Countdown has begun

Paradise. A beach. Unlimited food and drinks. Lots and lots of pictures like this of the beautiful sunset in a tropical place.

The honeymoon countdown has begun. Haha, just kidding. Really I guess we can say it's the "wedding countdown". I added an official countdown ticker at the bottom of the blog to keep me on track. As if the date creeping up on the calendar and the fact that I have every weekend planned out almost to the hour up until the big day is not a big enough reminder!

But I am very excited for the wedding and all the friends & family that will be there and the festivies that will encompass that weekend, and of course, to get married...the overall purpose of the day! But I am VERY VERY excited to get on a plane at 7:30AM Sunday morning (yes, you read that right) and head off to Mexico with my new husband. What is getting me through the stress, the chaos, the lists that go on and on, the decisions that still have to be made, the phone calls that have to be made, the remaining details to decide on....is the fact that at noon on Sunday, April 11 I will be A) Married to Jimmy and B) sitting on a beach in Cancun with a drink in my hand with not a care in the world for 6 whole days. No wedding planning, no work, no house renovations, no Pi Phi stuff, no responsibilities...

Paradise....here I come. Only 45 more days until we get there.........

Being a dog mom

Monday night, Willy started acting funny. He was whining non-stop and just standing at the foot of the couch looking at Milly. Then he would jump up on the couch and start licking her. Licking her face, her back, and then her bottom. So that's when I got up to see what was going on. And I looked at her butt- there was puss and a cut!!! OMG! Poor girl! No wonder she was down and out....but it was amazing how upset Willy was too. But I can always seem to count on him to clue me in when Milly doesn't feel well or she has a cut (he was the one that "showed" me the big big cut Milly had on her neck when she & Daisy got in a fight. I would have never found it because it was buried in fur....but Willy was licking it so much to help her feel better. She ended up having to get 5 staples and wearing a cone....). So then I was so upset and carried my poor little baby around all night and Willy followed around in tow, making sure she was ok. What a nice dog "husband" he is.

I immediately called the vet the following morning and got an appointment for that afternoon. I just took her because I knew it wouldn't be a good vet experience, while I usually take them both because they don't like to be separated. Willy was very upset he couldn't go, but I promised him we'd be back soon! So we get there and sure enough, her anal gland had ruptured/burst, whatever you want to call it, through the skin. POOR THING!! How painful. That explains how lethargic she was and how she pretty much stopped eating. So they had to drain it, which was very painful for her...but the worst part of the appointment was getting her nails cut- she hated that! We left with a drained wound, steroid shot, some antiboitics, and specific instructions to apply a wet cloth to her wound 2 times a day to keep the skin moist. I do think she felt much better after, which is great!!!

But as I was driving home, I kept thinking about what a big responsibility having dogs is and how I really had no idea until I got them about a year and a half ago. Not only all the responsibilites required on a daily basis, but also when they get sick, etc. So crazy!! I almost feel like a new parent dog class should be offered before you buy or adopt to just get you up to speed, similar to a pre-marriage class. Because it's so overwhelming. But I guess it's kind of that way with kids too- just have to learn as you go. Anyways, I also realized on my way home what a crazy dog mom I am. Because I'm so cautious and paticular about things. But I feel like my other friends that have dogs are crazy dog moms too. So I made a list of my ways I know I'm a crazy dog mom. What are yours???

My take on it goes like this: You know you're a crazy dog mom when you the following occur:

1) "Hello chi chi, hello mamasita" and proceed to drop everything and sit on the ground immediately when you walk in the door
2) When your anerexic dog refuses to eat (really, some days I think she is), you sit on the floor in the kitchen and feed her dog food with your hands...one...little...dog...food...bite...at...a...time and don't even blink an eye that you just wasted 20 minutes of your life doing it. She needs to eat!
3) You insist on your roommate taking 15 different pictures of the same pose for your family Christmas card because you want one where all 3 of your dogs look cute. Because you are delusional in the fact that is possible
4) You post polls on your blog regarding your pet's attire for your wedding because you want to make the right decision. However, you don't blink an eye when deciding on the actual human being's attire in your wedding
5) You take your dogs to the vet every time you think they are maybe sick or don't "feel" good or have a cut...because you can't imagine if they died.
6) You send your friend an email saying "She has a little cut and is having trouble pooping."
7) You buy your dogs clothes, toys, anything to make them happy every time you go to the store, just because
8) You think the "raw hide bar" at PetCo down the street is the coolest invention ever!
9) You tell people one of the reasons you moved out of a condo and into a house is to give your dogs a nice back yard and a "better life"
10) When you take your dog to the vet and the vet tells you that in addition to giving her antibiotics, you will need to put a warm washcloth on her butt every morning and night to keep the "wound" open and skin around it soft. Then he says putting a little Epsom salt on the rag helps too, only if you have some. And you respond, "Oh yeah, I have some from last year when I had to soak Willy's cyst on his foot 2 times a day. I learned quickly I had to do that in the bathtub because he got water all over the kitchen floor because he didn't like it." Then you realize that yes, you really did sit in the bathtub, fully clothed, 2 times a day for 15 min at a time, soaking your dogs foot in a salt water and that didn't seem to phase you.......and neither does holding a warm washcloth to your dogs butt two times a day. You do what it takes to get it done! Stay up a little later, get up a little earlier, so you can make them feel better because seeing them sad and not feeling well absolutely breaks your heart!
11) One of the happiest times of your day is when you get home and they greet you with more excitement than most people show you in a week. And then they give you that look when they are snuggling with you that says "you're my favorite dog mom ever and I love you!" and you are oh so happy :)

As crazy as I may seem, gotta love these dogs and how they make the world (and me) a happier place!

If you have a dog, what do they do to make you oh-so-happy? If you want a dog, get one! Haha :)

Another dog video.....

And....I broke down and bought a new camera. I really did "need" one because I feel like I should be able to document our wedding events (i.e. showers, bachelorette party, etc). This one has video in it too (which yes, I know most cameras now do, but my ghetto one didn't). Which means.....more video fun and documentation of Jimmy and I's oh so exciting life. Which entails making up songs about our dogs. This is about how Willy eats poop. I know, it's gross. But it's hilarious. What a great voice he has :)

Kindness of Strangers

I love those events or things that happen in life that make you realize that there are good people in the world. People that will go out of their way for perfect strangers to help them out or make their day a little bit better. There are two recent events that made me very happy because they were unnecessary acts of kindness.

1) Mailing out wedding invitations comes with a mix of emotions. These range from excitement that your wedding is getting close, relief that the invitations are out the door, and anxiety...because you realize now that is done....you have 17 billion other things to do before the big day and you start to freak out. So after the invites go out, the RSVP cards start coming in, which is fun! You see who is able to make it and then you is not...but the other day, I got an unexpected letter in the mail, along with a large bundle of green envelopes. It was a letter, from a lady that received a wedding invitation that was addressed to one of my dad's cousins in California and it looks like we had the incorrect address. She wrote me a personal letter, beginning with, "Ms Bruns, first of all congratulations on your upcoming wedding!" and then going into detail how she opened up the invitation, not looking at the name on the envelope and commented on how nice the invites were and how sorry she was that she didn't look first! But that she put everything back together and took the reassembled invitation to the post office so they could send it to the correct address. I literally was reading the letter and almost dropped it in shock. What a nice and wonderful and thoughtful person. Not only did she forward the letter to the correct address, but she wrote me a letter to ensure that I knew it didn't get to the correct person initially. In my opinion she went absolutely above and beyond what the normal person would have done if they received an invitation in their mail box in error! I just thought that it was so nice---there is a thank you note in the mail on the way to California with her name on it. So nice, so sweet, and makes me love people like her!

Here is a picture of the letter she wrote me!



2) Runaway dog, saved by my main man, JC (Jimmy). One Tuesday night after our marriage class, he was headed back to his parents house after dropping me off at my parents house (where my dogs were). After I was already back at our house, getting ready to go to sleep, I get a phone call with him and he's yelling and semi out of breath.."Brittany---I just saved a dog!! Oh my gosh!". He then goes into details about how he was driving up Pflumm and there was a little dog (about 35-35 lbs) that was running across that busy road. Jimmy said he saw him, but figured he would find his way home...but then he felt bad and turned back around to try and get him. When he did, he saw him almost get hit by a car. He was really upset because he thought he was hit, but luckily he wasn't---and Jimmy went after him. He tried to coax him in the car, but was afraid at first and kept running away (hmmm...sounds like Toby). Finally Jimmy did get him in the car and called the 800 number for pet finder on his collar. They said they would contact the owner and then the owner called Jimmy. The owner said he must have gotten out of the backyard and they met for the exchange. The owner was very thankful, of course. As Jimmy's telling me this story he's just saying how happy he was to be able to save this dog's life and he can only hope that someone else would do the same for our dogs....particularly Toby, as he takes a little more effort to track down :) But I hung up the phone a few minutes later, just thinking how nice of a thing that was to do by going out of his way to pick up that dog and return him home. And I can only hope that people look at that as an example for random acts of kindness :)

Overall, I just love remembering and witnessing these random acts of kindness. It's so easy to get so wrapped up and upset about the mean things people do and say...and I can let those drag me down. But overall, when I remember these things, I realize that there are 2 different types of people out there. One type that lives for random acts of kindness and truly does love their neighbors as they love themselves. The second, just the opposite...and I know that at this point in my life, I realize how important is to surround myself with the first type of people and am thankful for those in my life right now!!!

Goal this week: Perform a random act of kindness each day :)

Stop calling me!!!

For all you past/present/future brides out there, I'm not sure how many wedding/bridal fairs you attended during your engagement (or if you even did), but I attended ONE. And it was awful and I hated it. Yes, I said it. However, I might have liked it more had I been in the VERY early planning process so I would see the wide array of vendors available...but I went later in the process. All I had left was 2 vendors I was looking for: Videographer & Hair/make up. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have now never gone to the show or especially paid for 2 tickets had I known what it was going to be like and that I ended up finding my remaining 2 vendors elsewhere. But...I had no idea what exactly a bridal fair thing entailed and this is the one time in my life I'll be planning a wedding, so I kind of felt like I had to go and experience it. Then develop my opinions.

If you have never been (dragged) to one, let me fill you in on what it is exactly. A HUGE room. With LOTS of vendor table everywhere. You walk around aisle by aisle passing by caterers with food samples, photographers with pictures they took, videographers with videos, DJs, florists, travel agents, real estate agents......and the list goes on and on and on. Everyone wanting your business and handing you 50,000 sheets of paper that you are just going to throw away. Now, all those people I didn't really mind that much. It was fun to look at pictures and videos, sample food, look through pamphlets with pictures from vacation spots around the world.....but then we came to one booth. Which I now call, "the booth of doom". The Direct Buy booth. What is direct buy? Some membership thing you sign up for get discounts off of home stuff and the stuff is at a lower than retail price. As Jimmy and I are always looking for fun ways to spruce up our house and they "sold" me to sign their sheet because "you can win $50,000!" never sounded to me like it wasn't going to happen for real. I signed my name, gave them my phone number, and continued browsing.

Next, we come up to what I call "the booth of doom 2". Celebrity China booth. "Sign up and you could be chosen to win free toasting glasses!" was how they got me. I mean, sure, why not? I hadn't even thought about the fact that we would need toasting glasses (duh!) so now I can potentially get them for free...sure here's my name and phone number.

The next week, booth of doom 2 called me and told me that we **WON** the drawing and asked me what time would work for Jimmy & I to come in and sit through a 45 minute demonstration on waterless, greaseless cookware. I confirmed a time and thought that was it. Then I tell my mom, she informs me that they are trying to make us spend thousands of dollars on cookware and/or china. I don't believe her. We go, they demonstrate and show off their stuff, I fall in love and end up spending thousands of dollars, but we did get 2 free toasting glasses, as promised. Haha, just kidding. I didn't really buy the cookware! What a rip off!! I did fall in love with the cookware and then went and found it online and bought it for thousands of dollars less. However, apparently they do not frequently update their **WINNING** data base because later that week they called me 5 more times, telling me that we won. I kind of yelled saying that we already came in.

Now booth of doom 1 didn't call for a while after- but when they eventually got to our names on the list, they started calling and wouldn't stop. I didn't answer, but they never stopped. I finally answered and they gave their talk about how we just need to come in and check out their showroom and we can win fabulous prizes, including that $50,000 they promised me like months ago that I never got. So I said, fine send me some stuff. They sent it, we set up a time to go, I did research on how much a membership costs, I decided I didn't want to go, Jimmy got sick, we didn't go and I called to cancel. CANCEL. Like meaning, I don't want you to call me ANYMORE. They continue to call me, at least 7 times a day. From 2 different numbers, one is 913 area code and the other is 816. It is now probably the most annoying thing in my life and I'm not sure what person decided that a great way to get a customer is to piss them off..but it's not working for me. So STOP CALLING ME, DIRECTBUY. I don't want a membership, I don't want this free stuff that you promise and I'll never see.

Which brings me now to my greatest find ever. Pure genius!! I would say, these situations in which these people will not stop calling me, have caused me to be a "pissed off bride". So one day, while checking out Weddingbee, I found this website: Pissed off bride. Funniest things I've ever read. Please, now go to that site and read and laugh and read and laugh and read and realize how ridiculous and crazy this whole wedding process and industry really is and what it does to people, families, and innocent bystanders. But seriously, whoever invented this site---brilliant!! This post that I just wrote is due to the hilarious posts on this site that rant about annoying wedding vendors and how they contact you 24/7. True story.

Combining lives

Today is Ash Wednesday, and the start of Lent. Which is beginning of the 40 day period leading up to Easter that represents, according to the Bible, the time that Jesus spent in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry (if you didn't know what it represented exactly before, don't worry...I didn't either until I did some research to find the exact meaning of Lent). It used to be widely recognized by all Christians until the Protestant Reformation (15 and 1600s), but many Protestant churches still recognize it, such as Lutherans and Methodists. SO anyway, you didn't read this post I'm sure to get a historical background on Lent....but I felt as if that background was necessary for the remainder. Now to the point....

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Jimmy is Catholic. Grew up in a wonderful Catholic home all his life with devout parents and family, attended Catholic grade school and high school and regularly attended mass and participated in parish activities.

Brittany (me) is Methodist. Grew up in a wonderful Methodist home all her life with devout parents and family. Her grandfather is a Methodist minister. Her family regularly attended church and participated in church activities.
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So do you see the similarities? Both of us are very strong in our own denominations along with our families and feel that faith and church and God are very important in our personal lives and our soon to be life together as a married couple. We dated for about 4 years before getting engaged and while the question of "what church will WE attend" was always in the back of our minds, we never really brought it up and forced ourselves to discuss the topic until we were thinking about getting engaged...because who really wants to talk about something so personal unless you know you NEED to talk about it? We did always go to our respective churches together when we were back in Kansas City when we were in college, but when we were both finally living in Kansas City was when the conversations began. And the thing about the conversations that was always there, a true respect for each other's faith's and personal beliefs. That was the best thing about them. Neither of us expected the other to convert, only go to the others church, or only follow the others traditions. At the beginning of 2009, we signed up for a 10 week Alpha course at my church, but it is nondenominational and focuses on the basics of Christian faith. While that might not sound like a huge deal, it was a BIG commitment because it was 2.5 hours every week for 10 weeks + a weekend retreat, and we did stick to it. We heard a lot of things we already knew from our respective Christian upbringing, but we also learned a lot, especially in terms of how we want to be a Christian couple together. All in all, it was worth the time and something that I think we both needed before we took the plunge into getting married.

Now you're saying "that's great, Brittany, but you still haven't gotten to the point of what church you will attend as a married couple". Yeah, yeah, I know. But the answer to that question is....both. We are not going to make ourselves decide. Some weeks we go to my church together, while other weeks we go to mass at Jimmy's church. We enjoy both of them and appreciate their differences. We realize that our respective faiths are important to both of us, so that is our solution for now. With kids, I realize, this is another story. We have had numerous discussions about this (sorry, a little too personal to share on the blog world), but we do know for sure that we will attend church all together as a family each week...so that's a good start. We are just finishing up our Catholic marriage prep courses that we have to take prior to getting married in a Catholic church and they have been wonderful and sparked great conversations about all kinds of fun things you get to discuss as you merge your lives. We know that it's important to continue to respect each other's faith practices and beliefs........which brings me to the overall point of this blog post.........yes it took me that long to get to the overall point........sorry I tend to include LOTS of details.

Point (yeah! you made it this far): I will be partaking in the Catholic practices this Lenten period and give up something that I love for 40 days and not eat meat from mammals and fowls on Fridays. I will not be partaking in the practice of fasting on Ash Wednesday though, I can only go so far and I'm really grouchy when I don't eat :) The reason I will be partaking in them is because it's something that is important to Jimmy and he'll be partaking in it as well, so it will be something that we can do together and hold each other accountable. (hence the blog post title: Combining Lives aka doing things together that are important to one another aka realizing what is important to the other person and doing it with them aka getting married and being in love)

I will be giving up: CANDY/SWEETS- for 40 days. I will not cheat on Sundays either. However, I will cheat during wedding related activities (showers, etc.). Because I do know for a fact that there are going to be some delicious sweet treats at the Carter shower in a few weeks that I won't be able to resist...but if you know me and my habits, I eat candy all the time. So this is going to be hard. But good. I know that this topic has been a tough one for us and I know for many others that are dating/married/getting married....but it's so so important!! One of my favorite times in marriage class is when we meet up to share our answers and they are the same because we've already talked about that! Now when we have one totally different (such as, I believe Jimmy needs to take out the trash....and he said we should share that........), that's another story!! So good luck with those personal and important conversations with your significant other, but worth it in the end. And overall what we have learned: respect and love for each other can take you through just about anything.

Valentines Day surprise!

So on Friday, we got new granite countertops and a new sink. And I rushed home after work and loved them!!! Love them still. However, the one thing I still absolutely HATED about our kitchen was the linoleum floor that is white, dirty, and very outdated. I try to clean it, but it's never clean. The dogs track mud in all over it and it's just gross. The new countertops were supposed to be the last house project on the "to do" list (which really just required $$ because it was not DIY) before the wedding. But, yes, it happened...I just couldn't handle how awful our pretty new granite looked with the old countertops. And since the granite was less than we had budgeted for, we had the extra $$ to buy supplies to tile the floor....and a free weekend......so guess what we did all weekend? :) We ripped up the old linoleum floors on Saturday to find a beautiful, almost camouflage, tile underneath. The good thing was though that after hammering the million staple down that were popping up, the base was actually in good condition and they had already leveled it out! So then on Sunday, we got to start laying the backer board down to serve as the base for the tile. FUN FUN. Here is a documentation of the weekend.......yes our wonderful valentine day/romantic weekend was spent with Roger, demolishing our kitchen floor and piecing it back together! Who said home ownership isn't fun??




Evan and Jimmy installing our awesome new facuet. This was technically before the floor demo project commenced. I had just asked my dad to come over and pull up the tile behind the fridge to see what the floor looked like underneath and what condition it was in...



...this was his initial ripping up. Jimmy claims I knew it would turn into a full demo. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't :)



Dad and Willy @ work!



The linoleum that is no more :)



Hello camo floors! Who would EVER want that in their kitchen??!!!?



Dad working hard---he is a machine!



Jimmy with his new favorite tool. He did scrape the crap out of his hand. What a tough guy!



And the end of Saturday night. We had to break so the guys could watch the KU game.



Sunday begins with installing the backer board. That stuff isn't cheap either!!



Went in all the crevices first..



Almost all covered!



Jimmy with his drill...



And I helped too!! Not going to lie, I have blisters and cuts all over my hands...



And the floor covered with the backer board, ready for the tile job on Saturday & Sunday!

My dad came over on his day off yesterday (President's day) and laid out all the tile and cut some of the tricky ones---and it looks great!! I can't wait for teh weekend so we can get the tile works started. So lucky to have him and Jimmy around who are smart enough to get all this done so fast! I am helping this time though, which I'm sure they appreciate! And I promise....LAST HOUSE PROJECT before the wedding and big one of 2010 (that includes major demo). Jimmy said I need to sign a contract stating this though because he doesn't believe me :) All I can say, I'm going to be one happy wife whipping up some cooking in this new kitchen!!!!!