My Favorite and My Best

This took me too long to get back to, but let's meet another bridesmaid! Esther is getting married this upcoming August in Salem, Massachusetts (how cool is that?), which will make me the last of the LeakyCon crew to tie the knot. Which is a touch funny because I'm pretty sure I'm the oldest. But once our youngest went down the aisle first, all bets were off (love you, Jena!)  If I had to say what Esther's wheelhouse is in our group, I would quickly point out that she is the fandom lady. No one I know is as enthusiastic about fan theories and cosplay as Esther is. Dressed as another ginger who totally slays. Meanwhile I can barely sew a straight line without help! I also expect her to be the one who will go the hardest on the dance floor. At LeakyCon one year, she went right up and danced with a well-known Snape cosplayer. No fear. One thing I really appreciate about Esther is that she doesn't see the point in doing things halfway. Why just them

Okay, I just need to make a fairly innocuous post and clear my head so I can get back on this. Like I said in the previous post, there's a lot I haven't been able to make decisions about, due to lack of a locked down date. But I did decide one thing. I have shoes now. Specifically, I found another cost-cutting measure by searching shoes on the secondhand clothing shop thredUP . I started looking a while back and set up a search to email me whenever stuff matched the criteria I was going for. For a while, I absolutely thought these were going to be my shoes: JustFab Gabby in Turquois They were priced at just $12 and beautiful. I was nervous to move ahead with the purchase, so I stalled. And inevitably someone else bought them. All the other pairs I could find on eBay and the like were size tens. I wear a six. It wasn't going to happen. I couldn't fathom why all of them were tens. I even posted on the Weddingbee Boards  to find another pair. No dice. So I resi

For a while, our planning was pretty much at a standstill until we knew the when and the where. Because of this, I only had small things to talk about during most of that time, so I just didn't because I felt down about it. It's been hard to make progress and then almost none at all for a while. That being said, I did want to get back to this eventually, and as of this last (Easter) weekend, I finally felt like I could convince my brain to do it. One of the problems that causes me the most hardship is akin to executive dysfunction . What this means in my case is that I can be fully aware of exactly what I need to do to accomplish something, including being able to break it down into steps, but some feeling inside prevents me from getting started. Flashback to multiple weekends where I couldn't talk myself out of bed until sometimes up to an hour or two after I woke up hungry. I don't know. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. A common

I know, I know. I've been slacking on blog posts when I said I was going to do them. Sometimes you just don't feel like it and I'm not sure there's much I can do about that. Anyway, let's meet Canada! Just like California, Canada was one of Ms. Washington's roommates at Infinitus. As her name says, yes, she lives in Canada. I've never gotten off my duff to go visit her there, but I really should. I do have a passport. But that's probably why I have fewer pictures with her than with California. Also because I'm bad at remembering to take pictures. 4/5 waiting to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Yeah, I used to have a lot of hair. In the past few years especially, Canada has become a bit of a style badass. I really admire the way she tries new styles and experiments with color. I'm definitely not as much of a risk-taker. If I had to categorize her, Canada is like your cool cousin who you only see once in a while but wh

So, the trip to the dress shop this last weekend turned out to be a fruitful one. Ahead are going to be some pictures of me in wedding dresses, including the one I put money on, so if you want to keep that a surprise to yourself, abandon ship now.

Last weekend, Wolfman and I went to our first real planning event, the Illinois Bridal and Wedding Expo at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. We got there a little before 11 and Wolfman ended up running back out to the parking garage to ditch our coats so we wouldn't have to carry them around. It was a typical cold Illinois day in the single digits Fahrenheit. Going to an expo was a pretty overwhelming experience. I wished I was wearing a shirt that said, "We're getting married April 2019," so people would stop asking me. They kept trying to get us to sign up for something or commit to something up front. I'm not good at not making eye contact with people in these sorts of situations, but there was definitely stuff we didn't need, like real estate information. We're just not there at the moment. Wolfman is much better than me at escaping and moving forward. I'm not a good blogger, so I didn't really take pictures. At

Multiple of my out-of-town bridesmaids have the same first initial, so their monikers will come from where they live. Let's talk California. This is the beautiful California. This is a photo from her own courthouse wedding at San Francisco City hall. You know, the city hall route doesn't work for everyone, but I have to say that this is a really lovely building. Source: IQ Photo I mean, that is gorgeous. Probably prettier than a lot of "traditional" venues. Anyway, let's talk about California. I met her where I met all of my out-of-town girls, at Infinitus 2010 in Orlando. Actually, at the time I only knew BMaid Washington (who I'll get to as well), and the other three were her roommates at the hotel. But by the next year's conference I had made them mine too. I didn't mind sleeping on the floor in a room that held so many cool people. I'd seen her more since then, but the time I really got to know California well was when I visit