I've been up since about 8:30 am, which probably explains why I'm running about half an hour behind, but oh well!  So far I've made four sheets of cookies, sugar and gingerbread.  The brisket is in the oven - beer battered no less, hopefully I got the recepie right; it just said 1/2 a cup of chili p.  Now whether that's good old chili powder or like, chili powder you make chili sauce with is the big question... I used chili powder.  Me buying the beer, however, was just plain funny. I texted several people to get an idea what kind of beer I should get and the only person to really give me an opinion was Isaac who said Bud Light - so standing in front of the case staring at all of them, I was a little helpless until these two black men helped me. I'm sure they got a big laugh out of it later. I'm okay with that.

Now, I'm sure there are many wondering how the wedding went, right?  Well I'm going to pretend like you're anxiously waiting for my side of how it all went down so I'll appease the masses!  Friday we got up and were leaving the house at like 11 - which was when the rehearsal was supposed to be starting - oopse!  Dani gave me her camera and I proceeded to probably snap around 200-300 pictures over the course of two days.  The rehersal was quick; I lucked out and got to be escorted by the birthday-boy, Devon.  We giggled about the fact that all of this was happening on our birthdays.  His was Friday, mine Saturday.  We did some pictures, more decorating, ran to get some stuff we forgot about and generally got it all set up; despite the gazebo/archway thinggie getting there super late - like ten minutes before we absolutly had to leave to make it to the reception dinner appointment.

The reception dinner was at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant chain thinggie - and oh my goodness it was fantastic! We all ate until it was painful to eat and then ate more.  My favs were the cheddar starter one, the Burgundy wine fondue for meats, and the ying-yang mix of dark and white chocolate for dessert.We all had a blast.  By this time we were all rather well aquainted that it was just so much fun and we were all enjoying ourselves so much.  Our Hawaiin friend, lovingly called 5-O (yes, like "Hey Five-O! How's it going?")  It was really great seeing him and having him there; I haven't seen him since his graduation dinner I think so many years ago!!

Us girls took charge of the crashing 5-O, took him to his hotel because by this point because of flight delays and cancelations he'd been traveling for two days straight.  He was not fit to drive so after seeing him to his hotel we then went to get our nails done. I did not get fakies, I just got a polish job - for $20.  Probably the silliest $20 I've ever spent but oh well, they dang looked pretty for the needed 24 hours.  They're scuffed and icky looking now, but oh well.

I believe at this point we went back to Dani's house and  changed, then made a WalMart run for bridal make-up, and then to this amazing dollar jewelry store where we all sort of went nuts. I bought four rings, a few necklaces for presents and a purse for myself.  We had a blast in there!  Then it was back home for showers, food, final dress fittings, and stuff I will refrain from blogging about.  ~__^

The day of the wedding - got the bride up and out of the door for her hair appointment and then did my own hair - which took for freaking ever, but by the end it was a mass of curls and looked nice.  JD and I stopped, smartly, for food before the wedding.  We got to the church, did all of the pictures beforehand, and then seperated until the actual event.  I believe I cried about six times total, and when I say cry I mean a tear or two came out - except before when we prayed over Danielle in the bridal suite/hospitality room thing, I really did cry then.  The wedding was very pretty, very simple, very nice.  They did not use traditional music, which I liked, but it was still lovely and people who loved the couple were there and besides the minister dropping the unity candle - it all went off without a hitch!

For the rehearsal JD and I wound up serving most of it, so I'm not sure about what else happened as I was too busy cutting and serving cake and stuff to do much else.  Around 5ish I believe JD and I left from the church and leap-frogged eachother to Ft Worth where she went on home and I....sat in wreck traffic for an hour. It was lovely.

And now I leave to go do more cleaning.  I'll upload pictures later once I get bridal permission and such.

I think I've mentioned my obsession with blogs, haven't I?  I believe it's been mentioned before. So this is my post devoted to recaping blogs!

BookEnds gives a nice, encouraging blog about how - Hey! We all do it differently - on writing.  Yes, we are all different, and I'm a plotter, planner, and replanner when it comes to writing!  Well, Plot to Punctuation is a new blog on my list and in the few blogs I've read it's been worth while.  One of their latest gives a nod to the recent marathon writers and gives tips on revising characters, etc.  The very newest, coupled with the next link, gives some good tips on dialogue.  Gail Carson Levine's blogs are enlightening; her latest deals with dialogue and is called Talking Talk.  I know a lot of people during NaNoWriMo discussed having issues with dialogue and I always want to make mine matter more, so I'm for sure putting this one on my to-come-back-to-laters!

EA does another follow-up blog to some others she's done about a writer-agent relationship; again, very enlightening and what not.  I want to go back when I have time and read through that one and the writer-editor and dream client blogs for my own pleasure.

I'm putting this one at the end.  It's from Writer Beware and it's on the differences of Vanity Publishing and Self Publishing.  I think I need to reread it to make it make sense at this point, LoL.