Wedding Registering Madness

I couldn't wait to begin the whole registering process back when we got engaged last Spring. Everything we had for the kitchen pretty much was either hand me downs from Eric's parents, my parents, college leftovers, and other stuff I got really cheap.

Our first registry was created at Williams-Sonoma. We figured it would be easy because it was a small store. We registered for a handful of things there. And we got some of them as engagement gifts.

Then we began a Fortunoff registry as oppose to a Macy's registry. My mom said Fortunoff was better. From visiting either store, they seemed the same to me. So we registered for our "fine stuff" at Fortunoff.

We registered for much of our everyday stuff at Bed Bath & Beyond.

We were done. Or so Eric thought. Then these things happened.

1. Martha Stewart came to Macy's!
2. I realized Macy's has a better website than Fortunoff.
3. Rumors began floating of Fortunoff going belly-up. (Okay, it seems as this point that Lord & Taylor is buying them out.)
4. I visited Crate & Barrel the other day, in search of the perfect everyday glasses, and decided we must register here!

So we decided to abandon the Fortunoff and Williams-Sonoma registry in favor of having only three registries--Crate & Barrel, Macy's, and Bed Bath & Beyond.

So yesterday, Eric and I went to Crate and Barrel to register there. It was amazing. We didn't argue. Not once. We always argue when it comes to registering. So if you're looking to buy us a gift, please don't shop at Fortunoff or Williams-Sonoma because you won't find much left there!

Three Day Weekend

I love three day weekends. Even if I do have to go to the dentist tomorrow.

Today we're seeing Kayla again so I'll post more photos today or tomorrow!

And speaking of babies, Kayla's not the "baby" of the family any longer!

My cousin, Andrea, and her husband, Frank, became first-time parents this morning! They had a little boy, Vincent. It all just happened so I don't have any other details as of yet but its very exciting!

Yesterday, Eric and I explored the little town of Andover. It's ten minutes from where we live and it's home to tons of antique shops. We had a delicious lunch at a cute little coffee house called the Gristmill Cafe. We spent some time wandering around the shoppes in town and bought a couple cute things.

Then last night, Eric got yet another birthday dinner. We had Ethiopian lentils and Ethiopian green beans and potatoes. The green beans and potatoes were a new recipe and they came out pretty good! All in all, it was a healthy and delicious meal!

After dinner, we watched The Princess Bride. It's a movie that I had never seen before but it's one of Eric's favorites. It was a cute movie.

Eric v. Abe

Today seemed like a fitting day to compare Eric M. Munkee to Abraham Lincoln. A fun fact that you may be unaware of is that they happen to share the same birthday! Yes, it's true. Did you know that they have other similarities, too?

Eric loves KFC and while I doubt Abe ever had the opportunity to try their hot wings, he was born in Kentucky. Abe also bears a remarkable likeness to the colonel.

Did you know that Abe was the first president to wear a beard? I think that Eric may very well be one of the first Asians to sport one too!

Abe served as captain of the military. While Eric is by no means affiliated with any sort of military, he is captain of his Strat-o-Matic hockey team, the East Coast Earthquakes. At least, I think that's what his team is called.

Did you know that Honest Abe "clerked" in a shop? As a teenager, Eric never worked in a supermarket as a cashier or grocery bagger. He blames his inability to bag groceries properly on this key fact.

Happy Birthday, Munkee!

Today is Eric's 33rd birthday. Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

On Sunday, we invited Eric's parents and my family over for dinner to celebrate Eric's birthday. It was a wonderful day.

Here's the cake that I baked for Eric. It's a stadium cake! I used the stadium bundt cake pan that we received as an engagement gift. The football cookie in the middle was a gift from Ashley and Joe. Even though I did not think we had any use for a stadium bundt cake pan, it's not a bad thing to have. The cake was definitely a hit!

No More Polaroids

I read online today that Polaroid is shutting down the instant photography aspect of their business. They've already ceased production of instant cameras and will stop manufacturing the film for them (though they do have enough film to last through 2009).

How sad. I admit it. I haven't owned a Polaroid camera in years. Back in 2000 or so, I had one of those Polaroid sticker cameras. They were very popular at the time!

No matter your age, there's still something magical about holding that Polaroid photo in your hand waiting for it to develop.

When my friends took me out for Hibachi on my 29th birthday, I received a birthday Polaroid souvenir. It's still on my refrigerator.

Here's a "vintage" Polaroid commercial from 1979.

Isn't she lovely?

Look at this funny babe, one hour after birth. Isn't she precious?



Kayla's first picture with Grandma


Kayla and her favorite aunt!

PuppyBowl IV

I watched some of the SuperBowl with Eric. Because I had to. But on commercials, we watched the PuppyBowl. The PuppyBowl, in my opinion, was so much better than the SuperBowl. It was sooo cute!!! There were no winners. There were no losers. Just puppies playing on a fake football field.

And, during half-time, there was a kitty show.

You can even go on their website and vote for the MVP.

And, I found out that all the puppies and kittens come from shelters. Eric says we can't get one though. :(

A Big Day

Well, today was a big day. Not JUST because the Giants won tonight's Superbowl.

Today marks the one year anniversary of my first date with Eric. One year ago today, I never would have believed it if somebody had told me I was going to marry that guy. It was a good date. I liked Eric's sense of humor. He seemed like a nice enough guy and we got along well.

The next day was Superbowl Sunday, but instead of watching the game, I was spending the day with a girlfriend. We made pizza and brownies and watched a movie instead. While I was there, I had gotten an email from Eric asking me out for another date.

I asked my girlfriend what she thought. Should I go out with him again? She and I decided, why not? First date went well. Might as well give it a try.

Tonight, I want to thank that dear friend. That first date turned out to be the love of my life.

And six months from today, we'll be married.

And wedding plans are moving along...yesterday we had our second premarital counseling session with the rabbi AND we picked out our wedding rings! We've found a new videographer since the whole Celebration Studios nightmare. And we've contracted somebody to design custom invites for us! Yippee!

Kayla Ruth

My brother, Ryan, and my sister-in-law, Lauren, became first-time parents tonight to Kayla Ruth. Seven pounds, nine ounces. I got to see the proud parents and new addition to the family tonight. She's just adorable and Eric and I are thrilled to be "uncle" and "aunt!"

NKOTB Reunion!!!!

Okay, I'm not making this up. I'm hearing New Kids on the Block are going to be reuniting! Apparently, there will be some kind of official announcement next month. The NKOTB website is up and running with some old video from the 90's that I couldn't get to work very well.

Anyone else kind of excited about this??? I'm going on thirty but an announcement like this makes me feel eleven years old again!

Reason #458 Why I don't Like Mainstream Radio

The other day, I happened to be flipping back and forth between radio station. I briefly stopped on a former favorite station of mine to listen to one of those hysterical music contests. You know, listen to 1-2 notes and name the song. It was ridiculous.

Anyway, the DJ makes some comment about a David Bowie song, which in his opinion, is a great song.

Then he mentions on the air how he'll talk to his station manager about getting this particular song.

I guess its not on their top 20 approved playlist. I like my public music stations because the dj's can play whatever they'd like! The other day, the morning dj pulled out some old, obscure record album from the sixties! Apparently, nobody still plays records on the air but this dj did! She made a comment about "hoping it would work!" And it did!

Movie Madness

It seems that I'll either go forever without seeing a movie or I see a bunch in a short duration of time. In the past week, I saw three good movies, all rented from Netflix.

A week ago, I saw Freedom Writers. It was a riveting film. You've all heard of that one. I would certainly recommend it.

Monday, we were going to see Juno. But with the whole Norton fiasco, we really couldn't leave him for even a couple hours. Plus, I pulled something in my back on Sunday. I'm still trying to recover, though I am feeling a lot better. Much of my time was spent on the couch this week!

So instead of Juno, we watched Waitress. Have you heard of it? A hit at last year's Sundance. Bittersweet and comedic both. Keri Russell plays the main character. The talented Adrienne Shelly wrote, directed and also starred in the movie before being murdered in her apartment by her contracter. What a sad story. Bittersweet. We really liked the movie though. It made us smile and feel, too. Rent it. I think you'll enjoy.

A couple months ago, I heard a particular song from a soundtrack I couldn't recall on one of my beloved public radio stations, WFUV. I loved the song so I spent months hoping to stumble across it on iTunes.



And guess what? The other day I found it! The song, Falling Slowly, is from the soundtrack to the movie, Once. And the song was nominated for an Academy Award also! So guess what? I rented the movie and bought the sountrack. It's a modern day musical filmed more like a documentary than your traditional romantic comedy. In a nutshell...

Boy is a street musician in Dublin. He fixes vacuums by day. He has an ex in London.

Girl is a Czech street vendor (living in Dublin). She lives with her mother and young daughter. She has a husband in the Czech Republic.

We spend a week with these two characters as they develop a friendship and "write, rehearse and record songs together." Their music is simple and lovely. His beaten-up acoustic guitar and her piano melodies. The chemistry is real and the story is touching.

I won't tell you what happens. See for yourself.
Wanna see Alvin sing the same song?

Cat is out of the Bag

I didn't want to detail the scandal surrounding the previously mentioned wedding vendor. However, we got our money back and it's all over the news so I'm ready to spill the beans!

After Eric and I got engaged, one of the first things we made sure to do was find a photographer. We met with somebody from Celebration Studios, a tri-state wedding photography and videography company. Celebration was referred to me by a coworker whose daughter is getting married a month before we are. They were recommended to her by some other happy clients.

CS had many different locations all throughout NJ, NY and Philadelphia. We met with Karen Towerton from the Montclair office. She offered us a phenomenal package which included a videographer too! I should have realized it might be too good to be true.

The catch? If you pay up front, you get a 20% discount. The red flags should have popped up then. Over lunch that day, we decided to book this company. We were later able to choose our photographer based on an online gallery of some samples of different photographers' work. We then met him in person and were really excited about his style and thought he'd do a wonderful job shooting our wedding.

Things were fine until last month, while perusing message boards on The Knot, I came across some negative feedback about CS. I was shocked. The more I dug, the more information I unearthed. Brides and grooms, married for 1, 2, 3, even 4 years, still waiting for wedding albums, videos, proofs, all paid in full. Some turned in baby pictures to be used as a montage for their videos. Phone call after phone call, email after email, they were fed lie after lie. And by late fall, it was impossible to get a hold of anybody by phone.

Celebration Studios was going to be "new and improved," or so they claimed. They were just backlogged. Their design center was closed in order to restructure things, to make it better, they claimed. It was supposed to reopen January 2nd. However, on that day, a sign was on the door at the center in Clifton, promising a reopen by January 31st.

However, just a couple days later, there was a for lease sign hanging in the window.

It was that week, I started to really get frightened. I started spending every waking minute on the Wronged by Celebration Studios yahoo group. I found out CS stopped paying their photographers and videographers. Some are owed $10,000 or more. They quietly closed each and every office. Sales staff quit. Basicallly within the course of a week, there was nobody left working for this guy.

Except one office actually didn't close. Their Philadelphia office became Accent Studios. Marc Schwartz, the owner of CS, claims it's an unaffiliated business. Then why did it not only have an identical website until people caught on? Why is it owned by Marc's girlfriend, Shani Whittemore? Clients of CS claim that they booked with CS, yet their credit card statements say Accent.

Schwartz is claiming to have no money left. His lawyer says he's going to be filing bankruptcy. Then he won't have to pay back anybody. But where did all this money go? There were SO many shady dealings. It's been all over the news. Check out these links if you're curious.

By the way, we're sooo lucky that we disputed our charges with the credit card company. We got every penny back that we paid that scamming CS! Not everyone was so lucky though. Hundreds of brides and grooms may never see those pictures and albums they paid so much for. My friend was telling me about her coworker who hired CS to shoot her wedding this weekend. She paid up front. In cash. Even though she has retained a lawyer, she'll never see that money again. People have been filing criminal complants and there are a couple class action law suits that are forming against Schwartz.

And we found an awesome photographer to boot. We really did our research this time. His name is Josh Lynn and we can't wait for him to shoot our wedding!

Links

• The Star Ledger article
• NJ 12 TV report
• NBC news report
• CBS news story
  

Absolutely Absurd!

Our lovely state of NJ is in debt. And a lot of it. $32 billion dollars in debt. Sounds pretty much typical for this country.

Our esteemed Governor Corzine came up with a plan a couple days ago to relieve us of this debt.

What a joke.

Many of our New Jersey roads are toll roads. Corzine's plan is, beginning in the year 2010, increase said tolls by 50%. And every four years, increase the tolls by another 50%...

He also proposes to add tolls to a stretch of Route 440, which is now toll-free.

Corzine thinks this pretty much only affect commercial vehicles and out-of-state traffic.

Well, he's dead wrong. Many, many, many of New Jersey residents commute to work on a daily basis on these toll roads! I'm fortunate that with the move, I don't have to travel the toll roads any longer. But prior to this year, I traveled the Garden State Parkway to work on a daily basis. I paid $2.10 a day in tolls, a total of $42.00 a month. Here's how the increase, if approved would affect a commuter, like myself, on a yearly basis.

Year Monthly Toll Expenditure

2007 $42.00

2010 $63.00

2014 $94.50

2018 $141.75

2022 $212.62

2026 $318.94

That's almost an increase of 10 times over a twenty year period. Gee, lets stop and think. Add that to the increased prices of gas, property taxes that never stop rising, and the astronomical cost of living in this state.

This plan would pay off half of New Jersey's debt. Tell me, how is it our responsibility to clean up the mess that others have left???

Just needed to vent.

Yay Yay Yay Yay!!!!!

I love Visa!!!! I never thought I would say that! But they refunded the money that we paid to the horrid vendor that I previously blogged about.

And I found a great florist for the wedding. She designed a lovely bouquet for me!

And a fun fact...

On this day in 1902, the state of New York declared flirting an illegal activity. It's true. I heard it on the radio today!

What a week!

We've been ensconced in this madness for the past few days surrounding one of our wedding vendors. It's not something I can really talk freely about online, especially because we're disputing the charge with Visa now. We went with this particular vendor because they were highly recommended.

We paid up front for the services because we were offered a 20 % discount. We thought it was a great deal. And they were recommended and did great work.

Wow, how things change in a matter of months. After the CEO has been writing bad checks to employees and not giving clients what they have paid for, I think he'll be filing bankruptcy.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that Visa will follow through and give us our money back.

There's lots of chatter about this on The Knot as well as a yahoo group about it. It's just mind-boggling.

2007 in Review

Jennifer posted a year in review on her blog. I liked that idea. Mine probably won't look as pretty as hers but I'll try my hand at making one too. A lot HAS changed this year!

January

In January I had attempted to cancel my match.com membership. I was frustrated and tired of the whole thing. I wasn't meeting anybody who I really connected with. But apparently, I didn't hit the confirm button when I tried to cancel so I got charged for another six months.

I figured I might as well get some use out of the damn membership. So I sent a bunch of emails out. One to some guy named Eric. And so we began emailing back and forth...


February



Eric and I had our first date at an Ethiopian restaurant called Makeda in New Brunswick. We also had a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth date...


March



My mom had a special birthday this month. My siblings and I planned a birthday luncheon for her. Eric met my family for the first time this day.


April

I missed Eric while he was in Scotland but then it was my spring break! We spent a lot of time together that week.

We had our first New York outing together. We had our first fight at Zabar's.

May

May was a special month. On Mother's Day, we got engaged! Yay! Norton (and Pumpkin too) was very happy to hear the news. He adores his new daddy-to-be!

Speaking of daddies-to-be, at the end of the month, my brother, Ryan and sister-in-law Lauren announce that they are expecting a little one in the beginning of 2008!

June


June was a good month. Our friends gave birth to Caiden who underwent very successful heart surgery. He's a champ!!! He's now a healthy, happy baby!

July


We went to Miami for Eric's AAJA conference but we enjoyed some downtime as well.

August


We moved. Really, must I say more? What a crazy month fixing up the townhouse so it could sell and fixing up our new home.

September


Eric and I enjoyed a weekend in the San Francisco area before I had to return to work. I also got to attend my first football game!

October



We hosted a party for my birthday at our new house!!! The Bell Family (the nickname my college friends and I gave ourselves) even attended!

November

Eric and I went away for a long weekend to Burlington, Vermont. We had a great time exploring! Here I am in Middlebury trying to stay warm!

December


We celebrated our engagement with some of our close friends and family.


2008 will be an even better year! I wish all of my readers a healthy and happy year!

Welcome to Morocco!

Saturday night, Eric and I, along with Jennifer and her fiance, Matt visited Morocco. Well...sort of! We had dinner at an authentic Moroccan restaurant called Marakesh. It's really a funky place! We all enjoyed the Sultan's Feast! It was an exquisite feast of soup, salad, appetizers, entrees, dessert and yummy mint tea. And, we were treated to some live music and belly dancing!





It was such fun. It was the first time the four of us all got together. Jenn and I were very happy that our fiances got along so well. Apparently they both have a love of telling jokes with Scottish accents.

Sadly enough, they did say no to forming a scooter club.

My Green Dining Room

Here's a pic of before we took the tape off the walls and put the room back together. It really does look beautiful. It's calming and so serene. My new favorite room in the house!!!

Happy Holidays!

I hope everybody enjoyed their Chrismahanukkakwanzaa! No matter what you celebrate, I hope you are enjoying this time of year and are not getting lost in the craziness of it all.

Eric and I enjoyed yet another holiday together. Monday night, my family went out to dinner to Carmine's in New York. It's tradition. We go every Christmas Eve. My immediate family plus my aunt, uncle and cousins. With spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends, we had 14 this year at our table. Next year, we'll have two more (since my sister-in-law and cousin are giving birth this winter)! Sadly, Eric had to miss it because he was still at work. But after dinner, I met Eric and his family for the rest of Christmas Eve. We had a very nice time and didn't get in until late.

Christmas morning, we went to my folks' house for present-opening and breakfast. I brought over a french toast casserole. It was the first one I ever made and boy, was it a hit!

Then back to Morristown for the rest of the day to be with Eric's family.

After picking up Norton from my parents' house at the end of the night, we came back home. We had a great time with both of our families, but it was nice to be home at the end of the night.

This morning I slept til 10. Which is LATE for me!!! After some straightening up, I decided to paint the dining room. I did all the prep work, the trim and the whole first coat. It is a Martha Stewart green called "Wild Artichoke." Tomorrow morning, I'll buy a second can and do a second coat. Wow, what a job. By the time I was finished, I suffered numerous aches and pains including stomach pains from not eating all day.

But I'm glad I accomplished something!