Bleh...

I have an unwritten rule to myself to not blog at work. When I get home, writing here sometimes isn't a big priority for me. I'll try to post more often in the future, but I'm just posting now to let everyone know I'm still alive. :)

Oh, and my fiance looked at the photos of me in my blue shirt/dress thing and said "Wow, that looks really good!" and I replied, "Aw, thanks honey!". To that he said, "Oh, I meant the house looks cool in that photo...but uh...you look nice too."

He's lucky he's cute.

DIY Lamp #2

Thanks for all the comments on the outfit everyone! I'll take a picture next time I wear it once I figure out what I'm going to do and post it.

So a while ago, I posted about my experience with rehabbing a lamp I got off eBay. Well, after that one I got the bug, so I decided to try it again. I love pretty much anything Asian, so I searched for "geisha lamp". Here are the pictures from the auction:


I don't remember how much it cost...something around $100. That may sound expensive, but look at it! Isn't it gorgeous? It was one of those "I have to have it or I'll DIE" kinda things. I've never heard of someone dying from 'lack of lamp', but I'm sure it's happened. Please note that it is in one piece and in pretty solid condition except for a few places where the paint has chipped.

I think when FedEx or UPS sees a box labeled "Fragile", it means "Smash the bejebus outta me" in their language. The lamp was packaged pretty well, it just looked like it had been hit with a Mack truck. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it when it first came in, but I do have pics of it after I had spackled it back together. There is a metal rod that runs down the length of the statue and that was bent right at the neck. It must have taken a LOT of force to get it to bend like that.

Here you can see where her bun was cracked (the red stuff is the Bondo that I used). Also, this is after I had removed all the existing paint that was on it. It looked like it had been gold leafed sometime in it's past life! It took forever to get that paint off though. There is so much detail in the statue I had to dig paint out of every crease.

This is her neck from the front. That gray bit you see in the middle is part of the steel rod poking through. If the statue wasn't molded to that rod her poor little head would have fallen off.

Now, this is where I wish I had taken a before photo. The back of the base was all smashed up and in about 10 or so pieces. I put it back together like a puzzle using super glue and then Bondo'd all the cracks. I think this is the part I'm most proud of.


Here is the whole statue before I applied primer and painted it.


Action shot! I think I'm applying the primer here. I know this is off topic, but I love our backyard. You would never know from this picture that I live in a subdivision.

Cheese!


Here is the finished head all painted up. I liked the color that it was, but I wanted it to have more texture. I decided on a stone finish for the statue and a cream color (like the original color) on the stand.


The non-shattered base.


Here's the whole shebang. The first photo shows the colors well, but the flash picked up all the light spots on the lamp and makes it look splotchy. This is a good shot of the detail:


It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I think whenever we move, this bad boy is sitting in my lap for the move. I'm not going to risk it getting damaged again!

Fashion, Smashion...

I need some advice from the ladies. I bought a dress on eBay and I couldn't wait until it came in. It came in the mail....and it didn't fit. The seller sold it as is so I couldn't return it (that's eBay for ya) but I liked the way it looked so much that I just stuffed it in my closet hoping I could figure some way to wear it. It is labeled a size 12 (my size) and I guess I didn't see any length dimension on the auction but it is WAY too short. Like, it shows my hoo-ha short. I have no interest in showing everyone my lady bits, so I thought I'd try to wear it over jeans. The Steve said it looked fine, but I need a woman's opinion.

Front view:


Side view:
Part of me feels like this looks really good and is trendy, and another part of me thinks I'm crazy. Plus, I've got some wide child-bearing hips I've got to work with and I don't know if this works. What do you think?

Tagged!

I was tagged by Jen and Nicole! You are supposed to write seven facts or interesting tidbits about yourself and then tag seven other people. Since I got tagged twice, it's only fair that I list 14 things.

1. My full name is Marguerita. And, no, that wasn't my mother's favorite drink! She prefers Mudslides anyway. I think the root of it is French, but it's a traditional Greek name. I'm named after my Aunt Rita and it means pearl.

2. I built my computer from the ground up. I hate having to take my computer to a repair shop because you have no idea if they are snooping around in your stuff. I used to work in a small computer store and, while I never did it, some of the techs liked to poke around other people's computers to see what kinda of goodies they could find (music, movies, pr0n).

3. I like to draw, but I never have time for it.

4. My BFF/MOH and I have been friends since Kindergarten. She just needs to move up here now so we can hang out more often!

5. I'm left handed.

6. I have an insane amount of earrings.

7. I have two cats, Aya and Fargo. If you listen carefully, you can hear Aya meow at the end of my voicemail message.

8. I used to have a Chihuahua, named Honey, but she passed away a few years ago. It still hurts to talk about her.

9. I graduated with a degree in Architectural Engineering from UMR in '05. It's a lot like a Civil Engineering degree, only I took more building centric classes and no highway or storm water classes.

10. Despite my engineering degree, I can't do math in my head. I can solve all sorts of complex equations, but if you ask me to add in my head I'm screwed.

11. I am the third child of four. My sister is 10 years older then me and my older brother is 8 years older and my younger brother is two years younger. I'm the last one to get married.

12. My mom is a twin (fraternal, my uncle is her twin) so that increases the likelihood that I'll have twins.

13. I have an obsession with all things Japanese. For example, I have 7 books on Geisha.

14. I love to go camping. I can't wait until it gets warm again!

Whew! That was harder than I thought it was going to be! I won't tag anyone else since I think everyone I know on the blogosphere has been tagged (oh yes, I said 'blogosphere').

Dress Shopping

I went dress shopping for my wedding dress a month ago and ended up ordering one that same day. This was probably the one thing about wedding planning I dreaded the most. I'm not a dress person (I am slowly becoming one though) and I didn't think any of that frilly crap would appeal to me. The dress I ended up with is so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that I thought I would be, but I love it. It's hard not to go in and peek at it everyday.

My dress came in last week due to the magic that is David's Bridal so I thought I would post pictures of all the dresses that I tried on. Sort of like an homage to the dress that never was.

The Wedding Shoppe in Troy

I had such great service here, I felt bad I didn't purchase a dress here. Here are a few I tried on there.

I think this is the very first one I tried on. Sparkly boobs!

These next two are more like what I was looking for, but when I tried them on the lace hit in the wrong spots on my hips and weren't very flattering.

I wanted to try on one with sleeves so I put this one on. The sleeves wouldn't stay up, but I kinda liked it better this way.

This was one of my top two and if David's didn't have anything I liked I was leaning toward coming back and getting this one. It was discontinued and it was only $200!

This one was my favorite when I got it out of the magazine, but when I tried it on I was torn. It had the lace that I wanted and it was form fitting giving it a modern look. But the TULLE! So much tulle. The magazine copy showed the dress only from the waist up.

The back:

David's Bridal

I had heard mostly bad things about David's, so I went in a little wary of my sales lady. She ended up being super friendly and helpful and never really pushed anything on me. She did the required DB thing where they bring you a bra, shoes and veil, hoping you would see the whole package and just HAVE to have everything. I showed restraint though and only got the dress. I snagged the veil I tried on later (Thanks Amber!).

I tried this one on because I love blue. I don't love this gown as you can tell from my expression.

This one was pretty humorous. The back of the dress had these wings that came out the sides...They seriously looked like butt flaps. It was like I could finish with the ceremony and just fly away to the reception.

I can't believe I'm going to post such and unflattering photo of me, but I do it for you guys. I LOVED this on the mannequin. It looked so sleek and modern. On me, it looked like a sausage stuffed in a casing. Also, it was a wee bit too low cut for me. I could do a deep v-neck like that to the bar maybe, but to my wedding? Nah.

This was my favorite from the magazine cut outs I had brought. They didn't have a larger size but even if they did I don't think this one would have been the one for me. I just had to tell myself that these form fitting gowns aren't for girls with booty. I probably would have been really self-conscious all night instead of just enjoying myself.

I really liked the top on this one. Made my boobs look HUGE. I wasn't a fan of the bottom and the train was very plain. I did like the color though. So shiny!

Below is the dress I ultimately chose. I actually walked by this when we were pulling dresses and just dismissed it as too froofy. At the end of the day I was starting to give up since I hadn't had that "aha!" moment. My MOH talked me into trying on more dresses and I'm glad I listened to her (Go Leslie!). I heart this dress.

I can't post the photo's here or talk about it more because my FI reads this blog so you'll have to click the following links.

STEVE NO CLICKY!!!
I MEAN IT MAN!

Some people get chocolate and roses for Valentine's Day. Me? I get great stuff like this:


That is page one from "The Pop-Up Book of Phobias". Don't have dentophobia? How about coulrophobia?


Seriously, *swoon*. This is why I love The Steve. I hope everyone else had a great Valentine's Day!

P.S.: I did get roses also. I know people will go on and on how this is a holiday made up by corporations that forces men to buy stuff for their significant others, but hell, I love getting flowers so you won't see me hatin' on the holiday.

Eyeglasses

I've worn glasses for forever it seems like. When I first got glasses in grade school, I thought my life was over. Of course this was the late 80's, early 90's when all you could get cheaply were the dorky plastic glasses that were too big for your face. Now I can't see myself without my glasses. They seem to have become a statement piece of mine and I feel naked without them. I do wear contacts from time to time, but my eyes tend to dry out pretty fast - especially at work where I'm under flouresent lighting and my face is glued to a computer screen.

When I first got my job after graduating, I decided I could finally get the glasses I've always wanted. It's a dangerous thing to give a girl an engineers salary after she's been poor most of her life. Anyway, I waltzed into Lenscrafters (first bad move) and got glasses off the designer wall (bad move #2). I obviously had money burning a hole in my pocket because I dropped 800 duckets on two pairs of glasses. A black and silver DKNY pair and a green Prada pair which I love.

Now that I've been working a while and I have a wedding to pay for I'm not too keen on spending that much money on another pair or even getting the lenses changed in my old ones. That's when I ran across glassyeyes.com. It's a webblog started by a guy who got fed up with the high markup by the eyeglass retailers. He outlines how to purchase eyeglasses online and gives reviews on different online retailers. I figured I would give it a try and get a cheap pair just in case it turns out to be a bust. Guess how much I paid for prescription glasses?

Fourteen fucking dollars. Boo. Yeah. I even got prescription sunglasses for the hell of it and I think those were probably $20. So now I am a convert to online eyeglass shopping. And, hell, at those prices I can afford to get several different colors too.

My super cheap glasses. I've gotten more compliments on these than any other pair I've owned. It's a bad pic, but they are black and red. I ordered the blue and black pair as well. If you wear glasses I highly suggest checking out glassyeyes.com.