quick update/fainting spell

so, I logged onto the knot today, saw this, and promptly fainted:

umm, SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

I know most of you former bride types were all psyched about the count down, but this is really wigging me out. I expect to fully flip shit tomorrow, when it says 99.

in stuff you actually care about other news, have you been watching the olympics? I always forget how much I enjoy them (although, I have to give a shout out to the summer games, which I am ALWAYS pumped for) until they come back around, and I find myself glued to coverage of random sports I never watch otherwise. The US is doing great, and the men's figure skating finals last night were pretty awesome. Too bad the Russian silver medalist, Plushenko, is being a giant whine-bag about it. He spent the medal ceremony pouting/eye-rolling, and has spent today whining to any media outlet that will listen about how he was robbed. (I found this article, which briefly explains his loss, interesting.)

this update is pretty damn brief, but I gots stuff to do. So I leave you with this:

Someone's got a case of the Mondays...

Not me, because my Mondays are awesome. No obligations. I could do without the allergy/possible sickness issues I've got going on, but whatevs. Could be worse, right?

Anyway, my random topic of today's post is (drumroll): spring clothing I'm too broke to afford but am still dying to own.

Let's start with Anthropologie, my one and true store love. If I could live there, I totally would.

Adorable.

This also comes in red, but I'm digging the navy. Plus, I look good in blue.

I love this cardi. Yellow is horrendous on almost everyone, but I'd suffer through it for this.

This dress doesn't really scream "spring" to me, but I think it is cute.

I'm not sure why I like this top, but I do.

They call this a jacket, but I say it is an adorable cardi. That I NEED.

On to J.Crew, my other clothing love, which is wayyyy out of my price range 99% of the time. Except at the outlet, where I always seem to score deals.

Don't ask me to explain myself here. I just like it.

I want to casually shop and then eat lunch on a lanai in this.
I want this whole outfit. Not that I could pull it off.
I need this (in peacock or bright pink) to lounge on the beach in. Once I, you know, finish the 30 day shred.

Lastly, we'll head over to Ann Taylor Loft - you know, the poorer woman's J.Crew.

Fairly confident adorable outfits look ridiculous on me, but I like the top.

Need to add this shirt to my collection.

I need this whole outfit.

LOVE these shoes.

I need this dress for something...not sure what yet, but something.

So there you have it: my spring needs. Commence judging my fashion sense and/or taste!

random Wednesday thoughts...

My last couple of posts have been picture heavy. I'm not feeling very inspired today to hunt down pictures of whatever thing I feel like talking about today, so you're getting a random bulleted list:

• We are down to 116 days until the wedding. When.the.eff.did.that.happen?! Freaking my mind out.
• I've lost 8 pounds since December. Not really a lot, but considering that involved Christmas/New Year's food pig-outs, and involves me eating healthy, but still enjoying a cupcake once a month or whatever, I feel pretty good. So there.
• New anthro catalog in the mail yesterday = way too much money I want to spend. However, my bff gets a 25% discount...
• Yesterday while teaching, a couple students kept calling me "ma'am" - this thoroughly weirded me out for some reason. I'm only like...4 or 5 years older than most of them, and I do have some students that look older than my parents. Plus, I look about 12.* Stop it!
• I want a new swimsuit for the honeymoon...any recs? I found some cute ones on victoriassecret.com, but eh. I don't really want to spend $100, but some quality should be involved.
  

Hope everyone has a fabulous Wednesday! and the rest of the week.


*funny story: everyone thinks I'm 12, but when I bought my car in December 08, the guy at my bank asked if I was 16 yet. WTF.

let's talk about June.

The first 8 days of June*, specifically.

What's so great about that, you might ask. Well, what's so great is that during that time we will be on our honeymoon in Hawaii! Which I am pretty damn stoked about. I've always wanted to go to there (thanks, Liz Lemon), and I recently checked a guidebook out from the library which is making my excitement approximately 400% worse.

We will be hanging out on Oahu for 4 days, and then Maui for 4 days. We are flying in to Honolulu on the first, and staying at a pretty sweet hotel in Waikiki:

Our room should look something like this ^

With a sweet kitchenette thing, like this ^

And a view, something like this!

While we are there, we plan to dine at some of the awesome places I found in said guidebook, and go on lots of fun adventures. Some of the things we plan on hitting up so far include the Dole pineapple plantation (yummm), the Sea Life Park (where I DEMAND to swim with dolphins, this is expensive non-negotiable), visit the Pearl Harbor area/memorial (I expect this to be really surreal), and head up to the north shore for beachy goodness.

After we've lived it up on Oahu, we are moving on to Maui. We'll be getting on one of those terrifying mini planes of doom, which I'm not really pumped about, but whatevs. We are staying on the west coast of Maui, and I do mean ON the coast (75 feet away, actually):

I will be lounging at this pool. Which seems redundant, being right next to the ocean and all.

I can't find a picture of the room, but it is an ocean front suite, so that means AWESOME. On Maui, we will be attending a luau (booze + buffet + a show!), parasailing, and visiting a volcano, which I think everyone can figure out will be the best part, since I...like rocks.

I think this post is making my anxious-ness (is that a word? anxiety seems negative) worse.

*side funny note: one of my grad student friends is getting married on the same day, to a girl in the same grad program as Chad, and is then honeymooning in the same places as us at the same time. No, we did not plan this. Yes, we are meeting up for mai tais in Maui.

hey, what's up?

I have not posted in FOR. EV. ER. Trying to get back in the swing of it, though.

So what's changed since August...hmm:
- finished another semester of grad school, despite completely forgetting one of my finals even existed (4.0, woo)
- Thanksgiving (family visiting, delicious feast, etc.)
- bunch o'wedding vendors booked (more on that later)
- Christmas (absolute disaster re: family, but our little personal celebration between my parents, Chad, and I was great)
- read a few books
- rescued a puppy eating out of a bag in the middle of a busy road
- one of my bffs/MOH came to visit in September (shenanigans, etc.)
- checked a few things off the 101 list (check the sidebar for dates if you are curious!)
- scheduled surgery for March
- New Year's Eve, spent playing Texas hold 'em/bullshit at my mom's boss' house...
- only like 128 days or something until we get married. WHEN did that happen?!

some photographic evidence (mostly via crappy iphone photos, apologies):

Thanksgiving feast

Chad's post-feast and wine stupor

Glass artist we watched for like an hour straight when my bff/MOH was here

bff/MOH singin' in the rain...in my CSU hoodie. Who vacays in CO and doesn't bring a coat?

We also visited the Stanley in Estes Park (hotel from "The Shining")

Cupcakes we tasted for the wedding...snickerdoodle, red velvet, cherry vanilla, and mexican hot chocolate.

puppy we rescued! she was a mess. with red hair. but she is the sweetest thing ever.

she poops herself out pretty quick when you play with her though. on my grandparents' stylish rug.

Christmas tree!

my pocketfold-making station. finished product pictures to come later.

Ta-da! pictures. And I promise I'm working on posting more often. I shall share more wedding excitement and other fun with you later this week.

update...

well, I am back from my internship in Nevada. It was absolutely fabulous, and although the town was ridiculous, the people were awesome. I made some great friends and I am officially doing my thesis there, so it will be interesting.

I can check another item off my 101 list:
#58: go camping with chad.
we went camping in cripple creek, CO. this is west of Colorado Springs, and very pretty. We stayed at a very nice campground, ate smores, and checked out some cool local stuff. we went to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Park and I may or may not have stolen some fossils...we also toured an older underground gold mine, which was pretty cool. We ended up sleeping in the car in the middle of the night because the tent was miserable, but once we get a different tent it will be much better.

We have also made a lot of progress with wedding stuff. We are meeting with a caterer next week, and meeting with a florist and photographer this Sunday. I am really excited to see what the florist has for ideas. I am also excited to do the tasting with the caterer next week, and start doing tastings for wedding cupcakes...you can never have too many cupcakes, right?

Anyway, I'm currently watching bridezillas and drinking big red + vanilla vodka (ridiculously delicious)...so this is a short and sweet update :)

i suck...

...because I haven't updated in about a billion years. sorry about that.

so what's been going on? well:

• may kind of went by in a blur. the first couple of weeks, I was crazy busy administering/grading finals and submitting grades, followed by my own finals. then, I had about a week and a half before I left for nevada for my internship with Barrick Gold. which brings me to...
• my internship. I was expecting it to kind of suck because of being an intern, and being in a crappy town in the middle of nowhere. the town does suck, granted, but the job is absolutely fantastic. it is so interesting and there is always something fascinating going on. I am working at the Goldstrike mine, one of hundreds worldwide, mapping geology of the open pit. Our pit is about half a mile deep, and about 2 miles long/wide. the huge equipment is mind boggling - trucks with 12.5 feet tires are really intimidating. I'll be living in a hotel until august, which is not really pleasant, but whatevs. there are some pics on facebook, but here's a couple for the sake of awesome:
  
  
  

• we took our engagement pictures on may 17, from the contest we won for the free session. just got them back about a week ago. all pics are courtesy of tattered veil photography. there are also a bunch of those on facebook, but here's a couple of my favorites:

• spent a night in the ER two days before I left for the internship. started having terrible pains in my abdomen/chest (and i do mean TERRIBLE) around 1 in the morning, and pretty soon I was doubled over shaking. Chad and my dad drove me to the ER and turns out I was passing a gallstone. runs in my family so it is not that shocking, but it was my initial guess even though I've never had problems before as soon as the pain started. they basically took a bunch of blood and doped me up, recommended I have surgery before it becomes a medical emergency, and sent me home about 5 AM. good night?
• also, talked to Jill about dietary needs and she was very helpful. I've been doing everything we emailed about, so thanks! :) also, I have been 99% vegetarian (I had some thai chicken last weekend, but it was mostly veggies anyway!) for one month and am very happy with it. my stomach pains have decreased to almost nothing, and I feel a lot better.

so that's basically what I haven't updated about for 2 months. but I promise, I've still been reading everyone's blogs!

101 checks and such

so this past week has been pretty busy, I think.  stuff to check off:

• #7.  run a 5k.  check!  did this on Saturday for the March of Dimes.  It was really fun and I enjoyed the trip around downtown Denver.  It was cold, but once we got moving it was enjoyable.  Lots of pics on twitter, here.
• #17.  try a new restaurant once a month.  this month's was taco del mar in Fort Collins.  It is a lot like Chipotle, but actually, I thought the meat was much better.  and I love Chipotle.  I really loved it and their salsa was good too.  Last month's was smashburger, I just never updated about it.  Smashburger is fantastic, and I don't even like burgers.
• #24.  pay off credit cards.  I only have 2 to pay off, and they are small balances really, but victory for one of them, thanks to my tax refund :)
• #34.  whiten teeth.  bought a new product last week, Arm&Hammer whitening enhancer or something like that.  It is next to their toothpaste, but you use it with your regular toothpaste, as in at the same time.  It makes your teeth feel dentist fresh which is a good selling point in and of itself, but I actually could notice a whitening difference within a couple days.  I like it a lot, which is nice because I tried those strips once, and they grossed me out.
• #35.  recycle regularly for at least six months.  only one month left of this!  it's been nice and I of course plan to continue, but one more check! :)
• #59.  get reusable grocery bags.  done!
• #60.  create a budget and stick to it for at least 3 months.  2 months down.  yay!

lots of progress, it seems.  good news.

twittererererersss...

so i don't really get twitter, but i joined.  someone took my standard screen name already (WTF considering i have used that since like 7th grade and for EVERYTHING...so who is out there stalking me and using it for one internet fad!?), so i used a different one.  i found some of you from my address book on gmail and some of you from others' twitter lists.  so hi!  follow me @jenlikesrocks.

gross + hilarious

so i forgot this existed until just now.  but it is hilarious (although completely disgusting).  i present to you...

steve, don't eat it!