Mild productivity, invitations, wedding stuff, and written role play

As Amanda's and my wedding day looms closer and closer, we're starting to feel the pressure. We've both had a couple of nightmares about things not being done. I still have sewing to do, some addresses to gather so we can finish sending out invitations, and quite a few things left to make. While we'd like to invite everyone we love and adore, because of lack of space to for people to stay and the fact that we are trying to pull this off on a sorely tiny budget (Amanda's income), we have to keep the guest list very small. However, a friend mentioned recording the event, so if that does happen, I will be able to share that video so people who can't attend can still see it. 

Budget and keeping the guest list small aside, we've run into a few minor issues. The first being that we've had a hell of a time finding a cake topper. Being in same sex relationship, we wanted two female figures and we wanted it to be along the Gothic/Fantasy theme. We toyed with getting D&D figures to paint. We tossed around some idea for making them ourselves. And then we stumbled on "Sisters", a figure cast from the picture above, from Selena French. We both really like her art and while purple isn't one of our colors, it is pale enough and runs along our theme enough, that we decided this was our best option. We aren't sisters, obviously, but it doesn't matter. It is two females and we fell in love with it pretty instantly. 

The second was figuring out a guest book. I wanted something unique that we could display. A vlogger I follow on Youtube used a globe of the world. I wanted something that would tie into out theme, and decided why not a skull. Amanda was keen on the idea and so we waited until the Halloween decor came out to begin our search. We found a black polyresin at Michaels and bought silver sharpies for people to sign it with. 

I really wanted to make the invitations myself to keep costs down. But there I ran into another problem. Amanda and I couldn't agree on some mock ups I made on the computer. She wanted something 3-D. So we played with some ideas and finally agreed on one. Unfortunately I don't have one to show at the moment, they are all sealed up. However, I did hand deliver a couple to some very close friends so I will try to get a picture of one of theirs next time I am at their house. I, of course, sent one to my parents, mostly to see if my handmade black envelopes with silver shaprie lettering would go through the mail. It did, so that's a relief.  I've finished making the invites today and am waiting on a couple addresses. As soon as we get more stamps, they will be in the mail.
 We still have much to do, but things are beginning to come together, and while I am having kind of crap day, I'm being mildly productive, so that is something. 

My depression monster is being a rife bitch. I think it's mostly the pain talking today, but I'm also dealing with a lack of self esteem, and some guilt (Amanda says my guilt is as if I'm a Catholic school girl with a Jewish mother. Seriously, I apologize for nearly everything). I was outside earlier this morning, frustrated over physical pain, something I said last night, frustrated that I was frustrated, and half a dozen other things, when the thought "I must have been a real bastard" in a past life hit me. This is not an uncommon thought. Since I seem to keep having this though, I tried to turn it on itself and figure out what lessons I'm being taught by the situations I've had and issues I am facing/dealing with. Humility? I think I'm pretty humble all ready. I thought about a couple of other things that kind of took a negative turn, so I left it for another time. The point was to turn it into a positive. 

I think I have mentioned that Amanda is doing a written role play with me. She's trying to get back into writing and I'm trying to keep writing. It has been a really long time since we have done one together and we missed it, I think. We are keeping it light, semi-fluffy, and keeping it 'no pressure'. We post when we can and want to post, which is really helpful. So far it's been pretty fun. My character is an epileptic, very particular, semi-ocd, introverted college senior and nerd. Her's is a dashing, young, college literary instructor with sad and wounded past. So far so good, we are both really enjoying where the story is going.        

Ice, ick, and furniture.

I took Amanda to work this morning at 5 am. She volunteered for overtime and while that is fantastic and I am glad she could get some, we just had a big ice storm move in on top of all the ice and snow that has yet to melt. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about cold and lovely winter weather, on the contrary, I love it. I don't even mind driving in it, what bothers me are the other people driving it in. 4 wheel drive doesn't mean 4 wheel stop. Spokane is shit at plowing their roads, especially if they are residential, and this morning, I had to pull over because a Semi-truck was far to close for me to be comfortable and it was spraying a wave of dirty slush-ice at me. Then, as I tried to get back on the road, some jack ass coming up from behind didn't want to slow down and flashed me with his high beams. Really? No, seriously, because I can't tell that it's taking me extra time to get back on the road because my car is caught on a little patch of ice and you might actually have to be inconvenienced for all of 30 seconds by having to slow down. You never should have been driving that fast on icy roads to begin with, moron!

Now that that rant is out of my system... I am sick again. This time it feels like a head cold that's trying become a sinus infection or it's just a straight up sinus infection. Not totally sure, just know I'm not sleeping very well, my face and head feel awful, coughing, snot ick and drainage, and my teeth hurt a bit... so yeah, probably sinus infection. I've been self medicating with lemon ginger tea, a ginger tincture a friend made, a homemade chicken enchilada soup, coco, and water.

Behold! I finally got a hutch!

Okay, ignore the mess on my kitchen table  and bag of bags. A hutch has been on my semi-secret wish list for many years. As someone who has grown up with a hutch in my parents house for a time, and two in my Grandmother's house, hutches have always been nostalgic and make, for me anyway, a house feel more like a home. 

This one popped up on Craig'slist last Thursday for 50 dollars. It came with a matching table and 4 chairs. We don't really need another table or 4 chairs, but we agreed to both because the seller needed money to fix their broken car and they had an infant in the house. It looked like they were selling pretty much everything to get the car fixed. We decided to give the table and chairs to a friend and her boyfriend for their soon-to-be-new- apartment. This hutch came at the best time for us. I had  reached my limit with our apartment and its lack of storage. Sure we have been sick and the holidays did us in as well, but it just seemed like we couldn't make anything fit without it being messy or me getting overwhelmed.  So, below are the bigger appliances that don't really fit in the cabinets, dish towels and tea towels are in the drawers, my tea and a couple of my tea pots are in the display cabinet along with a bag of kitty treats. On the shelves we have most of our coffee cups, my tea making supplies and some herbs, and the bottom shelf is a nice little altar because I wanted something pretty. 

Just having this has made so much of a difference in my kitchen cabinets and made my kitchen feel more like home to me. I am not sure I like having so much white and had thought to paint the cabinet a light blue or green, but my Dad thought that might make it look more Swedish or Swiss (?) can't remember. Which of course is nice, but not really what I am going for in the kitchen. I thought about redoing everything Gothic fantasy like the living to tie the two rooms together, but you know what, I really like my greens and blues and I can still have the gothic fantasy charm in the kitchen without changing too much. So for now, anyway, the hutch will remain white. I also cut out some of the mermaid coloring pictures I've done and might put them on the backs of the shelves to break up some of the white... maybe, we will see. 

Lastly, I was holding Thorin an hour or so ago and my phone rang. He reached for it as my friend Fiona, who is up for a visit, handed it to me. Amanda was on the line to tell me she is staying a couple of house late for more overtime, but before she could tell me that Thorin pressed his paw to the my phone screen and hung up on her. I had Amanda on speaker and when I tried to call her back he tried to hang up again. I had to move the phone out of his reach and thankfully, the little shit was too lazy to move to chase after my hands for once.