That's just crazy talk!

Total craziness… today is my last day of work for 12 whole days! I can’t believe it. This day might take forever since it’s my last day. But I have a ton to do so everything is caught up for JDS and DPS so maybe if I’m lucky it will go by fast. :) Today the office is taking us all out for lunch to celebrate mine and another co-worker’s marriages. I feel so blessed to have such a great group of people to work with! Yay for free lunches! :)

I have cheeseburgers, french fries and chipotle floating around in a circle above my head, teasing me… Ugh, I’m so craving bad things! The wedding is in 4 days, 4 DAYS!! I can’t stinkin believe it! I’m so ready for it to be here. Once it’s over I’m going to pig out on all bad things!! ;)

I just got an email notifying me that my new Excel bill is ready and the due date is after the wedding! That’s just crazy. I can’t believe we only have two weeks left. Which also means that summer is basically over. This Friday is our last ½ day Friday at work. I’m going to take advantage of this and run a bunch of errands after work. I want to get as much errands out of the way as I can so I’m not running around like a madman the day before the wedding. There are a bunch of small things that I need to buy for the wedding and a few “thank-you” gifts. Other than these small details I’m am pretty much ready for the wedding! The only thing that is really stressing me out at the moment is the weather, fitting into my dress and getting everyone’s rsvp cards back – we are still missing about 35 people. Not bad since my last update was 49 people missing. So, I can’t do anything about the weather except hope for a nice sunny day. I started up my 30-day shred again so hopefully that will help me fit into my dress and I’m trying to eat better until the wedding is over. That means more chicken and veggies and no more ice cream! I gave a list of people for Rita to call since most of the missing people are from her side of the family and I’ve only got a few people that I need to call. Other than that, we are practically ready! We should get our marriage license in the mail tomorrow or Friday and then I can send that in along with our ceremony to the officiant. Then I’m meeting with the photographer next week, getting my hair cut and dyed next week and having the hair trial the week of the wedding. The next two weeks will be busy!

Off wedding talk – I came home after work yesterday and I didn’t realize that I would need a hazmat suit… Phil usually gets home before me but he went to the hospital instead to visit his grandpa. I bet he is glad he did because poor Winston had an accident in his kennel. Let’s just say he needed a very good scrub and his bed and his large bone were not able to be saved. Poor Winnie. I wonder how long he had to lie in his own poop, his own very large, very smelly poop. :`(

First of all, I have to say that the antibiotics that I’m currently on for my cough/bronchitis is tearing my stomach to shreds. I’m not kidding. As I’m sitting here typing this I can literally hear my stomach turning and I bet I could see it moving if I pulled my shirt up. It’s not happy. I heard eating yogurt helps so I’m trying to get some of that down – not my favorite food. But I’d rather force yogurt down then run down to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Anyways… enough about my digestive system and on to the next subject.

Two of my best friends got married last weekend. Their wedding was gorgeous and went perfectly and I couldn’t be happier for them! I’m so glad their wedding was first. :-) It actually made me less stressed out about mine. Things will go just fine even though they seem like they won’t! There are only 3 weeks and one day left until I’ll be Mrs. Kasinskas. There is really not a whole lot left to be done. Only a ton of small things but nothing big remaining. I just started bugging people who haven’t given me their rsvp card back yet. So far we have 121 yeses, 24 no’s and 49 who haven’t rsvp’d yet. So, I guess we invited more people than I thought. I think tomorrow Phil and I will head to the courthouse and apply for our marriage license. :-)

I had myself a busy week/end. Thursday after work Phil and I met with the lady at The Orchard for the wedding reception. We went over placement of everything/food/drinks/schedule/etc. I’m starting to get a little overwhelmed about the bill I’m going to get the day before the wedding and the day of the wedding.

Friday after work I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up 20 bags of mulch for the farm. After picking up the mulch I ran to Stillwater to pick up my wedding dress! Yippy!! I’m so excited to have it at home! Now I just need to try it on one last time to make sure it fits and will work with my shoes, jewelry, etc. However, I’ll need some help in that department since I’ve tried to put it on by myself and I can’t zip up the back. :-/

Then on Saturday I ran to Woodbury to finish my remaining errands since I couldn’t fit everything in the car on Friday with all the mulch and my dress. I had to run to Achievers for special pens/markers for the place cards and ink for the guestbook fingerprint tree. Then I ran to Kohl’s to try to find a different kind of spanks. I neglected to think about having to pee in my dress with spanks on that go down to my thighs and up to my bra. The only way I’d be able to pee with those on is if I unzipped my dress each time I had to go – which would mean I’d need help every time I go pee and let’s face it, I go pee a lot. So I decided to get a different kind that only was for my waist. I only needed them for my waist anyways since the reason for them is to hide my belly button from showing through my dress. After Kohl’s I ran to Home Depot to buy some flowers/shrubs for the farm. We are finally putting the final touches on the garden and it’s almost done!! After running errands I went home and cleaned the house a bit and then Phil and I went out for dinner.

On Sunday Phil and I had more errands to run (I feel like I’m always running errands). We ran to Fleet Farm to get more dog food and dog toys that we hope Winston won’t destroy in less than 5 minutes. Then we ran to Menards to pick up some more pieces for our deck since the guy who helped us order the deck forgot to put a bunch of important pieces on our list. I ended up buying some more plants for the farm (good thing because we needed them). After running errands I met my aunt Laura at the farm and we worked on the garden for 3 hours. It is so close to being done and it looks great!! Tuesday I’m going back over there to finish with the mulch and then the only thing I’ll have to do is water! Over the next few weeks I need to water it pretty much every day until everything looks like it will live. Some plants looked pretty pathetic after being moved around and replanted.

This weekend my two very good friends are getting married! I'm so excited for them and I'm excited to take a break from my own madness and enjoy their wedding!! :)

We have 1 ½ months until the wedding – plenty of time to get shit done but yet I’m stressed out about every little thing. Some days I feel okay and others I feel like the anxiety is taking over (like today). I hate anxiety… I get that from my mother. I get anxiety even when I’m running late. Actually, I get anxiety even when I’m going to be right on time (I like to be early for everything)! Why can’t I just stinkin relax and not worry about every little thing? I know the wedding will go just fine but I can’t stop worrying about it. My main to do list: pay vendors, finish picking out music for the ceremony/reception and send DJ our list and event profile, finish place cards (once I get all the rsvps), finish planning ceremony (vows, etc), finish garden at farm, make slideshow, and get marriage license. There are of course plenty of tiny things to do but those are the main things left. This weekend is the start to my wedding events - I have my bachelorette party! I cannot wait to celebrate with my favorite lady friends! Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have plenty of pictures to post next week. 45 more days to go until the big day!!

The only thing on my mind is wedding. I can’t seem to think outside of the wedding box anymore. I can’t concentrate on work or even sleep. I can’t believe there is less than 2 months to go and so much left to do! But Phil and I got some more details out of the way over the weekend and also managed to get some cleaning jobs done – stuff that you don’t do on a usual weekly basis. Phil finally got the Cricut working and cut out all of our birds for the place cards. He even helped me glue everything together and I didn’t even have to ask! Now I just need to write people’s names on the cards. However, I don’t have the best handwriting so maybe I better find someone who does to write them. I also worked on my fabric flowers. A few more hours of work and I should be done with them! We also finally booked our honeymoon! We are going to Orlando for 6 nights and staying at a hotel that is in Walt Disney World Resorts. I let Phil pick the vacation this time since I’ve picked all the rest. I really wanted to go to Hawaii or something but Phil didn’t. But, I’m actually getting really getting excited to go to Orlando! I’m excited to go to all the theme parks. We are getting a 4-day theme park pass so we will be very busy! In exactly two months from today we will be boarding a plane and heading to Florida! :) :)

I just have to say that I can’t believe it’s already July and the wedding is only 67 days away (just over 2 months). Craziness… The real wedding festivities start this weekend. Well, it’s not my wedding stuff that starts this weekend, it’s my friends, however, I’m in their wedding so I count it as wedding festivities! I’ve got her bridal shower this weekend, then Sunday I’m meeting my Aunt Laura at the farm to work on the garden (and hopefully finish it or get it close to being finished). Then the next weekend is my friend’s bachelorette party (whoop whoop)! The weekend after that, we are building the deck (not wedding but whatev). Then the next weekend is my bachelorette party! I have the weekend after that open (I’m sure it won’t stay that way). Then it’s Josh and Loin’s wedding the next weekend and then it’s my bridal shower the weekend after that. Then Phil and I get married two weeks later!! So, it looks like I have 3 weekends left open (intentionally keeping the two before the wedding open for last minutes stuff). It will be here before I know it!

This weekend was fabulous! Phil and I got a lot of wedding stuff done, yard work done and actually had time for some fun too! For our date night on Friday we went and saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon in 3D. The movie was just ok. I definitely enjoyed it but I would have to rank it as my least favorite out of the three.

Saturday we went tubing down the Apple River with a bunch of friends and then had a bbq afterwards. It was nice to get outside and do something fun for the first time this summer!

Sunday Phil and I spent a lot of the day working on the yard. We finally got all the shitty pebble rock is gone from our walkway!! It only took us a week to get it all out of there. Now we just need to till it up, put a pathway in and put down some grass seed. Sounds easy enough…

Yesterday Phil and I took an extra day off work to run errands and get stuff done. Our first stop was Menards to order our deck. After some bickering on the design, we finally got it ordered and it will be delivered on Thursday! I’m quite excited! Hopefully we can get it all built by the end of this month (as long as my awesome friends are still willing to help *wink wink). After Menards we ran to Woodbury to pick out Phil’s ring at the Shane Co., which we bought and then went to Savvi Formalwear to pick out the tuxs for the wedding. I thought I wanted to do suits but that didn’t work out. I guess they would have to buy their suits and that would be more expensive. So, we went with the tuxs but minus the vest and pocket thinger. They are going to look so spiffy!! Once we got home I finished up our wedding website and finished tweaking our Target registry. Hopefully we have enough stuff on there since we didn’t register anywhere else. Our wedding is only 72 days away! I’m sure Josh and Max would like that.

Now after a 4 and 1/2 days off work I'm back to work. :( Little vacations just aren't long enough..

This last weekend was both great and horrible. It started off great with a dress fitting. The dress is even better than I remember. Maybe I just thought it was better because it actually fit me instead of being 2 sizes too big. Either way, I love it. She just needs to add the buttons so I can bustle it and then finish a few minor things and then I get to pick it up! But then I need to find a dry cleaner… Now that I’m quite nervous about. I don’t even want to think about that yet.

Saturday I want shopping with my gal pals. It was quite nice to hang out with just us girls – no boys or kids. I feel like we haven’t done that in a long ass time. I found a few things, like my bachelorette dress or the one I’ll wear to Loin’s bachelorette party and I found a dress to wear to my bridal shower. Two more checks off my list! After I got home from shopping I relaxed for a tiny bit and then Phil and I went to Bart’s (Rachel’s hubby) family reunion/pig roast. It was nice to see them both. I don’t remember the last time I saw Bart… it might have been at their wedding, which was a few years ago!

Sunday was when it got horrible. I woke up and decided to keep my mind occupied since I knew it would be an emotional day so I cleaned the house from top to bottom. By noon, I was exhausted. I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster all day. One minute I’m sad, then I’m crabby, then I’m angry, then back to sad. So, I didn’t go with Phil to his mom’s house to visit with the family. I just couldn’t be social. This was my second father’s day without my dad. You would think it would get easier with time but it doesn’t. I get sad and miss him any day but dates like father’s day and his birthday are very difficult. There are things I still can’t do and things that I find I’m finally ready to do. One thing I can’t do is delete his phone number from my phone. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. I also can’t visit his gravesite or walk over to the bins where he fell. But something I found I was ready to do was to drive a way home from New Richmond that I thought I’d never be able to do again. I’m sure you think that is weird… But the last time I talked to my dad – the night before the accident – I called him on my way home from New Richmond. I talked to him the whole way home. There are many different ways you can take from New Richmond to Baldwin. However, my favorite way, the way I used to go, I couldn’t take anymore because it hurt too much. However, last week, after a year and a half, I took that route. It was difficult but nice at the same time. It gave me a little bit of time to cry, laugh, remember and miss him. Sometimes I feel like I’m a zombie because I don’t like to feel. I choose to ignore things that will make me get emotional and feel and I go out of my way to make sure that it doesn’t happen. I don’t want to be like that. I guess I’m writing this blog for myself. It sometimes feels good to get my feelings out – even when I’m not really talking to anyone.

I ordered my bridesmaid gifts today and I’m so excited to give them to my bridesmaids in exactly 3 months and 1 day!! I wish I could tell you more but I can’t due to the fact that 3 out of the 5 bridesmaids read this blog – maybe the other 2 as well… not quite sure. Anyways, I checked that one off the list! I have also checked off a few other things from my wedding to-do list this week! I called the florist and set up an appointment for next Saturday. This will be an easy task because I’m pretty care free about the flowers and I don’t need any for the centerpieces. I also called our officiant and chatted with her about the plans for the big day. The only thing I’m nervous about is the fact that she doesn’t do a rehearsal the night before. I’m scared that it won’t go very smoothly. I suppose if I wanted to, I could do a rehearsal dinner with someone filling in for her – that might be a smart idea. Then we could get a general idea of what to do.

Other news… On Friday I get to try on my wedding dress for the first time since I dropped it off a few months ago with the seamstress! I’m so excited! Hopefully it fits. After I try it on she will sew it all up and I get to pick it up very soon after!

The next few items on my wedding to-do list that I want done this week are to call chair rental places, make my veil (hopefully it turns out), find a hair stylist, buy my bachelorette outfit and book our honeymoon. There are many more tasks of course but it helps me to write down only a few things to do and then check them off the list. If I wrote a list of everything I would just get stressed out immediately and not do anything… So, hopefully those items will be done by the end of the week. However, I’m quite sure that we won’t book the honeymoon this week. I’ve been meaning to do that for months now and it just seems to never get done. Probably because we haven’t’ decided on a place to go yet… Eh, it will get done eventually.

That is all for now!

Another wedding blog people… I’m sorry but it’s the only thing I have to talk about! Last weekend, my Aunt Laura and grandma came over to see the house. After the tour and a little bit of chatting we decided to head over to the farm to check out the ceremony site for the wedding so Laura could get some ideas. Laura is very into gardening. She is in a garden club and most of her front yard is a garden and it’s beautiful. I fully trust her gardening tips. When we got to the farm and she instantly got tons of ideas and saw all the potential. The farm isn’t horrible… it is just overgrown and all the goods are hiding underneath all the crab grass and weeds. This weekend I plan on going to the farm to finish painting the dining room and then I’m going to start weeding. Laura plans to come out to the farm next weekend and we are going to start the madness. I’m excited but at the same time I’m extremely overwhelmed. It sounds easy but I know it is going to be a lot of hard work. But all the hard work will be well worth it in the end because we will have a beautiful ceremony site that means a lot to me and Justen gets to have a nice looking yard after the wedding is over.

I also started my fabric flowers last night. It took me a few hours just to trace 10 flowers and cut out 8. After cutting out 8 my hand cramped up so I couldn’t finish the last 2. Only 52 more to cut out and then I have to sew them all! This is another project that is going to take me a while but it will be well worth it when it’s done. I like that I’m adding something to our wedding that I did myself.

All this gardening and crafting talk is making me really feel like a Tuomala finally! By that I mean my mother’s side of the family. They are all very crafty, talented and love to garden. Someday I hope to be half as crafty and talented as they are!

We also finalized our invitations and our guestlist and Rachel is going to start making them. She is coming to Wisconsin in the middle of June and plans to bring the finished product with her. So, hopefully all of the invites will be out by the end of June. This whole wedding experience seems to be flying by so fast! I can’t wait until the big day is here and I get to marry my best friend in the whole world! Then we get to start having babies! :-) :-)

I feel like I’m on a roll this week! I finally found someone to marry us, I found and purchased our fabric for the fabric flowers, I ordered the centerpieces (except for the candles) and I ordered return address labels so we don’t have to write all that out by hand! Four checks off my list! Whoot whoot!

However, now that I'm thinking about my very large to-do list it doesn't seem like much.... ugh, so much to do!

Over the weekend Phil and I knocked some more items of our wedding to-do list. We went to Target and registered for our gifts. I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass and it was. Phil and I don’t agree on a lot since we have completely opposite taste in design. But after some arguing we got it taken care of. Now I just need to go online and tweak a few things and add a few more things since our scanner gun died towards the end. But, that’s basically checked off the list!

While in Woodbury we also stopped at Joann’s to find some gray and yellow fabric for our fabric flowers. There wasn’t a whole lot to chose from in gray so I didn’t exactly get what I was picturing. But, I got what they had so I could see what the flowers looked like in color. Here are the two final products:



I think I’ll buy different fabric and maybe do different kinds of fabric together, like throw in some lace or something of that sort to give it a little bit of different textures. So, once I find and purchase my fabric I can start making my many many fabric flowers!

Next few things on our wedding to-do list that I want to get done within the next week or two is find someone to marry us, finish getting people’s addresses, decide on where we are going for our honeymoon and book the tickets. There are still many many other things we need to get done but those I think are the most important right now.

Fold it in half.


You are going to cut out a bunch of these petals. Here’s what they look like. You really don’t need a template. Real flower petals all vary, right? I also don’t use any fabric stiffner because I like the movement of the fabric, again, like real flowers.


Here’s what the petals look like open.


Start by making larger ones and get progressively smaller. Not too small, though. For a large flower, you will need about 15 petals. Begin stacking them as shown.


Here’s what it looks like when they are all stacked.


Now get a needle and thread and pull the first stitch through the middle.


Stitch a small ‘x’ so everything is in place well.


Now that everything is secure, we are just going to form the flower more. I fold it in half and stitch it through.


Then after that I fold in half again and make another stitch through.


Here’s what it looks like after those steps.


After that, tie it off in the back.


You can add to it whatever you want to attach it. You can buy pins and glue it on, you can use a safety pin, a barrette, whatever you want. You can also add fun things to the center like a pearl, a diamond, a fabric center, a button- anything.


Here’s the pink one I did.


Doesn't this look easy!!! It would obvioulsy take a while to make 70-100 of them but I have 4 months to make them and maybe even my wonderful, awesome bridesmaids might help me a little... ;) ;)

Lots of random tidbits….

I brought Winston over to the farm last night to play with his brother, Mister. Mister is h.u.g.e! I weighed Winston the other day because I was curious to see how much of a lard ass he is and he is 35 pounds and is only 15 weeks old! Mister is probably 40-45 pounds and he plays rough. I think I need to bring him over more often because Winston needs to man up! He is used to playing with a 6 lb yorkie and a small cat. Maybe Winston needs a brother his size in the house … Right Phil? ;) ;) haha, jk... kinda.

Wedding planning… well, I haven’t done much lately. I should be finishing up the guest list and finding someone to marry us rather soon. Both are on my list to get done by the end of next weekend. Crossing my fingers that I actually do it by the end of next weekend but instead I will probably put it off again. I hate the guest list part. We also need to figure out our times for the ceremony, drinks & dinner and then do the food tasting soon so Rachel (Phil’s sis) can get started on the wedding invites and RSVP cards. Since she is screen-printing them all herself it is going to take time and she wants them done by June when she comes to town.

I just checked on my dress yesterday (via email). The lady told me she has been working on it in between projects and that it probably won’t be done until the beginning of June since she has a whole wedding party she is sewing for in May. Waiting until June is no biggie. I’m just getting a little anxious to see how it looks when it actually fits me! I hope I still love it as much as I did when I tried it on at the Wedding Shoppe!

There are lots of projects that are going to be going on at our house this summer. My brother and his buddy are putting in our deck sometime in May/June (whenever they have time basically). I can’t wait to be able to walk out our patio door and sit out on the deck w/a beer and enjoy the summer! Unfortunately, we are also tearing up our entire yard within the next month or two as well. Our front yard is horrible. It is bumpy and does not consist of real grass, just field grass. We also have a gopher problem so there is probably 15-20 mounds of fresh dirt in our front yard, which Justen said his buddy could take care of for us. I’m kinda embarrassed about it so we are going to fix it. One of my dad’s good friends is going to come check it out and tell me how much it will cost. Justen said he would do a lot of the work so that will cut down on the cost. I’m just really not looking forward to having dirt/mud as a front yard until the grass grows. Once the yard is dug up we are going to put in an underground fence for Winston. Then he can roam the yard and I don’t have to worry about him running away or getting hit by a car. He loves to be outside and he doesn’t always like to listen. In fact, he likes to play the “come get me game”. He will run up to me and once he gets about 2 feet from me he darts in the other direction with a big smile on his face and expects me to run after him.

Wanda turned over to 111,111 miles last night on my drive home from work. She is getting so old! Phil and I are going car shopping at the end of the month and if I’m lucky I’ll be driving home my new (used) Honda Pilot or Toyota Highlander! I can’t stinkin wait to get my new car.



Well, that's all for now. Until next time.

Well, it’s decided. Phil and I are getting hitched on September 16, 2011. We are going to have the ceremony at my dad’s farm. Main reason, it means a lot to me. I grew up there, I miss the farm and I also miss my dad and know “he will be there” in his own way. I’m going to help my brother, Justen clean the farm up. It doesn’t need much – just a little TLC. :-) After my mom left about 6 years ago, the farm started to look a little run down. There were no more pretty plants around the house and a nice garden. Nope, everything is overgrown because skank (dad’s skank wife) was too lazy to do anything. Okay, I’m getting a little off track - back to the topic at hand. The ceremony will be at my dad’s farm and the reception will be at The Orchard in Baldwin. I’m quite excited! Now that the date is set, the locations for the ceremony and reception are decided and booked, I can finally look forward to this magical day (well, as magical as Phil and I get)! The only problem is that the photographer I chose is not available on the date we had to switch it to. :’( This is a very sad thing because I liked her a lot! Now I need to find a new photographer. Stupid. But, she recommended a few other photographers and the one I like the best is still available. Hopefully she will be the one! Anyways, now I can breathe a little and slowly work on other things like the invites and the decorations. :-) And next month I’m taking my girls to go dress shopping!! Now that’s something to be excited for!!! Whoot Whoot!

Well, I'm very behind on my blogging lately so I thought I'd get you all up to date on what's been happening. Let's start with Phil's Birthday. I took the day off work so I could spend the day with him. I woke up early, hung up balloons and other birthday stuff, made him breakfast in bed (well, he woke up while I was in the middle of cooking but.. oh well) then we relaxed a bit and then eventually got ready and went to Woodbury to meet up with his family. His sisters Rachel and Val flew in from Portland that morning to visit and go to a wedding. We met at Red Lobster and had a fabulous lunch! Then Phil and I did some shopping and then went to pick up his birthday present:



Then we got home and his sisters and mom came over for pizza and wine.

Later that week we all went to Phil's cousin Dianna's wedding. It was beautiful and it gave me plenty of ideas for our own! One really cool idea I saw was this tree painting. Everyone who came to the reception put their thumb print on it! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the final product. But, you get the idea.









Then the next night Phil and I went over to his mom's house to have an early Thanksgiving with his family. It was delicious!



On Thanksgiving day Phil and I drove up to Brainerd to spend Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family. The drive sucks but it was so nice to see the family! Dumb me never takes any pictures so I don't have any to show you. There was a group of 36 of us - most were my grandpa's wife Barb's family. We had to leave pretty early since we have a 3 hour drive home. We got home around 10:30 and had to wake up at 3:30! Phil had to work at 4:00 and I had to go shopping! :) Black Friday was a success! There didn't seem to be too many crazy people out there. I got Loin's present done and Dexter's. :) And the rest of everything was for me. :) Come on, it is the one day of the year that I splurge!

Well, that's about it for now. I promise I'll try to blog more!

Well we are back from the Virgin Islands. Both Phil and I had a WONDERFUL vacation and the wedding was beautiful. Here are a few of the many pictures we took.