Elsja Down Under

Sick In Sydney February 25, 2010

Back in Sydney, feeling miserable.

My trip to the US was great. I got SO much accomplished for the wedding and now there’s not much more I can do until August. That’s exciting and sad at the same time. The lower stress levels are beneficial, but the fun of planning will be missed. I suppose there are still a few things I can do from Australia, but a majority of it will all come in the last few weeks. Only 6 months to go now!!

My trip to Georgia was awesome as well. I had so much fun spending the weekend in beautiful Roswell with all my friends. It’s rare that we all get together now that we live in 4 different places, so it seems that weddings are the only things that ever bring us all together.

Amanda’s wedding was beautiful! The Clermont lounge was not beautiful. Let me paint a picture for you. The Clermont lounge is where a group of 16 or so of us went on Thursday night. Try to visualize this…a small dive bar, horrible rock band, thick layers of smoke (seriously, get with the times Georgia, why can you still smoke indoors?) and to top it all off… 60 year old strippers! WHAT? Yes, you read that right. There was a complete assortment of strippers from a super skinny tatooed girl to significantly overweight middle-aged girls wearing heinous outfits to a cute little old lady wearing a little red riding hood costume. Weirdest place I’ve ever been. The rest of the weekend was far less weird. The rehearsal cocktail party and wedding were full of much more taste and class (and less smoke), thank GOD!

The only thing that really sucks is that there must have been some funk going around in Atlanta because Shannon, Jen, Alison and I all caught a nasty bug. I haven’t been this sick since well before I met Andrew. I never get sick anymore and I honestly feel like I don’t even know how to respond to this. I feel like the biggest wuss. Will someone please send an un-packing fairy to take care of my luggage that has made it’s home on our living room floor?

Can I Breathe Yet? February 12, 2010

I am always a bad blogger when I come back to California. My life in Sydney is pretty simple and straight forward- I am not a super busy person all of the time. But when I come back for visits I sometimes feel like I have no time to breathe! Why haven’t I blogged lately? Let’s see… in the last 1.5 weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve been busy doing the following:

• Meeting with the florist and deciding on flower budgets
• Creating our wedding website (it’s almost finished)
• Meeting with a baker
• Talking to places about tuxes
• Sending emails to Andrew with pictures of cakes and tuxes
• Ordering our cake
• Buying my wedding shoes
• Buying my wedding jewelry
• Finalizing invitations with my friend/designer
• Attempting to get said invitations printed but still haven’t because kinkos sucks
• Buying paper products for invitations
• Buying wedding bands
• Meeting with the caterer/rental guy to plan out our seating and other venue details
• Meeting with hotel sales managers to organize discounted rooms for our guests
• And lastly… picking up my dress!

Let’s not forget that I was also working, spending time with friends and family, doing dinners and going to gym as well. Yes, I do feel like I’m going to explode. Part of the benefit of having a year long engagement is that you don’t have to rush the planning. Yeah, that’s not really the case in our situation. When I head back to Sydney in a few weeks- that will be the last of my California-based wedding planning until I fly back out in August so I really have to do AS MUCH as possible while I’m here. Rushing around to get everything done in two weeks sort of takes the fun out of some of the planning. It’s not fair, I shouldn’t have to be rushing and feeling this pressure when our wedding is still 6 months away!!

Letters February 4, 2010

Dear Jet Lag,

I hate you. I really do. You make me so tired. You cause me to sleep through my alarm for over 10 minutes. TEN!! While this may not seem a lot to some people, let it be known that in an entire year, my alarm only goes off probably 10 times total! I always wake up before my alarm goes off, so to sleep through it for over TEN MINUTES is just not right. You cause me to wake up with a massive migraine and hangover feeling even though I only had 2 glasses of wine last night. Two glasses of wine plus jet lag = feeling like I drank 2 bottles of wine. NOT NICE!

Dear US Economy,

I hate you too. I thought I was immune to your black pit of misery and despair- but no, you finagled your nasty tenticles into my life as well and you’ve put a big damper on all my plans for 2010.

Dear Vaccination,

You made me feel like I had a migraine in my arm for about 36 hours. That was a week ago. Now, thanks to you, my arm is STILL sore. It’s not terrible, but enough to piss me off.

Dear Stupid OC Housewives,

Ok of course I’m not talking to all OC housewives- there are definitely many of you I like. I’m just speaking to the pathetic, fake, backstabbing trashbags. You are all scum. People like you often make me happy that I don’t live in this yuppy, stuck-up county anymore.

Dear Bob at Sir Speedy Printing,

You sent all your customers an email today asking “how is your 2010 so far?” Do you REALLY want me to answer that question? I know you just want some business- but what if I reply to your sales pitch email and just say “shitty.” I wonder what you would say to that.

Dear Andrew,

I miss you.

Yes, I am having a bad day.