New Years 2009

Rather than try to determine how to make 2009 a better year y having a New Years Resolution, this New Year's I have decided to remind myself why 2008 was such a great year. I think I spend so much time looking towards the future, that I forget I have to enjoy today.

1. Kodo's Dad and I became engaged in May
2. We went on a wonderful vacation in Zihuatanejo, Mexico in June
3. I enjoyed another birthday with the person I love. I'm 29 ya'll!
4. I enjoyed the So Cal weather all summer with no complaints of the heat
5. We went to Vegas for Kodo's Dad's birthday and didn't come back bankrupt
6. Lola went through surgery and came out alive and cancer free
7. I was able to keep my job even through lay-offs
8. I have 6 sisters and 2 brothers that I love dearly as well as my two nieces and one nephew
9. My future mother-in-law made it through another year with very little hospital time

This and hundred of other reasons are why I am grateful for 2008. I am looking forward to 2009 and all the blessings to come!

Love, Kodo's Mom

Things I Found Under My Christmas Tree

As well as some cute blouses and Itunes gift cards....it was a good year....

Things I would like to ssee under my Christmas Tree....Revised

Things I would like to see under my Christmas Tree...

Holidays

We love Christmas in the Kodo household! Now although I begin decorating the minute we finish breakdfast the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas does not begin for me until I watch Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

Which I did....on Tuesday. Merry Christmas all!

No I am off to San Francisco for my company holiday party..C ya!

Bad...

I am already slowing down on my posting. Work has been crazy so I have no free time during the week and I tend to either veg or drink my weekends away. Speaking of which...I gotta got get me a vodka cran. See ya.

Kodo's Dad

`

he's really funny when he drinks....

Twilight

As mentioned in my previous post, I want to kiss a vamp, I am super excited to see the movie Twilight tomorrow.

Yes, I know the book were written for girls 13-19, yes I know the movie is made for girls 13-19, yes I know I am way too old to be obsessing over things like youth adult books about vampires, but NO; it will not stop me from paying money to watch a movie about a human teenage girl that falls in love with a 100 yr old vampire boy and I will never regret doing so.

Blah

I don't know if is the economy, or my job, or the weather, but I feeling extra glummy this week.

GLUMMY Def: pessimistic, nearly hopeless but with no actual reasoning why: i feel glummy but I don't know why

I can't really figure it out. I get up, dread work, hope I can leave my desk at lunchtime, leave work, cook dinner, sit on the couch and pray for bedtime (it has always been my favorite part of the day). Then bedtime does come and I can't sleep. WTF! The only pleasure in my day and I can't sleep...I am so over this.....

I think it is a combination of several things. I usually perk up around 12/1 so I will report back on my mood then...

Dress Shopping Part 1

Let me first begin with "how can it possibly be 90 degrees in the middle of November?"

Onto more pressing issues...

When Matt proposed one of the first things I wanted to start doing was find a dress. I am a little fickle fashion wise so I had no clue what I wanted but I did know how limited I was on cash.

I have been to several dress shops. In each dress shop I try on around 6 dresses and each time one of them is "the dress". I don't buy it just in case, I go to another dress shop, then I find another one that I think is "the dress". It's really starting to get frustrating.

I went to a shop with my mom a few weeks ago and found "The Dress". I was done shopping. I was going to go back and order it in January. This morning I went into the designers website and decided to check out other dresses. Bad Idea!

Apparently there are a lot of dresses by this designer that I haven't even seen. Needless to say I will be calling dress shops this week to see if they have the styles in for me to try one.

Here we go again.....

I am a stalker....

I joined Facebook by invitation of a cousin. Once joined I figured it would be a nice place to share photos and thoughts with friends. Then I became friends with people I knew in a "previous life". The "previous life" friends, I'll shorten it to PL friends, are people I haven't talked to or seen in years so it's interesting to have a glimpse into who they are today.

I realized this morning I am little bit of stalker. I like to go check out my PL friends pictures and see what other people on their pages are chatting about. I like to imagine who they are and their lives that they lead today. I like to compare their lives to my own, not to compare and see who better or worse, but more so to recognize how much things change over the years and how each of our courses really separated who we became as adults.

Now I realize I am not the only one who does this, I mean thats kind of why they created facebook, but I feel a little weird about it. Definitely not weird enough to stop, but weird enough that I thought I should at the very least confess.

Sorry guys...nothing is sacred.

Much Love, Rev Run...sorry I meant Kodo's Mom.

Vote NO

Happy Halloween

I want to kiss a vamp...

Okay, so I am off the wedding posts again, but for those of you that know me, I know you are not surprised. I become easily distracted, and then easily obsessed.

So True Blood started on HBO a few weeks ago. John from Cincinnati was cancelled and I was truly bummed at the time so when they announced they were starting a show about vampires I was excited!

I went through a Blade phase in the late 90's. I was obsessed with every thing vampire related including the shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The phase went away when Angel fell in love with Cordelia and I wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

All these years later I have still been into the world of fantasy...the movies, my fairies and dragons and of course vampires and werewolves so when True Blood started I was really looking forward to it. Then I watched the first episode....and now....my obsession begins again!

I LOVE Bill Compton....He's scary and sexy and obviously in love with Sookie...how I wish I were Sookie....

On top of Bill Compton and Sookie's love story, there's a ton of other creepy sci-fi type stuff going on here. I haven't quite figured it out, but I think Sam's a werewolf and he's the one on the killing spree.

So each week I wait patiently for the next exciting episode. And for those of you that watched last Sundays' episode...who knew sex in a cemetery could be a turn on!

So after watching the first episode of True Blood I decided it was time to finally read a series of books I have been wanting to pick up. They are the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I read the first two books in five days. LOVE IT!

I am on the third book and I am having a hard time deciding whether I love Edward Cullen (the sexy and protective vamp from Twlight) more, or Bill Compton (Sookie's lover in True Blood) more.....choices, choices.

Either way, I am pretty sure I want to kiss a vamp....

For Amy....

Lord, Beer me some strength.....

My inspiration

Okay, so here they are, the colors that will inspire the entire even.....Gold, Choclate Brown and Burgundy....

(this pic didn't upload so well, but I think you get the idea)

Back to the nitty, gritty....

Okay, as promised, back to wedding stuff....

Things have been crazy at work so I haven't been able to properly obsess about our impending wedding the way that I would love to. We do have an announcement though. We have a date!

October 9, 2009

Yeah! Finally! going back and forth with the the venue is exhausting but we at least have it set in stone now.

Oh and I have more wonderful news (for me anyway)....The wedding colors have been chosen. About two weeks ago I purchased an insane amount of wedding magazines. (Don't worry, I had a gift card). They are all fall/winter so I thought they would be perfect to flip through since our wedding is in October. I found lots of little inspirations, but nothing jumped out at me.

The following weekend I was at the "salon" getting my "eyebrows waxed" and flipped through a bridal magazine they had there which is the only one of the lot that I did not buy. It was Brides fall/winter magazine.

As I flipped through I turned to a page and the instant I saw the collage there I KNEW it was what I envisioned for us. Rather than rip the page out, I went to four different stores to find the right issue of Brides. I found it last night at Barnes & Noble; went home and got Kodo's Dad a little tipsy; then sprung the page on him. He agreed! He loved it as much as I did!

I am not giving away any of the colors in this post, however, tomorrow morning I will scan the page and post it here for all to view.

Twelve months away and I am already exhausted.......

My adopted animals....Chptr 2

Exciting news....We have internet at home! (despite the winds attempt to destroy our power lines)

So to continue on how we got Lola....

When we decided we wanted another dog we discussed breeds. Since we are both dog lovers, every breed came up. German Shepard: too hairy, Rottweiler: too big, Terrier: to hyper, Lab: too active, Dalmatian: way too active, another Chihuahua: Kodo's Dad put his foot down and said no!

Then we started talking about Boxers. We both had experiences with them and knew they were sweet dogs. Then we googled a little and discovered they were really good with kids. Since we have a lot of kids coming by, we thought one would be perfect. So I started my search to adopt a Boxer (I don't do puppies.)

There is a Boxer rescue in Burbank I contacted. They firmly said "NO". We live in an apartment. So I decided to search our OC Shelter. That IS where I got Kodo. I looked for weeks and no Boxer ever came around. One morning I logged onto their website and their she was. I left for an early lunch and went and visited with her. She was the only Boxer I had seen there in weeks and I had to have her. That day, I came home with a Boxer. We named her Lola...

I brought Lola home the same day I visited with her the first time. We were NOT prepared! We had nothing! They put her in my car with a rope around her neck and I was off. First stop, home...

Kodo and her took all of 1 minute to learn to love each other. I think Kodo immediately showed his dominance, even though he is 40lbs smaller than she is, and that set the tone for their entire relationship. Next stop, the pets store...

I picked up the necessities; collar, leash, bowls, food. (Kodo eats special chihuahua food). Last stop, our vet, Dr. Laura.....

This was the most interesting of all stops. Dr. Laura took a good look and Lola, ran some tests, and then the results...

Lola has what Dr. Laura refers to as a chronic bladder infection. At the time, she knew it was bad, but she didn't know it would take nearly a year and three different type of antibiotics to clear it. She also has ripped out most of the nails from her front paws scratching at the metal gates at the shelter. We had to have them cleaned and each of her paws wrapped for over a month. Imagine trying to walk a dog and not get those wraps wet. We tied grocery bags around her paws to take her out but she figured out how to pull those off real quick.

We knew that the shelter would take her back based on the medical problems she had when I picked her up. Kodos Dad and I made a quick decision, we chose to bring an adopted animal into our life, and we were committed to making sure she was healthy and happy for as long as we could. She is a good girl and one of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet.

Okay, enough about my dogs....I will begin appropriately blogging my new wedding obsessions tomorrow. I have a ton!

My adopted animals...Chptr 1

I realized I never really told the story of how we ended up with our animals....

I used to have a long-haired chihuahua named Skittles my sister gave to me. She was born April 2003. She was long-hair at birth, but lost all her hair by the time she was 1. She never weighed more than 3.5 lbs so she was a definitely a runt! We called her "monkey dog"......

When I decided to go back to school that fall, I wanted to get her a friend to keep her company. Much to Kodo's dad disapproval, I went off to the OC Shelter. That's where I found Kodo. He was covered in fleas and was found roaming with another male chi. I tried to adopt the both of them, but the other chi was too aggressive and he had to be euthanized. I brought Kodo home and he and Skittles got along great! He struggled with humans though. Kodo immediately bonded with myself and his dad, but he was really aggressive with everyone else.

In case you are wondering, the name Kodo was inspired from the movie Beastmaster. You gotta love 1982 Marc Singer. Dar had two ferret friends named Kodo & Podo. I always knew I wanted to give an animal at least one of those names.

The first year with Kodo was difficult, he growled and snapped at people a lot and never seemed comfortable in his environment. We just kept putting him in situations where he was required to deal with other animals and humans in the hopes he would just get over it. The only time that we would have to muzzle him is when kids came over. I would feel so bad about it that I stopped muzzling him and we would keep him around us until he snapped or growled and then we would punish him by putting him in "time out". Now we don't even have to muzzle him when he goes to the vet. Five years later and he is a changed dog!

Skittles passed away in April 2005. Kodo's dad and I struggled a bit with her loss, as did Kodo. He became a maniac! Spoiled and selfish, he began to do whatever, whenever, and we knew it had to stop. We decided that we would adopt another dog to help regulate his behavior.

For those of you that know me, I will take any old dog off the street and love it. Matt is a little more particular about his animals.....

Chapter 2...the story of how we adopted Lola....

Update 2...

Dr. Laura called.....No cancer on Lola! Let's celebrate!

Oh, and still no internet at home *sigh*.....

Updates...

Sorry to for the lag in blogging. Out internet has been down for over a week at home. Aaaaagghhhh! We thought it was the modem, but it's not so we are having Time Warner (booooo) look at it on Saturday. I feel bad blogging at work, but it has been so long I know I needed to update.

So this blog started as a way to share not only my lovely little wedding obsessions, but the crazy things that occur in our "house of dogs". You need not wait anymore, have I got a doozy....

Last Thursday when Kodo's dad and I got home from work, we noticed Lola had a lump in her belly. Not one of her normal lumps (i.e. hangin raisins...), one really scary looking, inside the skin, extremely red, changing diameter by the hour kind of lump.

Friday afternoon I took her to Dr. Laura (our vet) and she immediately scheduled surgery to have it removed. Fact: Boxers are prone to all types of cancer. On Friday, Dr. Laura gave me our estimate for the surgery; Kodo's Dad and I spent the weekend freaking out about it; and Tuesday morning Lola had surgery.

Dr. Laura removed the mass in her stomach, along with the several "hanging raisins" she had all over her body. She has a ton of stitches but is doing really well. As soon as our internet at home is back up I will be sure to post a pick of her and her cute pink head cone!

We had her lab work done before the surgery and discovered she has another UTI (for those of you that remember it took us almost a year to kill the last one) and she is showing signs of early kidney failure. She is currently on pain medication and antibiotics and we will be picking up her prescription food next week for her kidneys.

Dr. Laura should be calling me today with the biopsy results. We are nervous so please say a prayer for Lola!

I will update you as soon as I can.....

Obsession...

So we are back from Vegas and I have found yet another fabulous wedding obsession.

I was always kind of sure that I did not want to wear a full veil down the aisle. Until I met the mantilla veil. Hello mantilla:

These are fantastically beautiful veils with a Spanish touch that I am oh so in love with! After a little drooling over the mantilla veil, I discovered there are so many options to veils. I searched the internet and discovered a new obsession.

Her name is Jennifer Behr. She's a little pricey, but let me introduce you to her work:




































Always in an effort to save a little cash, I jumped onto Etsy and found these by Hair Petals :





































It takes everything out of me not to buy one these right now! ....but, first the dress



...to be continued.....

Vegas baby!

See ya'll on Tuesday!

Blog, blog, blog...

We all know if there is something you need to search on the internet, there are a million sites to help you. While looking for wedding ideas, colors and dresses I have stuck to the same handful of sites to be safe; the Knot, Weddingbee, Brides.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking to be inspired and discovered that there are hundreds of other brides , and some wedding designers, out there with much better blogs and way more creativity than I have. Here are a few of my favorites for your viewing pleasure:

Something Old, Something New

Vintage Glam

Etsy Wedding

Wedding Tulle

Seriously, I can go on and on with the blogs that I peak into daily. These ladies have so many creative ideas and are welcome to share them with anyone looking for them. They are all my heroes and I can't wait to steal everyone of their ideas.

I have found so many sites that I am addicted to I needed a way to properly organize them and take them everywhere. A blogger on Weddingbee posted about a wonderfully inventive, and much needed website called Delicious. It allows you to log in from anywhere, and organize all of your bookmarks! How fantastic is that! Now from work I can sneak into Etsy without having to remember the url. Yay for me!

Oh, and if you are an Etsy virgin like I was until recently, please take a peak. You have no idea what your missing!

Lola's Antics

This is what Lola does when she needs attention. The video is a little dark, but you should be able to at least here what we have to deal with everyday. Oh, and she hit her head on the coffee table. That is why we were laughing so hard.

Engagement: A Time to Cherish

Right after Kodo's Dad proposed, we were visiting with some friends that had just been married and the bride gave me one piece of advise. She said, "Enjoy your engagement and don't rush to have the wedding." We took that advise to heart which is why we went to Mexico for a week (which was a great location for our engagement pictures) then took another month to start looking at locations.


Although we don't have a "date" yet for the wedding, I am in the constant state of anxiety that I need to find my dress, and pick my colors and invitations and all that fun (and potentially stressful stuff) right away. I am a firm believer that if you start planning early you can save money in more places than you thought possible, and let's face it, we need to save money in as many places as possible.


I am already surrounded by bridal magazines, planners, Tivo'ing Platinum Brides and even Kodo's Dad will sit down and watch Bridezilla with me. I am dragging my sister around to bridal shops and I send her on internet searches for wedding stuff. I really think I need to take a breathe and let the planning work itself out at a normal pace. That would be the smart thing to do, but let's face it, that's just not who I am.

Engagement is not a time to cherish, it is a time to start planning and break out in zits, and strange rashes that your doctor doesn't even know what it is. It is a time to call your friends for every favor you can think of and begin searching for least expensive way to have the BEST photographer for your wedding. It is a time when you begin dreaming about how you will look 20lbs thinner in a wedding dress, but are too pre-occupied with the thought of it to actually do something about it.

When I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, today's the day I won't logon to weddingbee.com, or google my favorite wedding dress designer, or check for more pictures taken at Rancho Las Lomas. That lasted about ten minutes ya'll.


Luckily, I discovered that Ferndales Bridal Shop is having a clearance sale this week. How can I not go?!


Do you all see my dilemma now? Thanks for listening.

Spaweek.org

I was reading this mornings paper (yes, I can read) and discovered that during the week of 9/15-9/21 several spas in the Southern California area will be hosting "spa week". Each spa is offering a few treatments for the low, low price of $50!!!

www.spaweek.org

Just log in and you can get a list of spas offering the services. Some of the places are even offering laser hair removal!

Just a friendly notice from your neighborhood deal finder.

Your all very welcome! Have fun!

Decisions, Decisions..

Because I am still pretty undecided on our wedding colors, I have been scouring the thousands of website available for something that would spark my attention and would help me get on track. I want my girls to wear chocolate brown, but I am undecided about the accent colors.

I love to view pictures of actual weddings so I figured I would start there. I searched weddings that have taken place at Rancho Las Lomas and found this bouquet. I love the greens, pink and reds together.

Then I found this picture inspired by a wedding I found in Ceremony Magazine. I love the yellow and greens with the chocolate brown.



Or maybe something with a little more drama like these girls in brown with red flowers:


Okay, another yellow and brown:



I am leaning towards the yellow, green and butter cream colors. But I am having a hard time deciding. I guess I have time to decide so I won't push it, but I will take any suggestions you got.

Thanks!

So Short Am I?!

Today someone sent me a link on ways short people can dress to make themselves look taller. I am not normally a sensitive person, and I can't say my feelings were hurt, but it made me wonder "Do people really see me as being THAT short?".

I started to think of my friends and my height in comparison to them. I am 5'1" and most of them have a few inches on me. Kodo's Dad is 9" taller than me (so he says) and my Mom is definitely taller than me. I do have sisters and a couple of friends who are "petite", but they are petite in a way that make them weigh 20lbs less than I do, so I don't really think of myself as petite. I am just plane SHORT. So I decided to Google "short people".

The obvious stuff came up; Randy Newman's Song Short People, short people jokes, and you know wikipedia has a ton to say about short people. Then I dug a little deeper and found some other very interesting facts (and if the Internet says it, it must be a fact) about short people:

1. Shorter women are more likely to have long-term relationships with men, and more likely to have children

2. A new study reveals that some short women have a gene linked to longevity

3. Short women with long legs and large busts are the most sexually attractive to men

4. Short women drive nicer cars than tall women

(OK, I made that last one up)

So here is what I have come up with....

I may look like a little vertically challenged when I wear crop pants and flats, but the boys love me and I will live longer than the rest of you giants!

Good Night and Good Bye.....

Location, location, location.....

When Kodo's Dad first proposed in May, we decided to wait a while until we started looking for a ceremony/reception site and pick a date for the "big day". We thought it would be easy to find a nice place at the right price. (Is everyone laughing? OK, just making sure)

Then we started our search......

As we started we discovered there are so many other things we need to consider. If we want to be married in OC or LA, if we wanted to be married in a church, if we wanted just appetizers or five course meal, yada, yada, yada. We sat down together and came up with three things that were important to the both of us; 1. we want to have the ceremony outdoors but the reception indoors, 2. we want to have great food, 3. we want people to dance, drink and have fun...on us *all night long*!

In putting together our list of things that are important to us, we started looking at places that would fit our three requirements.

This is a list of some of our favorite places:

http://www.molaa.org/ Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach

http://www.ebellclub.com/ The Ebell Club in Long Beach - One of my favorites

http://www.csulb.edu/~jgarden/ Japanese Gardens in Long Beach - Very chic

http://www.patinagroup.com/tangata/ Bowers Museum in Santa Ana - Anyone who has been here has thought of a having their wedding here

http://www.nixonlibraryfoundation.org/index.php?src=gendocs&link=PlanYourEvent&category=Main
Nixon Library - great site for an indoor outdoor event

http://www.temeculacreekinn.com/ Temecula Creek Inn - Great site for outdoor ceremony and reception

http://www.pontewinery.com/php/index.php5 Ponte Winery, Temecula, CA - Gorgeous!!

http://www.lamountains.com/planning_river.asp Los Angeles River Center and Gardens - Great location between OC and the Valley

http://www.thebungalowclub.com/weddings/ The Bungalow Club, Hollywood, CA - Ah, Hollywood, where it all began

I could go on and on about the places we have seen and called and been quoted between San Diego, Temecula, Orange County, Long Beach, Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. But I won't. If you want a list, please ask. I can send spreadsheets! :)

About a month and half ago Kodo's Dad and I were told of a little secret at a much coveted Orange County wedding location. There was a way for us to afford a location that we never thought would be possible. We took a tour on an early Saturday morning, and since then have been hooked. No place we have seen before, and no place we have seen after, can compare with the beauty of it. Let me welcome you to Rancho Las Lomas.....

http://www.rancholaslomas.com/


Stay tuned......wedding date to come soon.

Hello...

While I realize I am new to this blogging thing, and that my day-to-day is not nearly as interesting as others, I think it is time that I reach out an touch someone (not like that Shasta you nasty thing).

With our recent engagement, it became apparent to me that I needed somewhere to vent my frustration and share the excitement of wedding planning. From start to finish I plan on sharing as much as possible without giving up too much information to Kodo's Dad. I know the wedding is important to him too, but he doesn't obsess quite as much as I do, so I thought this would be the perfect solution for everyone involved.

You will also get a sneak peak at what it is like being the owner of two of the laziest dogs is town. First there is Lola, our goofy looking boxer, and then there is Kodo the wonder chihuahua. We call him that because we wonder if he's a chihuahua.

We also have a water turtle, his name is Buster. I don't remember the specifics as to how we ended up with him (BROTHER!) but we have learned to love him and can't drop him off at the park pond.

This is just the beginning all. Please stay tuned for future installments of "Two dogs, a turtle and a crazy house."