The Tables Have Turned

Since 2012, I have been a registry consultant at Bed Bath and Beyond (excluding that year in the middle where I went and taught English in China because I thought becoming a teacher wouldn't be that hard). But now, the tables have turned! On the morning of Saturday, September 12th (forever famous in Lake County for the start of the Valley Fire), Steven and I set out to accomplish many errands. The longest errand, though, was creating our wedding registry.

Having spent several years helping couples construct their own registries, I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to register for. Luckily for me, Steven has spent several years listening to my stories of couples who come in to register but then pick out almost nothing, so he was amazing at helping pick out gifts.

Steven picked out the colors of our dinnerware and entertaining pieces, I picked out the colors of our appliances, and we mutually agreed on so many things. I don't understand why some couples struggle with this fun wedding task. We did spend two whole hours in the store, though, which I didn't anticipate since I already knew so much of what I wanted to put on the registry.

So, if you wander on over to the Bed Bath and Beyond website, you can now view (and let's be honest, judge) our wedding registry! Keep a few things in mind as you browse through it:

1.  (What some registering couples don't seem to understand is that) Registries are supposed to contain a lot of gifts at all kinds of price points to give everyone lots of options. So, hells yes we put on a $480 blender! You don't have to buy it for us if it's not in your budget, though. We registered for WAY more gifts than we imagine we'll actually get but that's in order to give our friends and family tons of options. 
2. We not only registered for things that we want and need, but we are also replacing things as well. So, yes, we do already have some pots and pans, but if anyone felt like getting us nicer ones than we've already got that would be fantastic. We also only own four dinner plates, so you better believe we'd be happy to get some of our dinnerware sets. 
3. Every gift we receive will be special, but if you want it to be UNIQUE you have to make sure it gets removed from our registry in order to avoid duplicates. If you find an identical product somewhere else for cheaper, don't buy it! Get proof and take it to BBB and they will price match so that we can get the gift removed from our registry. (You wouldn't believe the hoops that company will jump through to make its customers happy.)
4. Every gift off of a registry with BBB has free gift packaging and free shipping. So if you wander into the store and they tell you that they don't have something in store to walk away with, that's fine! That's great! Let them order it and have it shipped to us. Nobody opens their wedding presents on their wedding day anyway. 

As an employee, and now as a customer, I highly recommend Bed Bath and Beyond for all of your registry needs. And if you or anyone you know is getting married soon, come in and register with me! It's a fun way to spend an hour and a half.

Oh, yeah, and...

Save The Dates!

Well, this is the beginning of the end. After spending months looking at save the date patterns/options, and hemming and hawing over which engagement pictures to use, Steven and I finally ordered our save the dates. Just yesterday I got my email to confirm the professional changes that had been made so that they can go to the printer! That's probably what brought on: Rachel's First Wedding Nightmare.

According to my internet search, this is a common thing. But it doesn't make you feel better knowing that when you have over a year left til the wedding. That leaves the possibility of more than 400 wedding nightmares between today and "I do!". That blows. I can only guess that this was brought on by the combination of stress from being forced to commit to a save the date and the large glass of Cat Wine I drank before bed. 

For roughly $10, this wine was actually pretty good.
Cost Plus World Market for the win!

The dream began like this: I'm being marched into my wedding, surrounded by ladies from the Marching Lumberjacks (many of whom will not actually be AT my wedding because the venue is so small, so this should have been a clue that this wasn't real). Also, having already booked my venue (one of the few things I have already taken care of), it should have been another solid clue that being marched into a theater for my wedding meant that this wasn't real. But with all dreams, I fell for it for at least a time.

I was paraded into the building, amid loud claps from the audience, but I paused with uncertainty before they could get me through the door that lead to the theater the wedding was being held in. I paused and thought to myself, "Am I ready for this?" It occurred to me that I couldn't remember any of the plans I'd made. 

"I don't remember what song I'm walking out to!" I thought to myself with panic. 

Someone came up and handed me two small bouquets of flowers that didn't match, and as I looked down I realized my dress had a long pink stain down the front and right in the middle of the dress. I held the flowers to cover the stain and began thinking.

"Do I need all of the things I had forgotten?" I decided that I did need some of them. I told the ladies around me that I needed a little time to find those things.

I ran out of the theater and began to look around. The area around the theater was a carnival. I wandered the carnival, my long white dress trailing behind me, looking for solutions to the things I had forgotten. I had no flowers. I had no music. I had no photographer. I remembered that I had forgotten to get my dress fitted, so it fit just fine on the bottom but the top was too big. I wandered for what seemed like ages, having eventually forgotten what I was looking for.

"Oh, right! I'm getting married!" I raced back to the theater. 

Back in the building, I arrived at the door to the theater. The girls opened the door again, and I looked inside. The audience was full of every important person I'd ever known. My high school teachers, college professors, all there. I looked to the front of the room, and I saw Steven standing, waiting for me, dressed in a grey suit with his groomsmen lined up next to him. I looked up at him and thought, "Do I need those things?" If I walked in right then, I would get married without music, flowers, or a photographer to capture the moment. 

I realized that Steven had waited for me while I looked for those things because I had felt like we needed them.

I walked inside.

Wedding Dress

Over Alia's spring break, we went down to Wine Country Bride and I tried on wedding dresses for the first time. I had seen a few online that I was considering buying off of Etsy, but I didn't want to miss out on the experience of trying on dresses.

Who would want to miss out on trying on this gem?

Alia helped me narrow it down to a total of three dresses. Each one had something totally different to offer. I ended up deciding to leave it there because Alia and I have the same opinion on dresses and were not going to be able to narrow it down to one dress. 

How does anyone choose???

I made an appointment for Steven's mom and I to come back so I could get a different perspective. This past Sunday was that day. I had her come in and look through the dresses they had on the floor. She picked out one additional dress for me to try on which was rather similar to the dress I was considering my number one. 

I tried on a total of four dresses for her. The first one was my third choice. I LOVED the top half but really didn't love where it hit me on my waist or how big the bottom half made me look. 

The top looks so good, why does the bottom look so bad on me?

Because the dress that she picked out looked so similar to my number one choice, I chose to try it on next so that there was still a dress in between them. When it was on it was gorgeous! It was such a beautiful dress. It honestly made me wonder if THIS was going to be the dress. Did I like it more than my first choice?

It's so similar, how do I choose???

The third dress I tried on for her was my number two choice. It was identical in shape to the dress on Etsy that I had been considering buying. But it had lacy flowers. It was, essentially, a gorgeous 1950's wedding dress. I still LOVE it but we agreed that it was less of a wedding dress and really just a dress I desperately wanted to own. 

I still really want it.

The fourth dress I tried on for her was my top choice and rather similar to the dress that she had picked out for me. Once I saw it in the mirror again, I sighed. It was so pretty. I asked Steven's mom if she liked it better than the one she had picked out, since they were so similar, and she didn't so much say words as make happy noises. That was the reaction I was looking for. I had found it! This was the one! When I first saw it on the hanger for me to try on, I didn't think I would like it. Then I saw it on me and thought, "Now THAT'S a wedding dress." So I have it. My wedding dress. 

When I went back a day later to buy it, I made Steven come with me. When we walked in the door to the office, the dress was back on a mannequin just to the right. He'd see it for sure on the way out. Luckily, I pointed this out and they had us take the long way out so he didn't spot it. When she measured me, I was three different sizes. They said my chest was a six, my waist was an eight, and my hips were a ten. I never imagined buying a size ten wedding dress, but that's what I had to do. To fit my butt.

In about a year, I get to go back and start fittings to bring in the chest. But I have it! I've bought my wedding dress. The dress to marry Steven in. And it's gorgeous:

 

I'm kidding. Probably.

Great Customer Service

One day at work, I gestured wildly (I guess) and my engagement ring shot straight off my finger and bounced along the floor with the pathetic tinny ting sound that expensive metals make.

It became quite clear that the question of whether or not my ring truly fit had been answered. This posed a whole new dilemma: finding the time off on a weekend where I could get down to Shane Co to get my ring re-sized.

As someone who works retail (who is nearly always scheduled on the weekends) and works a second job that also likes to have me work on the weekend, who is marrying someone with a Monday through Friday job, figuring out getting down to Walnut Creek (sorry we didn't stop in and say hi, Sarah) became quite the puzzle. Luckily the stars aligned and I was scheduled to only work at one job on Sunday, compared to Saturday when I worked both, and I was able to convince Steven to take us down to drop off my ring.

So, with an hour and a half drive there and back, Shane Co opening at noon, and me having to be at work at three, we set out for a nearly impossible task. But the stars aligned and even though we were late at leaving the house, stopped for breakfast, and battled traffic, we arrived as the doors were being opened.

We joined the crowd (because apparently a lot of people have jewelry emergencies on the weekend) and wandered inside. The place was lovely inside. It has a foyer! We wandered in and were immediately helped by a gentlemen. He asked what he could do for us, and I said I needed my ring re-sized because it had shot off my finger. I tried on a few different sizes and we agreed on a new one. Once we had finished he asked if I would like to see any bands next to it. 

Now, anyone who read my blog about poor customer service will understand why this simple question made me so happy. This salesman possessed the great skill of deduction. He saw me take the ring off a certain finger. Saw me arrive with a hovering gentleman (the only time I'll call Steven a gentleman) and he figured it was safe to assume that this ruby ring of mine was an engagement ring. The man helped me find the absolute perfect wedding band to sit next to my ring and listened to Steven's preferences and helped him pick a ring that makes him happy, too. I will be going back to Shane Co to purchase my wedding ring shortly and couldn't be happier with the service I received.

But now I face being without my ring for the next few days...

Living Together Part One

After dating for 1,673 days long distance (I used a website, I didn't just know that number off the top of my head...), Steven and I finally moved in together. Now, we've both had roommates before but this whole living with your significant other led to some new experiences for both of us. We've learned a lot. This will be a long running blog theme, so we'll only cover a few things each time.

Living Without Your Sisters 

As most everyone who knows me knows, I lived with at least one of my two sisters, if not both, a brother-in-law, or a curly-haired, witty girl, up until the moment I came back from China in June, 2014. A brief homage to roommates past:

2009

2012

2013

So, the first things I learned after moving in with Steven actually have nothing to do with him. It wasn't his presence that changed my living situation but the lack of Bry, Sarah, Alia, or David. Suddenly, my clothes weren't disappearing.

MINE!

Above we see Bry in a shirt that was definitely mine. And David, it was safe to assume at one time, could always be found in a minimum of one of my socks. Which he would then ruin with his man feet and claim them as his own.

Caught in the act!

Here we see Alia. That plaid jacket is mine.

WHY, BRY???

Here we see Bry, once again in my shirt!

DAVID, WHY???

Here we see David in my blonde wig.

I could go on but I'm tired of browsing pictures on Facebook. Anywho, living without roommates approximately my size has meant that nobody else can steal my clothes! (Almost entirely true, but I wasn't allowed to take pictures...) On to what I learned.

Finishing Things

Finishing things is a two part discovery. The first part to it is that Steven and I have very different taste sometimes. As I learned recently, Steven doesn't like marshmallows. At least not to the degree that I do. At work, we sold marshmallows to go with marshmallow shooters. Neither sold well, just like every year, so we had packs of marshmallows left over. After Christmas they were marked down so I bought three bags to put in my morning coffee. When I brought them home, that's when I discovered that Steven had no interest in the marshmallows.

Within a rather short period, I discovered that I had run out of marshmallows. And then it hit me: I HAD EATEN ALL OF THE MARSHMALLOWS. This led to me realizing that I would always finish all of the marshmallows (until we have kids and I'm forced to share). The same thing is going to occur for a lot of things. The boring gluten free cereal I get to eat will get finished all by me. The lactose free milk I have to drink will expire if I don't drink it quickly enough because Steven buys his own milk. The pickles will be finished by me because Steven hates pickles. I have no one to blame when I finish certain things.

Finishing Things

I made another nice discovery about finishing things. Without other girls in the apartment, all of my girly products are lasting so much longer. When I buy my BB cream it isn't being smeared across three girl's faces each morning. It lasts three times as long! Weirder still: When I got back from China all I wanted was a familiar shampoo and conditioner. During my very first shopping trip back in the United States, I was determined to buy Aussi shampoo and conditioner. When I found it in Target, the only size they had were the 29.7 oz bottles! I hated the idea of paying $8.99 a bottle just to wash my hair, but I bought them anyway. And since I've been the only one using them.... I haven't had to buy new shampoo or conditioner...  for six months. In fact, I'm running low on shampoo (FINALLY) but I still have a dozen or so showers of conditioner left. But that's okay because unless I buy Steven new stuff when he runs out:

Poor Customer Service

On September 13, 2014, the love of my life asked me to marry him. I, of course, said yes. Steven gave me a ring that exactly met the few things I had described as my preferences:

• yellow gold
• a ruby instead of a diamond
• emerald cut

Is that not gorgeous??? This was 100% what I asked for.

 When I asked for these things, I knew that they were what I wanted and (although this wasn't the main reason I chose these things) figured that the whole "not a diamond" would make it look less like an engagement ring. I accepted that having a ruby would throw some people off, but since getting  engaged I have noticed that there are quite a few women these days taking the same route. I've seen women with rubies, sapphires, pink sapphires, emeralds, black diamonds and so on. I began to feel that my choice of having a ruby (to match my other red jewelry: necklace, bracelet, watch...) and yellow gold (because I think it looks better against my skin tone) was less of a weird choice and would shortly become the mainstream. Well...

On Saturday, January 31st, Steven and I ran a bunch of errands. In search of a tool set for his car, we decided to swing by the downtown mall. Once there, I convinced Steven to let us go by Kays so I could get my jewelry cleaned. From there, things started to go downhill.

When we walked in, all the employees were with people. We walked over to the men's wedding bands to kill time. After Steven and I had made up our minds on which ones we liked the best, one of the employees was finally free. He was standing across the room, facing the mall instead of the store. Suddenly Steven and I were the only customers in the store and were getting ignored.

I walked around to face him. He smiled and asked if he could help me. I asked if I could get my ring cleaned. I then proceeded to pull a very expensive ring off of my left ring finger (that doesn't exactly have a small stone on it) and handed it to him. He walked away with it to clean it. When he brought it back I gawked at just how much it sparkles when it's clean and vowed to try to keep it that way and slipped it back onto my left ring finger. The gentleman then asked if there was anything else he could do for us.

I asked the man if we could get Steven's ring finger sized. The salesman pulled out their sizing gizmo and we determined that Steven has ginormous fingers when the biggest size they had barely fit. (I'm a five and a half... he needs at least a fifteen and a half!) Then I asked if we could go look at then men's wedding bands. I said there were a couple we wanted to know about. We talked about a few of them and got the price of the one we liked.

Before Steven got the chance to try to make us leave, I asked the salesman, "Can you show us the women's wedding bands?" Notice my words there. I asked to see the wedding bands.

The gentlemen led us over to a section of rings and had us sit down. As we were sitting down I told him that I was torn between getting "a plain gold band or a band with a few diamonds in it for some extra sparkle". Do you understand these words, reader? Because the salesman wasn't listening at all.

He began giving me a spiel about Neil Lane engagement rings. I notice that there are some wedding bands mixed in with the engagement rings, though, and figure that was what we were here to see. While he's talking, Steven and I look at what the have. He finally asks if there's anything I see that I like. I mention that everything they have behind the glass is white gold and that I am looking for yellow gold to match "my ring". (As in, the one he cleaned. The one sitting on my left ring finger.) The man seems to listen for the first time. He mentions that he's a fan of yellow gold, too, and flashes me all of the gold he's wearing. This whole time we're talking, Steven is silent and looking at the rings.

I take off my ring (again, from my left ring finger) and ask Steven what he thinks would look good against it. The salesman takes the ring from me and begins scrutinizing it. I think he is going to assess it and make some suggestions for things to go next to it.

"You know," he says, "We could probably just pop this ruby out and replace it with a diamond."

  Both of our jaws drop. Steven, I can tell, is about ready to get up and walk away. I laugh to cover up our anger at this man's incompetence and inability to listen and deliver what we're asking for and say, "I don't think he would be too happy about that. He paid a lot of money for that ruby." At this point the salesman finally realizes what I want. It occurs to him at last that he is holding my engagement ring and that I am asking about a wedding band seeing as how he just helped us look at men's wedding bands. He could have taken this moment to find a quick way to correct his previous misunderstandings (as I would do at work when I misunderstand what a customer is asking for). Instead, what comes out of his mouth is this:

"Oh, you're planning on getting married in this."

Upon seeing the looks on our faces after his statement, he seemed to finally grasp the situation, what his statement implied, and that he was dangerously close to pissing off potential customers. Well, unfortunately for him, he pissed us off. He finally managed to show me what I wanted, but he convinced me to shop somewhere else. We'll be going back to Shane Co to get our wedding bands. Thanks for nothing Kays. I'd liked you up until that day.

The Day We Got Engaged!

On September 13th, the love of my life proposed to me. It went a little like this:

He wanted it to be sunny so he could propose on the beach during sunset with the light all golden and romantic. *swoon*

When we got there it was foggy, but let's back up a moment.

Steven had decided, so he said, that he wanted to go to the beach and take pictures with his new camera (which is actually a really old, film camera he bought off of Craigslist). If we were going to go all the way out to Bodega Bay, though, we might as well get dressed up and have dinner. We hadn't had a date just the two of us in a while. 

This was all very logical and believable. He had been fishing around for excuses to use his new toy and we hadn't had a date just the two of us in a while. I'd recently ended my dry spell of unemployment by picking up not one but two part time jobs, so we'd been seeing a little less of each other. He was all casual leading up to this. The tough part, was that I was going to work overnight the day before and overnight the day of. I was on a tight schedule that weekend. He had to let me sleep up until a certain point or I would be a zombie. And I had to return home by a certain time or my carriage would turn back into a pumpkin - I mean I would be late for work.

So, the morning of the thirteenth, I drove myself home from work at about 9:15 in the morning, slouched through the front door and crawled straight into bed. Steven, thoughtful like he is, had tacked blankets over our bedroom window so that it was actually dark enough for me to sleep. We had agreed that I got to sleep until 3:00 pm and then he could wake me up. He woke me up at 2:00 pm to give me time to shower and because he was worried the drive would take longer than he thought.

After showering, I came out to find Steven hemming and hawing over what to wear to dinner. The dilemma was that we wanted to look nice BUT it was also really hot. But what if it wasn't hot by the ocean??? After debating over nearly all of the clothes we own, Steven settled on what (I believe) we both consider to be his best button up shirt and I wore some appropriately fancy sweater and jeans get up with some fancy, heeled shoes that I almost never wear but he had convinced me to buy several weeks prior. I brought flip flops for the beach.

Steven had previously hidden the ring box in his camera supplies so that I would never suspect a thing. He threw the camera bag in the car and we headed off to dinner. Somehow our conversation was quite appropriate considering what was coming but I believe it was me that brought it up. We ended up taking turns describing each other honestly. Neither of us can remember our exact words (which makes me sad) but I remember that he described me somewhere along the lines of someone who is rare because I'm genuinely nice.

When we arrived to the coast, Steven was a little distraught. It was foggy. I reminded him that after years of living in Arcata, I prefer the fog. He said he'd hoped for sun because it would make for better pictures. When he pulled into the parking space, he quickly changed his mind about the orientation, backed out, and backed into the same spot. I thought he was silly. He said that he wanted to keep his camera safe (which is fair because he'd brought both and one is rather expensive) and figured that people would be less interested in breaking into the back of the car if it was facing the bushes. "Whatever" I thought as I opened the door and immediately tapped the truck next to us rather loudly. "Did you just hit that truck?!" he said to me in awe. "I wouldn't have hit anything if you hadn't have turned us around!" And with that, we went inside.

I had eaten at this restaurant once before, I told him. I wasn't sure until I saw it in person. (We'd browsed menus online days prior to make sure that there were non-shrimp seafood items I could eat.) As we were seated by the large window facing the ocean, I realized we were more dressed up than everyone else. Steven ordered the fish and chips and I ordered the fish tacos. As we waited for our food, which came surprisingly fast, Steven kept mentioning that he wished it was sunny. Our food arrived and we ate, once again leaving no room for dessert, and the check arrived. Steven happily gave the man a card, but the waiter was soon back saying that there was a problem with the card. My eyebrows shot up and I started to reach for my purse so I could pay. Without missing a beat, Steven simply paid with his credit card. The whole moment felt so off to me. He didn't complain about his card. Didn't check his bank account on his phone. Just kept talking about whatever we'd been talking about. Fishy. Very fishy.

When we went out to the parking lot, the truck was still next to us. We'd gotten off Scott free! We start driving up Highway 1 and Steven is talking about how the light is wrong. He mentions that there is a beach somewhere up the road that he thinks will be perfect because it's so secluded he don't think many people know about it and it should be empty. (Having told Steven years ago that I wanted him to propose just the two of us with absolutely no one else around, this should have been a clue.) I wasn't paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth because I was staring at the clock in the car counting hours. I was concerned that this whole endeavor would make me late for work.

It was a little after six. The drive to the beach was taking longer than he'd expected. After about half an hour had passed I was starting to get worried. He kept wishing aloud that it was sunny. I kept telling him I prefer the fog. And then there it was. I had to pee. The minutes kept creeping by when suddenly we hit road construction. There was a mobile traffic light set up in the road and we had to stop. As we sat there, I finally tell him that I have to pee. I tell him that maybe we're not going to find this mystical beach and should just turn around and find me somewhere with a bathroom or a solid wall of bushes next to the road. He tells me that we've come too far to turn around. He's sure we're close. When the light lets us go, it turned out he was right. We were only one or two twists in the road away from the sudden turn out towards the beach.

The place we pulled in to park said that there was no parking allowed but also seemed to have parking spaces. There were trees enveloping the whole area and blocking the view to the beach. Steven pulled out his camera bag and turned towards me. I told him that I was going to solve that bathroom problem myself right here and that I'd meet him on the beach. A few moments later, I wander through the trees and find myself on a beach.

Steven is wandering around rather aimlessly looking for something to take pictures of. In reality, he was trying to figure out exactly how to do this. We were in the right place, dressed up, the lighting was all wrong, but it was going to happen! The lighting was actually terrible. It was grey and only getting darker. In fact, we were rapidly approaching what Steven knows to be my absolute least favorite time of day. He was quickly becoming pressed for time.

I take off wandering towards the water past him. We begin sort of wandering the beach aimlessly and rather separate. I start picking up rocks I like (as I am inclined to do). After a two rocks, I find a dead jelly fish. I call Steven over to look at it. After he comes over we realize that the water is full of jelly fish and the beach is in fact covered in dead jelly fish. We've happened upon a jelly fish graveyard of sorts. (Grey sky + dead sea creatures = super romantic?) There was also one, solitary seagull on the beach. I find (what we later googled and realized was) a velella. Super weird looking creatures. I insist that Steven takes a picture of it because I am under the impression that we're at the beach to take pictures. Silly me.

After finding one, and believing it to be special, we later found dozens more.

I find myself up to three cool rocks and one whole seashell. My hands are full. From halfway up the beach, Steven yells to get my attention. He is sort of kneeling, a little hunched over, and pointing at the ground. Knowing my weakness he yells, "I think I found a dead, baby crab. I don't want to touch it, though, because I might break it." With glee, I jog over to see the dead, baby crab. When I reach him, I begin scouring the ground from a standing position. I see nothing. 

I look him in the eyes and ask where it is because I can't see it. He breaks my heart by informing me that there is no dead, baby crab. He says that he has something that he wants to give me but that he can't because my hands are already full. He makes me put down the rocks and shell.

He said that he had something to ask me that I've been wanting to ask for a long time.

Would I marry him?

I apparently started blushing really hard the second he said there wasn't a crab and realized that he was kneeling. And I pretty much blacked out the actual words he said and had to ask him to say them to me again later because I was quietly panicking and waiting for the end just to make sure that what I thought was happening actually was happening. I also started crying the second he started talking past the disappointment of no dead, baby crab.

It didn't go like he had hoped. There was no golden sunset bathing us in gold light. But he asked. And I said yes.

Just look at all that fog.

Since nothing went quite like it was supposed to, it was a tiny miracle to realize that one super romantic coincidence had occurred without either of us knowing in the moment. Steven unintentionally proposed five years to the day of our very first kiss.

As some last minute thoughts before I let you go, I figured you should know that A) there was in fact a bathroom on the beach. It was about fifteen feet from where I'd squatted. Patience is not a thing I have, apparently. B) The ring was 100% what I'd been hinting that I wanted which is going to be relevant in the very next post.