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Wedding Photos

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay - bar exam results are in and I passed!

By This Time Next Week

Adam and I will be married. 

One Month Left

There's one month left until the wedding, but not much to updated.  The bridesmaid dresses came in and are beautiful.  Flowers have been chosen and I've had two dress fittings.

The kids all started swimming lessons at the school tonight.  They seem to be enjoying them.  Tomorrow night the older two girls and I are going to a girl scouts meeting.

Wedding Update

Next week is a busy week wedding wise. 

Monday - liturgy planning session with the deacon
Tuesday - first dress fitting
Wednesday - tasting at reception venue
Next weekend - addressing the invitations that were put into envelopes last weekend.

Still to do - contact florist, finalize arrangements with caterer, get ahold of organist.

Bar Exam Day 3

The test is finally over.

After the stress of the last two days, today felt easy. It was almost like they gave us softball questions. Overall, I don't think I did too badly. I had an answer for every question - even if I had to boldly assert my made up rule law on occasion :)

I won't offer any words of advice on the test itself - those will come after I find out if I passed! My tips to future Ohio bar takers are:

• take some kind of cushion - you'll spend 2 1/2 days sitting on a metal folding chair and by the middle of the second day your back will be screaming at you.
• make sure you can stand to use your ink pen for three hours at a stretch if you're handwriting.
  
• definitely dress in layers - the room has the potential to be freezing cold, especially if it's raining outside and you're wet.
  
• work on developing your bladder of steel - there are only three restrooms for 1200 people. The lines at the restroom right before the start of a testing session are extremely long.
  
• if you feel the need to socialize, arrange to stay at the same hotel as your friends
• make a pact with your friends not to discuss the test
• you're going to be too tired to study on Tuesday and Wednesday nights
• there is nothing to eat in the vicinity of the hotels so you're stuck with the hotel restaurant unless you bring snacks of your own.
  
• there's no point in rushing toward the doors after the test - if you're in the back of the room like I was there's going to be a bottleneck by the time you get to the exits and you're not going to get out of the parking lot anytime soon anyway.
  

That's it so far. I'm just glad to be home. Now I need to figure out what to do with myself now that I don't have to obsessively study.

Bar Exam Day 2

I've concluded that today was more a test of endurance than a test of legal knowledge. Today was the second full day of sitting on a hard, metal chair in a freezing room. Instead of aggravating my carpal tunnel syndrome by writing for six hours, I spent the six hours today filling in bubbles for a multiple choice test.

Supposedly, the morning and afternoon portions of the MBE are of the same difficulty. I wouldn't be surprised to find that there is a significant drop in score between the morning and afternoon sessions. By the time the afternoon rolled around I was too tired and in too much pain to really give thought to the questions. I found myself wanting to just pick an answer and get it over with. That wouldn't have done any good though because no one is allowed to leave before the end of the time for the exam and until the proctors have collected all the materials.

Tomorrow is the final portion - six more essays over three hours. Then begins the wait until the end of October for results.

Bar Exam Day 1

Is over!!!!!

I think the anticipation was the worst part. It's such a huge test that the mere thought of the test is almost worse than the test itself.

It was great to see all of the other Chase people at the Chase tent this morning and many thanks to the Chase alums for providing breakfast and lunch.

Many thanks also to St. Joseph of Cupertino since I was able to at least come up with an answer for each question, whether or not I actually knew anything about the topic.

The worst is over I think. Tomorrow is the MBE and I know most of the stuff for that and I'm good at multiple choice questions. Thursday is the final part of the essays and I'm somewhat able to narrow down the topics based on the questions we had today.

Dessert Making and Bridezillas

So, I just finished making two desserts for tomorrow's food day at work.  Cherry Cobbler and a dirt cake. Mmmmm...I love the cobbler recipe I found.  The crust is essentially a pound cake.  If I were serving it at a home dinner I would have whipped up some sweetened whipped cream to go with it, but we have limited refrigerator space at work and my dirt cake will be taking up a chunk of the refrigerator.

Wedding update:  We have gone cake tasting and have booked our baker.  Cakes by Clarissa we did a tasting of her devil's food and it was exquisite.  The cake will be three tiers: devils food with raspberry filling, marble with a whipped chocolate filling and strawberry with buttercream filling.  It will be fairly plain - the cake will be covered with fondant and each tier will have navy blue ribbon around the bottom.  I couldn't find a topper that didn't cause me to go into a semi-rant (that's a whole 'nother post) so I've decided on flowers for the top.  I'm thinking orange and red gerber daisies to go with the flowers I want for my bouquet.

On to Bridezillas.

While I was in the kitchen making the desserts, the show Bridezillas came on TV.  I know it's a reality show and they edit the events to create the most drama possible.  The episode had the usual "It's MY Day" whines but there was an argument between one of the brides and her husband-to-be.  This woman was telling her fiance that he was stupid and his family was stupid and everything he and his family did was stupid.  Whenever he would try to get a word in, she would shriek for him to shut up. 

It got me wondering how long some of these marriages actually last.  I got the sense that the bride had absolutely no respect for her husband-to-be.  If she doesn't respect him, then why is she marrying him?  If she gets this upset over one day, shouldn't he be worried that the rest of the marriage will be filled with much more stressful events that might provoke an even worse meltdown? 

My musing while mixing filling for the dirt cake was that these couples likely don't believe that the marriage is meant to last forever.  Me personally - I don't care what else happens, as long as Adam, Deacon Dave and our parents are there at the church I'm happy.  That's all I need. 

So why do I watch Bridezillas?  I don't very often, but nothing else more edifying was on TV tonight.  When I do watch, it's to remind myself that I don't want to be like that.

More Wedding Updates

We have booked our reception venue. We went with Norlyn Manor outside of Batavia. Tomorrow we have a cake tasting.

Wedding Update

Our required Pre-Cana and NFP classes are done.

We meet with Deacon Dave on Tuesday.  We've decided to go with the marriage ceremony outside of mass as neither of our families are Catholic and Deacon Dave has agreed to officiate.

Pre-Cana - check

Tomorrow is NFP and later this week we have the first meeting with the deacon. 

I've decided on the first reading - from Tobit 8.  It's one of my non-negotiables because there's a Divine slap upside the head associated with that reading.   Adam is choosing the other readings.

Bridesmaids Dresses Have Been Chosen!

I'm going with Alfred Angelo Separates.  The top is a v-neck in navy with an ivory beaded sash and the bottom is a long flared skirt in navy.

In other news:  Since I had my gallbladder out and was started on heart medication two weeks ago, I have finally actually started to feel good!

Random Musing

I was watching TV yesterday and one of those pharmaceutical ads came on.  Have we really become so lazy as a society that we have to reduce every condition to a two or three letter acronym?  Is it really that much trouble to say "peripheral artery disease"?  Do we have to say PAD? 

Sigh. I feel old :)

Wedding Planning Update

School is over so now it's time to get to some serious wedding planning. Here's where I am so far:

Church - check (Immaculate Heart of Mary)
Pre-Cana - Scheduled for next weekend
Dress - check (Maxcinda from Bridal Online Store)
Guest List - check, but it's way bigger than I wanted
Photographer - check, and even better he's free since he'd my older brother.
Bride's attendants - check
Groom's attendants - not sure about this one yet.
Flowers - I'm thinking yellow roses and orange and red Gerber daisies, but haven't met with a florist yet.
Bridesmaid dresses - I've decided on a color, but we haven't found the dresses yet. The color will be navy blue.
Rehearsal dinner - I have an idea of what I want to have. I'm planning the rehearsal dinner as all of Adam's family live 1000 miles away.

The reception is proving to be a problem. My father is paying and my mother is not liking some of my choices. My first choice is one that my mother thinks is too far away from the church. None of the venues that are closer fit within the budget I've been given though. I finally told mom that she has until Wednesday to find somewhere closer to the church and within budget or I would go ahead and start making arrangements with my first choice.

So that's where things stand right now.

T Minus 4

Graduation is at 1pm today - Yahoo!

Mark your calendars!

We have a wedding date: 10/16/2009.

Offer it Up?

Can anyone offer any help with the concept of offering something up? 

I spent two hours trying to be perfectly still during a medical test yesterday.  Toward the end of the test I was getting very tired and cranky and was starting to have some muscle spasms from trying not to move for so long.  The thought came to me that I should just offer up my discomfort, but then I realized that I'm not sure what that means.

I've been a bad blogger, so here's some prettiness.

To the biker I almost ran over today.

I'm really sorry about that. However, it would have been less terrifying for everyone involved if you hadn't been wearing all black, after dark and if you weren't riding in the same lane as oncoming traffic.

The view this morning.

I don't know which is more sad...

The fact that I got carded when buying NyQuil today or the fact that I'm so sick that I had to stop and try to remember when my birthday was.

I think it's time to take the NyQuil and go to bed.

I feel inadequate....

Adam and I went to mass today at Old St. Mary's in Over the Rhine. We didn't have any of the kids with us so we thought we'd go visit a different parish.

We sat in our pew and watched these large families come traipsing in - the girls were all in their mantillas and the boys were all wearing ties. They all sat so perfectly and quietly during mass. There was no visible elbowing of younger siblings. They weren't pretending to lead the choir. The parents didn't have to drag one of them out to the narthex halfway through the homily because he was deliberately doing something to make his sister cry.

The mass was beautiful and reverent, but I got lost in the Latin. Overall, it was a nice visit, but I think I'll stick with IHM where there are other families with awful kids :)