I have been MIA..I know, I know..You’ve heard this on and off since I opened this site almost 10 years ago. I have a really good excuse for a change though!

Hubby and I are expecting our first little one in mid-December (12/15 or 12/16)! I’m in my 4th month now (14 weeks tomorrow) and so far everything is going really smoothly. We’ve seen or little bean on ultrasound twice now and he/she (my gut says it’s a she) has been strong as can be and growing ahead of schedule. Heartbeat at the first ultrasound was 183bpm at 8w6d and 165bpm at 11w6d. Whenever we pick it up on doppler it’s still going strong at around 160-165. I’m not showing a whole lot yet (mostly just bloat at night) so it doesn’t feel quite real yet. I’m not sure it it will feel real when I’m feeling it move or if I will have to wait til he/she is in my arms this December. Now you know why I’ve been silent. I just couldn’t blog without including this huge news so I wanted to wait till I was closer to or in the 2nd trimester before I let the cat out of the bag. Crossing my fingers for a happy, healthy, full term December baby!

I’m completely ecstatic to be expecting but so far I am not enjoying the whole being pregnant. Because of my blood clot last summer on my honeymoon my doctors upped me to a high risk pregnancy and have me on nightly lovenox (blood thinner) shots to ensure I don’t clot and clots don’t harm the baby. I’ve been on the shots for just over 2 months now and I’m soooo over being stuck every night. My tummy and thighs are all bruised! I just look at my ultrasound pics and remind myself that’s why I am taking them and that it’s worth it cause I get my own little present at the end. I’m stuck on the lovenox till mid November and then they are switching me to Heparin twice a day till the baby is born and then back on lovenox for another 6 weeks..so I’ll be on shots basically till January or March. Yucky yuck. As for the other usual pregnancy stuff that is at least lessening now that I’m at the 2nd Tri mark. I had some pretty bad constant nausea and sleepiness for awhile there. I was basically living on all carbs because it was all I could stomach. Let me tell you that does not help with weight gain :/ Ah well. Just more to lose when the baby is out!

On a different note we are already coming up on our first wedding anniversary on July 4th! We booked a vacation down the east coast to celebrate and I can’t wait to go! We leave June 30th and make 3-4 hour drives with stops at hotels (Binghamton, Maryland and Virginia) along the way until we reach the beach house we rented for a week on Topsail Island in NC.  Then it’s back up the coast again with stops in Virginia, Delaware & Binghamton (I think?!). Can’t wait! A couple weeks of time together with hopefully some nice weather is much needed before the craziness begins at the end of the year. I can’t wait to see the ocean again ( and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to see some dolphins!). Woohoo!

Nothing else really beyond the usual day to day stuff. Running my biz and just recently my nesting instinct has been kicking in so I’m cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! Busy, busy bee!

Is it really 2010 already? Have I seriously been married over 7 months now..? Wow. Time gets faster and faster as I get older.. It needs to slow down a little! (Or maybe stay fast until spring..and then slow down so I can enjoy the very few nice months we actually get here in Rochester!) You last heard from me in September.. So I better give you a quick recap of the past few months. (I can’t say they were very exciting though.. )

I’m now off of Coumadin/Warfarin (since the beginning of October) and I am SO glad I don’t have to take that poison anymore. I know…technically it helped me by keeping my blood thin enough for my body to break down the DVT (deep vein thrombosis or blood clot in my calf)..but it made me feel sooo sick. I was feeling nauseous on and off throughout the day and was losing a ton of hair. (Luckily I have pretty thick hair to begin with so it wasn’t visibly noticeable..despite literally combing out a handful or two every day.) I got my hair cut and colored a week or two after going off coumadin and my stylist could not believe the amount of hair she was combing off my head. It was crazy (and a little embarrassing..lol), but I explained it was from the meds I had been on and she understood. Now the only thing I take every day is my supplements (Prenatal multi, B6 & triple strength fish oil!). No, I’m not pregnant..but hope to be maybe sometime this year so the prenatals are just a preparation thing!

I’m trying to get back into working out on and off now but I’m trying not to be psychotic about it. I have a problem with almost becoming obsessed when I get into some kind kind of workout regiment and I am trying to avoid allowing myself to be that way. It becomes a chore and I hate how I start to think when I’m in that mode. The only way I can try to explain it is almost as if I was thinking like an anorexic but still eating. I’d make sure I ate between 1200-1800 calories on weekdays (and then eat what I want on weekends..fast food..ice cream, so yep NOT anorexic!) BUT when it came to exercise I’d NEED to make sure I did it at least Mon, Wed and Friday. That’s not a big deal I guess but I would have this voice in my head saying I had to do more than the last time, better than the last time…and if I missed a workout I’d really beat myself up over it. My workouts would end up lasting longer and longer (to the point where it probably wasn’t making a difference) but my mind insisted I still had to beat the last workout. Then I dread each workout and eventually feel so overwhelmed in my head that I stop working out altogether. (Ya…I’m slightly nutty. It’s my insecurity.. I never look in the mirror and feel happy about myself. There’s always something I can fix..always something that’s too big..Something that’s crooked..ACK!) I think that’s why I get that way..and my tendency to be a perfectionist about everything. (I’m a big list maker..It calms me..hehe!) When I was on coumadin I wasn’t even allowed to workout because the doctor made it sound like she was worried the clot that was there might break loose..so my working out since October hasn’t been as regular as it probably should be. Now I’m trying to just ease back into it. I’m doing whatever cardio sounds like it would be fun at the moment and I limit myself to only doing it for 35-45 minutes and then I switch to my strength training. I’m hoping if I keep up with making sure I don’t get into the obsessive mindset I’ll keep with it and enjoy it more. I really hope it works!

My business has continued to do very well for me so I am very happy with that. It slowed down a little bit when all the brides to be were focusing on the holidays but since January first it has been picking up like crazy and keeping me very busy. Between that and our tax return we were able to pay off my hospital bills from this summer, some of our credit cards and almost half of the new bedroom set/mattress we got in December. We got a new carpet for the master bedroom too..and pretty blue paint (Cosmos from Sherwin Williams..used in the living room of HGTV’s 2009 dream home!) I’ll share some pics in another post.. This one is already a bit winded!

Lastly I had a hard couple of weeks because I have been so busy and I’ve had to deal with the death of two my my little furbabies less than a week apart. My holland lop rabbit Tutter passed away on Tuesday, January 26th..completely unexpectedly at the age of 4 (he would have been 5 on Feb 28th). The Thursday before that we noticed he hadn’t ate all day when we were heading to bed so we rushed him to the Emergency Vet at midnight worried he possibly had gastric stasis which commonly leads to death. The woman there didn’t really know rabbits so she didn’t really know what she was doing. She guessed it might be stasis as well and put him on a med that was supposed to help get his digestive tract moving again. We couldn’t get an appointment with our regular vet until Tuesday so from Thursday on we focused on giving him tummy rubs, meds, syringing him water and tempting him with hay, carrots and banana. By Monday night he seemed to be improving..We were so excited because he had started munching on his hay here and there and was picking up his water drinking a lot. We brought him into the vet Tuesday morning and she worried it was an illness but said it could also be his teeth or stasis (blockage). She said in order to diagnosis him they would need to put him under and get xrays of everything and then do blood work. We signed him over and left..only to get the sad phone call a few hours later that he went into cardiac arrest after being put under anesthesia.  She came to the conclusion that she thinks he had cancer and that’s why he stopped eating. Soo..we lost our little blue lop way too early. He broke our hearts when he left us and will always have a piece of it. Our hamster Crinkles followed him 6 days later on Monday from cancer as well (he had a tumor and was too tiny to operate on). Another little cutie that will always have a piece of our hearts. Now it’s just Ryan, me, a maltese, a turkish van and a fishie. Hopefully they won’t be leaving us anytime soon! <3

(Oh..and my wordpress was hacked. I spent all afternoon/night Saturday reinstalling and fixing it. Lesson learned? Always keep wordpress up to date. Theend.)

I know..I know. I’ve been totally MIA lately. I also know you’ve heard this one before..yadda yadda. That’s life!

So what has been consuming most of my time? My business! It has been kind of snowballing in growth since it’s official start in February and seems to be consuming more and more of my time every week. I am actually starting to throw around the idea of needing to hire a family member or friend to come over once in awhile and help me get out orders when I get backed up if it keeps growing like it has been. So yes…very busy! But good busy.. The more busy I am the more money I have to pay down our debt. The more debt we pay off the better off we will be. Once I’m off coumadin if the money situation is looking up we may be able to start tossing the idea of having kids around at the end of the year! Woohoo! Plus Ry has been uber successful at his job and recently got a raise..(with another possibly around the corner!) So proud!

Since I started typing this blog..3 new orders. Ugh..see? I can’t even blog without a slew of new orders coming into my inbox! Craziness. I’ll have to cut this shorter than I wanted to!

Anywho..married life isn’t much different than life before we got married. We still live together..We are still uber happy and in love..Pretty much just legally tied now! It feels nice to call him my husband though. All the single ladies were jealous of him looking all pimp in his suit at my cousin April’s wedding Friday night. Sorry ladies..he’s off the market now!

Healthwise I am doing better! I am still on the coumadin pills every night but I’m almost 2 months in now. I am hoping I’ve got a month left to go and then I can be done. I’m still getting the occasional nausea and dizziness but it has subsided a ton since getting off the lovenox shots. I still haven’t been given the ok to work out though…I’m hoping when I talk to the nurse tomorrow after bloodwork she may give me the thumbs up for that. Although I don’t know if I’ll be able to find time to do it anyways right now. *sniffsniff..ugh. I love when my dog farts on me..grimace*

We made our first trip to Bed Bath and Beyond this weekend to buy some goodies with gift cards we got for the wedding and ended up grabbing ourselves a Keurig platinum. It makes single serve cups of coffee, tea and cocoa..I AM IN LOVE WITH IT.

I have my pro wedding pics now as well….I’ll post them soon! foof.

Well it has been a week and a half (or so) since I got back from our honeymoon so I figured an update was due!

I guess since the wedding worked out so perfectly that it just wasn’t in our cards for our honeymoon would be as well. As a whole it ended up going alright since it was about 10-11 days away but the beginning of it..not so much. As most of you know already the plan was head to DC for a few days before heading to our ultimate destination which was a beach house rented for a week in the southern outer banks of NC..followed by a stop in MD on the way back up to break up the drive. Wellll..due to me being on the pill for about 8 years and being in the car for 7 hours+ driving down from NY to DC I ended up getting a blood clot in my right calf. We even stopped about 3 times through the drive to use the restrooms and let Zoe walk a bit and empty out. Still got a clot though . I didn’t realize it until the next day either! See, we got into DC probably round 7:30pm-8pm and my legs and butt both hurt and ached but I figured it was normal since I had been in the car most of the day and shrugged it off. The Sheraton Suites of Old Town sent up a  delicious cheese and fruit platter free for being on honeymoon so we munched on that and some local calzones for dinner before heading to bed with hopes of seeing DC the next day. That, however, didn’t happen. I woke up basically unable to walk on my right leg because whenever I would stand up sharp pains would shoot up through my calf and it felt like heat and blood was rushing to my calf. The last thng was thinking was that it was a blood clot so when Ryan ran to grab so groceries I told him to grab some muscle rub and a bandage to wrap my leg to attempt to still enjoy the trip. While he was at the store I called my cousin who is a registered nurse and she insisted I go to the ER because what I was describing to her sounded like a blood clot. Went to the ER round noon and was stuck in there till that Saturday diagnosed with a blood clot in my right calf. We were supposed to make second half of the drive down to NC that Saturday but instead got another night at the hotel to recoup. The hospital allowed me to make the trip Sunday as long as I stopped every hour to walk (more like limp!) around and stretch..and take nightly blood thinner injections to prevent the clot from moving to my lungs and killing me. (Fun huh!)

We got to NC safely and by the end of the week when it was almost time to leave I was starting to walk normal again and got to see and walk in the ocean, see the wild horses on shackleford banks and collect some neat seashells before heading back to MD and home.

Needless to say I enjoyed being away from Rainchester and experience summer for about a week but could have done without spending the first third of the honeymoon in a hospital bed on an iv with blood draws that were happening almost constantly. I still enjoyed NC though..(Well, mostly. I can do without the prehistoric sized bugs that are there since they don’t really (if ever?) get snow.)

I’m now trying to get back to normal with my business and taking care of the house but I’m struggling a little because I’m on so much medication from the clot that I feel like ass all day. My primary doc still has me on nightly injections of lovenox which is an instant blood thinner into my stomach (given by my doting husband <3) and coumadin pills which are a gradual blood thinner with almost daily morning blood draws to check my blood thinness. Stillt rying to get the blood thin enough to be in what they call a therapeutic level which is between 2 and 3. On Wednesday it was at 1.88 and I had a draw this morning..I’m hopinh when I get a call (any minute now) it’ll be above 2 so I can stop the nightly shots. (They burn like hell!)

It really sucks because even with insurance the medical bills are adding up to cost more than our whole honeymoon even did. We have to stick to a tight budget now just to make sure we can cover my doctor bills. Ugh. Suckage. Oh well. We will pull through on top in the end..We always do. It’s just the in between struggle that sucks!

Here are some honeymoon shots…

Well I’m officially a Mrs! The day went perfectly..The weather..the food..the ceremony…the reception..EVERYTHING! I couldn’t be happier

We are leaving now for our honeymoon (DC for a few days and then a beach house in NC Outerbanks for a week!) so I will have a better update when we return. In the mean time watch my flicker for honeymoon updates!!

<3 <3

Yea…WOW! I’m getting married tomorrow. It didn’t start to feel real till yesterday afternoon when I finished up wedding things. I woke up this morning at 5am with a nervous tummy ache as it is all feeling real today. Ryan’s family are all probably leaving Binghamton right now to drive up here for tonight’s rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at 6pm. I think that’s what’s making it feel like it’s happening. Knowing my family and his family are on their way today for our wedding. Crazy!!

I’m feeling so nervous right now. Not about the marriage..I have no doubts about that. I’m actually nervous about the details going as planned and worried I’m going to be a big cry baby and over emotional tomorrow and really don’t want to be! I am excited and can’t wait though. It has rained all week but it looks like the weather is going to break for tomorrow and be partly sunny and 74 which is perfect when you are wearing a tux and a huge heavy ballgown. Our city of Rochester turned 175 years old this year so they will also be doing a huge fireworks show tomorrow night at 10pm only a couple blocks from the hotel and we are supposed to be able to view them on the patio of our reception area..SO cool!

It has been a crazy year with an extremely hectic past week or two and an overwhelming current week. On top of finalizing all the wedding details I also had to put my 8 year old ferret to sleep on Sunday(6/28) because of her Insulinoma. I miss her like crazy! It was one of the hardest things (if not the hardest) I’ve ever had to do in my life…but I didn’t want her to suffer from the cancer and knew me saying goodbye to her wa sthe best thing for her. She fell asleep while I rubbed her little head. I love her so much..she’ll forever be in my heart. On Tuesday I saw the most beautiful huge rainbow appear over our house where it looked like the end disappeared in our backyard…I hope it was her rainbow bridge.

Well I’m signing off…I have to finish some odds and ends here at the house and then get ready for rehearsal! Next time I blog I’ll be a Mrs <3

Whoa..I can’t believe it’s only 20 days away. I’ve been planning the whole thing myself for almost a year and a half now and it is SO hard to believe that in just over 2 weeks I’ll be walking down the aisle. It doesn’t feel real yet! I’m having more and more moments lately (especially this month!) where something reminds me it’s almost here and I get overly emotional and teary just because everything is so hectic and starting to feel real. It still kind of just feels like we are just planning a huge party. I don’t think it’ll really hit me till rehearsal or I’m riding to the ceremony in the limo with my bridesmaids (probably a crying mess at that point..but GOOD crying!)

It’s mostly down to the little details now and making the final vendor payments over the next week or two. I just need to do paper details like menus, programs, table numbers place cards and favor tags (which sounds like a lot but since I do them for a living it shouldn’t be too long, especially since most are already designed). Then I just have to finish ringbearer pillows, flowergirl baskets, our toasting flutes and trim my veil. I’ve had two dress fittings and I love my dress more and more each time I go back and it fits me better. She even had to take the waist in more since I’ve managed to somehow get a little skinnier!

This weekend we splurged a little and did some honeymoon shopping We are going to the Outer banks North Carolina area for our honeymoon in mid July and we rented a house on the beach for a week. It will be my first time seeing the ocean and I am so excited! I got two new pairs of shorts, a snorkeling kit, body board, water shoes, a sandcastle kit for my first ever sand castle (SO dorky, I know) and ordered the cutest halter bikini from Pac Sun online today…. (Hmmn..I was going to post a pic but apparently it must be sold out now! Will post one when it gets here if I have a free minute or two!)

On another note, we had Applebees for dinner tonight and my stomach is not very happy. I shouldn’t have had all 3 cheeseburger sliders, fries and a queso dip and chips appetizer. I’m burping grossness. Ugh.

I also had a very hectic weekend because my maltese dog Zoe had issues Friday with her anal gland again and is on antibiotics with butt compresses twice a day and blue butt cleanser that makes her bum look like a smurf. She is just today finally returning to normal so I’m glad she is feeling better! She loved hanging out with us outside today playing with her new squishy frisbee while we gardened and played catch in the backyard together. We planted a bunch of perennials and some more veggies in our veggie garden…YUM!

That’s about it for now…I have a busy week ahead but will try to post again once more before I’m a Mrs! (BTW- The Haunting of Molly Hartley movie is awful. So stupid. Don’t waste your time renting it!)

Ugh..I think I’m reaching the point where I am just ready to walk down the aisle, enjoy the day and go back to normal. Don’t get me wrong – I’m extremely excited about getting married and our wedding…I just think I took too much on and am honestly just tired of all things wedding (and I still have a million and a half things I still need to do!). I’m actually scheduling final vendor appointments by e-mail as I type this blog..started my dress fittings last night and meet with my florist for a final time on Monday! I also still have to…

• Write vows
• Print and cut the menus
• Design, print and cut the ceremony programs
• Design, print and cut place cards and table numbers
• Finish sewing and stuffing the ringbearer pillows
• Sew my veil
• Decorate the baskets I bought for the flower girls
• Plan the ceremony
• Figure out favors
• Figure out must take photos and a must play/do-not play list
• Etch and embellish toasting glasses
• Buy groomsman gifts
• Make my hydrangea hair pins
• Tie ribbons on bubbles
• 1,000,456 final vendor meetings and dress fittings
• + a bunch of things I’m sure I’m forgetting!

People are making me mad by flaking out on even coming to the wedding too. Sure, it’s a holiday weekend and it’s in Rochester…but half (if not more!) of the declines I’m getting are from family who initially said they were “so excited” to come and they “couldn’t wait”, and they knew then when and where it was! I guess you see people’s true colors in situations like this. I was raised to know while sometimes you may not be ultra excited to dress up and drive out to whoevers shower or wedding..you do it if they are family. It’s just the adult thing to do. -Especially- if they have gone to all of your things. I have people declining with not even the etiquette to leave a little note to say sorry..and I’ve been to a few of their bridal showers, weddings AND baby showers. It’s unbelievably rude. To make a long story short we’ve invited over 175 people and are going to be lucky if 60 come. To meet the minimum cost we have to upgrade the hell out of everything (we don’t save money if we have less people..we HAVE to spend a certain amount regardless)..So we are probably goign to have a 5 hour open bar with top of the line liquors, a chocolate fountain AND an italian desserts table..on top of the 4 course dinner and wedding cake. Yep. People who come will be shown one hell of a party..the ones who don’t can suck my ass if they want me at their communions, weddings and showers in the future.

It probably doesn’t help that the most successful part of my business and work is wedding stationery items (place cards, table numbers, favor tags and thank you cards). I spent all afternoon cutting out 400 favor tags for one girl! I live and breathe and work all things wedding right now.

My shower is Sunday and I’m excited for that (amidst being peeved about people, urgh). My mom has been working so hard on it and is so excited too. She’s having it at her house and I’m looking forward to seeing some friends I haven’t seen in a longgg time. I’m hoping I don’t go all cry baby that day. I’m an extremely sensitive, cry at the drop of a hat kind of person as it is..but now with feeling stressed and burned out lately and the big day only a month and ahalf away (almost 50 days!) I am realllly emotional. Lots of waterproof makeup for me I guess.

Once the weddings over we have our honeymoon in Outerbanks NC where we rented our own house on the beach for a week..so I’m very excited to see the ocean for the first time and finally just relax for the first time in awhile. Then I can return to normal life (still continuing my design/wedding business of course) and maybe at the end of the year start trying to have a family?:)

BTW – Random Lilly Fact (or RLF): I have a water bottle I carry around on weekdays in attempt to get the daily amount of water I’m supposed to have every day to help me look skinny for the wedding. When I fill my bottle I prefer to fill it in the upstairs bathroom. It just tastes better than the water in the kitchen. thend.

I hate my yearly gyno appointment. I mean..let’s face it, no matter what it’s always awkward and uncomfy. I can’t keep getting my seasonale prescrip without my yearly pap though so I deal. Anyways, this morning was my yearly appointment and somehow it managed to be even more awkward than usual!

So I’m stripped nude in a little paper gown and sitting on the exam table waiting for my doctor come in and I hear the beeping of a large truck backing up. Ok..there’s window there, parking lot underneath. It must be a delivery truck, garbage truck…right? No big deal. WRONG. It’s three grubby looking dudes on a lift truck and parking right below my exam window!!! They are setting up to go up on the lift right outside my exam room and the blinds aren’t closed..and I don’t see any way of closing them!  There was no way I was going to stay on that exam table with my booty hanging out of the back of my gown so I hopped down and sat on my pile of clothes on another chair in the room to wait for my doctor. When she came in I explained and she had no idea what they were doing, apoligized and closed the blinds…Hopped back on the table n the lift goes up n he guys are standing right outside my window now! Thankfully she basically said screw this and said she was moving me to another room with NO windows cause it was uncomfy and weird.

I don’t know if a gyno visit will ever be  so very awkward.. I really, really..hope not. theend.

Sorry I haven’t been around much! Things have been getting more and more hectic lately as we get closer to the wedding, especially with my design business finally really taking off. I had my biggest week yet last week with sales (and my busiest too, obviously!), so I haven’t had much time to just sit down and blog till now.

Nothing is really to new here since I have been so busy with working..(When you work from home you also never leave work!). My mom is coming out to visit tomorrow and we plan on taking the wedding invites out to the post office and also running to the mall to pick up a couple gifties for Ry’s b-day next week. I can’t believe the wedding invites leave my hands tomorrow..crazy! Am so excited Mom sent the shower invites out last week and actually got the first rsvp (yes!) today..weee! Time is flying by super fast…I think today is 88 days until the wedding! I remember it feeling like it was a long time to go when I got engaged 1/1/08 and now I’m in the very last couple months. Things are only going to get more hectic with vendor meetings and the like but I couldn’t be happier! I also have a baby shower for my friend Jessi in the beginning of May and I am super excited to see friends I haven’t seen since high school. Crazy to know my friends are getting married and having babies when it feels like we just accepted our high school diplomas! Now I’ll be married in a couple months and maybe start planning for babies of my own in the next year!

I go into Buffalo for Easter this year for dinner at my mom’s. If I don’t get a chance to blog before then (and I probably won’t!) I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter if you celebrate

I’ll leave u with some zoe hair cut pics..(Zoe won’t let anyone cut her furs but me..so she gets “mommy cuts”)

Before:

After: