Today, I went shopping! I love shopping...especially when I have money to spend AND actually find something. Today was both. Yay me! (Oh Disney channel...what have you done to my life?) Anyway, today I hit up my favorite store, Plato's Closet and dug through all the shirts and dresses looking for cute summer deals...and I found one!

It's darling! Well, ok so it looks better on me than on the hanger...but still. It's adorable. Except it had one big problem...
(This is a dramatization. Do not try this at home.)

It had a black spot on the bodice! Seeing as how once I put this dress on I fell in love with it, I decided to take a chance on it. I asked the girl at the sales counter if I could have a discount on it as it was damaged, and she said yes and that when the dress came in a day or so ago it had no spot.

This means 1, it's a fresh spot and 2, most likely makeup. Now, I know nothing about stain removal. At all. Usually I have a little funeral for whatever I'm wearing when I eat Italian food. But, I do know about makeup removal! And I knew that the best way to get eye makeup off (which is very stubborn stuff!!) is to use special eye makeup remover.

So, when I got home, I got out the little pads we have to use for this very purpose. And guess what...
...it worked like a charm :-)

Yesterday, Dave and I received our first wedding present from his parents. Now, I know it's crazy early to be getting "showered," but this is a special case. You see, Dave's parents are missionaries to Zimbabwe, a country in southern Africa. His dad's a surgeon. And an obstetrician. And an optometrist. And an electrician. And basically anything else he needs to be. His mom is a school teacher, a hostess, a graphic designer, and basically an all-around awesome, strong woman.

But because they live in Africa for most of the year (coming home for 1 month a year to keep up Dad's surgical license, and 1 year every 4 for furlough), they will sadly miss all of our wedding showers coming up in the next year. And they have this traditional gift that they've given to all their boys as wedding presents (Dave has 3 older brothers).

Its a hand painted tea set from a pottery shop in Zimbabwe! Isn't it adorable?? The other brothers have zebra print sets, or giraffe print sets, or something else perhaps that I can't remember...but ours is so cute! I love the elephants marching around each piece! And that deep blue is gorgeous. Here, let me give you a closer look at a few of the pieces.


A huge tea pot, big enough to make tea for everyone!

A cookie plate.

Sugar bowl, milk pitcher (yes, I take my tea with milk and sugar. It's very British, or Zimbabwean, or something. Whatever it is, I'm hooked.).

Tea cups. Well, actually they're cocoa mugs I think, but they're way awesomer than tea cups because tea cups don't hold enough tea! Yes, awesomer is a word. Oh, and there are 6 of these, not just 2. But since they all look the same, I figured you'd get the idea.

The best tea in the world! Yummy. And while this "goes with" the tea set, I'm not waiting 'till I'm married to brew up this wonderfulness! Haha we'll just get more later anyway.

This little goody is just for me. It's a hand painted bowl for holding earings or rings. So cute!

Don't you just hate the feeling of rough skin? I do. It's gross, and scratchy, and desert-like. No, I don't like desert skin. But I use this amazing thing on my skin that is much more dessert and much less desert. And I make it myself! It's super easy, and smells good.

All it is, is sugar and oil.

Simple, huh? I use brown sugar and olive oil, but you can use white sugar and vegetable oil, or any combination of the above. I have heard that baby oil clogs pores, so I don't use that. But I have no idea if that's true or not.

Basically, you get a jar and put some brown sugar in it (not too full! you can always add more later, but you can't take it away!). Then you pour some oil on top and mix mix mix! You want it to be sort of a paste, not quite solid and not too runny. If it's too runny, add more sugar. Too dry? Add more oil.

Then you scrub it on in the shower (its an amazing exfoliate!) and be sure to rinse it off, or you'll be all sticky! I use it before I shave, so that I have sweet smooth legs (pun intended)!

Go ahead, give it a try! Your skin likes a sweet treat as much as you do!

For the first two years of our relationship, Dave and I were long-distance sweethearts. He left for college, and came back one month later declaring that he couldn’t get me off his mind, and would I be interested in dating him? Naturally, after crushing on him for two years, I wanted nothing more! But it was still a hard decision. After all, he was going to school five hours away! I was crazy about him, but I was afraid that the distance would be too much for such an attractive young man suddenly surrounded by hundreds of attractive, eligible young ladies.

But, obviously, he stuck with me! We went through two years of separation, during which time he would come home about once a month and take up residence on my parent’s couch, since his parents don’t live in the States most of the time. At first, the longest time we were apart was seven weeks over our first Christmas, when he spent three weeks in Zimbabwe visiting his parents. Then, last summer he was gone for 11 weeks. I thought I was gonna die. He was on a traveling team for school, and they toured the East Coast. Last summer I rarely went to sleep before 2:00 am, because I would wait up for him to call me so we could talk…which could never happen before his host family went to bed.

That summer, I held on to the fact that at the end of the summer, we’d be going to the same school and I could see Dave every day. It was such a blissful feeling to move in that first day. I was sad to leave my parents for the first extended time in my life, but I was so excited to be near my Mister that it didn’t matter. I just knew that we’d be together every day, and then we’d get married, and we’d never have to do long distance again. Halleluiah!

So guess what? Today I got up at 6:45. In the morning. I didn’t realize morning existed before nine. But I got up at 6:45 to say good bye to Dave for yet another summer of long distance. Like all the other times, I’m terribly sad he’s gone, but I’m glad for him because it’s for a good reason. I mean, he has a full time job! Which is amazing in itself in this economy. And this is a great job, he’s gonna love it!

But I miss him.

Did you know that the average wedding in the US costs $27,000? That’s actually more than one year at the very expensive Christian university I attend. And I can’t afford to go there. This whole wedding planning thing will be oh so fun.

So, how do I go about tackling this business? I started by registering for all the best wedding websites out there. They have planning pages, and galleries of gowns, and bunches of bouquets, and all the dresses they have listed are designer. Which means they cost on average this: $$$, and more often this: $$$$. What exactly those dollar signs mean, I don’t know. All I know is that they scare me a little bit. Because I’m pretty sure my entire budget consists of this: $. Oh this will be fun.

So when I realized that these wedding websites are catering either to the wealthy socialite princesses who have billionaire Daddies willing to cater to their every whim, or the normal middle-class ladies who have no apparent problem with taking on loans rivaling that of our national debt, I decided that this may not be the best place for me to get all my ideas.

So I started looking at what their ideas were, and stumbled across this article titled “The $10K Wedding Budget Challenge.” Here, the discussed how they challenged wedding planners in different places across the country to plan beautiful weddings on only ten thousand dollars. While I found some of the things listed here somewhat useful, I found two main problems with this idea. One, the cost of hiring a wedding planner to plan the entire shebang costs upwards of $40,000 (four times as much as the actual budget for these weddings…). Second, $10K is still not small enough to reflect my budget. Now, I am confident that I can plan my wedding on my budget, and that it will still be gorgeous, but I don’t quite know where to begin! It seems to me that any vendor prefers to cater to heiresses. I can’t imagine why no one would be interested in someone like me, hoping for big savings, not looking to shell out millions.

Man, I should go into the wedding planning business. I’d be rich!

So remember when a week and a half ago I promised you a story “tomorrow?” Well…yes. I realize it is not the 16^th today, and I am sorry. However, it is yesterdays tomorrow…just in case that means anything to anyone. But I digress.

In case you hadn’t guessed, that gorgeous ring symbolizes something quite exciting. It means that I am now engaged (!!!!!). I have a rock on a very important finger, and in the not-too-distant future will be walking down the aisle wearing a white dress. I’m getting married!!!!

So, I promised you a story. Before I begin, I feel that a disclaimer is necessary: while I find this story to be amazing, the most romantic of my life thus far actually, I realize that to those of you who are only just meeting me, it may not mean a thing. So many of the things that happened that night were so special for us, I don’t expect you all to understand all of it. But I think you may enjoy the story anyway.

Dave and I have been dating for 2 and a half years. We had been talking about getting married for a while, but I had no idea when he was going to pop the question. I was thinking it might be this summer, maybe in May when we get home from school for holiday. In any case, when we went home for Easter break early, a proposal was the last thing I was expecting.

A few weeks earlier, I had planned a shopping trip with Emily, since I needed a semi-formal dress for an event coming up at school. We were going to spend all day Friday out on the town, tracking down the perfect dress at the perfect price (meaning as close to free as possible…I am a poor college student!). So, Friday morning, I got out of bed and got dressed for a shopping day. She had brought a friend, Amy, home from school, so she went with us, as did Emily’s sister April and my sister Sarah. Before we left, Emily had me grab a “springy” outfit, because she wanted to do one of her signature photo shoots when we got back.

That girl is camera happy.

So, we go out, spend 2 hours in Plato’s, and then hit the mall. I preferred the idea of going to Goodwill or something, because something from the 80’s is bound to cost less than something from Macys. But, whatever. I don’t look that good in 80’s anyway. So, we go in and scout Deb, in the process getting thoroughly glittered. We tore through the Disney store (there was a great blue one…but unfortunately it only came in size 3T…oh to be a kid again…). By this time, we had worked up an appetite so we hit the food court for some sustenance—aka ice cream. Fantastic way to fit into obscenely tiny dresses.

After a small vanilla cone, I lead the fast-fading troupe of girls to JC Pennys, to check out their hot pre-Easter sales. We tore through their racks, everyone grabbed something to try on for fun…I grabbed 20 to try on for serious. I was getting sick of shopping. After misgauging my size (darn those dresses run small…), I found this great ivory colored one for only $20! Woo! That’s speaking my language! So, we bought it and took off.

When we arrived back at Emily’s, I was waaay to tired to be a model, and I told her so. So, we all went upstairs and crashed.

Then, we decided we wanted to see “our boys” so we took off again for Carl’s house.

Once there, we discovered (with much glee) that we got to watch a chick flick for once! So, we put in Failure to Launch, which was really quite hilarious, and ate dinner. Grilled cheese sandwiches, I think. Unfortunately, Carl had a meeting at church at 9:30, so we all got kicked out around 9:20. Ok, not kicked out. Carl left, so we all sat around staring at each other for about 30 seconds before Emily decided to take Amy home, so Dave and I took off, too.

It was a gorgeous, cloudless night, and still so early, so we decided it was a shame to go home already. So, since we were up there anyway, Dave suggested we go stargazing at Five Pines, something we had been talking about for a long time.

Unfortunately, in the 3.8 minutes it took to drive over there from Carl’s, I started thinking about how Five Pines might not want us stargazing on their property uninvited. And of course I voiced my concern. And of course Dave told me not to worry about it. So, of course we went stargazing.

We lay down on one of the big tables in the nature circle and took in the breathtaking view. Then, I started thinking again about stargazing at Five Pines without permission, so we got up to leave. We got in the car, and drove out past the Activity Center. This is when we noticed that one of the lights was on.

Since Dave and I had both worked here in the past, we knew how to get in if we needed to, so Dave suggested we go in and shut the light off. I let him, and I stayed in the car. Silly me.

So, Dave goes in and shuts off the light, then comes back out and says, “Rachel, come on in! I think there’s something here you should see.” So, I’m mildly curious and majorly suspicious. I mean, how cool would it be to propose at Five Pines, where we met and fell in love??

So, I go inside and voila! A gorgeous candlelit setting for two, a fire in the fireplace, flowers everywhere, and when I turn around, Dave on one knee! (!!!!!)

So, neither one of us can really remember what he said next…just that he ended with “Will you marry me?” I, brilliantly, asked “Is this for real??” before squealing a very excited “YES!!” When he got up, he sat me down and poured two cups of tea, then went to cut the cheesecake. Unfortunately, he forgot a knife so he cut it with his fork, silly boy. Once we each had our tea and cheesecake, he sat down and started telling me how all this had come about.

I was too excited to eat. Imagine, me, too excited to eat cheesecake. Yeah, it was weird.

So he told me that everyone (meaning all my best friends) were totally in on in and waiting for me to call them so they could come swarm us. And that Mike (our small group leader when we attended Five Pines) was “on call” with a wicked awesome camera to take pictures for us.

So, this is when this epic dilemma comes into my life: I was not dressed for a proposal, but it had happened anyway! I was wearing my comfy sweater, nothing gorgeous or glamorous...then I remembered (ok so Dave reminded me) of my clothes from the never-quite-happened photo shoot and my new dress out in the car. So i went and got them. And decided against them. Even though I didn't look glamorous. So there, fashion. I felt beautiful even though I wasn't wearing anything glamorous. Ha ha ha.

So, I called Emily, who had no service on her phone. So I called Holly, who ran out of Aaron and Sarah’s so fast she nearly forgot her shoes. And Holly called Emily and got through. And somehow Carl got grabbed and dragged along.

And they came and attacked me. Us. Tackled. It was quite exciting.

And I called home to tell them the good news ASAP, and Dad told Mom that I was thinking about it. And I laughed. Hard.

And Mike took pictures, and everyone but me ate cheesecake, and I couldn’t stop smiling, or being distracted by the bling—er—ring on my finger, and I still can’t stop being distracted by it. It’s very exciting.

Oh, since I never said, it was Friday April 10^th…it was a very Good Friday ;-)

Story tomorrow :)