A Fresh (ish) Start

Hello, faithful readers!  After spending the past month and a half or so splitting my time between two cities, working on settling halfway into a new house, and planning a wedding...I've decided it is time for a fresh blogging start!  I also like the fact that Blogger added a few new templates.  What do you think of the new look? (feed readers...pop on over for a peek!)

If you look on the right hand side, you'll also see I've added a To Do List of 50 things.  Inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, LMB (who is on her way to Vienna as we speak!) I decided to create this to do list, and see how I do.  In a year, she will be able to cross off number 6 on her list, Live in Europe for a year.  Anyway, the list is quite random and covers everything from the vague category of "be a better person" to cooking, exercise, etc.

In non-blog news, we are settling into our new house fairly well.  As I mentioned in my last post in June, it is hard to own a house one place, and live in another!  We are muddling through though.  The only thing left to do until we move my stuff in is put away our china.  And between J and I, we have a lot of china, crystal, etc!  Thankfully, my parents gave us their huge Breakfront, and J's brother passed along his grandfather's corner cabinet.  I still have my china cabinet in the basement in Annapolis, so hopefully those 3 pieces will hold everything!  We will see.  I'd also like to get some pictures hung on the wall.  3200 square feet of space means A LOT of wall space!

Wedding plans are...well, wedding plans.  There is always something little to take care of (even though the major pieces are in place), and just when I've crossed one thing off the list, time ticks on and 3 more items pop onto the to do list for the current month.  As we quickly approach the 100 day mark, I'm getting kind of excited. :)

I'll be doing the Iron Girl Triathlon for the 3rd year in a row in a few weeks.  It has been helpful to have something to train for, but difficult to get training in!  I have a feeling I will not do as well as I did the past 2 years.  It's to be expected, though.

Well, I think those are all the major updates I have for now!

One of the Challenges of Being Engaged to an Opera Singer

There are definitely some challenges related to being engaged to an opera singer, or really a performer of any kind.  During rehearsals and performances of a show, they are rarely available, most evenings are taken up with the performance, etc.  But really, those types of "time together" challenges can be an issue for any engaged couple.  However, today I ran into a challenge that is quite unique to being the significant other of an opera singer.

J is a performer who is very willing to change his appearance for a show.  In the time that we have been together, he has sported quite a few different facial hair looks, almost all for different shows.  A trimmed beard, a bushy beard, a weird Edwardian Goatee, a Handlebar mustache, a 70s pornstache (ew!), and even some clean-shaven times.  Though, the clean-shaven time is generally to get rid of whatever strange facial hair look he was sporting in a prior show.

It's kind of funny how my view on facial hair has changed since I started dating J.  From high school through college and beyond, I was pretty much against any guy having facial hair (any of my college friend readers remember when we painted mascara beards on our faces to protest the facial hair growout of our guy friends?)  However, as I stated above, J has had some facial hair for almost all of the time we've been together.  He even met my parents for the first time sporting the Handlebar mustache!  After we had been dating for about 6 months, he had some time without a show on the horizon and asked me what he should do with his facial hair.  I told him I wanted to see him clean shaven.  So he did.  And you know what?  I really wasn't a fan.  I'd become so used to him with facial hair, that he didn't look like J without it.  Crazy, huh?  For some reason, when he is clean-shaven, it looks like he is trying too hard to be presentable!  My favorite J look is a nicely trimmed beard.  Presentable, but still my J.  Which is what I hope he will be sporting for the wedding!

Anyway, for his current role as Monostatos in the Magic Flute, the director has the vision of Monostatos as a former gang-banger ex con Hispanic chaffeur.  Yeah.  Go figure that one...it's going to be an interesting performance, complete with a hispanic accent.  I haven't seen J since he shaved his beard into these odd L-shaped sideburns.  And then this morning, he sent me a picture of his self-tanned face.  Which in the picture looked rather orange.  Normally, I'd just shrug and say, "Oh well, he'll be back to normal J in a few weeks".  The problem?  We were supposed to shoot our Engagement Photos next Tuesday, in the midst of this Magic Flute run.  I had been so concerned with figuring out what I was going to wear to look most myself (as you are supposed to for Engagement pics), how I was going to do my hair, make-up, etc....that I forgot about J's appearance!

Luckily, we have a very flexible photographer who was able to reschedule for us!  I just want to be able to look back at the pictures and look like "us"...not..."Oh, right, J was in that show where he had wacko sideburns and was orange." :)  So ladies, a warning...if you find yourselves engaged to a stage performer, be sure not to schedule photo-ops while they are in the middle of a show!

33/365 My Church in the Snow

St. Anne's in the snow.  Today's good news?  This is officially where I will be getting married!  Woohoo!

23/365 Wedding Bag

On Saturday, I created my "wedding bag".  I have a bag for everything else I do in my life (work, singing, running), so I thought I'd create one for wedding stuff.  It currently contains magazines, my newly created wedding planning notebook, and TuEasy2 (My GPS).  I need TuEasy2 to find all of the places I am looking for wedding paraphanelia!

16/365 Manicure

(Sorry it's a bit blurry...I need to start using my real camera again!)

Saturday was our Chorale Gala (black tie optional fundraiser), so I decided to get a mani/pedi.  Especially since I had a feeling a lot of people might be looking at my hand! :)  I haven't had a manicure in forever...mostly because I pick at my nails and they are ugly!  But now, I have lovely French manicured nails!

14/365 A Little Bling...

Well, I thought I would be arriving back at my house on Wednesday evening with only the bling from my Disney races.  J had a different idea, however.

 

(For some reason, I can't get the pic larger today)

He very sneakily invited me to join him for a drink after rehearsal at the wine bar where we had our first date.  I go there often, so no bells went off that this was different from any other night!  We ordered drinks, and then he began to tell me how much he missed while I was at Disney and that he had done a lot of thinking about where we are headed.  I wasn't clued in to what was happening until he reached into his pocket, pulled out the ring, got down on one knee and asked me if I would do him the honor of marrying him!

Needless to say, I was shocked!  The funniest part was that I was still in my grungy travel clothes and the dirty pink fleece I had worn for 6 days in freezing Orlando.  At least it wasn't the stinky marathon fleece that I was tempted to wear for warmth...

Sorry for the blurry picture above.  I think it's definitely time for a new camera...my cameraphone and 3.0 megapixel camera just aren't cutting it anymore!