belated turkey bird wishes

well, i know i am a couple days late, but i just want to wish everyone a belated happy thanksgiving! this is also a nice opportunity to say how thankful i am to have such an amazing family and such amazing friends. life has been quite a roller coaster for me at times and there is no way i could have made it to where i am right now without ALL of you. it is always interesting to get philosophical and examine the importance of every person in your life. because really when you stop to think about it, you can learn and gain something from EVERY person you encounter. some people (like most of you who read this) have a more profound impact on your life, but even a cashier at the grocery store can impact you if you let her. is she in a great mood in spite of the crabby bastards coming through her line? then remember that if she can keep a smile on her face in that situation, so can you. is she the crabby bastard this time? then remember how much that bothers YOU and don't be that person.

the point i'm trying to make is, thank you for being a part of my life. i mean it from the bottom of my heart.

more about our thanksgiving activities when we're back home and settled in... right now we have to get ready to head to atlantic city and win some money!

a dichotomous weather weekend

so this weekend was interesting. saturday was downright summery, and yesterday was rainy and cold and rather wintery. it was pretty crazy. but an enjoyable weekend if you know how to properly take advantage of those kinds of days...

see, saturday we woke up to sunshine and warmth. and what does one do when it's sunny and warm outside and the leaves are still pretty? you take a motorcycle ride! it was the perfect day for it. i am, however, jaded from past late fall attempts at warm motorcycle rides, so i bundled up as though it were 60 degrees outside instead of 80. this was fine while we were in motion, but sucked when we stopped. but last year (or was it the year before?) we found ourselves stuck on interstate 81 in the dark and cold for several hours and i about froze my tush off. i was not having a repeat of that situation. our ride was actually pretty short, we stayed in the general richmond metro area, but we ended it with a stop at mary angela's pizza in carytown.

now, for those of you who don't know, we lost our favorite pizza joint near our house a few months ago and have not found a way to replace the holes left in our hearts from this. no pizza in suburban chesterfield really compares (RIP carmela, we miss you). mary angela's is the best pizza in richmond that i am aware of. so eating it was... lovely. really, lovely. (when's the last time you heard someone describe eating pizza as lovely? never? well that's how freaking fabulous this pizza is.) at the same time, it was sad... because we just don't get pizza that good very often and are too lazy to drive to downtown richmond to get it often. after having it, though, maybe we need to change that. if i drove to work i might stop there on my way home occasionally and pick up a pie, but that's not really possible since i take the bus... *sigh* why did carmela have to close...

yesterday, as i mentioned, proved the perfect dichotomy to saturday's indian summer weather. we woke up to rain beating down on our house and wind whipping us around a la wizard of oz. well, okay, it wasn't as bad as the wizard of oz. but i love that movie and i like exaggerating every once in a while. :) we woke up and... did nothing. ha! well, that's not true. bryan, my dear dear husband, plopped himself in front of the computer and worked on our wedding photo slide show for, let me add it up... 15 hours. give or take 30 minutes here and there. this man is dedicated to making this the absolute best wedding slide show ever, and i think he's definitely succeding. perhaps he is a bit of a perfectionist, but i guarantee you're gonna love it (and not just because you will finally be able to see lots of our wedding photos!).

i managed to get out of the house and went and changed cell phone providers to verizon so that i can talk for free with most people i know. also i got a camera phone and free pics and text messaging so that i can go shopping, snap a photo of what i want to buy that might need bryan's approval, and shoot it over to him via cell phone. this might sound a bit obnoxious to you, but 1) i can never get the man to go shopping and 2) when he does go he doesn't let me buy anything. so the pix messaging will, i hope, allow me to buy stuff that requires both of our approval in a more timely manner. :)

after a little shopping at target i headed home where i set to trying to knock out the rest of my wedding thank you notes. i have been slacking on this but WILL finish them tonight. i swear. so if you haven't gotten yours yet, you will soon. also, i made chicken and dumplings in my new calphalon cookware. oh, i also seared some olive oil onto the bottom of my big ol' skillet and now it's brown. that sucks and i gotta figure out how to get it off. hey, i never said i was an expert at this cooking stuff, particularly not in these fancy shmancy pots and pans. although i do love them already...

tonight: watch last week's episode of lost, do laundry, finish thank you notes.

da link went.

well, lots has been happening and you people have gotten no updates to this blog. at least i gave you wedding pictures, right? :) i can't wait to show everyone all of them and see everyone else's! bryan has found some software that makes creating a cool slideshow out of the pictures easy. well, kinda. :) he's been working on the slideshow very diligently so that we can take it on tour of our families and such... so one day when he finishes you'll all get to see the pictures.

we have been keeping pretty busy. a couple weekends ago we went to a halloween party at our friends' traci and steven's house. we had a great time, but in true bryan and lydia fashion, we didn't think much about costumes until the day of the party. i looked around the bedroom to see what i could find that might serve as the base of a costume, and came across bryan's dirt bike gear. a couple years ago when he bought his dirtbike, he bought all the clothes/shoes/etc. that he needed to ride it safely. so we decided that bryan would be a motocross racer and i would be his teenage motocross racer groupie girlfriend. i had a couple things i thought i needed for the outfit, but needed to buy a wig and some "accessories." see pictures below:



no, i did not get a boob job with our wedding gift money. they were socks. but it was fun to have them for one night. :) as someone who was not blessed with these particular assets, it was very interesting to see the way the males of our species react to them.... a fascinating social experiement. :)

as if the fake boobs and all weren't enough goofiness for halloween, bryan and i decided to dress up again on halloween night. this time, we were playing a prank on our friends tammy and justin who live a couple of miles down the road from us. they deck their house all out for halloween and bryan thought it would be fun to go harass him. well, it was fun. but i felt like i was going to get found out and arrested for impersonating someone who is still of age to be trick or treating:

yes, i am wearing a fitted sheet. and yes, we trick or treated one house which was not our friends' house. i was terrified we were going to get caught. it was hillarious.

so now you have the halloween updates. hopefully the next time i update won't be so long away!

oh, and even though i have trouble keeping up with the blogs i've got, i started a new one. this one is because i read the news every day and want to put in my two cents, but don't want to bore everyone with my opinions if they aren't interested. so if you are interested, check it out:

legkontheworld.blogspot.com

it's november already?

i can't believe it's already november! my how time flies. i have a specific memory of neener (my stepmom) one time when i mentioned time flying when i was younger, in high school i think. she looked at me with this knowing face and said, "just wait 'til you're older, you have no idea." i don't know why i remember her saying that specifically, as i know a million people probably said that to me at some point. maybe it was the look on her face... who knows. but every year of my life seems to pass faster and faster and whenever i think about that, i always think, "neener was right!" :)

i can't wait to share all of the wedding photos with you all, but there are SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE of them, so that's not going to be easy unless we're in the same house. so instead, i'll throw a few of them up here today for you! they are AMAZING. we love our photographer.

me reading the beautiful card bryan wrote me with the earrings he had delivered before the wedding. first time i cried that day. :)

bryan and his guys went to brown's island to have some pictures taken before the wedding. i love this one of my fabulous husband.

bryan and his very handsome groomsmen.

me and my very beautiful bridal party!

getting ready to go down the aisle. i love this shot of shane and grandma! i think it shows their relationship PERFECTLY! love it.

the kiss!

mr. and mrs. bryan klinger!

we're married! after the ceremony we went down by the dominion building to get some portrait shots of us.

and then back to brown's island for some family shots...

me getting bustled before we left brown's island to go to the reception. this was quite an undertaking for my girls! :)

our GRAND entrance! god, i was terrified he was going to drop me!

our first dance.

the father daughter dance. i love this picture of my dad. love it.

my little sister got real friendly with my friend jason, one of the volunteers at the arthritis foundation. i think she likes him, what do you think? :)

partying it up!

one of several groomsmen + whoever shots of the night. love justin's face (the groomsman with his jacket off)!

me with frane and britton, two of my best friends from college! wahoowa!

to smush or not to smush? (nice smushing ensued.)

love this picture of us right after the garter toss, where bryan first pulled panties out of HIS SLEEVE, not from under my dress, people! he is such a nut. we've seen this done before but i wasn't expecting it. i shoulda known better. :)

things started to get a little crazy...

queen of the dance floor. :)

bye bye everybody!!!

fun with social security

you thought people watching at the DMV was interesting. try going to the freaking social security office! holy jesus.

i went on friday to get my name changed. i arrived just after 1pm, and there were probably 15 people there. i took a number and grabbed a seat and luckily had a book with me. i looked around a bit and decided most people must be there to collect some sort of check or something. i don't mean to be rude, but they all looked pretty down and out. dirty and poorly dressed and such. some even looked totally out of it... ie, not sure if they knew where they were... that sort of dazed and lost look in the eye.

i sat minding my own business and reading the adventures of kay scarpetta for about 20 minutes until a cloud of alcohol rolled in. this man had to have been drinking since last christmas. and where does he decide to sit? next to me. holy hell he smelled awful. stale liquor mixed with new liquor mixed with general funk. bleh. i tried to inhale the air to my left instead of the funk coming from my right, but it didn't work so well. then they called his number and he came back and sat on my left so it was all around me, envelopping me like a thick cloud of smoke.

in the midst of all this, the lady is calling numbers... 40, 41, 42, 43, etc. my number was c234. i started to get curious and figured they must just be calling the last 2 digits and i must have been forgotten. so i said something to the security guard, who notified the number calling lady. well, my drunken friend could not believe that i was sitting there letting people go in front of me! he slurred several words of encouragement to me about being aggressive and getting my rightful time with the number caller, how he had my back and i shouldn't let them do that to me. i assured him that i was fine, i had my book. he insisted on slurring several more things at me and attempting conversation, but i kindly responded with short quips and pointedly shoved my face in my book.

finally, i get up to the lady and she says, "you have a 'c' number." then she looks at the security guard and says, "she's a 'c' number, i'm not calling 'c' numbers." and she looks at him (not me) until he comes over and points me towards the chairs again. thought that was kind of rude myself, that she couldn't even bother to tell me herself that it wasn't my turn, she had to rely on the security guard. as if i were just one of the vagabonds in the social security office on a friday afternoon! hmph!

anyway, of course when i sat down again, mr. liquor had plenty to slur and he began to remind me a lot of flava flav. had he had a giant clock around his neck, he could have been him. only a little more out of it.

i observed several foreign people come in to obtain US social security numbers. this was rather amusing to me, as the security guard would ask them if they had filled out the form. they would nod their heads. he would say can i see your form. they would nod their heads. he would say the forms are in that basket. they would nod their heads and sit down. he would walk over and point to the forms and say you have to fill out this form. finally they would get it. sadly, i saw this same sequence of events happen a couple of times.

finally, the lady called my real number. i went up with my form and my passport. she said, "do you have your marriage certificate?" and guess what. i didn't. MORON! in my defense, the form didn't say anything about bringing your marriage certificate, but i did think it odd that they didn't want any documentation of why you were changing your name. but instead of asking to be sure i had all the right information, i sat my ass in crazyville for 45 minutes until i learned that i would have to leave and come back another day.

so this morning i went again, armed with everything i needed to become mrs. lydia eve klinger. luckily, no one was at lunch this time so the numbers (even the "c" numbers) were called fairly quickly. i was in and out before i could even really pay attention to the nutjobs around me.

and now, it's official. i am lydia eve klinger. exciting!

settling in

man, i can't believe how hard it is to settle back in to the real world! i want it to still be our wedding and honeymoon. :) i am finally getting back into the swing of things at work, and actually have been pretty busy for a change. we have recruitment for the residency starting at the beginning of november, so there has been a lot to do for that. it's funny, it never occurred to me when i was in wedding lala land in september that i'd be coming back with just a couple weeks to go before recruitment started! but i'm managing just fine. :)

so monday was my 3rd chiniversary--the 3rd anniversary of my chin surgery. it is weird to think it's been that long. seems like that was forever ago! i actually forgot about it this year, which surprises me because it's like a second birthday or something to me. my friend leslie called and left me a voice mail wishing me a happy chiniversary monday night after i'd gone to bed so i didn't get the message until last night. i had to call bryan immediately because i couldnt' believe we had BOTH forgotten! but we have had a lot going on so it's understandable i guess. :)
well, i thought our lives would slow down when the wedding was over but our "social schedule" is busier than ever. tonight we have leslie and her friend kush coming over to fix our computers and try to recover the honeymoon pictures that have disappeared, friday we are going to the drag races (bryan asked if i wanted to race sabine, my eclipse. i declined.), saturday is my 10 year high school reunion (getting old!), and sunday some of our friends are having a housewarming party. then tuesday we go get our wedding pictures! hooray! i can't wait. of course you will all get to see them as soon as we have them!

guess i will get back to work... duty calls!

back and married!

it is hard to believe that two weeks ago today i was getting ready to get married, now here i am back to the real world, working, with no wedding planning to distract me and no deadlines awaiting me!

the wedding was amazing. i honestly could not have hand picked a better day. the weather was perfect, there were no snags to speak of and the reception was so much fun! i only wish i had been able to talk to everyone a little more, but with 150+ people there, that was virtually impossible. most of you who read this were there, but i thought i'd share a few pictures that people have sent me anyway. i love reliving the day. :) once i get my pro pics i'll share those as well.

here's me and my dad about to come down the aisle. i got teary eyed briefly when i saw bryan but managed to hold it together pretty well...

here is the a nice picture of what the ceremony looked like, how it was laid out and stuff. i apologize to anyone who was at the top and couldn't hear! someone told me bryan and i were funny because we kept looking around at the audience instead of at each other... well, i would just like to say for the record that i was ridiculously in love with not only bryan at that moment, but all of my family and friends who shared the day with us!

believe me, when it got down to it, there was only one person i was paying attention to: my husband!


and then, they were mr. and mrs. klinger...
when we were introduced at main street station, bryan insisted on carrying me up the stairs. it was fun and exciting, but i swear i was terrified he was going to step on my dress and we would both tumble back down the stairs!in the end, we had a wonderful day and it was definitely worth all the planning and worrying over... i wouldn't mind doing it again, even... with the same man, of course. :)

happy birthday, honey!

so today is my husband-to-be's 30th birthday! we celebrated on sunday with a surprise party that i somehow managed to pull off in the midst of wedding planning. it was stressful, because for the last week things kept coming up with that (where to have it, how to do it, etc.) and i wanted to discuss it with bryan. i found myself almost telling him about the latest happenings in the party planning at every turn, and having to stop myself. it was an interesting lesson in how much i value being able to tell him everything! keeping something from him was sooooo hard.

anyway, on sunday around 10:00am, bryan wanted to go pick up the truck from the tire place. we had taken it on friday for new tires and inspection, and it failed inspection. so he had to adjust the back brakes and replace the front ones. he assured me this would take an hour. i did some calculating and figured (since i knew it would take way more than an hour) that if we left by 10:30, he went to the auto parts store and was home by 11:00, and then worked on the car for even 2.5 hours, he would be just getting out of the shower when everyone arrived at 2:00pm. no such luck. i left the house at 1:30 with my dear fiance banging away at the lug nut that the tire people had cross threaded. so of course when we all pulled up to the house a little after 2:00, he was standing there covered in grease and sweat. ha! he was at first confused, and then very pleasantly surprised. we had a great time with our friends and i am so glad that i was able to still find a way to celebrate his milestone birthday!

we are, i believe, officially in the final countdown. four days til the wedding! as you can imagine, we have been crazy busy. it seems like all we do is shop lately. we shopped for vases on friday night, i shopped for makeup and a few gifts on saturday, we shopped for some other stuff last night... i picked up a nice shirt and slacks for bryan at costco last night and he said, "well, okay, you better take advantage of me spending money like this while you can." i said, "i know! after the wedding, we are going to be TIGHTWADS!" and i mean it. i think. :)

today is my last day at work until october 10... so basically for 2 weeks! i have gotten everything done that is must-do before i leave for that long. i must say, i am so grateful right now to have an awesome boss (today she said at lunch, "you better work all afternoon, to keep your mind off of the wedding" and winked at me as she said it.) and a job that i can either take care of everything ahead of time or things will wait until i get back. as much as i miss the arthritis foundation, i would be completely stressed out right now at the prospect of not being at work for two weeks. instead, i am completely EXCITED about the wedding and not at all worried about work! yay.

let the butterflies begin

so people keep asking me if i'm nervous about the wedding. and i'm not. but today, the "holy crap i'm getting married next saturday" butterflies have starting flapping in my tummy occasionally. it's more of a revving of the engine than nerves though... like my body is at the start line of a big race and it's hitting its own gas pedal. man, that is a moronic similie but oh well. that's what it feels like!

we are officially in busy wedding mode, and it's fun and only mildly stressful. :) tuesday evening i went and paid our photographer (with starter checks from the bank) and visited with my grandma, who informed me that lois, my uncle bruce's girlfriend, took my flower girl basket and ring bearer pillow home to maryland with her to fix them up! i thought that was really sweet, and it is so nice to have even one thing out of my hands. grandma and i visited a while, then i went to look for a birthday present for bryan. his 30th birthday is next tuesday, you know... so anyway, then home again home again jiggity jig.

yesterday we had our final meeting with our caterer at main street station, the reception site. i am so glad we picked this caterer. i feel so comfortable leaving everything in their hands, i am not worried at all about where the flowers are going to go, how things will be set up, etc. etc. they are just good like that. then we did a little bit of running around and got home around 8 or so and opened the mail (got a couple packages for the wedding) and looked at each other and wondered if we needed to do anything else for the wedding. we decided we could take the rest of the evening off and just chill and watch tv/do non-wedding things on the computer. we had done enough for one day. :)

this morning i had a class and because i can't stop thinking about wedding stuff, i took my wedding notebook with me. i have a five-star brand one subject notebook and my co-worker in the class with me made fun of me because it is about 4/5 of the way full. hey, a wedding like this takes planning! :) well, i decided it was a good time to rewrite and update the to do list. my old to-do list from a couple weeks ago had been almost two full notebook pages, and there were only about 10 things left. well, i rewrote those things and added the other things we need to do and guess what. still almost two full pages. lovely.

it's all good... i've got 9 days to get it all done. :)

next week, i'll be a married woman!

this morning, my friend jodie sent me an email asking, "so, how many days off are you taking next week?" my heart skipped a beat. i have been thinking of this wedding approaching in terms of # of days (12), but to think of it as NEXT WEEK! wow. insane.

we had a very busy and awesome weekend. on friday evening, we went over to my grandma's house for dinner with my dad, uncle bruce and lois and aunt elaine and uncle jack. it was a lot of fun to get together and see everyone and eat some good food.

saturday was wedding shopping day! we bought gifts for the groomsmen and bridesmaids and toasting flutes for us (that match the glasses we registered for). then to buffalo wild wings to watch some football and eat, then home to play with our purchases and watch more football. i love football, is that weird? and more each year. it's weird. saturday i watched the clemson v. florida state game and was totally into it, but i really dont' care about either of those teams. crazy.

yesterday, we watched the last few minutes of "father of the bride" before the day's football shows started and i cried the whole 20 minutes we watched. i am going to be a mess on my wedding day. sara (maid of honor) is prepared with the tissues but i hope i can at least keep it together to some degree because i'm not a very pretty crier. seriously.

i typed up our wedding day schedule and my dad came over so that we could all go over it. somehow we managed to do this during the eagles football game. my dad made a point to reitirate to bryan that he had chosen the giants to win and that he thinks the giants will win the NFC east. bryan and i (both eagles fans) poo-pooed this idea and forgave him. then, as my dad left, a little into the fourth quarter, he said, "well, the giants are going to come back and score twice and win." now, seriously dad, that wasn't nice, casting your voodoo spells on the eagles and making them lose the game... guess my dad had to show his future son-in-law who's in control around here... :)

mourning the eagles' loss, bryan and i made our way to brown's island to meet with our photographer. i am very excited about the locations we've chosen to take pictures that day. now if the weather will cooperate... we were supposed to pay the photographer the balance we owe him, so bryan pulled out the checkbook, which i had remembered to bring. i did not, however, think to make sure there were checks in the checkbook. so we felt like idiots. but that's okay, our photographer is super nice and understanding. :)

we left there and met some friends at buffalo wild wings for even more football (poor redskins), then home for some much needed rest for the beginning of our next to last workweek as unmarried people. ha!

today i made my appointments for a spa morning on saturday, courtesy of my maid of honor and future sister-in-law, and i am SO looking forward to it! the only thing is, the only time they had available for me to start the services i am getting was 8am. so getting up early enough to be there by 7:45 will kind of suck, but hell, it's worth it!

alright, gotta go do some wedding stuff... i mean, work. ;-)