Building Gardens

This post, Gardens, not Buildings by Seth Godin really resonated with me.

I feel like I have always wanted to cross things off of my list.  Whether it's a work task or a personal task, I get immense satisfaction from accomplishing my goals.

This mentality has been tough to overcome since I started managing a website in my current job.  Websites are not projects that get completed, they are always evolving and changing.  I have had to stop building structures and walking away, as Seth puts it.  I am cultivating a garden that needs constant attention, adjustment and fine-tuning.

Sage Advice from Ashton Kutcher!

Had to share this... good job Chris!


And to think I thought I couldn't like Ashton Kutcher more than I already did!

Wedding Planning Whirlwind

Last weekend was a whirlwind of wedding planning. I picked my mom up at John Wayne on my way home from dropping Sam off at LAX. He’s in Thailand with his parents this week visiting his brother. 

Mom and I stayed up well past midnight looking through The Knot’s quarterly magazine that Carrie brought down for me last weekend. We also went online and perused a bunch of invitations and get a feel for what we liked. Luckily, Mom and I both liked the more formal invitations and she agreed that it would be cute to have something with some kind of beach theme. 

Saturday morning she wanted to get her nails done at my local nail salon, so I took her in there after breakfast. When she was finished, we headed over to South Coast Plaza to check out the Papyrus store and see what they had to offer as far as invitations go. As we were flipping through books, Mom found the PERFECT invitations. They are very clean and elegant, the wording is very formal, and they have a starfish accent at the bottom of the invitation. I’ll have to take Sam back in a few weeks and make sure he likes them too, but I don’t think he’ll have too much of a problem with them!

After the invitations, we headed home and had lunch with Hunter. He was happy to see us and spend some time getting spoiled while we were getting ready for our appointment at The Surf and Sand.

Ironically, the photographer and florist I have booked for my wedding were at The Surf and Sand on Saturday doing another wedding. It was fun to meet the photographer, who I booked through her boss, and hadn’t met yet. The florist wasn’t there in person, but Mom did get to see the flowers she did.

We also got to meet our wedding coordinator, Kat. She helped us figure out what our wedding costs would be and answered a bunch of our questions before I signed the contract and Mom handed over her credit card. During our meeting, Kat had us sample the house champagne and we got calamari comped by the resort. It was really nice, and obviously, since we’re going to pay a LOT for this wedding, I am sure they were doing their best to impress us.

After the business was done, Mom and I wandered around the hotel so she could get a better feel for it. We went down to the beach so that Mom could get an idea of where our wedding photos will be taken, and while we were there we got to see the photographers taking photos of the bridal party. It was really fun.

After we were done at the Surf & Sand, we walked across the street to Laguna Brisas, The Best Western hotel we are getting a special rate at for our guests. Mom and I hadn’t been in there before, and we checked it out just to make sure everything was on par- which it was! 

We headed home at 8pm… pretty impressive since we got up 12 hours earlier!

On Sunday, we conferred with Dad about the best way to communicate all the hotel information to our guests on the wedding website. After sorting that out, Mom and I went down to Fashion Island to do a little shopping. It was funny, because we’re trying to figure out if coral or turquoise bridesmaids’ dresses will be prettier. I would love to find something in Tiffany Blue to match the colors of The Surf and Sand, but we’ll see how that goes. Anyway, while we were shopping both colors were EVERYWHERE! They were on the racks in the stores and on the people wandering around the mall. It was hilarious.

After lunch at R&D Kitchen, I dropped Mom off at the airport. 

It was kind of strange to see her go since I’m now home alone with Hunter all week while Sam’s out of town. Not that I mind it so much, but we had a really nice time while she was here and it was all SO easy! Nonna said she once heard planning a wedding compared to planning the invasion of Normandy and that's been our running joke for about a year now.  I just hope the rest of the planning process goes this smoothly and the day goes off with minor hitches!!!

Late last night, I was watching The Newsroom and texting with Carina about my dress and everything Mom and I accomplished. I wish Carina had been here, but it’s been really fun bonding with her on Pinterest posts and texts and phone calls. I think this is going to be a really fun experience for us as sisters. J

As I was walking Hunter, Dad called to say that he and Mom were going through their guest list and he wanted to add another 8 people who he felt would be offended if they weren’t invited. He said it’s not likely these people will pay to travel down here, but who knows, they might. He said he’ll send an email out to let everyone know that they shouldn’t worry about offending him if they can’t make it, but that he wanted them to know they are in the VIP circle of friends. I told Dad that since he is paying for all of this, I don’t care who he invites. As long as we stay under the max capacity of the ball room and can afford for all these wild people to come and suck booze down at the open bar, I feel like the more the merrier is our motto!

ENGAGED!

Last Saturday (7/27/13) Sam took me by surprise and flew me in a helicopter to Catalina Island.  

After breakfast, he rented a golf cart and we toured the island.  

Above Descanso Beach, he asked me to marry him!!!

He even had champagne to celebrate.

The biggest shock of the day, was when our friends showed up on a sailboat to take us out for drinks, play a game of mini golf, and then sail us home.

BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!!

Parenting Test Drive

Woah, woah, before the rumor mill starts up: my womb is very much vacant.

I have been helping Emily out with Ethan a little bit over the past couple of weeks while Matt's traveling and she's stuck on a heinous rotation.  I haven't stayed with him since about a year ago and so much has changed since then.

It's amazing to me how much energy it takes me to watch him.  I mean really, it's so much more challenging that I could have ever imagined that it was going to  be.  Not that I'm ready to have a baby by any means, but I do think it's good to prepare mentally and be aware of what I'm getting into if/when I am ready to have kids of my own.  

Actually, this was the same research process I went through before getting Hunter-.  Thanks to taking Henry (Matt & Emily's Cavalier) over night and on weekends several times, I knew it would change my life and I knew that nothing would ever be the same.  I knew what it was going to feel like to walk down the stairs and take a dog for a potty break before bed.  I knew it was going to suck to wake up in the night with him.  I knew that he would cuddle with me and snuggle with me and it would be amazing and worth every second of him throwing up, peeing on the carpet, etc.

I guess this is kind of the same thing, but I am test driving a child instead of a puppy.  

Ethan is the easiest kid I have ever been around- almost always smiling, very happy, pretty easy going despite being in the "Why?" phase where he literally asks "Why?" every single time you tell him something.  

But seriously, he's got complete sentences going on, he's getting potty trained, and his personality is really coming out too.  I can't believe how much fun we had together.  

That said, OMG I have so much respect for parents!  How people pull off parenting let alone juggling parenting and a full-time job is a seriously noteworthy feat.  I get up in the morning, and even when I try to adjust my schedule to account for Ethan, he's got his own agenda and I can't seem to make it to work on time to save my life.  Thankfully, I have a really flexible job and my schedule is pretty low-key.

Papa Santi Turns 80

Yesterday my grandpa threw himself an 80th birthday part at my parent's house.  Sam, my sister and I flew in from our respective places of residence, Ali and her boyfriend came up from Santa Barbara and Mark, Lori and Brock came over from Hawaii.  It was quite an event.  Papa invited 60 people and we think we had about 55 attend.  

He hired a team to cook (in GIANT propane powered pots) lobster, veggies, potatoes, and garlic.  It was our own private lobsterfest.  They rolled parchment paper out on these long tables and then dumped the food out on the middle of the tables and everyone pretty much sat down and ate with their hands.  It was pretty fun- except of course that some of us don't eat lobster so much.  Which was a real treat for those of us who DO eat lobster.  :-)  Sam ate my tail and one of my claws while I stuck to the corn and shrimp.  He also was a HUGE help manning the bar with Carina.  They were fantastic!

I took a TON of photos with Papa's camera- hopefully they will turn out well.  Hopefully Nonna and Papa will remember to have a disk made for me when they have the photos printed.

It was good to see Ali and Brock- I loved catching up with them!  Mark and Lori were fun too, and I al so glad they all came over around 2:30 so that we could spend some time with just the family before the guests arrived.  We broke in the bar and had a couple beers to take the edge off while playing some friendly family ping-pong matches.  Ali's boyfriend, Peter, ripped his jeans open at the crotch which was HILARIOUS and he ended up borrowing a pair of Dad's shorts so that he was decent for the party.

Once the party was in full-swing there were SO many people I didn't have as much time to hang out with them.  C'est la vie.  I hope that we're going to be able to hang out with them soon.  I'm sure we'll see Peter and Ali since they only live 2 1/2 hours from us by car and should be able to come down and visit one weekend before Peter graduates in December. 

One of my favorite photos of the afternoon was the one of Sam, Carina and I in our bibs (provided by the lobster company) to try to keep our clothes clean.  They reminded me of the "I <3 Pasta" bibs Nonna used to have for us at the holidays.  

Along with the family, it was wonderful to see so many old friends.  I really enjoyed spending time with the Cantys, Geoghegans and Williams- Maria and Pat especially.  They are such amazing people and have always treated me like a part of their family.  Gosh they are just the best.  

Like Carina said last night after everyone had gone home and it was just us five, we are incredibly lucky to have been dealt the hand we were given.  We have a great family and great friends. 

Past My Bedtime

My apologies if this post seems disjointed or disorganized- it is, as the title suggests, far past my bedtime and my brain is finally starting to slow down a bit.  I have consistently sold myself short in my dedication to hard work- which is funny because one does not become a First Team All-American water polo player without serious dedication and hard work.  But in my professional life, it was only in the last two years that I realized I was passionate about marketing and wanted to devote significant portions of my free time to learning and improving myself.  Lately, it seems that my hard work and dedication are paying off: I have interesting opportunities popping up all around me.

A girl I went through UCI's Marketing Certificate Extensions Program with reached out to me last week about doing Integrated Marketing Consulting for the company she works for.  Cue me writing my first-ever proposal for consulting services.  We'll see where that goes.  I have been more and more interested in consulting as I get to be more acquainted with self-employed professionals, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to take the leap and go to full-time consulting.  Sam and I are considering that when we start a family, but it's not something I want to explore just yet.

Another networking connection has a very interesting business opportunity that we discussed today.  I would love to be a part of his team and create content and integrated marketing plans for clients on a 12-24 month contract basis.

I am on fire today- completely reenergized and motivated to achieve all that I can.  It was one of those days where I logged nine and a half hours at the office and didn't take a single break.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I did use the restroom once and I had to get a class of water in the afternoon to ward off a dehydration/starvation headache.  I was so consumed by the projects I was working on that I completely blew off my lunch- postponing it to the point that it was ridiculous to even try to take a break to eat.  Ooops.  No biggie, I told myself, I will just leave early.  Next thing I knew, it was 4:15, and then 4:55.

I headed to the gym and met up with Sam for a short workout before we came home and walked Hunter.  By the time we had showered and eaten it was nearly 8:30 and I started work on my other projects.  I edited my consulting proposal with Dad, returned the favor and recommended a dear friend and mentor on LinkedIn and did some other work.

I literally looked up at the clock and realized it was 11:40.  Hunter was laying on the guest bed behind me, Sam had turned off the TV and gone to bed without telling me and my 10:30 bedtime had long since passed.  So I took Hunter out to go potty, piled all of Sam's dirty dishes in the sink for him to tackle tomorrow and sat down to write this post and finish my VERY productive day.  It's funny, at once point this afternoon the song that plays in the movie Rudy during his senior year when he is getting beat to shit during the practicing montage popped into my head.  It's really a very motivating soundtrack if you're looking for something to keep you going... I ended up listening to it all afternoon and evening.

Alas, it's now time to crawl into bed between my freshly washed sheets (yes I even did a load of laundry today!) next to my wonderfully supportive boyfriend and snuggle with our adorable dog.