An Upgrade of a Move

Taking a break for a moment to talk about something other than the wedding... on Tuesday, we had gotten a call from Woodbury Heights, the apartment that we applied at, telling us that they already had an apartment that was coming available. This was financially unexpected for us, considering that we expected to start planning on moving next month or later. But somehow, we need to make it work.

We've cut back on a few wedding things, to save money for the expense of moving. (Sadly, the hotel needed to be cut). But, we will be moving in less than 3 weeks, and I am officially terrified, and overwhelmed with everything. First, we will be getting married on Monday. With all that, comes the cost of it all, stress of the name change, the worry about photos, all that. Then literally, right after, we are moving. This comes with, worrying about collecting boxes, packing, will we have enough money to move, U-Haul truck, people to help us move, transporting the cats, changing my address through all my accounts and post office, buying the things we will need there that we don't have here, unpacking, and there's probably more.

I'm freaking out a bit. I broke down to my mother, who is hundreds of miles away, and she did all she could do - told me to breathe and get through one thing at a time. So, here we are. taking things one day at a time.

Moving on! Woodbury Heights apparently has 2 types of apartments, with 2 types of wall coloring. They have brown walls, and then they have grey walls in other ones.I was expecting brown walls, based on what they had originally told us. Which was awesome, because I had ideas for colors for my bathroom and kitchen. I already had dark brown towels, I was going to buy new dark brown bathroom rugs, which would go awesome with the cardboard colored walls! Well, Wednesday, when we went in to talk to them, they informed us that... Hey no, your walls will actually be grey. The look on my face couldn't have said anything other than... Crap.

I liked my brown idea! So, right after I got done griping to Tyler about having to chose a new color scheme, we wandered into JCPenney, because I know the Home department was having a nice sale on items, and I could also use my associate discount, obviously!

We chose a shower curtain, which I instantly fell in love with (right from that moment, I knew I was going to be okay without my dark brown. In fact, I didn't even care about brown anymore). The woman who was in the home department that day was probably one of the most helpful people I've ever encountered as a customer. She had went out of her way to use all possible washcloths as swatches for us to find the perfect color rugs and towels.

After a half hour of holding the shower curtain up to a variety of towels, I think we found the perfect shade a blue for the curtain. And, I think it would look fantastic with light grey walls. Through this whole process, Tyler was such a sport for shopping, even taking off on his own in search of a matching rug. To his credit, he was even the one who picked out this color.

 

They look fantastic together, right? At least I think so. We did end up with the lid cover, contour rug, and the bath rug to go in front of the shower.

When I moved here to Iowa, I had bought the cheapest bathroom accessories I could find from Ikea, and brought them with me. Now, it was time for a upgrade. Since there was some white in the shower curtain as well, we got this white ceramic toothbrush holder and a jar thing for holding Q-tips. there was a matching wastepaper basket, but it was  ceramic too, and I just know that the cats would find their way into it and break it. I'm not even sure how well they are going to do with these, but I figure I will try them.

 

I didn't want to buy too many towels, because I have several brown ones already. But, I like to match, so we just picked up two bath towels, and a hand towel to hang on the towel rack for washing my face at night.

Decorative pillows were on sale as well. When we bought our couch, it came with four decorative pillows. All were ugly. So, new apartment, new pillows. these were on sale for $29.99, and you get two of them. A deal, if you ask me. So, I chose these. They should go well with our couch, and the wall color.

I also bought a 13 piece pot and pan set, because I believe we will be cooking a lot more, instead of eating out all the time. Also, I picked up a kitchen rug for in front of the kitchen sink. Gotta always have a rug for the kitchen, I think.

Truffles

We decided that we were going to get truffles for Valentine's Day. Instead of going to Target, or Walmart for them, we actually found ourselves at Palmer's Candy - an actual candy store. We wandered around for a while, looking for mainly a pre-packaged set. Couldn't find any. Eventually, we wandered our way to the back of the store, where all the gourmet chocolates were behind glass.

I boggled at how beautiful the chocolates were for several minutes, then saw the price. $3 per truffle. I was prepared to waltz out the same way I came in, but Tyler was determined. He wanted these truffles, and he was not about to take no for an answer.

We ended up with six truffles, that we picked out together. It was apparently buy 5, get one free, so we got six of them. They are rather large, and extremely tasty looking. I also managed to get a piece of fudge for $3, as well. To be fair, the fudge was really awesome, and was a small taste of home - my mother used to make fudge at Christmas, so it was actually worth three dollars to me.

While at Palmer's, we came across a very special truffle. It was specifically labeled "Wedding Cake Truffle". And you know what is coming up, right? So, we picked up two of these truffles. Since we won't be having a wedding cake, these will do just fine, I think!

For these, they gave us the option of little cute truffle boxes. They are cute, and adds a bit of special to them.

Wedding Jewelry

On Sunday, we went on a rather large spree of buying things we need for the wedding. The major purchase we did was the wedding jewelry. The jewelry isn't fancy by all means, it's just a few pieces from Claire's, but I wanted to make sure that I bought a headpiece of some kind.

Naturally, I picked out the headpiece first.I had originally wanted to purchase it from Etsy, and have it possibly custom made... but well, we have time constraints, and finances are quite small. This was kind of something that I wanted originally, so I picked it up.

It was a complete nightmare to find other pieces to match this. Other pearl items at Claire's were a different shade of white, or the metal was a bit shinier. I'm still not happy with the necklace, and I may not wear it in the end, but we will see how it plays out. This was the closest thing I could come up with that somewhat matches.

 

The bonus to the necklace is that it came with matching earrings. The earrings were probably the only reason why I picked up the necklace. If you read my blog a little bit, you know I love a good deal, and when it comes down to a necklace for $18.50, or a necklace with earrings for the same price... I'm likely going to go with the latter. Again, I may not even be able to wear these at all, because I'm still having issues with my ear piercings.

By the time I had went around and around, trying to decide on a necklace (I am an extremely indecisive person), I was at the point where I just wanted to be done with the whole thing. I picked up a bracelet without really looking too closely at it, and was on my way.

All in all, I think the pieces I picked up were okay. I do really love the headband piece, it was quite what I wanted, and I think the others should be fine with it. Now, this is the part where I realized... I was not a fan of Claire's. I try to stay positive on this blog, but there was something that irked me in that store.

When I was just browsing around after getting frustrated with finding my jewelry (maybe I was going into this situation already heated? I don't know), I had seen a clearance sign, stating: "10 for $10" placed over a display of earrings. Nartually, my eyeballs zoned in on it and I headed over there.

I clarified with an associate who told me that not all of the items on the display were for that special. Only certain ones, which were originally less than $10. (Signage was not displayed well at all, and associate was quite short with me when I approached her, confused).

Nonetheless, I purchased 10 clearance items, which were originally under $10. And while I am happy with my earring purchases, I am not amused with Claire's, in general. They were a good deal, and at $1 each set, that's even better than what I pay for earrings at work, even with my associate discount.

The big hoop feather ones originally had caught my attention, and for only $1, I'll deal with terrible signs, and a rude employee.

Tyler's Dress Shirt

Tyler has been wanting a "suit" for the wedding. He wants to go all out with buying the full jacket, pants, vest... the whole thing. It's been my mission this week to try to talk him out of it. They are expensive. and for our little courthouse wedding, a little too dressy then what I'd like to have done.

We came to a compromise of what to dress him in. We settled on a dress shirt that should match my dress, and a silver/white tie. I think the ensemble should look nice, paired with a pair of dress pants that he already has.

Also, a couple things. My ear piercings appear to not be doing well lately. They are swollen, really painful, and I think they may be infected now. I've stopped using the cleaning fluid they gave me at the Piercing Pagoda, and switched to a salt-water mixture a couple times a day. I think it might be making them feel a little better, considering they aren't throbbing anymore. So, hopefully I'll be able to leave them in for the wedding.

Thursday, early morning, we turned in our application and deposit for the apartment we hope to get into. we should be one of the next people on the waiting list, so maybe, we will hear a response soon!

Wedding Shoes

I have purchased yet one more piece of my wedding day attire. My shoes! I got off work last night, so Tyler and I decided to do just a little bit of shopping, and looking around at JCPenney and the rest of the mall. More specifically, there was a sweater I had been eye-balling all afternoon, and I wanted to get it if it was still there once I was off work.

It was still there, so I grabbed that and just took a walk around the rest of the store. We decided to take a quick look over at the shoe department to see if there was any kind of sales on shoes for the wedding day.

I found myself once again, checking out the clearance rack. But this time, something caught my eye. $3.97 shoes. High heeled shoes, in silver, just the color I was looking for to wear with my dress!

I nabbed them up.I normally wear a size 7 shoe, but these ran really, really small. The ones I have are a size 8. and are still really small. But, they did not have anything bigger. I still bought these, because I figured, if they didn't work out, I didn't spend all the much money on them anyway. After my associate discount and the coupon I used, I paid about $2.60 for them. Love it!

Also, in other news... I finally took my wedding dress in to be steamed. Shipping left it with all kinds of wrinkles, so David's Bridal offered to steam it for me. It will be ready to be picked up on Saturday. We have also decided upon a "honeymoon" destination. We'll be staying a couple nights at a nice, upscale hotel in town. This way, I can still be close enough to check up on my cats, if I get a little anxious.

Just think - the wedding is only 13 days away. We are already starting to join our lives together, early this morning, we went into my credit union and got him added to my account, to join our finances. Which, in reality is horrifying to think about, because I am a huge control freak with my money. But, if we will be married, we should share an account for bills and such, right?

Our next steps - We are planning on moving, and we have an apartment complex in mind. Unfortunately they have a waiting list on their one bedrooms, but this week, we will be going in to apply and put our deposit down. Hopefully we get approved, so that we can move before the weather gets warm! (Yay, central air conditioning!)

Ear Piercing

When I was a child, I had my ears pierced. My mother likely had them pierced when I was a baby, I know this because I had the scars where they were once done. I can't remember the last time I had earrings in my ears. Growing up, I was never the "girly-girl", so I laughed at the idea of earrings. So, obviously, the holes in my ears closed up. As more girly things started to interest me, earrings weren't big of a deal, because with my long hair, you could barely see my ears anyway.

However, the first of the year, I chopped off all my long hair in favor of a very short hairstyle. For the first time in a while, my ears are visible. Now, I wanted the one thing I bawked at for the majority of my life: earrings.

I got my ears pierced. I got them done with a piercing gun, at a kiosk in the mall. They were done over the scars from my previous piercing, so you can't see them, which is what I wanted.

I wasn't fond of any of the "piercing earrings" they had for free ear piercing, so I went with the cheapest one.They are boring and small, but I intend to switch them out as soon as I can. I feel like a big baby with them because two days later, they are still sore. I forget I have them sometimes, like when I wrap my head with a towel after my shower, and squish my ears. Which quickly reminds me I have them.

Because I love my JCPenney so much, I quickly checked out the jewelry before I clocked on to work. And those of you who read my blog recently know that - I love clearance sales. I found a few earrings which were rather cheap,and I had to grab them up.

Yeah, clearance! Finding things at a good price makes me happy! only $1.97 for the Liz Claiborne flower ones, and $2.97 for the other two. I don't plan on changing the earrings out for a while, because apparently they need to heal for 4 weeks, but when I'm ready to switch them, I have a few options to chose from. Now, I just need to find some kind of clever way to store my new earrings.

Wedding Rings

The rings for the wedding came on Saturday, and I've finally got a photo of them. Rings with me are tricky, because I'm allergic to some metals, and others.. my skin will eat right through them. So, finding jewelry is hard for me.

I'm also very nervous about losing things, so I did not want to spend a fortune on something that I fear I will lose. My engagement ring is titanium, which was allergy-free, and rather inexpensive. Added bonus was that it was simple, and not too fancy for this simple girl.

So, I decided to go a step beyond titanium and get a matching set of cobalt rings. From my research, cobalt is supposed to be strong, less prone to breakage, is more like a lighter color (as opposed to titanium, being grey-ish), and is relatively lightweight. They came, and I don't think I could be happier.

 

Please excuse my pride in that photo, I'm trying to learn how to use the Nikon D3200 that I got for Christmas, and this is probably the most awesome photo I have taken with it. Anyway, the rings are beautiful, I think. I purchased them on Etsy, and they were under the label of "Homemade" but... I'm not entirely sure they were.

Not sure that I care at this point, because I think they look nice. I guess a part of me wanted something "special" to us a couple. I tried to go the made to order route, but oh well. The prices of cobalt rings were expensive, so I was happy to get the pair at a cost that I would have paid for only one.

As you have probably guessed already, I love working at JCPenney for the awesome clearance things that I see come through. Once I got off work last night, I went shopping for a little bit before I came home, and found some cute little underwear for only $1.97. Plus the promotion that was going on - an extra 25% off clearance. Awesome!

I picked up 7 pairs of cute little underwear. After the extra 25% for clearance, these were such a good deal to pass up. I have honestly never owned underwear from JCPenney before, so I'm wondering if they are going to fit as well as my Lane Bryant panties - but am willing to try.

Can't beat that price, at all! So happy to have been able to get the panties I wanted when I got off. Usually clearance items are rather picked over by the time I get to them, so these made me happy.

Tomorrow, my wedding dress comes! So excited!

Clearances and Sales

Just like most people, I love getting a good deal. Obviously. Working at JCPenney, I see a lot of clearance items lately. It seems to be the season where a lot of items are going on really cheap clearance, and of course, it does not help my New Year's resolution to get out of debt. I am perfectly happy leaving the "sales" and more expensive clearance items alone... but when it comes to $5.97, $2.97 or even .97 cent clearance... I'm a sucker for them.

Well, JCPenney was doing an extra 25% off clearance as well. So... I had to buy some items. First, I knew I needed a coat, and had my eyes set on one particular coat for months now.

 

It was normally $200. When it went on clearance for $59.99, I was still holding out for a lower price. The extra 25% clearance sale helped a lot, and I couldn't hold out any longer. I bought it. And I love it just as much as I loved it on the rack. Once I came to Iowa, I noticed a lot of faux-fur hood lined coats, and I loved the look, so now I finally have one of my own. Am I officially fitting into Iowa now?

This is not something I'd buy for myself... normally. But at $5.97? I totally bought it. Honestly, if I'd have seen this for that price before I had ordered my city hall wedding dress from David's Bridal, I probably would have made this work. For now, I have no clue what purpose I would need a floor length gown for, but for that price.. I'll find something. It's not exactly shape forgiving with the material it's made out of, but I plan on picking up some spanx, anyway.

The JCPenney that I work at is attached to a mall, as well. So, from customers to co-workers, I hear about sales and promotions from other mall stores. That said, I was informed me that Victoria's Secret was having a rather good sale. Victoria's Secret doesn't really interest me that much, considering I can't fit into the majority of their things. But, I guess fragrance mist was one of the items on sale! I was like, What?!

It was rather picked over when I went, but I managed to grab two fragrance mists - Deep berry, and Forbidden Vanilla. Only for $1.99 each! Win! (I also figure that one of these fragrances, I should use for the wedding, so I have something "special and unique" for it). I also had a free trial size 3oz coupon for Bath and Body Works, a preview for their new spring fragrance that I found as a facebook offer. So I had to pick that one up. They are so perfect for stuffing in a purse or bag!

In wedding news, our rings have came in the mail today, I'm going to try and snap a photo of them tomorrow morning so I can blog about them. And, I got an email the other day from David's Bridal, telling me my dress has shipped, so it should be here on Wednesday! So nervous!

Wedding Preparations

As my few blog readers might know, I got engaged a while ago. There as been really no rush in getting married. I have been perfectly happy waiting for getting married as long as I can... until now. Due to health care issues on Tyler's check, there has been a huge hurry to our marriage. He had listed me as a domestic partner on his benefits from his work, and because of that, he had over $400 taken out because of taxes and everything for benefits. We were only expecting a little over $200. This was a huge blow to his paycheck, one that we couldn't afford. Especially when we are trying to have a baby, and move to a nicer apartment, at the same time.

We had two options: one was that he could go down to 30 hours a week for 4 weeks, and not accrue any paid vacation or time off for the next 6 months, and lose all that extra income that we need to live... or... get married. On our way home one day, we stopped off at the courthouse to see what kind of cost it will be and how to proceed. We found out that to get married, it would cost $35, and 4 days for the license to be valid. (And of course, ceremony, which is performed in the courthouse for free on business days).

So guess what? We are getting married... and soon! I've kind of wanted a courthouse marriage, because I don't like to be center of attention, and I honestly don't have anyone to invite. I have no bridal party, and my mother is in California. So this works out fine for me, Tyler was the one who wanted a big church wedding, and reception. I was so not into the big-wedding thing, that I was even going to purchase a bridal gown online. I searched on David's Bridal website for a dress.

I had two requirements: It has to be able to be worn again (like for a fancy dinner at Luciano's), and I need it to be low-cost, because this wedding is simple and in a courthouse in a few weeks. I couldn't find any actual bridal gowns that fit my requirements, but one look at this particular bridesmaid dress... I was in love.

I made an appointment last night to my local David's Bridal, and went in when they opened early this morning. They had the dress for me to try on, but didn't have either colors I was looking at in stock. I had fallen for the dress, but was a little undecided on the color they had. Tyler liked a red swatch they had, but once I tried on a different dress in the red color, I decided it wasn't for me. The other color I thought I liked on the website, I tried on in yet a different dress, and loved the color. Once I tried on a dress in the Malibu, I couldn't imagine any other color I would wear. I ordered the dress in Malibu color.

After I purchased my dress online with them (to be shipped to my house next week), they handed me a booklet of coupons, one of which was one to Helzberg Diamonds, for a free pair of earrings. Of course I went across the street to grab them!

While I'm not sure if I would use them, they are definitely pretty. Freshwater pearl earrings, and free. The guy who I gave the coupon to wasn't the friendliest, but hey, earrings! I wanted to go to JCPenney to find another piece of jewelry for my dress. Maybe a necklace that matches the earrings?

Checked out some pearls, but for some reason I couldn't decide on one that I would like with my blue dress. But I came across these bracelets. They would go absolutely perfect with the color of dress I chose! I am not the biggest fan of the gold of course, I prefer silver, but how often can you find a bracelet this perfect to the dress? The best part: these also had a clearance sticker on them for $6.97. JCPenney was also doing some kind of extra percent off clearance, and after my associate discount... I ended up paying $4.13 for the set. Can't beat that!

Dress is expected to be here next week, so be on the look out for photos of the dress!