It's my bachelorette and I can drink Mountain Dew at 9 a.m. if I want to

Bachelorette party! Woooooo!

Well, I'm not really a 'woo!' girl, as the folks on 'How I met Your Mother' might say. So if you're expecting tales of drunken debauchary here, you'd probably be best served somewhere else.

I arrived in Boston around 1:30 after a haircut appointment and my first blow-dry-out in about 5 years (I really, really liked it. I miss my straight hair somedays). Before we headed out, I was made to put on the bride to be uniform.

My girl Katie sure loves her rosettes.

Meg also surprised me with my shower gift early: my Coach bag! Love it, love it, love it.

The invitation promised some "south of the border vertical fun" which was of course, confusing, and they weren't really giving me much in the way of hints. We left Meg's around 2 and headed to one of my favorite Boston restaurants: Cactus Club! I had a feeling south of the border was related to Mexican and it was.

We shared a quesidilla and all got margaritas. We chatted and the girls INSISTED we get another drink before we moved to phase II of the bachelorette. Actually the conversation went something like this.

Katie: We should DEFINITELY get another round.

(Katie, Meg, Sarah giggles).

Me: What are we doing?

(Katie, Meg, Sarah giggles).

Alrighty.

So we start the walk down Boylston street and the whole time Katie is giving me clues. (Hint: There won't be any guys there, Hint: There will only be five people in the room, Hint: I had to sign a waiver for us to do this.)

Helpful right? I went from thinking dance classes, to skydiving to who the heck knows what.

Well. I found out soon enough.

Now the pictures taken from phase II will never see the light of day. Let me just say I learned some moves that will surely have Jeff laughing at me for years to come. Also, my arms hurt. Also, I may have been wearing something that was red, white, and blue. Also, I may have gotten this certificate.

I think this is up there with a key to the city, but I'm not sure.

Suffice to say this was all a lot tamer than you're thinking it might be/could have been. And I can totally see how they make this into a workout. Basically we laughed the ENTIRE TIME, at each other, at our instructor, at the nine inch heels some of us were wearing and that even at my best attempt, I basically just looked like I was sliding down a fireman's pole. It was a blast!

After phase II, Katie said the rest of the night was basically up to me on what we wanted to do. None of us were really hungry yet (it was about 6:30 p.m.) at this point, and everyone seemed pretty wiped already! (I told you I can't hang). So I suggested we go see the 'Hangover' even though I had already seen it, two of the girls hadn't and it just seemed so appropos.

The girls loved it, and we then went to Fajitas and Ritas for more Mexican! The fajitas at that place are soooo good. We chatted til last call and headed back to Meg for more girl chat, which I can't get enough of sometimes. I'm definitely a guy's gal, but some of the things you talk about with your girlfriends will never translate to your guy friends.

We woke up this morning and headed over to Panera for some breakfast before bidding adieu. I'm so thankful and appreciative that I have such faboosh friends/bridesmaids. I really appreciate the thought and expense that went to my 'day'.

Thanks so much ladies!!!

Assclown of the day award goes to...

Sometimes, a status pops up on facebook to make you embarrassed to be human. 

Today is one of those days.

The sad thing is, I imagine that this kid (who I am immediately defriending for his idiocy) thought this was real clever. And apparently so did the morons who commented after him.

(Side note 1: My coworker hilariously suggested, before I defriend him, that I should post the name of the person who suggested the 'poll' as 'the next to die' and then immediately defriend him. Creepy, I like it!)

(Side note 2: Where do you get Mona from who's the boss?)

Somewhere out there.

So I have 14 people who subscribe to this blog through google reader. I have an idea of who some of you are, but I really want to know who all of you are! Anyone who writes a blog knows that comments are what keeps you going, it's nice to know that people are reading. I don't care if we don't know each other, or knew each other a million years ago and you think I might think it's weird you're reading my blog, it's not, I swear!

According to my google analytics I have about 30 visits per day. I'd like to up that number! I know right now I'm not doing a great job building interest right now with the lack of posting, but after the wedding I'm committed to making this blog more interesting. Or at least interesting. 

Looking at my map overlay, I see I am very popular in Rhode Island, South Carolina and New York, but who's my reader in Ithica? Come out with it! I also have a fairly loyal readers in Attleboro, MA, Northridge, CA, Cambridge, MA, Woburn, MA. Who's my Scranton, PA fan? Jim Halpert? 

It's also fun to look at your traffic sources and well as the google words that bring people to your blog.

The following phrases have brought people to my blog in the previous month:

Ridiculous comparisons

Strangest Facebook

"Emily and Jeff" "Engagement pictures" "July"

Dodgers thong

Foreman grill "frozen beef patties"

I gained four pounds this weekend

Movies with Emily

I can't believe he's getting married

I've had some funnier phrases in the past, but these are pretty good. Anywhoo, I demand all loyal readers respond to this post, let me know who you are!

(This is not going to work, is it?)

I pack my case, I check my face

Well, what's been going on?

I had this exchange with Jeff earlier today.

Me: "I'm at stress level nine."

(5 minutes go by)

Me: "I'm at stress level six."

Jeff: "That's good, before you were at stress level nine."

Me: "I don't remember saying that."

I think I'm having a little bit of a mental meltdown. Four hours of seating charts and crunching budgets on top of, you know, MY JOB and I'm starting to do that whole thing where you start sentences and you don't finish them. Then you forget you started them. Wedding dementia anyone?

No one wants to hear me stress about wedding planning, although I know my bride buddies can totally relate. It's really something you have to experience to "get it." I'm 32 days away and I can't believe it. 

That being said, I'm trying to fill my weekends with as much de-stress activity as possible, so I planned a surprise for Jeff last Saturday where I took him up to Manchester, New Hampshire for a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game. The cool thing about the Fisher Cat stadium is the Hilton has a patio restaurant that backs right back on to center field. So Jeff and I were able to eat a really relaxed dinner (I even treated myself to a glass of wine) and watch baseball without buying a ticket. I knew it was Jeff's ideal Saturday and I think I was right!

The obligatory Emily and Jeff shot.

Our view.

This last picture is two people who sauntered out onto the RESTAURANT PATIO in their bathrobes. I'm assuming they had come from the pool and not, you know, the shower, but we'll never know.

Sunday we went down to what I deemed 'Rhode Island's Most Overrated Restaurant" (Twin Oaks) for Father's Day lunch. Well, I ate my words because I ordered the biggest lobster roll I've ever seen (seriously, twice as big as I've ever gotten anywhere else) and it was only $13. Best. Deal. Ever.

Coming this weekend: My bachelorette. I got an invite in the mail where Katie said there would be "south of the border vertical fun." I can only imagine what that means. 

I'll try to keep it together until...

Honeymooooooooners

(Editor's note: I ripped this straight from Jeff's blog. It's a guest post! He did such a good job explaining our honeymoon I thought I'd just steal it and repost it. Thanks babe!)

Brace yourself; I’m going to blog about something other than movies. Those of you who are my Facebook friends may have noticed a flurry of Honeymoon-related status messages.

For all of you scoring at home, there are only 40 days before what the press has dubbed the “Schaible-related Newport, RI social event of the season.” It’s very exciting.

The Plan (South to North):

(London to Chipping Campden to Liverpool to Edinburgh).

London, Liverpool and Edinburgh are all pretty self-explanatory. Chipping Campden is a small market town, part of the Cotswolds – an area characterized by its attractive villages, rolling hillsides and outstanding natural beauty… at least that’s what I’m told.

The Agenda:
London: All the touristy things… you know, ride the London Eye, dodge traffic at Abbey Road, visit Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, check out Shakespeare’s Old Globe, etc. Also, Emily and I have reservations at Gordon Ramsay’s place (remember: I proposed at his NYC restaurant), we have tickets to see Les Misérables and Emily’s pushing something called “high tea.”

Chipping Campden: This is supposed to be our “relaxation” portion of the honeymoon. We’ll be staying at a quaint bed and breakfast. We’ll explore the area, check out a few castles but generally, we’re going to just chill in the English countryside.

Liverpool: Rater than eating up a whole day of mooning with a drive straight to Scotland, we’re going to stop in Liverpool (home of legendary bands like The Coral, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and The Boo Radleys). We’ll be partaking in some Fab Four-inspired tourist traps, no doubt.

Edinburgh: Our final destination is Scotland’s capital city. We haven’t done too much planning for Edinburgh yet, other than booking our B&B (it’s centrally located). We’re going to be missing the world-renowned Edinburgh Festival by a week which is either really disappointing (it’s supposed to be awesome) or a great relief (apparently the population of the city more than triples), depending how you look at it.

I forgot to mention a source of much Werchadlo-anxiety… I’m going to be driving much of the journey. We pick up a rental car the last day in London and drop it off in Edinburgh. There are no guarantees but I’m hoping the vehicle looks a bit like this:



Yeah baby.

Hang ups

I promised you some movie reviews and I strive not to disappoint my faithful readers. I'll run through the rentals first, since none of them were particularly impressive.

He's Just Not That Into You -- This was one of those movies that I totally wanted to see, but didn't want to admit it. It also came out in February and since Jeff and I saw 11 movies in January, I think we were feeling the $$ pinch of seeing that many movies in one month. I'm a sucker for movie with star power, and since I wasn't expecting too much, I actually sort of liked this movie? Was it revolutionary? No. But it was a good enough rom-com with lots of leading ladies. They heavily ripped off plots from SATC (not surprising) and there were plenty of stereotypes to go around, but it was good enough. (Side note: I feel like people are always saying Jennifer Anniston isn't a good actress, but I sort of like her style. She has a niche, and it's always some sort of offshoot of Rachel, but I enjoy her in movies. There, I said it.) Final Ranking: Just under Three Werschaibles.

The Day the Earth Stood Still: Bwahahahaha. We just HAD to watch this. Even if this movie didn't have the wooden acting of Keanu (which I actually don't mind, it's his thing, ya know?) it had wayyy too much crap going on to work. I won't even go into the plot because it was so ridiculous, there was absolutely NO suspense, it was just stupid. But this movie had no chance for me because you can't take John Hamm and Kyle Chandler out of the little TV world I have for them and put them in a movie about an alien invasion. I kept wanting Chandler to say, "Now, if we can get Riggins sober, I think we can run him right at this giant glowing orb and we actually have a chance to win this thing!" and Hamm saying, "It's your future. It's your past. It's all you never knew you wanted..." while showing a slideshow of the aliens. Am I right? Final Ranking: One and a half Werschaible.

Valkyerie and Miracle at St. Anna: Unimpressed and didn't finish. Not worth ranking.

Which brings me to the movie that's all the rage right now...

The Hangover.

It's funny, if I had written this right after I had seen it I might have written something different. I could easily put on my feminist cap and temper my humor about bitchy girls with glasses and hookers with a heart of gold and the use of the 'F' word (not that one, the one that relates to people), but ya know what, I'm going to let it go in the spirit of eye-rollers everywhere because this movie WAS really funny.

Zach Galifianakis was as good as everyone said he is. I had followed his "Between Two Ferns" short on Funny or Die (which you can check out here) so I knew he had the goods. Ed Helms I love from 'The Office' although I'm not sure he fit in here. Bradley Cooper was ... hot. Seriously, where did he come from? We'll come back to that.

This movie has kept me laughing in retrospect, and we'll definitely rent, if not buy this movie. Doesn't knock 'I Love You, Man' off the top of the comedy list for the year, but it's definitely up there.

Final Ranking: Three-and-a-half Werschaibles.

My love affair with Bradley Cooper throughout this movie got me thinking about my Top 5. Of course, my fellow blogger Jessica just touched on this topic on her lovely blog today, breaking it down list style, so I had to bring that over here. I really had to think about this! In Jessica's words "it hurts to narrow down, it does! these imaginary crushes!" Touche, Jessica, touche.

Let's get started. In no particular order.

1. Brandon Flowers -- I've touched on this before, but I definitely had to pencil in B-Flo as the musician on this list. Even if I didn't love the Killers so much, which I do, I think he'd still be here. You rock that eyeliner, girl, I don't hate it!

2. Tim Riggins -- er, Taylor Kitsch. He's so perfect on Friday Night Lights that I sometimes feel like he's a real person and I want to transfer to Dillon HS. No, that's not lame. Hey, shut up!

3. James Franco -- I never noticed him until I saw Milk and yeesh. He's like the new and improved Johnny Depp, who would have been an entry on this list a few years ago.

4. Tom Brady -- I know, I know. This is not helping my sports cred (What sports cred? Yes, thanks, I'll make that joke for you). And I know he's seems a little too perfect, a little too 'All-American' but I was in the interview room with him after the Patriots playoff game a few years ago, and let me tell you, he had everyone in that room charmed. I saw a few 40-year-old sports writers swoon.  I'm serious. He's for real charming.

5. Bradley Cooper -- My top-5 always has a spot reserved for 'Guy I Find Hot Right Now." This is a fickle spot, but right now Cooper has it.

Jeff will probably be surprised not to see my man Brad Pitt on this list. It was a hard omission, it was. I fell in love with BP after watching 'Fight Club' and he's definitely honorary No. 6. It hurts to leave him off here.

Some other honorable mentions: The standards -- Clooney, DiCaprio, Depp. John Hamm, Josh Halloway. Robert Downey Jr. More that I'm sure I'll remember later.... Some offbeats: Michael Cera, Vince Vaughn, Jon Stewart.

Jessica reminds me that OF COURSE I have a true No. 1 and that's my husband to be (in 43 days). My future hubby is seriously good looking, and I say this all the time, he's even better looking now than when we first started dating. (He's going to kill me). I really am lucky... don't believe me?

Yeah, that's what I thought. So I'd love some comments on your top-5s but I believe I might be asking too much from my readers ;)

Nothing's gonna ever keep you down.

I'm sorry. I've been lame. Why is it when you're sick it takes days to get back into your rhythm once you do feel better? Sick for a week and I'm so behind. Jeff and I haven't planned a dinner in so long, no date nights and thusly, no blogging. (Silver lining: that whole not eating while I was sick thing caused me to lose almost three pounds. Awesome?)

So anyways, blogs upcoming. We rented a bunch of movies during my sickness and we also managed to drag my carcass to see 'The Hangover' so I'll be sharing on those soon. I'd like to shout out to Jeff who was awesome during said sickness (my first illness in a couple of years) who got me food (that which I managed to choke down), medicine (at 7 a.m.) and brought me home flowers. And he let me use his blanket. He's the best. 

Oh, and I'm getting married in 44 days. Say what? 

Weekend in Review: Trail of tears

It seems like I'm running out of weekends. I have seven left before the wedding, and it's starting to feel like they're all spoken for. This weekend was pretty lazy, but soon enough the wedding will be over and I'll sort of get my life back!

Friday night Jeff and I went to see UP.

***At the movies with Emily and Jeff: UP***

I'm not really into seeing these cartoon Pixar movies. Jeff did a little survey of the best Pixar movies, and I haven't seen most of them. I liked Wall-E last year though, so I was ready to give this one a try, based on the cute commercials. I didn't read a lot of reviews because it seemed pretty straightforward from the previews.

Before the movie started, Jeff turned to me and said. "This is a Disney movie. It's made for kids. If you cry, you're walking home." What did he know that I didn't?

Well, I cried. I cried within the first five minutes, for most of the movie and the car ride home. There's not much I can say about it where I'm not ruining it for people, and I know that it doesn't seem sad from the commercials. 

Don't get me wrong, it's really funny and cute. It's a buddy movie with ups and downs and is sweet and heartwarming. And sad.

It doesn't have the political message Wall-E has, it's more the regular social messages Disney movies have had for years. Appreciate the things you have and the people around you, always make time for your dreams and it's never too late to achieve them, don't be a deadbeat dad...

It was great.

Final Ranking: Four Werschaibles.

Saturday I bought my shower dress (see below post) and Jeff and I rented Taken. I've never seen such a B-plus action movie devolved into an F-minus ending so quickly. Boooo.

On Sunday, Jeff and I went down to Rhode Island to have belated birthday hangs with my BFF Justin. We don't really need to have a plan to laugh, so I always feel relaxed when I'm with them. Some pics for pics sake (you think differently about taking pictures in relatively mundane situations when you blog.)

Pat and Andrew.

Justin and Jeff.

OH, and guess who I saw in Rhode Island at Whole Foods... Sabrina (yee of Rhodey Girl). Haven't seen this girl in forever. She looks great! We're getting married on the same day, in quite a coincidence, so we've been keeping touch (I know her since she dated BFF Andrew in HS). Nice seeing you Sabrina!

Next weekend will be busy busy: Dress fitting, hanging with Jeff's parents and possibly meeting up with the other three in my high school girl foursome (two of whom I haven't seen in YEARS). Stay tuned.