I know it's not Martha Stewart but...

We are going to be published! Okay, so it is only the Daily Bruin, but it's something isn't it? We were married at the UCLA Faculty Center and the Daily Bruin is doing a news article on weddings held there, so they contacted us for an interview and photos. So, for anyone planning on getting married in LA, here is a review for you! We did the interview via email (boy have times changed), so here is the copy:

When did your wedding take place? Our wedding was on 08.09.08 in the evening around 5 pm
Why did you choose the Faculty Center for your wedding? We wanted an outdoor venue that was affordable and that reflected our love of teaching. My husband is a UCLA alumnus, so it ended up being the perfect venue. We also wanted great pictures, and the campus is beautiful. I had eaten in the faculty center for the Los Angeles Times book awards and was very impressed with the food and the location, so I figured it would be worth checking out.
What did you like about the venue? It is all inclusive, the ceremony and reception in one place. The food and service were wonderful, our guests are still raving about the cocktail hour and the service. The Viennese sweet table was to die for! Ali (the manager) made it a very easy experience and he understood my vision.
How many people attended the ceremony? 122 guests were there for the ceremony and reception.
What do you think you will remember most about the ceremony and your experience with the faculty center? Honestly, right after the ceremony Ali (the manager at the faculty center) whisked Daryl and I away into a private room with our own hors d’oeuvres and a bottle of champagne. We were only there for about 15 minutes, but it was the best 15 minutes of the night – we got to spend time with each other as a married couple for the first time before running off to take pictures at Royce Hall. Also, the hors d’oeuvres were amazing!
Overall we will remember the intimate setting with all of the wonderful landmarks of UCLA – our pictures turned out amazing because of the beauty of the campus.
And finally, how are you connected to UCLA? My husband graduated from UCLA in 1997 with a degree in political science and I have attended the book festival there almost every year.

Any other information you would like to include about your wedding would be welcome. We had our rehearsal dinner the night before at the UCLA Faculty Center, 08.08.08, which was also a surprise party for my Grandma who turned 90 on that day.

I love reliving my wedding day! I'm sure everyone else is sick of it, but I will love it forever.



~Calioc

Real Inspiration

This post was inspired by a blog that I read regularly "For the Lack of Money" - Lady T has been a blogging inspiration to me; she always comes up with cute and functional ideas that seem to fit what I've been looking for.

If you read, or have read, my blog from the beginning then you know that I've posted many photos that were my inspiration. I've never found that one perfect inspiration board, so I just pieced together pictures to create inspiration. I posted in March about my inspiration for centerpieces and flowers, I have a folder on my computer full of nothing but inspiration photos, and I have a collage I made from magazine cut outs.
So, now, following in the footsteps of many brides before me, here are the inspiration boards I made of my own wedding. If I hade found these before my wedding it would have made my planning much easier! I used a program from http://www.bighugelabs.com/ (which I found on Lady T's website). Click on any image to enlarge.

Inspiration board #1: Daisy Love

Inspiration board #2: Wedding Bliss

The 2nd picture on the bottom row of this board reminds me that I never posted about making my veil. I'll try to do that soon.

It is amazing how something that is pictured in your mind turns out perfectly in the end. Each bride has her own vison, and it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, when a bride sets her mind to it she can make that vision a reality.

~ Calioc

Ceremony and Vows

A very special friend of mine, known as The Rev, offered to do our ceremony for us. This was one of the best wedding decisions I made. He is a fellow teacher. I believed strongly that I wanted a ceremony that focused on the history of love and one that contained elements of teaching. More of a "lesson on love" than a sermon on love. Mr. Calioc and I decided to put our trust and faith in The Rev and gave him only a few simple guidelines when it came to what we wanted in the ceremony. We let him write it without showing it to us. We heard it for the first time during our ceremony, and it was more than I could have ever hoped for.

If you are interested in reading the ceremony please click on on this link.

~ Calioc

The Knot, The Nest, The Egg...

I'm sure there are many couples out there that get married and don't have to listen to their families bug them about kids constantly. We are NOT one of those couples. I'm 35 and Mr. Calioc is 33, so according to our families we need to start now. I want to enjoy at least one year of marriage without pregnancy; seriously, we were only together for 2 1/2 years before getting married. At first it was a fairly constant struggle trying to explain my pov; my husband didn't care either way -- we could start now or wait a year. But, both of our families kept bugging us to start now, until...

We live in a nice, but very small, condo in Irvine with a downstairs neighbor that smokes. Every time I walk up the steps I smell his smoke, every time he does laundry I smell his smoke, and whenever we run the AC I smell his smoke. Mr. Calioc smells it too, and so does our cat.

So, Mr. Calioc did some research on pregnancy and 2nd hand smoke; he also did research on ways to prevent the smoke from getting into our condo. Here is what he learned:

• Legally, there is nothing we can do because we live in condos and not apartments.
• We can replace our filter, but that will only make it smell better, it doesn't actually remove any of the harmful smoke.
• We can buy an "air purification" system, but it is generally believed by "experts" that these purifications systems only make the air smell better and only get rid of larger particles that cause allergies, but not small smoke particles.


• I am technically a "high risk" pregnancy because of my age, and therefore I need to be more careful (though I am very healthy, so age is not so much an issue).


• Second hand smoke can directly effect the fetus and has been linked to birth defects and low birth weight.

So, what do we do? We move! Yes, we have pushed up our timeline to buy a house. The plan is to start looking this May so we can buy before the end of summer. I can go off the pill as soon as we go into escrow, or maybe even sooner. I (knock on wood) don't expect to get prego right away (I was a runner for many years with lots of low weight related female issues), so we need some time to try. Our "ideal" time to get prego is August because I am a teacher and it would be great to take my leave during the end of the school year and have all summer to get used to being a mommy.

Okay, sorry so long. This is a topic that will come up again!

~ Calioc

New Year's Resolutions

This is a personal thing I am doing, but I'd love to see what other newlyweds are planning for their resolution(s). I know that "experts" say it is better to have one resolution to focus on, but I'm not going to listen to their advice. I've been successful at resolutions in the past; my secret? Writing them down on post-it notes and sticking the notes on my bathroom mirror so I have to stare at it every morning. If you do it for 21 days it can become a habit. Good luck to all that are making resolutions this year; now here are mine.

1. I am going to start running/jogging again. My initial goal is twice a week, and hopefully I can increase that over time.
2. I'm giving up all food and drinks in which I do not understand the ingredients -- if I can't make it, I won't eat/drink it.

The rest of these are more goals than they are resolutions, and some of them I set well before the new year came upon us, but I thought it might do me some good to write them down as well.

3. We are going to buy house by the end of summer.
4. We are going to start (trying for) a family as soon as that house is in escrow.
5. I am going to finish my master's program and project (even if it kills me!)
6. I am going to update my blog on a regular basis.

Okay, that's it for now. I'm sure I will think of more later and add them. So, what's your new years resolution(s)?

~ Calioc

Happy happy, joy joy!

I am done with this semester of my master's program. I turned in the first 3 chapters of my master's project, and I am still alive! Thank you to everyone that encouraged me when I was depressed and convinced I would never finish. I only have 2 semesters left and the hardest part is done!!!!!
I should have more time to blog now, unless the holidays take over. I will say that I'm very happy that Christmas shopping will be easy this year -- wedding pics for everyone! I'm in love with mpix.com -- way better than shutterfly, photoworks, or mypublisher! I made the mistake of ordering albums for our parents using mypublisher and we are very disappointed in the quality. We used them instead of mpix to save money, but I really don't think it was worth it.
Professional quality prints at mpix start at 19cents each and 5x7's are 99cents each. Well worth it!

bye for now!

Makes me sad...

My husband sent this video to me. We are both teaching compassion in our classes this week. I used the news video to help get my students on the emotional level needed to write about compassion. Thought I'd share it with you.

Click here to view the CNN News Video of Polly the Kitten.

It makes you wonder about some people. Why? Many of my students related it to the symbolisim of the mockingbird in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Is this depression?

I'm not exactly sure how to go about writing this, so I'm just going to write. I think I'm depressed. Well, maybe depressed is too strong of a word. I have nothing to be depressed about. I am happily married, I have a great job that (so far) has not been affected by the economy, and I now have two families that love me.

Yet, my usually energetic, take on the world, I can do anything attitude is failing me. I'm tired all the time, I've cancelled on two parties this month, and I spent my 4 day weekend doing nothing. This is not like me. Ugh. I know that some of it may stem from the dislike of my master's program that seems to be growing; but that can't be all of it.

Have you ever felt like this? I feel like I am always the most responsible person -- the one that gets things done, the one everyone trusts; but I don't want to be that person right now. I want it to be okay for me to flake, for me to crawl into bed and let everything fall apart without feeling guilty. But I can't.

I talked to my mom about it a little, but my issues always seem so trivial after talking to her. She always mentions my brother... now that could be its very own blog. My brother.

My brother was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder when he was 22 years old; he is now 33. He is currently living in a dual diagnosis group home and is attending outpaitent care 5 days a week. He's trying to get a job at Starbuck's and interviews this week. They agreed to interview him knowing that he has a felony on his record and lives in a group home -- kudos to them.

I really don't know where this post is going. I think I just needed to write without a set purpose. I cancelled my personal training appointment tonight and I've already decided not to go to my master's classes tomorrow night. On Sunday I'm going to my parent's house. I'm hoping that makes me feel better. Ugh. Bleh. Thanks for reading, sorry for not being my usually happy self.

Calioc

I can't believe I'm done!

Yes... I actually finished writing all of my thank you's! It only took me 3 months :-)

It felt so good writing that last note; like a huge weight is off of my shoulders. Now, I need to start working on Christmas cards. Yup, we are going to use a wedding picture for the Christmas card. I also need to start working on creating our wedding album. I think we are going to use mpix.com to create the album. I have a friend who is a pro photographer that is going to help me design it. We purchased a digital only package from our wedding photographer, so I have to purchase any albums or pics separatly. Which, by the way, is great because it turns out that I don't like our photographer! I did some VERY TASTEFUL boudoir photos for my husband's wedding present, and I really wish I had used her as my wedding photographer, but I had already signed a contract with the guy that did our engagement photos. C'est la vie.

I am going to try to update more regularly -- all of the mundane and crazy details of married life. If anyone ever has any ideas about what you want to know or hear about - just post a comment! Now that I've joined the married club I am sure I will have a different audience, or maybe those of us that have been following eachothers wedding blogs will continue to follow our married blogs.

The dress dilemma is still on... I'll keep ya updated.

Bye for now, Calioc

What to do with the dress?

First off, my dress has no garment bag -- it is just hanging in my closet like any other dress. The no garmet bag thing is a fairly long story that I wrote about earlier. I have two major stains on my dress: 1) the train and bottom of the dress is pretty much grey and black from dragging on the floor 2) I did spray tanning before the wedding, so some of it rubbed off on the dress -- mostly on the inside of the dress, but a little at the armpits.

So, the issue is -- what to do with the dress? The dress with alterations and tax ran me about $750.00. It will cost me about $200 to get it properly cleaned. According to Weddingbee, one of the best places for dress cleaning is Wed Clean. I've called around, and their prices are within range of everyone else.

If I keep the dress, I need to get it cleaned. If I sell the dress, I need to get it cleaned. Places like the Goodwill won't take the donation unless the dress is cleaned. Most places that sell dresses online charge a posting fee (about $25.00).

I could keep it and not clean it -- but why? I could just throw it away -- but OUCH! I mean, I've never paid this kind of money for a dress before and it just seems wrong to throw it out.

What should I do? I'm very conflicted by this. If I had an overwhealming feeling to keep the dress for sentiment or possibly my daughter, then this wouldn't really be an issue. But I don't feel that way, but I also don't feel like I should just get rid of it either.

Advice?