Category: Uncategorized

My hoodie came and I love it! Fun fact, I’m originally from Nebraska, but I moved to Upstate New York last year. Well, my hoody exchange partner @losinginches-gainingmuscles is from Omaha! She sent me this awesome reminder of home and this adorable coffee mug! Thank you so much and thank you @hoody-exchange for setting this up!

Short Week Struggles

I’ve clearly been out of TV News long enough now (since 2014!!) to block out having to work holidays. I posted a cute graphic about it being Monday but a short week that ends with pie and shopping, so we can do this, and some TV friends reminded me that they will still be working. How soon we forget! The University gives us Thursday & Friday and I took Wednesday off to prep/travel (if need be) and I’m so excited for an extended time off!

We were going to Buffalo but circumstances with my boo’s new job made it so we’re staying home. We live 5 hours away from Buffalo so I had planned on taking Wednesday off so we could have some extra time with his family. When we decided not to go, I decided to still take the day off and prep our dinner since we are now hosting Thanksgiving for the two of us and four of our friends! I bought a bigger turkey and all the trimmings on Saturday and have my strategy for Wednesday/Thursday mapped out. My boo is smoking the turkey (all 20.5 lbs!) and so he has to get up at 5am to get it going, but other than that, I should be able to make several items ahead of time AND enjoy the day and my favorite part–the parade!

I was planning on running the Buffalo Turkey Trot but since we’re not going, I will run my own on my treadmill. It is supposed to be bitterly cold so I can’t say I’m too disappointed! 😉

Also, I feel that I have shown great restraint in waiting until today to really listen to Christmas music. I’ve got my spotify Christmas playlist going and it is giving me so much joy! I am waiting until Friday to do any decorating in the house, including the tree. That counts for something, right??

Ok friends, have a great (short!) week!

Lest @exitrowiron and @runs4donuts  think that I’m a spoiled brat who expects people to shell out thousands of dollars to attend her wedding I want to clear some things up related to the wedding.

Location, location, location

I’m from southeast Nebraska, south of Lincoln. My fiance is from Buffalo, New York. Either way we do this, it’s a destination wedding for one group of people. We initially were going to have it in his parent’s backyard for “free”. The costs began mounting; tent rental, chairs, tables, dance floor, BATHROOM rental, DJ, food, drinks, photography, decorations/flowers, parking issues, shuttles, etc. It became an expensive nightmare.

I have always dreamt of having a destination wedding and getting married on the beach. I didn’t figure this would EVER be able to happen due to expense for those involved so I left it as a daydream and figured that was that.

Dolla, Dolla, Bills, y’all

We went back and forth on where to have the wedding; Buffalo or Lincoln, or maybe Mexico or Jamacia? What would ACTUALLY be cheaper? The average cost of a wedding now days is something astronomical like $26,000 to $45,000 and I am NOT about going into debt for one day. My parents like many others do NOT have some sort of magical fund out there just waiting for me to use when I get married. (Instead, they financed most of my undergrad education, so I can’t and won’t complain, I managed to graduate with only about $16k in debt that I had to pay. That money was MUCH better spent on my degree than a wedding, in my opinion). 

But I digress.

I did a lot of research and found that we could pay for this wedding ourselves by each saving about $5k in a year. And honestly? It won’t even cost that much. For the two of us to go to Mexico to an all-inclusive resort for 10 days it is $2975 TOTAL for flight and hotel. That’s $150 per day each for EVERYTHING, including getting there. The wedding that the resort gives us, which is on the beach, includes decorations, flowers, and a reception with food and drink is $2750. The photos will be around $1900 (basically the same everywhere!). So we will pay about $7500 for a vacation and a wedding. I think that’s win-win.

SO. What upsets me most about ALL of this is that my besties told me, when I first broached the subject of a destination wedding to them and asked if they thought they could go and be a part of it, they both said. “Melissa, we’ve known since FOREVER that you’ve wanted a destination wedding and we have PLANNED for it. Don’t worry, we’ll be there.”

Tit for tat?

Is it fair to expect your best friends to do the same that you did for them? I threw and attended showers for both of them, I bought my dresses and paid for travel and hotel rooms for both of their weddings as well. In fact, for one of them, I had to buy a plane ticket, rent a car, and pay for lodging and food for 5 nights for her wedding because she got married on Memorial Day and the rehearsal was the Friday prior. In Denver. That wedding ended up costing me about $2000 for that weekend alone and I NEVER complained about it once. Right now, they don’t even appear to want to do a shower for me with the help of another friend. So you can see why I feel so hurt.

What is all comes down to is this: I feel like I’m in a bad spot because I planned on having them as my matrons of honor and now it appears that they are going back on their promise. If they would have said in the beginning that they couldn’t make it happen I would have understood.

The Real Cost

ALSO, it would not cost them $2000 each. They only have to be there for 3 days (resort rules) and the prices vary from $800-$1150 for the entire package. 

So, the tl;dr is this: This wedding will be a destination for at least one group of people and honestly, I didn’t want to get married in Buffalo. If they couldn’t do it I wish they would have told me that from the beginning because false hope really hurts.

An Apathetic Bride

Warning, this post is all about my upcoming destination wedding and my extreme disappointment with some of those closest to me.

I don’t think my big brother is going to come to my wedding. He’s my only sibling and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t seriously hurt by it. He said it is too expensive and he would have rather that I had the wedding in Buffalo (where we were first going to have it) because he could swing that trip with the whole family. But this is too expensive. I found out from my mom that he has enough money to buy himself a new SUV though! (He already has a truck for himself and another SUV for his wife). I was seething. But what can you do?

My two bff’s (who are my matron’s of honor) haven’t booked their wedding trips yet either. One cites money concerns–even though she only has to put down $200 with the travel agent, and the other is trying to get pregnant and isn’t sure if she can even come now. They’ve been trying to get pregnant for YEARS with no luck–they’ve only been able to do so once and lost the baby before 3 months. They are trying IUI this month and have enough funds to do it for another two months. Because the wedding is 6.5 months away, she won’t even buy a dress. (Which they are discontinuing the style she likes in the color I want, sigh). I understand that this is more important to her, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

We had a come-to-Jesus about the fact that I feel like both besties (who I’ve been bff’s with since we were 5 and 8 years old) are making me feel like my wedding doesn’t matter to them and that I am asking too much of them. The one who is trying to get pregnant said she’s sorry that I feel that way. I  HATE that phrase–it is a cop-out for actually apologizing. She’s not sorry for making me feel like they don’t care, just that I feel that way.

I would NEVER tell her not to try to get pregnant because I know they want children, but when you tell someone that you will be in their wedding and now you might not go and the bride has other friends who have already booked and were disappointed to NOT be in the wedding, it makes a girl just want to tell that friend to forget it and ask someone else. 

I think I put too much faith in people not to disappoint me. Even our family and life-long friends will show their true colors when it comes down to it, I guess.

+/-, the Tuesday edition

+ My egg this morning had TWO yolks in it! I thought that was pretty cool and a fun way to start my day.

+ I just ordered my nephew’s Christmas presents so they are checked off the list. I have a few other gifts already as well AND our my boo mailed our Christmas cards last week (I DID NOT want him to, but he really wanted to be first so he did it. In my defense, I was gone and he was left unattended.)

+ I wrote a news release about a notoriously critical professor’s work. He had NO CHANGES. I should probably go buy a lottery ticket.

– Charlie the dog woke up out of a dead sleep at 4:55am with a sharp bark. He had to go potty. My heart didn’t stop racing for a while after that. Thanks, Chuck.

– It has been raining/snowing off and on all day. Also, it is getting dark here at 4:30 and I’m 100% NOT okay with it. 

– I am scheduled to get an IUD tomorrow to hopefully deal with my female issues. At least one part of them. I’m really not excited about it.

That’s all I got today, have a great one, friends!

Two handsome soldiers. My dad, who served in the Army (where he met my momma!) and my fiance, who is weeks away from retiring after serving 16 years in the Army. So proud of both of them and thankful for their sacrifice and service.

Fri-yay

This has been a pretty awesome week:

  • We went to Harry Potter World and Universal on Sunday when I went to Orlando for a work conference. It was fantastic!
  • The conference was great and gave me a renewed vigor for my job. Always a good thing. 
  • We flew home Wednesday and they needed people to get bumped, so we volunteered. We were put on a later flight and given $500! Delta lets you take it as an Amazon gift card, or Macy’s, or even Royal Caribbean, but I chose to take mine as a Delta gift card, so now I have a free trip back to Nebraska to take whenever I want! YASSSSSSS!
  • I did manage to get a cold in Orlando, but I bought the behind the counter version of Mucinex-D with the 1200 mg dose of Guaifenesin and I feel SO MUCH BETTER. My ears aren’t plugged and neither is my nose. Sweet, sweet relief!
  • It is supposed to be cold and may snow here this weekend, so I plan on doing some early holiday baking. My favorite time of the year!
  • I went to Aldi’s last night and bought their Cheese Advent Calendar for my coworker and I. I am v. excited to countdown the days to Christmas with fancy cheese!
  • Happy weekend, friends!