Teacups, Milkshakes, and Weddings//Ingredients for a Very Busy Weekend

Just a random pretty picture to start us off.

This is unaccountably silly, I know--sitting here at 4:19 in the morning, writing a blog post.  But, you see,  I couldn't sleep for thinking of all the things I need to do when I get up, so I thought I might as well get up now, work for an hour or so and see if I can't get my mind to slow down a bit and get sleepy again. 

 

This has been an extraordinarily busy weekend...hence the reason for my being woefully behind in answering all you dear people's comments...and hence the reason for my stress levels rising, my thoughts going at a hundred miles a minute, and the ridiculousness of finding myself sitting here so early in the morning typing at my computer. 

*Ahem*  I think perhaps a recap of my weekend might be in order.

 

To begin with, I took off of work this Saturday because it was the day before my oldest sister's wedding, and I had a feeling there might be some last minute preparations in which I could lend a hand.  (And if my services were not needed for actual wedding preparations then at least I could help out with the Saturday wash load, and allow my mom more time to work on the wedding stuff.)  As it turned out there really wasn't all that much to do, but I managed to fill my day up quite nicely anyway.  My sister and I (not the sister getting married, you understand, but another one) went out in the afternoon to do a little shopping because she was off of work, too, for the same reason as I--and finding that the wedding preparations were well under control we thought we might as well enjoy ourselves. 

My sister has just recently begun collecting tea cups.  So we went to a used furniture/what's-it shop in order to see if we couldn't find another cup to add to her collection.  And guess what?  We did!  


Here it is.  Isn't it pretty?

My sister was so happy to have made such an excellent purchase, that she decided another purchase was in order and drove us straightway to Chick-fil-a for a celebratory milkshake.  As always she ordered a strawberry milkshake for me and a cookies-n-cream for herself and we were happy, happy, happy!  That is, until we realized that the cookies-n-cream milkshake was actually a chocolate milkshake. 

Horrors!  This would never do.

So my sister parked the car and went inside to see about getting it switched.  (So much for the drive through.  Ha!)  There was a bit of a wait before she could get the attention of one of the workers, but in the end everything turned out just fine. We got our cookies-n-cream milkshake and even got to keep the chocolate one free of charge!  (Yes.  It was a good day.)

Then Sunday arrived.  The day of the wedding.

My mom, my three older sisters, the groom, and myself were heading up to the wedding site early, along with a group of friends who had volunteered their services for getting things set up and ready before the guests arrived.  The ceremony and reception were being held at a camp up in the mountains about two hours away from our home, so carting up all the decorations and food was a bit of a job, and we had to be very careful not to leave anything behind since going home for forgotten items wasn't really an option.   There were, of course, some moments of stress throughout the day, but looking back on it, it really did come together pretty smoothly. 

 

My oldest sister is really into the rustic, woodsy look, so decorating was fairly simple.

 

 

Here's a picture to show you how we decorated the beverage table.  Nothing fancy, as you can see, but we were pleased with it, and it was all very easy to put together.  All we needed was a wooden crate, a burlap table runner, and some pine branches cut from the trees outside, and wala!  We had a decorated table!  :)

 

My sister had come to the conclusion several weeks before the wedding that carrying a cake two and a half hours in the car wasn't going to work very well, so instead of a real cake, she decided to make a cake out of Oreos; inspired from the picture below.

 

 

It was a cute idea.  Of course, our cake didn't turn out as picture perfect as the original, but we really didn't care.  After all, it was just going to be eaten in a few hours.  :P 

 

All in all it was a very nice wedding.  Small but totally relaxed and family-ish, which is what we like.  My dad sang a song during the ceremony while my brother accompanied him on the guitar, and it was absolutely beautiful.  I have now decided that I must have my dad sing to me at my wedding. 

 

I don't have a recording of my dad singing the song, but here's a recording of the original if you'd like to hear it.  It's a song by Phil Keaggy from his album Way Back Home.

 

 

It really was a fun day, and seems especially fun now that I'm looking back on it (isn't that how it always is, though?  Things always appear so much more fun in retrospect than in the actual moment).  I will confess, however, that even in the midst of all the laughter and gaiety, I did manage to find some time for a personal little party.  (You know the kind.  I think they're normally called 'pity parties'?)  Yes.  I had one of those.  I sat there, all silent and alone (well, not literally alone--I was in fact surrounded by people--but alone in spirit, you know?), thinking pityingly over the sad, sad state of my own singleness.  Wishing very much for a husband and feeling altogether 'lone and lorn'--to borrow a phrase from Mrs. Gummidge.  Yes.  I was quite enjoying myself, in a miserable, gloomy sort of way.

 

Unfortunately, though,  I wasn't able to go all out and do proper justice to my little pity party because, well...crying in public just isn't quite the thing.  But I assure you I had plans for indulging myself on the way home.   Ah yes.  In the darkness of the long car ride, I felt certain I'd be able to let the river of tears flow unnoticed and...do things properly, so to speak.  But, well, it's funny how these things work out.  I suppose I must have been too tired by the end of the evening even to cry , because I made it home without a shedding a single tear.  (Shucks.  And I was so looking forward to feeling sorry for myself.) 

 

I stole this picture from my brother's camera.  That was the appearance of the outdoors during the wedding celebration...that is, when it wasn't raining, snowing, or hailing.  Yeah, the weather was pretty crazy, and very cold.  Actually, it felt like a winter wedding...in May.

 

We arrived home quite late, but still managed to squeeze in a short discussion of the days events before going to bed, because that's what we do.  We must talk.   By the time we finally got to sleep it was close to 2:00.  I slept in the next morning and then...wouldn't you know it?  My sister and brother announced they were going to go antique shopping again and stop at Chick-fil-a for lunch.  And of course they asked if I wanted to go with them--and of course I said yes, because...well, Chick-fil-a means a milkshake, and I was sort of in the mood for a milkshake.  (When am I not?)   

 

 

This outing took up half of my morning (the half which I hadn't already spent in bed) and half of the afternoon, and when I got home I was hoping to catch up on responding to comments and all that jazz, but then I got to talking with my siblings about the wedding again, (yes, we really do like to talk!) and after that I had laundry to do, and ironing, and supper preparations, and...did I tell you it was a busy weekend?  And then my evening was full, too, because I and my two siblings (the two who'd gone to Chick-fil-a with me) went to our oldest brother's house for our bi-weekly movie night. (We're currently watching through Jeeves and Wooster, and finished the third and fourth episodes of season 4 last night.)  Of course, before we started the movie we had to have a little talk about the wedding, and then we had further discussions about various topics after the movie was over, so by the time we got home it was around 11:00.  No time for computer work that evening.

 

So there you have it.  That was my very busy weekend.  (And no.  I did not write all of the above between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning.  I got through the first couple paragraphs and then went back to bed till 6:30.)  It is now 5:00 in the evening and I declare, this post has taken me much too long to complete.  Granted I wasn't working on it non-stop but still...I'm much too slow of a writer.  And that's a fact.  :P

 

 

What have you all been up to lately? 

Anything new and exciting happening in your lives?