in every way - they each have their own style, and i don't really want to force them to dress in any certain way.....i kind of like the idea of saying "here's the designer i like, here's the color i like, go find your dress!" and letting them pick their style.... i've been in a wedding where the bride gave us that freedom and (even though i wasnt a fan of the color...) we all looked great because we got to choose the style of dress that best fit our personalities and body types.....perhaps that's the direction i'll go in, if i ever even find a designer i like! 

i sometimes wonder...wait, no, i ALWAYS wonder what people think when they stick their friends in something that is completely heinous - I've always gotten lucky in the situations when i've been a bridesmaid, and I've never been put in anything awful - but i've been to enough weddings to know that the whole ugly bridesmaids dress thing truly does happen ALL the time, and it's obvious that the "bridesmaids can't look as good as the bride" mentality is alive and well just based on the crap i've seen in this bridal magazines.  

bottom line is i want my bridesmaids to look beautiful and i want them to feel happy and confident - not like ridiculous technicolor puff balls walking down the aisle and then spending the reception secretly wishing they could change out of their dress.... i promise Kim, there wont be any green and purple combo dresses! ha! 

the search is on...if you know where they are hiding the non vomit inducing bridesmaids dresses, please let me know.....