It's been a little while.

I needed some time and space to think, and privately. Dad had a couple of stents in during his angiogram, which in itself is good, if it stops more of these hospital visits and makes him feel better. The fact that he needed them so soon after his bypass surgery is disturbing.

My Dad means the world to me and I needed to ponder life and death and how everything fits together for me at the moment. The good news is, that for me, life is fitting together ok. It could be better, but it could certainly be worse. I'm so glad I have BabyCakes in my life because I think that without him, I'd be lost.

We had a big disappointment with the sale of BabyCakes' Commodore falling through, again. Young guys these days don't seem to realise that when negotiating a cash price, they should actually have the CASH in their hands... we've had 2 guys negotiate a cash price and then have their finance fall through, one is still trying to find someone to give him the money... the other just wanted the price to be dropped to what they could get.........

Last night we went to a bridal expo, which is a very interesting experience. everything from a very hard sell to a guy who made me feel like I should put his business card back on the table... I doubt I'll buy from him even if he had anything I wanted.

BabyCakes and I would really like to get hot rods/muscle cars for our wedding cars, and anytime we've found anything close to it, they've been self drive hire cars. I don't understand it, I would have thought one would want to look after their babies... I certainly don't really want any of our families to be responsible for a car that is not their own. I just want some drivers to pick us off, drop us off, take some pics with the cars, drive us to the next spot and then I can forget about cars.... I guess I'll keep trawling hot rod websites and see who can help us out :)

I'm starting to realise that time is creeping on at this point, and the more we can get settled soon, the better off we will be. We had a celebrant turn us down due to not wanting to book a long weekend, which is fine... but our first "unavailability".

I haven't even contacted a dress maker yet, and I'm pretty sure I want a dress made for me. I think it might be time to start getting a bit serious.

We have a cake, and venues for wedding and for reception picked.... it's a good start.

What a week - already!

Dad is in hospital again. More unexplained chest pains. Hopefully today's angiogram will help work out why this has happened again. Dad's doing fine, I think we're all more freaked out than he is!

I went and saw Dad last night and had a great meandering chat with him, which was fun. We talk about everything and anything, which is a good way to get a lot of topics covered!


On a completely different note, this little flash movie was brought to my attention. Cuke Skywalker, Darth Tater, Tofu-D2 - comedy gold I tell ya!! It cracked me up, and a giggle is always a nice way to start the day!

I've already sent this one round to a few people, because there was a chance to win a Trans Am! It's cute too, and what I think things would really be like if someone less cooler than The Hoff was Michael Knight!

Happy St Patricks Day.

Last year this was one of the most stressful days of my life. Solicitors and bankers really do forget that they are talking about one's live and usually the biggest financial commitments one can make. My mortgage is one year old today!

I remember being very nervous, sitting in a flat full of boxes, hoping like mad that everything would go ok, and that I'd eventually get the phone call to say I could go pick up my keys.... MY keys... ones that no one else would have a copy of (in theory).

As soon as I did take delivery of those keys I was around here in a flash. I slept on a matress on a floor of my lounge room, with BabyCakes to share the moment. We'd had a bottle of bubbles and a fantastic floor picnic, it was very exciting. The move was left until Saturday morning, and my brother came to help. It was a relatively stress free move, except for the sofa bed - the boys tried to talk me into buying a new sofa, and leaving that heavy and over sized monster downstairs in the garage. I stayed strong, as my budget required, and they got help from my Dad and step-brother, and together, they got my sofa bed over the balcony rail (from the back of a ute) and into my lounge.

This year, "my" flat is now "our flat". BabyCakes and I are getting married and planning a life together. Congratulations BabyCakes, you are now half responsible for my mortgage!! Once we're married we can make it all legal like, since I'll be changing my name on the accounts anyway.

I've had a year of owning property solo. Today I publicly acknowledge that it is not solely mine any longer, but ours. Welcome to the I've-got-a-mortgage-which-means-I've-got-huge-scary-debt-club BabyCakes! It's fun!

Last Week I Rediscovered My Local Library

It had obviously been a while since I'd been to a council library - they turned off my card. The guy behind the counter couldn't even find my record to reactivate it, he had to put in all my details again from scratch!

I had a sudden realisation last week as I scrolled through eBay, looking at all the things I "needed" to buy. I didn't have to buy these reference books - I could borrow them! After searching the elibcat, I was even more delighted to discover that they had cake decorating books at my local library! I had just saved my self considerable money by not having to buy so much wedding porn (as BabyCakes likes to call it). It also saved us both a lot of time at the cake tasting, because we had an idea of what we wanted before we got there and just had to worry about the finer details once we had a specialist with us.

Whilst wandering the shelves I also remembered that I can borrow novels... and borrow novels I did! Consequently, I've read a lot in the last week, a couple of days I read one book a day - not working* affords one all kinds of luxuries.

The first book I read was called "Faking It" By Jennifer Cruise. Despite being told not to judge a book by its cover, we all know we do, and this one was picked because it was bright and cheery - if we are looking for books that we've not read before, what else do we go on? I read the back and it seemed interesting, so the book came home with me. It was a fun and easy read. A romance novel without the Mills and Boon sensibilities. I enjoyed the quirky and bohemian household this story was set around. I easily read it in a morning, and will probably forget about it just as easily... fluff, but fun fluff.

Next I read "Rules of Passion" by Sara Bennett. This one was picked because after finding the first novel, I realised that I didn't have to buy cheap romance novels, I could borrow them and get my escapist fix. This one had a love heart sticker on the spine - Librarians helpfully put these stickers on to identify the genre of books for lazy people YAY! (I pity the person who picks up the copy of "Beauty's Release" that I borrowed once - it might have been "Beauty's Punishment".... but that does not matter... The librarian had seen that the writer was Anne Rice (under a pseudonym), and stuck a horror sticker on the spine... I guess to some people it might be horrifying, but I think it would have been better served with a love heart sticker! - I don't know that hey have an "erotica" or "soft core porn" sticker). Anyway, this was an easily identified romance novel, set in Victorian England, lots of dukes and lords and stuff, and courtesans... now, that just screamed great romantic read to me, added with the fact that the main character decided she wanted to be a courtesan too, I figured there was a good chance this could be an interesting romance novel. It took a bit more commitment to read it in a day, but hey, I had time on my hands, so I did. I enjoyed it enough to go back to elibcat and find out whether the other two books in the series were at my library!

Then, I went with my "trolling by author" pick... an Anne Rice novel I hadn't read - "Christ the Lord". This was an interesting read. It took longer to read than the other two, over a good two or three days in a few hour or two stints. It is basically a fictionalised story of Christ's childhood - the bits the bible left out.
I found it interesting for the historical aspect of how a devout Jewish family lived, how they worked and loved. Anne Rice tends to write fiction within a shell of fact, truth, honesty, which makes it easy to believe it as a story, your brain doesn't have to suspend its disbelief so far. I liked it. I liked that it was a simple story of a boy of 7 or 8, who sees a lot of weird stuff, and hears of lot of whispering, which stops when he is near enough to hear. His isolation despite being part of a big group, a big family. It is a fictional story about a person/character that people get upset if you treat wrong. I liked it, but then again, I'm a believer who liked "The DaVinci Code" as a read, and didn't find it sacrilegious - it is a story - fiction! To be perfectly honest, I don't understand "sacrilege" other than disrespect, but disrespect is not something you are vindictive for, it is something you rise above. This book is not disrespectful.

Now, I am reading "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden. I picked this one because I read it years ago, at a friend's house when I was visiting Melbourne. I enjoyed it then, and wanted to re-read it to see if I still did. I haven't seen the "major motion picture" touted on the cover of this edition, but maybe I will after I finish the book.

I'm almost ready to take back the huge stack of books I borrowed, now that the cake selection has been done (I've added a couple of pics to the wedding cake post, if people are curious), I don't think I need to keep the cake making books, and I'm almost out of novels to read.... Luckily I have plenty of time to go back and pick out some more!


* My boss keeps calling me to tell me he doesn't have work for me at this stage. While the luxury of time off is great, it does get a bit disconcerting, to be at someones whim is a surprisingly difficult way to live. At the moment it is not too bad because he is giving me a week at a time off, which means I can make plans etc. It gets very difficult when each day to the next I think I'm working, to find out when I wake up that I'm not.

What all this extra time off is giving me is a lot of time to think - which has its pros and cons! I'm starting to think I want a second job, a casual job, which can be solely used to pay for the wedding - with any luck I could earn enough to pay for a kick arse wedding and honeymoon!

We Went Cake Tasting Tonight....

...and picked out our wedding cake! It is going to have FOUR TIERS!!!!!!!! It is a very pretty cake too.... YAY!

We've decided to serve it as dessert at the wedding.

I'm so excited :)

We went to Merivale Cakes and Crafts, we've had one of their cakes before, at a wedding we went to, the proprietor knew the bride and groom.

Lightening = time for me to go!

More thoughts on this (five days later):

The cake is scaring me now... not the cake itself, the cake is pretty, but the price of it. I've had one person go silent in shock when I mentioned the price, and others tell me I should keep in mind that it is dessert for up to 100 people, and therefore the price is quite reasonable... I just know I could make a lot of cake for that kind of money.... but I also know, that that kind of pressure in the lead up to the day, is bad... being able to relax is worth a lot when one is organising such a big event!

These two pictures, from Peggy Porschen's "Pretty Party Cakes" are the inspiration for our cake. Ours will be white, round and stacked like the pink cake, but will have daisies, which will actually be closer to an aster, given they will be a lilac/purple colour. The cakes themselves will alternate between fruitcake and white mud cake. Now I just have to convince myself that the money spent (not due till closer to the time) on them will be money well spent...

A Cat Shows It Loves You......

By bringing you presents you wish you didn't have... like dead rats.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather she picked on rats than birds, but still - EW!

Luckily BabyCakes likes me showing my feminine side, which manifests itself in this situation by giving him the plastic bag and asking him to "deal with it".

I guess now I have to frock up and show BabyCakes how much I like his masculinity in a decidedly feminine way!

Yay!

Today I regained my open drivers licence! I will be endeavouring to make sure I never ever go back to my provisional licence again.

I cannot express enough how much I regret the night two days before BabyCakes called me...

Two Birthdays, a Naming Day, Visiting a Sibling Not Seen For Years, and a Hospital Trip

It's been a big weekend.

I'm sorry if we offended anyone with our various departures on Sunday, no offence was meant, BabyCakes and I just needed some time to work through all that's been happening.

My brother is back from the USA (not by choice), and is trying to sort things out to get his wife and child here, but it was good to see him.

We had a lovely day celebrating a friend's 32nd birthday (younger than me by a month, and lets me know it!). We had a lovely relaxed time at Sirromet winery, eating, wine tasting and listening to jazz. Happy Birthday Mrs C!

A beautiful naming day and first birthday for the fantastic Mr Grommit, who performed beautifully on cue, and had fun playing with helium balloons and empty plastic soft drink bottles when he could escape the clutches of various clucky women, and some men too! Thank you Grommit and family for involving us in this special day.

BabyCakes' mum was discharged from hospital later in the day, but all round a stressful experience, especially the emotional impact of everything.

Tonight we're not answering the phones unless we know we have to, and getting in some serious snuggles.

Hurry Up and Wait.

The title is a saying my Dad is very fond of, and I think of it as I wait to hear more news of his health. Dad had a heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery just after his 50th birthday.

Today he had chest pains and went to hospital.... but he's 1000kms away in Sydney, on business.

We don't know much at all, not even whether it is a heart attack - they have to wait on tests. We don't know if he can come home, we don't know if he'll need more surgery.

Dad often said since his surgery that he felt better than new.

This is a bit scary!

The Things We Do To Save Money....

I'm contemplating making (at the very least) our engagement cake.... I plan it to be a test run for potentially making a wedding cake.

I've been looking at wedding cakes, and they are beautiful but expensive. Most of it has to come down to the time it takes to make them.

When I was in high school I decorated a Christmas cake and it looked fantastic. I figure I've actually learned some patience since then, so I have a hope of making a cake that looks pretty good.

I think where I started from was contemplating the cupcake tower and figuring that it'd have to be cheaper to do it myself.... making and icing 100 cupcakes has got to cost some dollars, whereas if one keeps it simple and does it oneself, it has to be a chance to save some dosh! The problems with cupcakes is the freshness factor of a spongey type cake - mudcakes (BabyCakes doesn't like fruit cakes) are a bit more forgiving as far as making them ahead of time.

I wouldn't contemplate it at all if I thought I would do a half arsed job....

If the engagement cake does not work out I will probably be talking to The Cheesecake Shop to see how they can help me.... If I can control the decoration, then we should be able to get a simply elegant cake from there...

I figure I can buy and make a lot of cake for $300 - and forgive a simpler design if it is a lot less!

I've also been thinking a lot on bouquets, and flowers in general - I'm really glad we set our desired wedding date more than a year out - I can have a look at what happens this May!

The Die Is Rolling, Which Way Will It Land?

I made some calls today I'd put off for a while. It was nice to hide under a rock for a while and pretend I didn't have to deal with these issues.

There are definite changes afoot, I can't see the status-quo staying as it has been.

I don't know what I want from the next few weeks, but I think I'll be crying a bit in the mean time.

I'm glad I have BabyCakes to hug and kiss me each night.

Families are scary.


Or maybe I'm still doing too much thinking.

Too Much Thinking

Some things I really do not understand about myself. I had a very busy weekend. I thought it was a good weekend, productive. This week has been very quiet and left me a lot of time to think.

Over think. Now all I can see is what I said wrong, when I should have shut up and thinking of all the ways the people around me don't like me (in my head).

I just don't get it.

Getting Engaged is Life Altering...

and not just for the obvious reason. I knew a while ago that I wanted to spend my life with BabyCakes, have a family and grow old together.

What I didn't know was how much the act of organising a wedding and getting married was going to change me as a person. I've been thinking about so very much in the past few weeks, lots of it life changing.

I've had advice from all over the place that ranges from "Get eloped" to "Don't be afraid of picking what you actually want rather than what you think you can afford" and everything in-between. Mostly it has been at the elopement end of the scale - and usually from people who are married. There are of course two ways to read where this advice comes from.... those that have long had their weddings and have forgotten what it meant to them to have a wedding, or the voice of experience, those that have had the wedding and regretted spending that much money.

I never though I would spend a lot of money on a wedding, especially now that I have a mortgage. I did a "worst case scenario" budget last night, managing to find a way to keep the spending under $10,000. That doesn't include any honeymoon, photographer, car hire, favours or extended family at the wedding.

My Dad is one of six children, my Mum is one of four, my Step-Mum is one of six, I have four brothers, a stepbrother, a stepsister and a half sister.... nothing about my family is small. BabyCakes is one of four, his Mum is one of about eight (or more - lots of step brothers and sisters there), and his Dad is one of three. I have three grandparents still alive, BabyCakes doesn't.

Even without friends (and I think we're allowed friends), we have a lot of people to invite. It is confusing.

I grew up being taught how important family is. Not in a didactic way, but very very subtly, until it snuck up on me and it took someone else to point out how close we were for me to realise we were (thank you Wah!).

We moved a lot when we were kids, all across the country, and very regularly. Our family was our biggest constant growing up, sometimes that felt good, mostly as kids, that was bad......why couldn't that brother really get lost in the move? Now we (for the moment), are all over the country and even on the other side of the planet from each other, we've gained members since those bonding times, through marriage and relationships, but on the whole, we even socialise together.

I grew up to even like my family!

I'm joining another family, BabyCakes is joining mine yes, but I'm changing my name in commitment to his, to be a family ourselves.

I see that it is a big deal.

I want it to be a big deal.

Yes, it is money that doesn't seem very productive...

but it is important.

I don't plan on getting married again. I plan to get old and grey with BabyCakes. I plan to fight for our marriage. I plan to work it out, even when it hurts, and I plan to make my family with him the basis, the foundation of the rest of my life.

I want my friends and family to be there to witness this huge step in my life.

I want a kick arse party, the likes of which I'll never host again, and strange but true, I think I want that more than I want a new kitchen.

I don't think my tastes are so extravagant as to send us into debt for the start of our new life (well, not much more than we already are!).






Last year I wrote BabyCakes a poem for Valentines Day, the first time I'd ever sat down, brainstormed and wrote a poem. This year I felt bad that I had not done such a thing. I don't feel so bad now that I've cried through writing a post and found peace, but BabyCakes does that for me. I find peace with him often, and laughter, sometimes tears, but mostly laughter, and peace.


I'm glad I found BabyCakes, and I'm glad we're getting married.

How quickly everything can change!

BabyCakes and I went to the Wedding Ideas Centre at Southbank yesterday and it was quite useful. It is basically a big room with displays from different wedding suppliers with number on them. You walk through and circle numbers on a card of the displays that interest you, and they give you brochures/contact information of all the stuff you liked the look of.

One that might be getting my business is a Wedding Broker... you tell them what you want, and they do the work - and get kick backs from the suppliers, I assume. If it means they find what we want for the right price, I'd be happy to work with that.

The budget is scary though. We have to do some very hard thinking on how many people and what style of wedding reception we want. I don't think we can afford the grand plans we had at the start. Realistically, I think our potential guests would be horrified at prices we've seen and the budget form I just guestimated. If fact, I'm quite horrified. I didn't want to get into debt over this party, but I'm not sure that I have much choice if we persist with what we actually want.

Today I did manage to find a venue which looks like it might suit our needs. I hope that in the next few days/weeks I can pin this down and we can move on and start saving!

Maybe I won't need the broker after all.

I also went to visit friends today, and have a girlie day discussing all things wedding... it was fun looking through magazines and picking out styles of dresses, I think my MOH (Maid/matron of Honour) understands what it is I'm aiming for. Now I either have to find a seamstress, or find one ready made... and once again, for the right money!

I'm feeling a little more in touch with the budget for the moment, but it's still a big outlay of cash.

I guess I'll have to see how it all pans out.

The good news, and the bad news...

The good news is that you don't have to read about my home improvement plans as much any more!

The bad news is, I dare say that you will learn all about the ins and outs of preparing for a modern wedding in the coming months!

Having said that... Ikea have another $10,000 voucher give away - I'm entering, because if I win, that means there will be more money to spend on the wedding AND I still get a kitchen!


I've already tried on dresses... it's not as big a "Muriel" moment as it might seem - I only went to look and try and get an idea of styles, but I guess at midday midweek, there are not a lot of customers, so the lady encouraged me to try some on. It was great fun! You get such great personalised service, they help do the dresses up, they lent you sparkles and veils and even a bustier to get the right look. I stood there in my undies while the lady went off and kept getting me more dresses to try on! When I looked at the price of the dresses, it was easier to see how they can be so helpful! ;)

I also learned that either I'm ahead of the fashions (only time will tell) or I'm completely unfashionable (which is quite likely). They had NOTHING in the length of dress I wanted, and all the dresses I tried on had trains of varying lengths. They were fun to play dress ups in, but not what I want. We did work out why I had suspected all along, that a corset style bodice with a simple (but bouffant-ish) skirt flatters my shape. I'm contemplating a custom made corset - one doesn't get that opportunity to splash out that way very often! I did have a look through the Vollers online catalogue the other day - which was an interesting task till I worked out there is a glitch with Firefox that means you have to click on buttons about 1.5 cms under where they appear!), and I also looked at Gallery Serpentine's corsets. Unfortunately Gallery Serpentine don't seem to have any patterns in the style I really like, with the shaped cup (see style v1106 in the Vollers catalogue) .

I might contact them today and see what my options are. Given they are at least in the same country as I, it would make things a lot easier to be able to get fitted and ask for personal details rather than just ordering and hoping for the best! I don't mind the shape of the Femme Fatale Strapless, but prefer the front fastening busk of the Edwardian.

I have a while to make up my mind as to what I want ;)

Wedding Planning...... Engagement Party Date!

Wedding planning is scary!

There are so many things to spend money on, and so many people willing to help you spend that money!

We picked a figure out of the air for how much money we want to spend on a wedding. Then we looked at what things cost... then we realised we probably need to spend more!

If one is serving any kind of food, or supplying any kind of alcohol, then costs are high. Add in that BabyCakes and I both come from large-ish families, and we have a "small" wedding of about 100 people....

We are in the process of getting information from where we really want to have our reception, and if the prices fit with our budget, then I think we have the two really big decisions set... Venues for the wedding and reception... but if one doesn't pan out, then we will probably reevaluate both decisions...

What we have decided on though, is an engagement party. We drove past the Booroodabin Bowls Club on Saturday morning, which is where BabyCakes and I met, and thought it would be a fun place to have our engagement party. We've decided to have the party in late May, which will be about a year from the wedding (we plan that for sometime in May 2008 - note it in your diaries!). We're going to hire some rinks so we can play some barefoot bowls, and have a fun relaxed spot for some drinks and nibbles. It's going to be a late afternoon/early evening thing so it will be a child friendly event. I'm looking forward to it!

The best part is that I don't have to do dishes afterwards!!!

Stay tuned for invites in the mail a bit closer to the time (I suppose I should confirm our booking before telling people to turn up!).

There are certainly some fun elements to planning a wedding, and I choose to only think about those ones at W-15months!

BabyCakes....

...in the most disturbing sense of the word....

My brother sent the link to me. It's disturbing and interesting at the same time. I wonder would could bring themselves to eat it.

How do they know?

I was sent a link, which was quite curious..... I've seen it before, but now I have a blog, so I can bore you all with it ;)

I put in my date and got my Birth tree as:

Elm Tree, the noble-mindedness Pleasant shape, tasteful clothes, modest demands, tends not forgive mistakes, cheerful, likes to lead but not to obey, honest and faithful partner, tends to a know-all-attitude and making decisions for others, noble-minded, generous, good sense of humour, practical.

Which is a pretty good descriptor of me.

BabyCakes got:

Ash Tree, the Ambition Uncommonly attractive, vivacious, impulsive, demanding, does not care for criticism, ambitious, intelligent, talented, likes to play with its fate, can be egoistic, very reliable and trustworthy, faithful and prudent lover, sometimes brains rule over heart, but takes partnership very serious.

Which I'm sure he'll agree with (especially the uncommonly attractive bit).

Interestingly, I share a birthday (not date) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr; and BabyCakes shares a birthday (not date) with John F. Kennedy, Jr. - weird!

Having recently discovered that more people than I realised are reading my blog, I have adjusted my blog now so that anyone can leave comments if they wish, but non-members' posts will need approval before they will be published (to try and reduce spam).

If you feel like leaving a message on this post or any others, past or present, please do so!

I was walking along, minding my own business when....

....I suddenly realised I'm going to have to come up with, and start practicing a new signature! I think BabyCakes would be upset if I didn't take his name, despite the fact that I quite like mine, it's served me well for 30+ years!

I think I'll use both names at different times, I certainly want to be Mrs BabyCakes, but might keep my maiden name for Stage Management stuff... I don't know. Maybe it is too much maintenance to keep two names.

The other scary thing about this revelation should be clear to anyone who has seen my signature - it gets comments from the checkout operators at Coles! It's very hard to forge given that if I spend too much time thinking about it, even my own attempts look dodgy! It is very loopy, scrawly, and mostly rushed...

I guess it will work itself out in time.

The cat is still trying very hard to make me live up to my moniker but trying to send me crazier.... I had a guy from across the road come and tell me on Saturday, that if he'd caught the cat on Friday night, we wouldn't have had one... He didn't like cleaning his garage of the spray SHE had stunk it up with at 9:30 at night. That's right, my female de-sexed cat sprayed... I'd be upset too if a neighbours cat did that to me!

I tried to keep her in again, and last night she bolted through an open window - the heat was just too oppressive not to have it open. I don't know what to do, she is fast running off with my sanity and calm, and that's just wrong.

The um, colourful lady next door also weighed into the the cat issue turning up on my door step to discuss it on Saturday morning when BabyCakes was out at work... She saw how upset the issue was making me and turned up later in the day with potted herbs and plants she had bought from a clearance sale, which was amazingly sweet of her. Maybe I should feel guilty for the uncharitable thoughts I have about her, all too regularly? Or maybe she's trying to build up brownie points to blackmail is with later.....

The Future Mrs BabyCakes ?

I'd like to let you all know that BabyCakes asked me to marry him today, and I was delighted to accept!

BabyCakes snuck around to my Dad's place and asked my Dad for permission to marry me (which was granted, thankfully), and today he took me to the city botanical gardens, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I was shaky and teary, but delighted to say yes. He then slipped a beautiful white gold half carat solitaire onto my finger and we snogged for a bit... (very predictable, but hey, I think that's in the contract!).

We have not yet set a date for the wedding, but will let the appropriate people know when we do.