Spring hasn't sprung, but its... springing?

I'm beginning to understand why they say here "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." I'm also beginning to understand why they say that this year has been really, really weird in regard to weather.

Let's take this week as an example:

We started out with beautiful temperatures for a few days -- we even hit 70 one day! It was wonderful, despite the earthquake on Monday. Yes, apparently they have small earthquakes in Cleveland (technically a little outside of it).

The weather started to get a bit nastier, and we had rain on Wednesday. Wednesday night: a tornado. That night's rain turned to freezing rain, and then sleet, and by the time I woke up to go to work, we had an inch of snow on the ground.... WHAT??? Also, freezing rain can sometimes make big branches or power lines fall from its weight. As I was getting out of bed, I heard a very loud crack, and heard Dan, in the kitchen, yell "OH MY GOD!!" I ran out, and my neighbor's giant weeping willow tree had fallen over the fence onto our garage. The cars weren't in it, thank goodness, but I'm still mourning that tree... it was beautiful!

Friday: It wasn't supposed to snow, but it started to on my way to work, and continued all day.

I haven't been outside today, and I'm scared to look out the window. What's next, a hurricane?

All the same, spring is definitely on its way. I've been finding blooms and new growth in places around our yard. Hurray!

Here, have some pictures

The tree incident:




Freezing rain:




The first buds of spring on our tree:




No idea what these are, but they look like blooms of some sort. Fooled into growing in the warm days and then being covered with snow. Nature is mean!

I give up

I give up. I hate Ohio today. I manage ok most days, but today I can't take being so far from my family, from my childhood friends, from tropical weather. I miss everyone so much it hurts. My toes haven't been properly warm since October, when I sadly stashed away my sandals to collect dust in the box lovingly labeled "Summer clothes". I don't CARE that its been a "mild" winter. Its been a mild winter for Clevelanders, not for a Miami transplant who lives in Ohio by some sick twist of fate. And I just might tell the next northerner who makes fun of me and reminds me how much worse it will be next year when we aren't so lucky to have a "mild" winter to just fuck off.

Like I said, I can take it most days. There are just a few days when I can't, and this is one of them. Today I can't stop telling myself that I just want to go HOME. And today home isn't Ohio; it's Miami.

My God, I just want to go home. HOME HOME HOME. Miami.

And they lived happily ever after, without end, Amen.

I'm very happy with how the pictures of the wedding turned out. There's a bunch of them, so dial-up beware!


Getting ready -- Mimi did a great job on the makeup!




I think Elisa looked amazing in her dress.




Stephy, my flower girl/niece, spent most of the pre-ceremony time admiring her "pretty princess" dress in the mirror. She also called me a pretty princess for days. She's smart; she knows to butter up the adults right before Christmas!




She also spent a lot of time cuddling "Baby Duck".




The girls posed and looked pretty and helped me get ready:




And the guys tried to help Dave keep his rose on:




But John spent most of the time before the ceremony begging Dan, his 'heterosexual life partner' to not abandon him:




And then they all laughed and fenced with roses. Ahem.




Alex managed to take some good pictures of me (a rarity for me, I assure you):




And I showed off the pretty back of my dress.




Also, here are Min and Caleb. Aren't they cute?? They actually matched my color theme, so extra credit for them.




I managed to get up to the altar without falling flat on my face. Go me!




We prayed, took communion, listened to a mini-sermon and did the old Spanish arras tradition. My favorite part was when the minister improvised the sermon and based it on Dan's bad knee, and likened marriage to joints and ligaments and cartilage. So is he saying that all you need for a successful marriage is a good joint??




And then he let us kiss:




And we're finally a Mr. and Mrs.!




We recessed, followed by the others. Christopher, my "ring man"/nephew, picked up all the petals my niece had thrown on the way in. What a tidy little guy!




Corey and Chris looked especially spiffy:




Then we celebrated the fact that we made it back down the aisle without tripping over each other:




Dan took pictures with the guys:




I took pictures with the girls:




And it was hectic and we were being pulled in 50 directions, but we never forgot what this wedding was all about:




(Just a tip: The title of this post is usually not a good way to end your history final's essay, even if you DID run out of time. Its perfectly ok for an entry with wedding pictures, though.)

I love Christmas cards!

My sister gave me a Christmas card the day of Dan and I's wedding. I threw it in a bag and didn't think about it until I started to unpack last night. I found it, opened it, and "awwwed" at the cute picture of the kids that graced the cover of the card. I also thought it was really cute that my sister used both Spanish and English in the text of the card, since her husband is Cuban. I read it once, stopped, and read it again. Apparently my sister forgot that I'm a bilingual editor; and I know next year she'll ask me to read over her card before printing them up and mailing them out to everyone she knows. This year's card read:

Merry Christmas and Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Apparently the card place wouldn't let her use foreign characters. The difference between "n" and "ñ" in that sentence is crucial. So...

Happy New Anus to you too, sis!

LOL

Wedding checklist

How important is it to have something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue? Because my dress is new, my Grandmother's jewelry is borrowed AND old, but is that cheating? And I have nothing blue. Maybe I can get new cute blue undies? I've no idea. And I have two weeks to figure it out. Hmm.


My wedding checklist:

Venue - church booked
Officiant - booked (old friend!)
Dress - bought and being altered as we speak
Shoes - bought
Necklace - arranged to borrow my Grandmother's jewelry for the wedding (so is that something old or something borrowed?)
Makeup & nail polish - bought
Dan's suit - arranged
Wedding rings - bought and paid in full (YES!)
Flowers - decided upon (roses and poinsettas. Yay!)
Invitations - never got sent out. Oops. People will show up, though.

And most importantly, I have the groom. In the end, that's all that matters :-)

Pictures!

Because I'm still astounded by the stuff snow does after a week of it, have some pictures!










And my kitties are prepared!

Fly-by update

Things have certainly been busy since moving to Cleveland! Work often keeps me twelve hours (or more... eek!), and then there's that whole "getting settled" thing, which never seems to end. We're down to just a handful of boxes, though. Yes, I know we've been here a few months, but you have NO IDEA how much stuff we came out here with. The fact that everything else has been taken care of is rather impressive. So there.

Dan and I moved up our wedding, and it is in three and a half weeks. ACK! Most of the planning is done, though. And my dress? Gorgeous! I love it. So that's going well, though it has been hectic. We were going to get married in 2007, but a variety of factors came up and we decided to go with December 23. A Christmas wedding! Yay! It will be down in Miami, so I get to see all my Miami-based friends again, which is much-needed and I'm looking forward to it.

My best friend (Elisa) came to visit for Thanksgiving and it was lovely to have her here. Dan and I were both ready to adopt her. Or kidnap her and force her to live with us in Cleveland. I haven't given up that plan yet, actually!

So life is good. That's about all I have to report.