In early 2004, Ashley and I went to visit Tinturn Abbey. It was our first adventure outside of the Student Village together (though it wasn't a "date") and when little flakes of snow started to fall from an otherwise sunny sky, our day was made magical.
On January 17th, Ashley took me back to Tinturn Abbey and proposed to me with a red plastic ring inside the Abbey Chapel.
This time we didn't need snow to make the day magical.
(And the red plastic ring was just a joke, by the way. The diamond one was tucked away in his pocket and the scrolls in the setting remind me of the deliate arches of the Tinturn Abbey windows.)
I'm knee deep in a series of eight shifts in a row (nearly, they had to give me one day off in the middle) where I work until 11:30 PM. I consider myself a night owl, but these shifts are definitely starting to get to me.
I've become a kit kat addict over the past 8 days.
I've decided that it is not only a totally excellent idea, but totally possible to knit a shawl and make a scrapbook for Christmas gifts, even though I haven't really started either, and it's the 17th.
My craft fair is on Saturday. Yippeee!
I got "new" shoes at a consignment store a few weeks ago, and today they broke in the Whole Foods parking lot.
I wish I was enjoying the holiday season more, instead of being a tired, over-extended grump.
We got our Christmas tree today. Then it started raining, and the tree got all wet, so we left it outside to dry off. Except that its still raining, so it just looks like we're really mean people who make their Christmas tree live outside.
Maybe if it's a good little tree, it will wake up on Christmas morning all decorated. (Santa has a list of naughty and nice Christmas trees too, ya know).
Christmas 2007 was the best Christmas I have ever had.
First, I said goodbye to my family...
...and I got on a plane.
(I am a sucker for any story that starts with the words "I got on a plane.")
Ten hours, plus some boarder control and baggage collecting time later, I kiss this boy hello,
And we drove three hours from London Heathrow Airport to South Wales.
I met his family for the first time.
They took me to London.
They ignited my love of the Putney Bridge Premier Inn.
They didn't think I was psycho when I was using an audio recorder on the tube to record the "mind the gap" voice over for my mother.
They fed me nice meals. They talked to me. They bought me personal Christmas presents.
(Like a giant Welsh Starbucks mug)
They took me to a London show and a Cardiff pantomime.
We ate roasts, pulled Christmas crackers, and relaxed around the Christmas tree.They insured that I had a nice, Welsh Christmas.
Most importantly, they decided they liked me.
And I decided that I liked them.
(By the way, Ashley's sister is nowhere near as moody as she looks in this picture. In fact, she's the coolest, most fun, and most agreeable teenager I know.)
On top of that, I got to see some old friends
and some new (to me) castles.
It was a magical Christmas. Besides the added magic of this being my first trip back to the UK since I studied abroad there, it was all about what Christmas should be all about: family, friends, and twinkly lights.
My mom took this picture of me when we were visiting St. Fagans Museum in Wales. I love it, not just because of the beautiful flowers and delicious archways, but because it is a picture that I feel really captures the essence of me.
I'm not posing. I don't look super glam, but I don't look scruffy, or fat, or otherwise ugly. I look like me. I am wearing clothes that I love to wear (hoodies, beanies, ballet flats). I am doing something I love to do (take photos) in a place I love (Wales).
This is me. And I am so glad that my mom was able to capture the essence of my personailty so accurately.
Ok, not everyone I know. First of all, some of the people I know are already married.
And really, it's only three people.
And they didn't even all technically get engaged within the last week.
But I found out about all of them last week. And considering I have only had two friends get married so far (and I didn't even go to one of those weddings!) this last week has been a statistical anomaly for me. I think that this officially starts that period of my life where suddenly all of my friends get married. I hear that it all seems to happen at the same time, yeah?
Anyway, meet the new brides in my life.
.Lisa.
Lisa was one of my flatmates during my year abroad in Swansea. We used to dance together whenever they played "Dancing Queen" in a club, and sometimes she would watch the last dance scene in Dirty Dancing over and over again. She's marrying a guy called Simon who I met once and thought was a cool guy.
.Helen.
This is Helen. She was also a flatmate of mine in Swansea. When I knew her then she had the curliest hair out of anyone I know, but she wears it straight now. She is a very sweet girl, and I could always count on her to tell me what she was really thinking. Her fiance proposed to her in front of a Godiva Chocolate Shop.
.Nicolette.
I met Nicolette when we did a Summer Theater program just before our Senior Year of High School. While analyzing a photo of Jewel in a magazine during one of our lunch breaks ("she's wearing a playboy bunny t-shirt and a cross necklace- what is she trying to say?" we wondered) we realized that we were both applying to our local university as our "back-up" school. We decided that if we did go to that university, we would be roommates. One year later, we moved into the dorms together. Over the next two years we spent many nights staying up late talking, she made me countless batches of cookies, and she painted one of our walls tangerine. When we both did study abroad in the same year, I visited her in Florence. A little over a year ago, she moved out to the east coast.
On Tuesday, I was driving to work, and thinking about her. During my break I realized that she had called me exactly when I had been thinking about her. After sending a hello text back, I had a mini realization and sent this text:
"oh my gosh, you are engaged, aren't you?"
The next morning my silly phone registered the voicemail she left that confirmed: she is engaged.
I've been such a negligent little blogger lately, haven't I?
Things have been pretty busy around here over the past few days. I've been re-organizing my room/studio, making tons of stuff for my FIRST EVER CRAFT FAIR on November 14th, and I have been working a lot at my "other" job.
Organizing my studio while there were so many other very important things going on may have seemed like a silly decision, but I am soooo glad I did it. Everything is so much more organized and looks so much prettier. I'm not the most super-est of neat freaks in this world, but the clutter had definitely gotten to me. It was making my mind messy when I really needed to be sharp and perky. I'll post pictures tomorrow, I promise.
Also coming up this week: some eye candy, some scrapbook pages, and a few handfuls of monster of the week on Saturday (because everyone loooves the house that gives them more than just one piece of candy).
Until then, I'll leave you with a picture of a pretty pink sunset.
