It was a very good year

2009 was a busy, eventful and life-changing year over here at chez sula. For starters, the location of "chez" (which literally means at the home of). It was one year ago today that DH and I finished moving all our stuff from the house I was sharing with messy college students into a cozy, historic apartment smack in the old town. We rang in the new year by spending our first night here. And how lovely it has been. Not just to have one's own place, but the location, the architecture, the windows and sunlight, everything. A great way to start 2009.


In April, I led a group of students, faculty and staff from our university on a one-week trip to Mali. Not only was it a great experience to be able to share the country I love with others, but I also got to re-connect with friends back there and visit DH's family. AND get back to speed on my language skillz (which apparently may go dormant but are not lost...happily).


The first half of the year also saw both DH and I busily working on our respective degree programs. It's important to note that in DH's country, there is only one university. When he attended classes there back in the early part of the 2000s, a series of strikes resulted in the entire academic year being canceled. So he ended up working and doing other things and wasn't able to go back and finish his degree. When we got the chance to come to the States and study, it was an unforeseen opportunity. He slogged through three years of classes in not his second, but his THIRD language, was often the oldest student in his courses, and worked a part-time on-campus job to boot. So when he walked across the stage at commencement in May and received his bachelor's degree (the first person in his family to do so) I was bursting-at-the-seams-proud. :)

Right after graduation, there was another trip out of the country for me...I was in Taiwan for about 10 days for my work. It was special in that I got to spend time with a colleague and friend who is from there and being with her gave me lots of insider scoops that I wouldn't have had otherwise. (Did I mention the all-u-can-eat sushi bar for under $10????) heh. But I missed my fiance and it was nice to come home again.

After two long years of part-time evening classes with no breaks for summer, I too got a chance to walk across the stage in August and receive my MBA. (Come to think of it, I guess I'm the first person in my family to get a graduate degree.) It was nice to finish the program, and I barely had time to catch my breath before my 30th birthday. Yet another mile-stone of sorts. heh.

Then it was full speed ahead to the biggest milestone of our lives...our wedding! Thankfully, I had a couple of very talented and giving friends who basically planned, coordinated, decorated and shepherded me through the whole process. The ceremony was held in the backyard of our good friends. The mountains and fields served as a cathedral unmatched in beauty. With a classic English garden at on end, guests were seated in four sections creating a circle which surrounded the ceremony site. Our families began the processional and walked in pairs to their seats in front of the garden. To the strains of a single violin, the wedding party processed through the garden paths and met one another in the center of the ceremony circle. During a moving interfaith ceremony led by our two ministers (husband and wife), we took our vows and exchanged rings. A djembe drum ensemble led the celebration as we left the circle as husband and wife.

Our reception was held under the trees in an open buffet style. Among the dishes served were roast lamb, plantains and a special African rice dish. After toasts by the best man and matron of honor, we enjoyed musical selections by a small gamelan orchestra, an instrument native to Indonesia (my childhood home). We cut the cake and then had our first dance to a song by a musician from DH's home country. Guests joined in the dance and much fun and laughter was had. Before the sun set, we changed into our best traditional African clothing and finished the evening by spending time talking with our friends and family.

As if that weren't enough for an eventful 2009, DH found a great job (in this economy no less) and started work shortly after our wedding. I began taking Spanish classes and applied to another graduate program for spring (hey, gotta keep busy). Then last week, we traveled down to Louisiana to spend Christmas with my parents and meet my mom's side of the family. I hadn't seen my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. since 2000...so it was quite fun to catch up with everyone and to introduce DH.

whew! Now that I look back on all that, I can sort of see why my blog has fallen by the wayside. Hopefully next year I can get back to reading more books and writing more entries. So that was 2009. This is a year I don't think I'll ever forget. Now onward to 2010!

Happy New Year to everyone who takes the time to stop by this little corner of the interwebs. :)

rockin' the dress

Did I mention how much I loved my dress? hehehe. I felt like a frickin' princess from a romance novel in that thing. Such fun. *g* I want to pull it back out of the closet and swan around the house in it. lol.

dance like no one is watching...

heh heh.

wed

:) More to come....

(it was a fantastic day)

tomorrow is it

well, tomorrow is the big day. i think i'm ready, despite being super-tired from waking up in the middle of every night this week and not being able to fall back asleep. ugh.

I hope that the shaky weather situation will hold on and give us just one nice day without rain. pleeeeease!!! heh.

um, otherwise it is all just run here, run there. got my fake nails (they look fab), waxed my bushy brows for the first time evah (wow, they look neat), have hair and makeup appointments for tomorrow... Let's rock and roll. I think I am ready.

thanks to everyone who stops by this blog and has put up with my non-book meandering posts. lol. we should be back to normal pretty soon. see you all on the flipside!

loot.

Oh yes, my pretties! I am the proud owner of a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. mwahaha. And to inaugurate it, last night I made a cheesecake. It is sitting lovely-ly in my fridge waiting for our dinner guests to come and partake.

And here is another awesome gift. An area rug! Really makes our living room feel more homey. Sometimes we sit on it to watch TV. heh.



Five more days to the wedding. At this point it is all about last minute stuff and a lot of it has to do with me...my person, my beauty needs, etc. So funny. I am going to get acrylic nails, waxed eyebrows, a pedicure. Makeup. lol.

My parents arrive tomorrow night. Now we are just watching the weather forecast for Saturday. Fingers crossed. :)

shower!

It's kind of fun being a bride. People throw parties for you and give you presents and all kinds of things. heh. So yesterday evening was my shower. My cousin and maid-o-honor planned it and we had it at the gorgeous spacious home of our celebrants. (How cool is this, our celebrants are a husband and wife both of whom are ordained ministers and super ecuminical, they are both going to do the ceremony, tag team). Anyways, the wee party was just lovely. We had wine and cheeses, specialty breads, crackers, fruit, brie en croute, yum yum yum.

Out on the patio overlooking the valley, sun setting, good conversation, laughs with friends. It was an excellent evening. Oh and I got my Kitchenaid stand-up mixer, so my life is pretty much complete now. lol. Other gifts include many assorted kitchen tools (which I lurve cuz I like to cook) and gift cards to places like TJ Maxx and (heh) Victoria's Secret.

And now I gotta run because I scheduled my dental cleaning visit for this week (smart, yes?)

tick tock

So my newly minted 30-year-old self is now ready to get all primped and prettified for this here upcoming wedding. I got my hair trimmed for the first time in over a year and colored with something other than clairol out of the box. Figured doing it two weeks before the big day would give me a chance to get used to any changes. I have an appointment to go in and do a trial run of my hair style later this week.

I'm hoping someone can give me some sage advice about tanning salons. I don't go to them, but it appears I am going to have to. My dress is a lovely sleeveless thing, but I never go sleeveless in real life, so I have a nifty triangle shaped tan from my neck to my chest and farmer tan from my upper arms down. ack! (my helpful fiance notes with glee that HE doesn't have such problems...pffft, yeah because his skin is all one lovely shade of luscious chocolate. yum. um, where was I....?) Anyways, I plan to drop in at a tanning place nearby and get started on evening my shade out.

My poor chewed up nails are going to have to be covered with those ghastly press-on thingies. Why oh why did I not shake that nail-biting habit???? Oh well, too late now. I would say just screw it but apparently my hands (with rings) may figure prominently in the photography. bah. Open toed shoes mean a pedicure is also in order. I wonder if the hair salon person can do that for me.

All these little details, but I guess they are sorta important. At least I have the next two weeks to get them done. Then again, between my slamming work schedule, my three-times-a-week Spanish class (you didn't think that just because I finished that MBA, I was gonna take a break from school now?), cooking all our meals from scratch, and finalizing all the little last-minute wedding stuff (make ipod playlist, choose vows and ceremony structure, call caterer to verify tablecloth numbers, etc.)....wahhhh!

Ok, whining is done. Does anyone have any songs they want to suggest for my reception playlist? I had to fire the band, so it looks like ipod to the rescue. :)

Btw, amidst all this silliness, I still carve out time for reading. Cuz you just can't live without your books, dammit! Check out the lovely one I found at the library this weekend.

t minus 30

some random thoughts on this friday morning. We're down to less than 30 days before W-day. I feel like I should be either more stressed or more organized than I actually am. But so far, everything seems to be going alright. We have a location, tables and chairs, food, ministers (husband and wife team), rental tuxes ordered, my dress in the closet, shoes (woot!) and the flowers are going to be a last minute thing. Still gotta do something about the cake (I'm thinking Costco). And I have a friend who is totally artistic and has done about 10 weddings serving as my de facto wedding planner. So is it ok not to panic? yet.

One thing that I have turned my attention to is the hair situation. I have rather curly hair and it's natural. I'm not interested in straightening it and doing anything uber-elaborate. But I also don't want it to just look blah and normal. So I have a hairstylist that I've met with once to play around with it and we're going to have another consultation soon (reminds me, I need to call her). I have spent some time combing teh interwebs for photos of inspiration. Lemme tell you, finding good styles of naturally curly hair is not as easy as I thought.

So this is a bit like what my hair looks like on a normal day (except that I don't pile it on the top of my head like that.

I kind of like this (except for the fluffy veil) but the flowers are a little big. Also, it's more wavy and not curly.


Really like the front of this one but I don't plan on a full up-do. Probably I will see if the stylist can take the part I like and marry it with the following.

Everything from the flowers back looks good. Not so much the bangs.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

I'm not really a fussy girly-girl kind of person. My idea of fixing my hair is wash, scrunch with mousse to keep the curls defined, airdry and go. So I'm trying to get hip with the bobbypin. But it is still a foreign language to me.

oh yeah, and I graduate tomorrow at 10am! Then we are going camping for the night with some friends. DFs first camping trip. Wish us luck. lol.

shooooooes

Shopping yesterday for wedding accoutrements...I was not able to find a bra-pushup-corset thingy, but I did run across some shoes that might work. I wanted some ballet flats but it is impossible to find any that are simple and white and have a teeny heel (very long dress in the back, could use a little heel action). Since the ceremony and reception are all outdoors, I can't have any serious pointy heels (or I will make holes all around the yard) but I think this might be ok. My dress is champagne colored so bright white is a no-no...these are kinda shimmery and the color is called "bone". Thoughts? For $20 I might just get them anyways. lol.

34 days!