Wedding Crafting Day

Welcome to the broke biyatch's guide to weddings! (And btw, everyone is broke planning a wedding. You may start not broke, but the industry will make sure that you go broke planning!)

On Sunday, July 22, I was blessed with friends and family coming together to help me craft a ton of DIY projects for the wedding. I have to assume they were more in it for the pizza and beer that I promised them, but whatever works...!

We got so much done, it was really impressive. When we started, people were commenting that I was going to need to schedule a second day to finish up... but we actually finished early even with everything we had set out to do that day.

I actually forgot the last batch of wine bottles to soak, so I was finishing that up at night and AJ was all about labeling them himself.

We are down to 137 days as of today. Honestly, I'm getting sick of having to juggle and ringlead and organize all of these details and finances and everything else. It's tedious! I'm getting to the point of being like whateverrrrrr...! Not that I want to go elope, but more like, I don't really care that much about signs and frames and placement... can I just show up and marry AJ now??

I do have a feeling that things are going to speed up quite a bit very soon... not only will work travel be picking up in the fall, but there are other events forthcoming and I'm dealing with a million other things outside of all of that! Right now the real countdowns are to the bridal shower and bachelorette parties...! Something to give me some relief from all the madness...

Dog Beach Weekend

AJ and I had a great weekend. It's always a good time at the dog beach. It's better than just hanging around at the dog park, and I love how happy and active all the puppers are. On Saturday we had wedding stuff to do, but Sunday was amazingly productive. We owed to being up at 7:30am to watch France win the World Cup over Croatia. Yay! I entertained myself way too much with the Snapchat features around that.

Then we got ready and went to the dog beach. Normally we would be doing this kind of thing around 2p but we were out the door before 11am say whaaaaa! It was such a nice day and there was some sort of Bernese Mountain Dog meet up cause there was a huuuuuge group of them, it was like a scene from Where's Waldo.

I should probably add that despite how fun the dog beach is, it's actually insanely stressful for Anana, and therefore, for me. She just does not like people being in water and really panics, which is unfortunate because she also hates water herself, so you can see the distress in her eyes that she needs to save you but she really, really hates this.

I went swimming in the ocean and poor Anana was pretty upset. Once, trying to avoid a wave, she couldn't get out in time and it crashed over her entirely and she was drenched from tips of her ears to the bottoms of her toes, poor baby! So, AJ tried to take her on a walk down the shore to get away so she wouldn't worry about me, but she kept turning around to try to find me and make sure I was okay, and AJ said that at some point she just refused to go any further away. Knowing she's in such distress is so painful for me! I could've swam in the ocean a lot longer, it was such a perfect day and it didn't feel like swimming in an iceberg glacier pool like usual, but I couldn't watch Anana be so upset anymore.

We went back home and played a lot of games and watched movies and ended the day with ice cream from Creamistry since it was ~*supposed*~ National Ice Cream Day (I say that skeptically because it seems like every day is a national something and I swear the same thing has like 2 or 3 national days a year) but I still took the excuse to get birthday cake ice cream.

And that's it from me. Happy Amazon Prime Day (if it ever stops crashing...?)

Heat Wave from Hell

Wherever you are in the country, you probably heard talk about the southwest heat wave and MY GOD it was no joke. The worst of it was last Friday, July 6, and I've never felt such heat this close to the ocean, it was MISERABLE. My car thermometer said 117, which I think it tends to over exaggerate, but it definitely got to 110+.

The girls usually keep their distance from one another, so the
fact that they were so close to each other and laying like
bunk buddies says a lot! #hot

I might have been able to ignore it or at least stayed holed up in A/C until it passed, but unfortunately not only had we already committed to the Angels game that day with a large group from AJ's office, but even when I was about to text AJ to back out and say I couldn't muster up the energy to go, I remembered they were playing the Dodgers in the Freeway Series, and I couldn't very well miss that. Of course, that was the first time I remembered they were even playing the Dodgers; halfway through the day when I was already at work. Guess who was wearing Dodger Blue that day??? It couldn't have been worse. At least I had an Angels hat with me (not like I wanted to wear it much in that insane heat!!)

It was miserable. And there was tailgating and all I could do was drink more and more water. And I wanted my pokebowl which was on the opposite side of the Budweiser plaza where we were all going to hang out. Years later, we trek through the heat to the Budweiser plaza, but it's crowded and loud and I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack and I don't want anyone to touch me because I am so hot and sweaty and feel like I'm going to pass out. I want to go to our seats, but as it turns out, they were literally on the opposite side of the stadium again and I couldn't deal.

So, I had to stand off to the side and watch on the monitors, so that's how I was able to spot AJ getting on the big screen!

But it's better. I sent those pictures to his mom and she said I know - I just saw it on TV! So that little bit made it onto TV which was really cool (we watched the recording later at his mom's place).

After the sun went down, it got more bearable, and even though we were surrounded by screaming, shit-talking Dodgers fans, we still made our way to the first seats we could find to sit and watch the rest of the game. This was probably bottom of the 7th or top of the 8th. AJ kept asking if I wanted to leave and I did cause I felt overheated, but we were so close to the end I was just like eh we can stay.

AND BOY AM I GLAD WE DID. That ending was INSANE. That was actually THE most EXCITING baseball game I had seen EVER! And to be there in person was so magical. The Angels were down by 1, it's bottom of the 9th, Shohei steals 2nd and 3rd, a line drive the Dodgers couldn't get get him home to tie the game. Some more line drives and we have someone running to home, but Dodgers throw home so he stops... but the catcher misses it and we end up scoring to win the game. I have never seen AJ so excited, yelling, whooping, screaming GO HOME DODGERS FANS (he's soooo not a shit-talker so that was big haha) and also watching the Dodgers fans, who had been boisterous all game up until the bottom of the 9th, get completely deflated, then just stand there open-mouthed and silent was pretty priceless too.

I ♥ Shohei Ohtani!

Hamilton: One Month Later

It has now officially been a month since AJ and I saw Hamilton (and he saw it for the first time even a month before I did) and WE. STILL. LOVE. IT.

I just felt it necessary to say that I still have it playing when I go to the gym to help me work out better, we still love to sing along to it in the car, and there are still evenings where we decide not to watch a movie, but instead play games, only so that we can put the Hamilton soundtrack on and sing to it.

I can't exactly recommend you just go download it and will love it though. After AJ saw the musical first and started playing the music around me I was kinda like what is this shit lololol but of course, seeing the whole performance brings out such a magic to it all that makes the music that much better. So, it's worth going to see and knowing you'll still be singing the music a full month later just like you were a day later.

Fourth of July

We had a lowkey 4th of July over here. I had a good time. We went with friend to a houseparty nearby. Even though it sucks having it on a Wednesday and having to come back into work today, it was nice getting a break in the week and sleeping in and then seeing friends for food and fun all day.

I apparently never know how to dress patriotic, so all I do is throw on every patriotic thing I own at once, hence my white sandals, American flag shorts, Party Like It's 1776 shirt, heart-shaped American flag sunglasses, and red white and blue headband.

I love my Party Like It's 1776 shirt. Not only does it remind me of Hamilton, but I feel like I get a chance to claim this country and my patriotism again the way it should be; the way the founding fathers fought for it and envisioned it; that's the original country I love and am fighting for.

Happy Birthday America.

Grandmaaaa

I got to see my grandmother this weekend. She requested I bring her Bible from 1936 that she gifted me so she could sign it. So I made her take pictures with me.

That, and brunch in LA on Sunday were the highlights of my weekend. I'm getting into the World Cup now that it's finally elimination rounds. I kinda like the mix of countries this time around and how so many of the big names got eliminated (entschuldigang, Schland!). The only country I feel some affinity for at this point is France of course, so I'll get excited if they get further, but honestly I'm not diehard soccer for anything anyways. Was excited to see Brazil beat Mexico this morning, and it's currently halftime of Belgium and Japan. Game on...!