Last night

Was clearly a girls night. David was off at the Knicks game with his childhood best friend Scott. So Anna and I went for a much needed mani pedi in soho followed by a wonderful drinks session at The Crosby Hotel with Carine (Scott’s wife).

Overall it was a much needed girls night. Talk was of marriage, divorce (others that Carine knew not ours obviously), wedding planning (Anna is recently engaged!!!), and baby making - we’re all dipping a toe in that pool.

I realized, having people who are on the same page as you is crucial. Last night after my third or forth glass of white wine I dazed off…. thinking to myself, your life is wonderful. Yes we can always ask for/have more. Everyone can. But what we have is so nice. So wonderful. I’m lucky to have my loving family, my caring friends, a wonderful home, a great environment to go and work in… To have all this?!?!!? I truly consider myself lucky.

But then to add to it a group of friends and people that happen to be going through the same things I am (marriage, wtf work, babies?!, fitness/soulcycle). That’s realllllllllly lucky if you ask me.

All I want from the next 6 months is to be pregnant at the same time as my friends. Pregnancy is scary - intimidating, frustrating, exciting. So to have people going through it who you can relate to and who you care about. I just think it would make the whole process that much more enjoyable.

And that’s my rant for this Saturday afternoon.

Now …. OFF to costco.

Deep thoughts: Wedding Edition

The clarinet is something you encounter twice in your life. Once, when your band teachers trys to convince you to choose it as your instrument - only when all the flutes are taken.

And then it resurfaces again in your twenties an thirties at weddings - when that Kenny G interlude is necessary during “appetizer time”.

(Source: musingsofadomesticdiva)

Can I get your opinion please….

So remember I mentioned that hubs and I had a meeting to do our wedding photo album? It didn’t go great.

At least if you ask me……

Here’s the back story. We paid our photographer what I thought was a huge sum, about 20k. This got us a top of the line photographer with 2 assistants, videographer, engagement photos, rehearsal dinner photos and a primo album.

When the proofs were ready for me to pickup in July - I was a but surprised when they told me we owed another 2k in over time. Especially considering the night of our wedding the photographer asked if it was Okay he leave an hour before it ended otherwise we would run into over time hours.

Fine. No big deal. I wasn’t going to split hairs.

Then on Tuesday when we met about our book we were told our album comes with 75 photos and every photo after that is $40 each. I assumed our photographer would do his best to keep his selection to somewhere around that #.

Yesterday we get an email from him with the estimate - its an additional 3k.

Husband is on the fence and thinks we should just pay it because it’s “our wedding album”. But honestly? I’m sick of it. We’ve paid them enough at this point and to constantly sell us the “premium package” and hit us up for essential extras when it’s all said and done is totally rude and false advertising.

So Husband and I are in a debate. Pay the extra to have a full good wedding album OR say fuck that shit and go on another trip using the money we would have spent on the album upgrade?

Personally I’d rather spend 5 days on a beach then have 75 extra photos in our wedding album we’d probably never look at. And it’s not like we don’t get to keep the 5 boxes of original proofs.

Thoughts??? What would you do??

Did I ever tell you that story about Mom #2 and the wedding food?

I didn’t….?

The night of the wedding - after the party was over and the clean up crew was already in full swing, we were still with Davids mother and uncle. The plan was to go up to the bridal suite, change and then pop them in a cab. She didn’t want to spend the night in the same hotel as us and on top of that she had to get home to Jack. (remember? the more LOVED brother I told you about yesterday)

It was 3am, both David and I were delirious with happiness and joy - so we weren’t really paying attention when his mom kept going on about how she had arranged for Mark (our wedding coordinator) to pack her up some food from the wedding for her to take home.

The next morning we were checking out at the front desk and remembered to ask about it. They couldn’t find it. No worries, we were still on a high from the wedding. Well call Mark and come back later if you find it.

Later that evening we get a call from Mom #2 (my MIL, Davids mother).

Mom #2: Schvilo, did you pickup my food?!
David: They couldn’t find it but they’ll call us when they do.
Mom #2: VY MEY! Schvilo it is so important, Mark sayz he vould put food aside for me.
David: Don’t worry mom we’ll get it.

At that point both David and I exchange a sideways glance at one another. All this for a plate of food….? I mean, the Bronzini and Chateaubriand were good but, are we really going to drive up to the Pierre get the food and then drive it to Queens?

Mark called us later that night and told us he had located the food in the main freezer and we could come pick it up tomorrow morning. We shared this info with Mom #2…

David: They found your food.
Mom #2: SANK ZE GODS!

Flash forward to the next morning. I’m still sporting my all white tracksuit as we pull up to the Pierre. Mark meets us outside hugs are given, talk of the previous night is rowdy and we were told that our wedding was “the wedding of the season”.

You say that to all the girls don’t you Mark? ;-)

Then it happens…… As were waiting for Mark to hand us a small parcel of packaged food, similar to what you’d get if you order take out. They roll it out… THE CART

THE CART! Is pilled high with boxes and catering trays. Trays of Bronzini, hunks of carved meats from the cocktail hour - Orzo for days! Saran wrapped towers of macaroons covered in chocolate. Half eaten wedding cake, pastries. EVERYTHING! Even wine!

The look on our faces in that moment was priceless. It was only then that it dawned on us - she had arranged for Mark to wrap up ALL the leftovers from the entire wedding for us to take home.

That’s not even the craziest part!

We load up the car and literally every inch of space is full, from the petit fours in the trunk to the chocolate fudge cake sitting in my lap.

It’s at this point that we call her….

David: MOM! You didn’t tell us you had ALL the leftovers from the wedding wrapped up! That’s so embarrassing.
Mom #2: Yeah - What you zink? I leave all zat good food.
David: ……. ::sigh::
Mom #2: Schvilo, come to queens to my vork and we vill store in ze big freezer.

So that’s what we did. We drove to her job in Long Island City where she works as a book keeper for a bakery and we unloaded what was left of our entire wedding feast into their industrial freezer. At that point we were told that the plan was to save everything and slowly eat off it for the next year…..

The best part of this whole story is that now every time we go to Queens, like yesterday, we end up coming home with not just Rosh Hashanah leftovers, but with our wedding desserts too.

When I get home tonight I’ll have to take a picture for you of the half eaten chocolate dipped Macaroon tower jammed into our fridge.

EDIT:

Here is a photo of the cloaked beast.

(Source: musingsofadomesticdiva)

Our Wedding

Looking back on photos now it’s hard to imagine that I spent the past year and a half focusing on one day in my life.

Yesterday marked the one month anniversary. It’s funny ya know, I didn’t think I could be happier than I was at my wedding. But I also didn’t think I could be happier than I was before my wedding…

But I am. Every day that passes, goes with a certain ease and comfort that I hadn’t found before. It’s as if I’m actually just enjoying time pass by.

Enjoy!

(Source: musingsofadomesticdiva)

So we got wedding photos…..

And last night David and I went through all 3 boxes of the proofs.

They are gorgeous! I can’t decide which ones I want to have printed and hung.

But we were a bit surprised when we got to the 3rd box (the party box) and there smack right in our faces was one big photo of all our guests on the dance floor.

and guess who made an appearance….

both my nipples.

(Source: MUSingsofadomesticdiva)

I’m finally back

Today is starting to feel like my first day back at school after summer vacation. Even now as I start to type this I’ve only made it as far back as the 29th of June in my email inbox - for frame of reference I set the damn thing up on the 13th.

It’s all a bit too surreal, ya know? Like everything passed by so quickly and it all seems a little blurry in retrospect. I think I’m going to put together a separate post recapping the wedding from my POV. I’ll wait to post it until I get my photos back from Fred Marcus so I can include all the awesome faces of all the awesome people I want to tell you all about - I think both David and I are going to burst if we don’t see them soon.

** Part of me worries though, are they taking too long because we made ugly faces in all of them? Like maybe what’s taking so long is the fact that I was careless with making “double chin faces” and I didn’t really give a f**k if my “weave” was showing while I gyrated over my gay fan club to Beyonce’s Single Ladies…

That’s always a concern with us. We’re more the funny happy couple rather than the pose and make it look good couple. Funny doesn’t always equal photogenic.

Our engagement photos - case and point…. And this is just the best one.

It’s possible our photographer hates us.

Before the wedding was ever over I was all worried about having the wedding blues. Will I have it?! Do I have pre wedding blues?!? Am I gonna cry?! I tend to cry, i’ll probably cry. This was a honest to god fear - I was planning this thing for a year and a half! No planner, just me.

The good news is that I don’t think I have the “BLUES” blues…. like badly. I am a bit sad it’s over but then again, we can always just have kids and BOOM. There’s 13 years built in to plan the most killer Bar Mitzvah/Bat Mitzvah. KIDDING!.. sort of

David is the total opposite of me. He came back from 3 weeks of bliss feeling all the things someone should; comfortable, relaxed, calm…..

Me on the other hand? I felt like the energizer bunny - totally recharged and ready to conquer the world! I had an entire LIST in my head of all the things I wanted to tackle the SECOND we walked into our apartment.

1. File name change paper work

2. FInd out if The Pierre mailed out marriage license.. or if they have it? haha

3. Redecorate bedroom & living room (considering we renewed the lease this is the least we should do!)

4. Start to pull inspiration images for what kind of bed we want for the bedroom

5. Open all the registry gifts and sort through what we can keep and where we’re gonna put everything

6. Sort and print honeymoon photos into a photo album

7. In fact sort and print ALL our photos into albums based on the year they were taken

8. Have our Ketubah framed

9. “Spring Clean” our apartment and get rid of all the crap taking up space

10. Make a DR’s appt with both my OBGYN and general DR about getting healthy in hopes of maybe having a baby?

Now that I’m back and thing’s are relatively back to normal - I’ll make more of an effort to update this little snail trail of information. Promise. :)

xoxo
Emily

(Source: musingsofadomesticdiva)

We’re laying out on lounge chairs on the most glorious deck ever, bikini on - beer in hand. We’re on what is probably still considered my “honeymoon” - We got home on Monday but left Tuesday for 5 days upstate at a friends house on a lake.

I’m listening to Pop music blaring at me from across the lake, a locals house on the other side - and I’m thinking to myself….. I’m about to get pregnant. I’m actually going to do the unthinkable and TRY to do something that millions of girls around the world consider the kiss of death……. I mean not right now, now! But like, in the next year…. probably

I knew this would happen. Before we were ever engaged I was buying The Knot at my local mag shop. For some of the time we were engaged I was dreaming about what it would feel like to wear rings on my ring fingers - not just my big ol’ engagement rock. I’m never actually fully 100% in the present. According to my Ayurvedic massage guru in the Maldives what happens in my mind is “Manic”…. his words not mine. I took it as a compliment.

So it was no surprise that I spent all 10 days of our time in the Maldives reading “Mommy Lit”. Yes, I know. I should be ashamed of the genre I choose to read. But what can I say - for years Chic Lit hit the spot when it came to free time reading for me. Something light and fluffy that had a happy ending and provided some sort of inspiration for my life. Start your life, get a good job, meet a hot guy, fall in love…. decide he’s the one, seal the deal. It’s only natural that here I am progressing on to the “duplication” process. Reading that back, it sounds terrible - but it’s the truth.

After devouring Jenny McCarthy’s “Belly Laughs” in a single day (mostly read out loud on my kindle in robot voice; fucking hysterical, try it!) I feel like I’ve finally hit that point, the point where I’m no longer romanticizing the idea or notion of having a kid with David. I’m not just looking at cute eco-friendly nappys or idealic monochromatic nursery room inspiration images from Restoration Hardware.

I’m wanting to know about 1st trimester genetic testing, really effed up stuff about what my lady bits will do and of course the possibility that I could poop on our baby. I COULD FREAKING POOP ON MY BABY! Holy shit. I have this pushing pulsing urge to educate myself about the next chapter of our lives - the good, the bad and especially the ugly.

I question sometimes whether or not this makes David secretly hate me just based on the simple fact that it must annoy the crap out of him. We’re not even married a month and every other word out of my mouth is baby this, baby that. And even though I’m aware of this - I can’t seem to stop. Sometimes even against my own best judgement - that screams at me, in my head! Shut up Emily! He’s not going to want to have a baby with you if he knows all this shit ahead of time!

lol That’s actually not true - We discuss all the horrible disgusting details and both find ourselves in fits of giggles. He’d still want a baby with me.

We dated for almost 5 years before engagement; I’m convinced it was a crucial time where we decide if we are meant to be together or not. A test. We were engaged for a year and a half before the wedding day; again another test to really put the pressure on in case it wasn’t there before. Some hard decision making skills are needed during that process.

And now here we are - at the precipise of the future, or steep ledge with an inevitable dramatic drop some may say. All I want to spend my time doing these days is preparing so that at least one of us knows what to expect. What is more important though was making sure that I was healthy and doing it right. I have no intention of letting my own laziness or downfalls hinder any child we may be lucky enough to create together.

I can’t explain it other than to say it feels like the most natural thing ever. It’s what comes next for us. Ever see “Salmon Fishing in Yemen”? Probably not unless you’ve flown singapore airlines recently like I have. The point I’m trying to make is this…. Salmon just KNOW to swim upstream and somehow my psychotic inner brain is somehow just knows this is what WE (Emily on the outside and Emily on the inside) should focus on next.

Thinking of all this - I’ve started to wimpier. Sitting here on the porch by myself in the scorching heat, I’m a whimpering blubbering mess.

For our next trick….. Ladies and gentlemen…..

Myself - Miss Emily **New Last Name!** (SILENT YAY!)

and my trusty partner in crime - Mr. David

will attempt the impossible………..

We will attempt to bring a life into this world, so adorable, so healthy, - preferably not a hairy girl, so perfectly US…..

And!!!!

We will attempt to give this child every opportunity and extravagance we never had. Providing it the most awesome life ever.

BEHOLD…….. LIFE, PHASE 3


(FYI - Photos are of current scenery which is more than ideal for all the deep thinking that seems to be going on in between scrabble games)

(Source: MUSingsoadomesticdiva)

Some wedding pics

(Source: musingsoadomesticdiva)