Work Travel - Oregon

So my trips have been pretty good up to now.  What's funny is that I would have loved this trip if not for the circumstances.  I was excited to be going to Oregon, where it was snowing and there were mountains.  And it was fine until I saw the hotel room.  Or really, I guess it was a motel.  Listen, I'm not a snob by any means.  When a friend wanted to go to New York to see Equus, and we didn't have a lot of money to spend, and she booked us a room at the West Side YMCA, I didn't complain.  It was just a place to sleep, after all.  I can sleep just about anywhere.  But this place.  It was like hell.  Literally.  It was a dirty, nasty lobby, a disgusting room, and when I peeled the covers away from the sheets, I saw that the sheets were dirty.  Gross.  When I complained to the front desk about it, the lady gave me a new set of sheets.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep in that bed, but put one new sheet over the comforter and covered up with the other one.  I also put the pillow into my hoodie because I didn't want to put my face on the pillow.  Yuck.

In addition to all this, the room smelled like urine.

So it's no surprise that I ended up getting sick.  I imagine it was more about the flu outbreak in the town than the nasty hotel room, but whatever it was, I ended up with the flu.  I felt awful and wanted to die.  We came home for the weekend and I went to the doctor, who told me it was the flu but that he couldn't do anything for it because I waited too long.  Annoying.  They cancelled the next week's travel, which was nice because we were supposed to stay in the same nasty hotel.  So I guess if the flu could ever be a good thing, it was in this case!  At least it saved me from having to stay there again!

But, illness and disgusting hotel rooms aside, the mountains and the snow were really lovely.  Check it out.

Wedding Plans - The Dress!

I had been thinking about our wedding for awhile, since it appeared that Jon and I were most likely getting married.  I would have been happy to not have a wedding at all, since I've already done that and it's usually quite expensive, but he revealed to me that he would like to have a wedding, so I'm making it the most memorable wedding ever!  I want him to look back on this event for years to come with fond and happy memories.

Enter the search for a dress.  It was important to me that I didn't spend a lot of money, because I set a very tight budget for the wedding and was determined not to exceed it.

So I went to David's Bridal without many expectations and without the attitude that I had to find the "perfect" dress.  I just wanted to look like a bride for him and I wanted something that would fit with our theme (which is actually another post for later!)

My mom, my sister, my niece, and I went to David's on a Saturday morning, and we started picking dresses.  They were having their $99 bridal sale, but of course those were off the rack and only in the sizes they had, so that wasn't working for me.  I did find some gorgeous dresses, and set aside something like 12 to try on.  I really didn't like my consultant.  She was kind of impatient and rude to my sister and my niece.  There was another consultant who worked in bridesmaids and prom dresses who was amazing and I am going to request her when we choose our bridesmaids dresses.  Anyway, I tried on about 7 dresses.  It took over 4 hours!  I have photos of me in these dresses, but I won't post them here because Jon knows about this blog and I don't want him to see me in a wedding dress!

I did not buy a dress that day.  But I did get some great ideas about features and designs I really liked and was able to find an amazing dress online the next week that was perfect and was part of the $99 online sale!  Here's my wedding dress:  (don't worry, he has seen this photo!)

I ordered it online a couple of days after going to the store, and it arrived a few days later.  I tried it on this past weekend and it looks amazing!  Now all I need are some alterations, but I'm waiting until we are a little closer to the wedding date to do that, since I may lose weight before then.