we got professional photos taken o.o

These are our engagement photos:

https://gallery.yoxphotography.com/-ashleyalexengagement/gallery

I think you should be able to access them, but there might be a login thing, I don't know. but if it works then sweet 👍These are just some of my favorites, but the full rez ones will be in the link.

7.3 Whew, wedding planning...

I Want To Invite Everyone

And I don't know what to do about it.

     But seriously. If you read this blog then you're someone I want to invite. I didn't share this blog with eeeverybody on, like, my Facebook friends list, or anything like that. Just y'all. Like 6 or 7 of you. 

     It's August 31st in Ohio, and if you could make it and want to come, I've probably already added you to my guest list (the invitations are going out really soon, I promise!) and you may have received my Save-The-Date email if I had the right address for you. 

     I think of new people every week that I want to invite, people that I want to be able to come and just have fun and get to be there for my wedding, and there are so many already in my list from my 75+ extended family members, to my parents' and Alex's parents' family friends from both AZ and OH, to the special little group of my college roommates I was able to round up to be part of my bridesmaids.... There are just so many. And Alex doesn't want me to add a hundred more people just in case we have to feed 300+ people because we are not prepared for that. :/ 

     I'm just so torn. 

     Like, back in November when Alex proposed to me, and we hadn't started talking about wedding dates yet, I thought it would be sooner than it ended up being. And I sorta thought it would be SO long to wait. But now, I feel like I wish I had more time to prepare, or at least had set my due dates a month earlier than I needed them, because now I HAVE to send out all the invitations and I just now finished designing them (my dad's printing and mailing them all, thank the Lord) and I realized I haven't organized everybody's mailing addresses in one place. >.< What am I doing? How did I miss that?

     And then there were some people whose email addresses hadn't been correct when I sent the Save-The-Date back in April or whenever it was. So they don't know when or where my wedding is and they're asking my mom. >.< aaaackk 

     So many of the people I love are on the list, though, and that's awesome and for the ones that I already know are going to be there, that's amazing! I am excited, I am glad, and I'll be thrilled to see everyone on the big day.

     But now I need to go make a little document with the RSVP and Registry info on it so Dad can put that slip of paper in with all the invitations. xP

--ACS, July 3rd, 2019

5.15 Sitting in Starbucks

So I'm sitting in a brand new Starbucks right now. It's so new, I hadn't even heard that they were opening a new one here until I drove by last week and saw the sign on the unfinished building. And today, I saw that the parking lot was full and the drive-thru screen was on, and everything looked like it had opened!
so I pulled into the next road, which was a gas station, haha, and since the parking lots didn't seem to connect, I said "oh whatever, I'll just park here and walk over." So I did.

(So there's a man with a David Crowder-ish beard, glasses, and a cap that I saw in the corner of the cafe and did a double-take because he looks just like Alex's uncle Dan from this distance. It's his dad's never-married brother, who's never come up to visit us, so we just stop in to visit him every time we're in town. He's a cool dude, owns an art gallery and plays Dungeons & Dragons. The first time I met him, it had been a while since Alex had seen him, and Alex kind of discovered his awesome uncle and it was really cool. ^_^ But yeah. It's not him, he wouldn't be here, but lol it really looks like him.)

Okay back to whatever I was going to be talking about. I'm loving this slow jazz music they're playing. It's totally relaxing and makes me feel like it was a good decision to come here :)
Ah yesss. So, I'm starting to think about switching this blog from Blogger over to another platform. Blogger was connected with Google+ and it made it easier to log in and post that way, but now that Google+ has been absolved (lol or whatever you would call it), some of the functions aren't working as well, and I'm just feeling like I'd like a change.
Blogger's been a great place to post content for a long time, and as I've been using it since, like, way back in 2012 or something when I used it for my serial story The Note, I don't want to put in all the work to change host websites if I am going to have to do it again in a few years. But I don't want to spend a lot of money on, like, a whole website....but I could have a really big one, if I used it as both a blog and a place to post my new music and maybe have some marketing stuff for the book I self-published in 2017. And maybe I could start some other projects, things that I might want to go to school for, like website designing and programming. I don't know if I'll go into IT specifically or if I'll decide that I want to do teaching or tutoring, or something else like that. Maybe speech therapy.
Anyway, it would be super fun to build a website and I think I would really enjoy the nitty gritty details and just getting to learn stuff along the way. The few times that I've done basic HTML code were always a fun exercise. I have a cool uncle who's given me some tips and a few places to start. :)
So yeah. If I do build a website, I'm pretty sure I could set this old blog up to redirect to the new place. There's a spot for that in the settings, anyway.
I'm gonna go research that stuff. ^_^
—ACS, May 15, 2019

Surprise days off :O

Hey =) Positive update on how I've felt slightly stressed with work:

I had a really nice day yesterday when I decided to check my work schedule to make sure I was supposed to come in -- and I had the day off! Praise the Lord. because I needed to take a morning to breathe. and make a breakfast sandwich. from bread that I baked on Wednesday. :)

I even ended up going shopping with Mrs. Broening to look for a new dress for the engagement photoshoot that Alex and I are going to have. I tried on 8 dresses at JC Penney's (lol yes it was a lot, but I at least like to think that I go faster now than I did in the past when shopping with her or my mom.) There were several dresses that I really liked, 2 that I would have bought, but we were just there for one, so I made the choice and maybe I'll go back with Alex sometime to look at some of the less fancy dresses that I had to pass over because of the occasion we were shopping for. :) But it felt good, uplifting to me, to analyze the clothing racks, discover a hint of a nice color behind the blacks and the jewel tones that would just absolutely make me look like a ghost, and to feel like an explorer in the jungle when I'd find the one medium in the sea of X-Small's and XX-Large's. The rare finds in the clearance section. The ridiculous styles that I saw and thought, "You know, I'll just try it on for fun." It was a breath of fresh air and a great time with my future mother-in-law.

After JC Penney's (where we bought the one dress), we tried Kohl's, but I didn't like the way any of the 5 or 6 outfits looked when I tried them on...there were a couple jumpsuits (the kind where it looks like a summer dress from far away and then when you take it off the rack, you realize it's not a skirt but Pants that are just flowy) that I tried on just for fun, because hey, I'm tall, but if there was one that looked good on me, it would be nice (and with jumpsuits you never have to worry about the wind blowing your shirt around). But none of them were a good fit, but it was okay because we already had the best JC Penney option. We just wanted to make sure there wasn't one gem waiting in the Kohl's store that would completely blow the other dress out of the water. But there wasn't, so we kept the JC Penney's dress. *ahem*

At that point it wasn't too late in the afternoon yet, so we talked about what else we could get done for wedding planning while I still had the day off. And I felt super proud of myself for being prepared and thinking ahead and being mindful of the errands I'd need to run/items I'd need to purchase: I had a List. 

(I just really wanted to show some kind of dorky excited gif about how I felt when I pulled that out and had the perfect thing for us to accomplish next.)

And everything turned out awesome: of the stuff on my list that I could look into without needing to choose them with Alex, most of them were bridal accessories.

So I don't know if I've shared this on my blog before, but a while ago when my family was staying with me (after Christmas when I'd traveled with them for several weeks and we were in my apartment while my dad & brothers did some maintenance on my car and my mom and I tackled some wedding planning stuff), I made a list of the aspects of a wedding, and I ranked them by how important of an issue it was to me.

This is completely unrelated but I saw it while scrolling down to find the picture from January that I actually wanted to share, and I remembered it and had to post it so I can laugh at it and share an ADD moment with you...okay...on to the actual topic

This is what Mom and Rickey were doing while I wrote up my master plan on the sweet new whiteboard they'd helped me install on my pantry door. 

Here!! These are all things I need to plan for the wedding, all things that need to be decided on and planned and bought and scheduled and organized, and I put numbers to them all so that I could express which ones were important enough for me to spend more money/more time on them, and which ones I just needed someone to help me make a quick decision about and move on with.

And guess what Mrs. Broening and I had the time to do?

Shoes.

The shoes that I wear at my wedding are a really important part of the whole day, to me, and I was going to make sure that adequate attention was given, ahead of time, to picking just the right pair of shoes so that I would

1. be comfy while standing,
2. feel awesome while dancing,
3. feel good about the shoe style in the pictures, and
4. be able to afford them.

And with the saving that I've been doing lately, I believe the 2 pairs that I had to decide between (I bought both, brought them home, and Alex helped me pick the right pair when he came over, so I'll be returning the other pair on Wednesday) were a great fulfillment of my 4 criteria. I felt great. And now, after showing it to Alex and having the chance to chat about the overarching purpose of shoes (not just to be comfy for one day, but to display the image that we are wanting to impart in our wedding ceremony and the image that we want to look back and remember when we look at our wedding photos for the next 60 years), I feel even better. I guess this is what being productive and accomplishing goals feels like. :)

And then after that, I checked the List again, and ooh, planning & booking honeymoon lodging was on there. Something Alex and I needed to get done together. And we had time to do it. >:D I was on a roll!

And after looking at stuff for a few hours and finding something perfect that was completely in a different area than the state that we had been poring over for the past few weeks (lol), we decided on a spot in Gatlinburg, TN, and Alex went home and booked it last night. ^_^

So I have to get ready to go to work now, but yesterday was pretty great. I just wanted to share the exciting stuff I was able to get done, and talk about how helpful it was for me to actually accomplish something instead of just talking about getting it done at some point (while not having the time to ever get it done, since I was always either waking up preparing to go to work, or was at work and keeping up my energy and motivation to keep working, or home from work recovering from the mental exhaustion that I'm getting better and better at handling now that I've had this 40-hr/wk job for a few months now). 

Things are looking up. I am smiley. Thank you all for your support and prayers for me, and just the little things you say and the ways you make me smile. I love you all, and can't wait to see you soon (at the wedding, or even sooner!)

Bye! <3

-ACS (for now), April 23, 2019

Alex's birthday today :D

Okay. I have a little bit of time as I'm coloring my hair this morning to write about everything I've already done today (and it's only 9:45 AM).

So I woke up super early (that's been happening a lot lately, especially when I have work, which is at 10:30 this morning and 10:00 on most weekday mornings). At first, I was just going to try to go back to sleep since I didn't really have to be up for another 3 or 4 hours, but then I remembered that it was Alex's birthday and that I hadn't done anything special for him yet, even though I'd been coming up with ideas the past few weeks. And then it hit me.

Walmart. I can go get him some groceries, like he's been needing for a while, plus his favorite cereal and some breakfast chocolate shakes and some other things for his mornings. I'll buy it this morning and bring it tonight to the cousins' apartment when we get together for our weekly game night. OR I could drive down and bring it to him before he left for work!!

It was a brilliant plan. I had hours until I needed to even get to work, and Alex started work earlier than me so I would have time to bring him the groceries—and oh! coffee, I should bring him coffee!—and still have time to see him off to work, come home myself, get ready, and leave for my work. It was foolproof.

(I kind of feel like I'm quoting the Megamind movie at some point but whatever. I loved scheming. For a birthday surprise.)

BUT yeah. I was going to order the stuff from the Walmart Grocery app and see what the earliest pickup time was, but alas, even at 5:20 AM when I was looking at it, their earliest time was 9-10AM. Maybe I wouldn't have time to bring it to him before he left work after all. 

I picked that slot and started filling my online cart, and had new gift ideas as I went along. I was having fun. I got up and cooked myself a sausage for breakfast and warmed up yesterday's coffee (the 3 ounces or so that were left in the pot....yeah....writing it out makes it sound weird now...) and then I remembered I hadn't checked out and bought the groceries yet. I needed to pay and order it so that I could pick it up at that time slot that I'd selected....but then when I looked, I had waited too long and that time slot had expired so the next time was 10-11AM. I wasn't going to have time to get it before even I went to work. 

And then the plan took new form in my mind. 

What if I just went to Walmart and shopped for this stuff right now? It's open 24 hours, and I have a car now (and I won't need to get a ride like I used to have to) and I have enough time.

So that's what I did. And it felt great to venture out and put my plan into action. x)

Okay...I have to finish my hair now, so I'll post this but I might write a part 2 about how I got lost on the way to his apartment and didn't know if he was even waking up early because he might have taken the day off from work like he had been thinking of.

Bye!

I'm Bored at Work....what??

So I got this new job as a dishwasher, and they're not even always bringing dirty dishes. It's pretty slow so far today. I came in at 11, and it was so weird...
It's because it's a movie theater (I'm working in the kitchen, which this theater has because it's a Dine-In theater) and movies don't start showing until early afternoon... And it's an 11am-7pm shift... So yeah it's a weird feeling to be bored at work. Just needed to say that here.