Out With The Old, In With The New!

Couple of weeks ago I was luckily enough to spend some QT with the 'rents.  They were in town for the U.S. Open and the Guy and I were lucky enough to tag along on Saturday and Sunday to watch the final two rounds. It was pretty AWESOME.  The amazing young, talent Rory Mcllroy won the tournament, shooting 16 UNDER par.  We had a great weekend.  However, my tennis shoes did not survive the 2nd day.  And so, I am happy to report that I have some new kicks and they will be getting their first work out tomorrow with the amazing LAQ.

In reality, I should have retired these shoes a long time ago.  I think that I trained and completed (2) 10 mile races with these shoes and that is a BIG no-no.  I am also pretty excited that I am switching shoes.  Something that is a bit scary, for those of you who are dedicated runners.  For the past six years I have worn Brooks running shoes, but I had a little issue while I was training for the 2011 Cherry Blossom 10-miler and while I don't blame my shoes, I did think it was time to maybe switch things up.  So, I am now an ASICS girl.  I will let you know how my new shoes work out!

In the meantime, I will retire my Brooks to dog-walking and running errand shoes.  

What Did We Do Before Al Gore Invented the World Wide Web?

As a closeted tech-geek, I am a huge fan of gadgets, gizmos, electronic thermometers, and anything that can be used to surf or ride the web.  I blame my parents.  Both are HUGE tech geeks and are usually the ones buying me the gadgets and gizmos.  As you all know, I have an iPad (Christmas gift from the folks), I have two blogs (this one and The Year to Thirty), I tweet, proud 3G iPhone owner, Coltrane bought me a shuffle (after he ate the last one), and my html skills are decent, but it wasn't until almost a month ago that I realized the true power of the internet.......

How in the world did people plan a wedding without the world wide web?

A few things about my upcoming nuptials to the Guy:

1) We are getting married in California...planning a wedding from 3,000 miles should be low-stress :)
2) My first trip to California to do on the ground planning will be in September...and then December
3) I tried on ONE wedding dress and bought it...it will arrive in September

So, brevity in my planning is going to be the reoccurring theme, which brings me to the world wide web.  In all honesty, if I had to, I am pretty confident I could plan my entire wedding without stepping foot in California due to the awesome power/resource of the web.  It is really awesome.

But perhaps one of the biggest surprises has been stumbling across some of the most creative ideas and photos of other people's weddings.  I really have to give credit to Young House Love for getting me going.  Pre-engagement, I stumbled across this awesome blog, which mainly focuses on Sherry and John's (plus kid and dog) adventures in re-doing their first house (they are now on their 2nd) and morphing into two full-time bloggers.  But the gem of their blog, their DIY wedding.  No joke, Sherry and John spent $3,995 on their beautiful, back yard wedding.  (If you don't have Young House Love bookmarked...do it...now.  It has become a morning staple in my reading routine and Sherry is very good about responding to emails or tweets!).

From Young House Love, I moved on to Etsy in order to start get my head around colors and ideas:

The color palette I am playing with

From Etsy, I jumped all around web and below are some of my favorite wedding blogs and websites:

The Brooklyn Bride

Martha Stewart Weddings (the only Bride magazine I got a subscription for)

Project Wedding Blog (they have a website too)

Ok, Now What? Bride

Middle of the Map Weddings

It is hands down crazy the amount of information and inspiration that is out there (and I say "there" to reference the massiveness of the tubes and things zipping around sending information to one computer to the next) to assist in the wedding planning. Over the course of the next year, I will be sure to pass along some of my favorite ideas and websites, because it takes a village to plan a wedding!

Seriously, what did people do before the world wide web?  Hat tip: Al Gore.