Belly Pics

Rats

I work in a winery warehouse and for five years now I have to deal with all sorts of creatures. One of the first things I did for the company was set up with The Hitman pest control to come out once a month and spray down the building. We had every insect you could imagine coming in and making a home here. We are right on the river and there are many access areas that make it possible for them to crawl in. I still get some spiders, bees, moths, silverbugs and the occasional potato bug and I have to deal with it... only a few times I've had to call one of the guys over to take care of something really bad.

I've almost stepped on a snake at the outside front door and I've known that I've had a few rats in here over the years. (and I still wear flip flops!) About 3 years ago I had a smaller rat, maybe a mouse? in here for a few weeks before it was caught... it left droppings on all the counter tops in the kitchen which made for a lovely job of disinfecting the kitchen everyday.

Last week I noticed rat traps in our building next door... big rat traps...

Last Saturday morning when I came in I saw that there were rat droppings all over the garbage bin... great they were getting in here again. I also noticed dirty scratches on the corner of the counter top where they were scrambling to get up and then foot prints all over the counter tops in the kitchen. I mentioned it to my boss the next time I saw him and he said that The Hitman would be putting rat traps all around the outside of the building to help prevent them from getting in here in the first place. It's been really hot here, in the 100's so they are coming in here to cool off and look for things to eat.

When I came back to work on Wednesday, Cole and Guy were here working and I happened to be talking to Guy from upstairs in my office down to him in the tasting room, so I was looking over the edge of the office and out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of a large brown rat running underneath our barrel racks in the back of the winery. I said "Oh, shit! there's the rat." so Guy walked around to look and we both saw it run for cover underneath the pallets in the corner.

He told me that they would set up a trap for it. Cole confirmed later that he did put a trap in the back corner so not to go back there if I didn't want to see a dead rat. They had caught the one next door the day before.

I came in yesterday and asked Cole if the rat was caught... he said no and sure enough I found the counter tops dirty again. Not really thinking much about the rat(s) when cleaning up last night I threw away the left over bread and olive oil into the garbage bin and left. This garbage can I bought for the tasting room was $160.00... and it was so worth it because it looked nice and the top kept shut really tight. Well Kevin, our handyman, accidentally broke it one day so the top stays ajar just a bit... just enough for a rat to climb into it.

This morning I came in to see that the rat(s) got in the garbage and tore it all apart. The lining of the plastic bag was ripped to shreds and after poking the garbage can with my foot to make sure they still weren't in there I opened the top and found that ALL the bread was gone. They really got a nice treat because there was olive oil, high quality at that, poured over the bread. Those little fuckers ate a LOT! Which makes me think that there's more than one rat in here. I made my way around the tasting bar and around the corner and I stop short because half of the walls insulation on the back wall was ripped out. WTF?

Seriously I'm stunned, how the hell did that happen? The insulation was hanging, part of it still attached to the wall, down all over the stairs to my office. I literally had to crawl up the stairs underneath the insulation into my office. I grabbed some scissors and cut away the attached part and thew everything up over the stairwell down to the ground. I then carefully dragged it all away from a air-conditioning fan on the floor into the back of the winery.

So I'm thinking about what to do with it because I can't leave it there and have the rats nesting in it and then I think shit, that's probably how it all fell out, they were trying to next in it up in the wall. These rats must be huge! They are the giant rats in "The Princess Bride" that Westley had to wrestle with.

Anyway I decided to call Guy even though I know he's up in Tahoe. His cell phone just rings and rings and then goes into voice mail... I leave a message. (And he still hasn't called me back and that was 2 hours ago! He better be bike riding or something) And Cole, who would have been here today, left for a weekend trip up north last night. I'm here all alone.

It's to big to put in the garbage bins outside, I can't leave it all outside and I can't leave it in the building next door either. So I'm just sitting here thinking of a solution and I remember that our recycling dumpster was just emptied out yesterday. So I go down to the hardware store to get some heavy duty gloves.

As I'm standing in the isle looking at all the gloves trying to figure out the best gloves for removing rat infested insulation I notice that there is not one pair of heavy duty gloves in women sizes. On the right side there are a few "dainty" gardening gloves for women but nothing else. Sexist!

Anyway I found a pair that I thought could handle the job and I go pay for them. As I was leaving the guy who checked me out said "nice gloves". I just wonder what the fuck he thought I was going to do with these heavy duty man gloves.

When I got back to the winery I got ready for the job, I put on the gloves and grabbed a broom. I used the broom to poke at the pieces before I picked them up to make sure there weren't any rats in there. Piece by piece I dragged it all out to the dumpster and threw it all in... I had to make 5 trips. Once that was done, still wearing my gloves, I took care of the inside garbage bin situation.

So now I don't know what's next... I'll probably find them making babies up here in my office tomorrow.

"See you at the Wedding!"

I just had my first, "Okay well I guess next time I'll see you it will be at the wedding!" that was from my boss... I can't believe how close it is!
He's going out of town and by the time he gets back, I'll be on vacation so we will not see each other till then.

Last Monday I got my dress, it fit perfectly! And then Jason and I got our marriage license, it was really exciting! I just have to do two more things besides shopping for the honeymoon. Finish the favors (which might get done tonight!) and take the damn stickers off the vases. Otherwise we are done... we have everyone paid in full.

So now on my days off I just get to play by the pool! Next Tuesday my mom and I are doing a wine tasting/luncheon trip to Sonoma, just the two of us so I'm really looking forward to that.
Anyone want to rent us a limo? Just let us know... ;)

Shower

So last Sunday was my bridal shower and it couldn't have been more fun!
I had a great group of 15 women there, including my soon to be Mother-in-law who traveled all the way from Southern California.

Heidi and my mom planned everything and it turned out so wonderful. Here are some pictures:










So that just flew by! I can't believe it's already almost another Sunday again... Jason makes the countdown by Sundays so he would say 4 more Sundays! I just say now a few more weeks!

Last night while I was cooking dinner Jason made me laugh so hard. It probably won't be as funny here but he said, "Can you believe the wedding is coming so soon? Do you have a dress?" But it was also the way he said it. Anyway I'm still laughing today.

Last night I also finished the ceremony in its entirety! I've been working on that for a few weeks now it's done! We just have to finish our vows. :)

This morning I made the final payments to the caterer, photographer and florist!

All that's really left is the D.J. and the Cake, which I'm sure we'll take care of next week. It's so nice to know that that's out of the way, plus Jason will have to quit staring at the savings account every night asking me what the final payments are. (Seriously every night... it got to the point where it was ridiculous, I would just laugh at him)

I have my dress fitting this Monday at 10am and then we are meeting with the D.J. at 11am and then off to get our marriage license.

I just have two more projects to finish, the favors (which I'm almost done) and the vases, argh, I have 45 small clear vases for floating candles and rose petals but they all came with the little stickers attached to the bottom and are such a PAIN-IN-THE-ASS to remove. (Why the hell do these companies do this?!?) I bought Goof-off so hopefully that will help.

I know my blogs aren't so clever these days but I have lots to do!!

One month to go!

Wow I can't believe how fast time has gone by... we are really down to just a few more weeks and all of it is going to be so much fun! It's funny because just in the last few weeks as I have been finishing up on all the details I haven't had a single anxiety dream. I'm so relaxed and ready to have fun. I'm glad that I was on top of getting everything done in time for us both to relax and enjoy this last month.

I'm pretty much finished with all the planning... we tied up a lot of loose ends last week before Jason went to his BACHLOR party! He and 8 other guys rented a house up in Tahoe and had the best time, he now feels he's part of the club and is very ready to get married.

I have my bridal shower this coming Sunday and I can't wait! Heidi and my mom have been working very hard on making it a very special day for me and all the guests and it's all been a surprise so far... which I love. Because of all the planning I've been doing it's really refreshing to have someone else plan something for me.

Also Marsha and Ed are coming into town so Marsha can come to the shower too... I can't wait to see them both! And so Jason and Marc will get to spend some time alone with their dad too, which is nice cause usually us girls are always around!

Then we have Mother's day weekend, my bachlorette weekend, the start of our vacation weekend and then the wedding weekend!

When I was breaking it down for Jason at lunch the other day he was like "wait, what?" not realizing how close it really is. lol

So all we really need to do is finalize some vendor payments, get our marriage license and work on our vows. There's probably more stuff... but little so I'm not worried about it. I've been using The Knot's website (lots of great stuff for brides) to keep track of my check list and I'm now down to 38 things to do... that was from 189 things to do so I think I'm doing good. :)

2 months to go!

So we had a great weekend of fun, plus we accomplished lots of key things for the wedding. First off I finally found flower girl dresses that would work, Jackie ordered them and they arrived at her house last week. I talked to her last night and she said that they looked great but she hasn't had the girls try them on yet... but I have a feeling they will be perfect! :)

This last weekend was Jason's "Birthday weekend", his actual birthday was yesterday the 1st but we pretty much celebrated throughout the last 4 days. On Saturday night I cooked him a delicious meal of fresh halibut and salad. Then on Sunday he called me here at work and wanted to see if I wanted to go out to dinner, and of course I did, so he suggested Sushi! I'm a huge sushi fan, but he's wary of raw fish so I'm slowly getting him to try different things. I was so excited that he wanted to have sushi... I normally have to drag him there every once in a while. We went to Ume in Windsor, my second favorite sushi restaurant, but now its my first favorite. We had a roll that they used soy bean paper instead of seaweed and it's the best thing I've ever eaten. We loved everything we had! Jason even had sake and ate everything I ordered. Still no sashimi but I'll get him there one day. :)

We then stopped at John Ash on the way home for a drink. I know the bartender there and the bar is really cool so it's one of our favorite places to grab a drink on the way home. We then rented No Country for Old Men and when we got home I made home made chocolate chip cookies for Jason and we watched the film. It was very good and interesting.

Monday we had planned a very busy day. First I got up early and went to the gym, I then stopped at the store to get cleaning supplies. I was going to scrub down the whole house while Jason watched the first Yankee's game of the year. But Jason called while I was at the store and told me that the game had been rained out so he wanted us to run our "wedding" errands first and then come back and clean the house. So I came home, showered and we were off to Earthworks to pick up my wedding ring and look for one for him.

My wedding ring turned out so beautiful, the jeweler did such and amazing job!!! I didn't want to take it off... but I had to. We looked at rings there for Jas and there was one there that he did like... but for the price I thought it was a little to boring and dull. We both knew that he didn't want anything flashy or fancy but this to me wasn't good enough. So I talked him into looking at other places when we went to the other mall to shop for his suit.

We went to Macy's and he tried on a bunch of different suits... it took FOREVER... he is very particular to how the suits were looking and how they were fitting and wanted the sales man's opinion, etc. So it was exhausting for me because I knew what I thought looked great but it was getting him to the point where he agreed with me. It was the last suit he tried on that we were both "wow" it was perfect. Plus the size was perfect too... all he has to have done is the hemming on the pants. We then picked out the shirt, belt, socks, shoes and we were ready to go! Because he has a Macy's account and it was his birthday month, we saved over 50% on the whole outfit, putting us under budget by about $400.00, which made him very happy!

We were both starving at this point and wanted to get going, we were going to be going to Freedman's to get planting supplies, but we stopped at the jewelry counter at Macy's for a quick to look at rings and we found the perfect ring! It was great because of the savings there too it was also under budget. He was so happy and excited that everything worked out and he can't wait to be wearing everything on the big day!

He said to me that he's starting to feel like it's really happening. I have been doing so much in the last 8 months that I already felt that but for him this was the first time that he was seeing the whole picture of the wedding and that made him so excited.

We decided to blow off going to Freedman's because it was getting late in the afternoon and so we went home. I still had to go out and get him a birthday present! I quickly ate lunch and went out... I knew what I had in mind so it was just a matter of finding it. The first place I went to had it... I was getting him a piano bench. He's been sitting on a chair with books, which I know is not good for his back so I wanted to get him something much more comfortable since he's sits there and plays for hours every night.

When I got home he had already started on the windows and blinds. So sweet, I told him he didn't have to help me. This is the biggest job in our house since we have windows so high up, you have to get the ladder out and it's so time consuming. While he worked on that I started with the upstairs. We worked and worked and hours later we were done and exhausted. I just wanted the house so clean for his birthday and since we both had the day off I wanted all the chores to be done so we could both relax.

So since the house was so clean we decided to go out to dinner. We went to Rosso's and it was perfect. We got a booth right away and had wine, pizza and salad. It was nice to know that we would be coming home to a clean house and had no plans for the next day, well except celebrating his birthday of course.

We stayed up till midnight to cheers to a happy birthday and quickly went to bed because we were so tired.

The next morning I woke up early, such a habit of me lately especially on my days off, the days I work I want to sleep in until 9, but my days off I wake up around 7:30 wanted to do stuff. So I layed there waiting for him to wake up because I was so excited to celebrate his 37th! Once he woke up I asked him what he wanted for breakfast and then went to the store.
When I came back I made us coffee and he opened his card and present from me. He had no clue of what I was getting him since it was something that he has never asked for. He loved it and was so surprised!

We had french toast, bacon and yogurt. Our plans for the day was that I was taking him out for lunch so I told him that we could do whatever he wanted that morning. He decided that he wanted to go to Freedman Brother's and get all the planting stuff done. I picked out all the flowers for one of the barrels in the backyard (yellow and orange!) and the flowers for the front yard barrel, we picked out 3 different tomato plants, and the rest of the herbs we need for the summer. We came back and did some planting, showered up and went to lunch.

He wanted to go to Sea Thai Bistro, which is one of our new favorite restaurants. They have the best Thai food I've ever had! So fresh and clean! We loved every single thing we ordered. Then we went over to mom and Daws' house for some cake and wine! We had a lot of fun and got home around 5:00. I played on the piano for a bit while he was on the phone with his cousin. It's so much more fun now to play with the new bench.

So our weekend of fun is over :( and we are tired today and back at work, but it was so worth it! We have so many events coming up in the next two months that it'll be nice to have a little relaxation this week. :)

Next Monday I'm going in for my second to last dress fitting... and I'm bringing my Mom and Heidi. Heidi needs to be there to learn how to bustle my dress, I'll have 8 bustles!! She's going to color coordinate the ribbons so Heidi will know which way it goes. I'm so excited to have them see me in the dress that fits correctly. It was so wonderful when she pinned me all up the last time and I was able to walk in it without holding it up! We are then going to go to Corte Madera to (hopefully) find a dress for both Heidi and my mom.

Time is flying by but we are pretty much finished except for a few minor details.

RSVP's are coming!

My favorite thing right now is getting the mail because all the RSVP's are coming in. I asked Jason (because he gets the mail first) if he wouldn't mind waiting for me to open them up and he said of course not. I know it's a little silly but I love opening them and most of them have cute comments so it just gets me all excited.

The feedback on the invitations has been so overwhelmingly great and I'm so glad that I did it, it was totally worth it.

Last night when Jason got home he called up to me saying that we had brought home a wedding present for us. Wow! Already? It was from two couples who live back in New York and when they were out here on vacation about 6 months ago they had met Jason at the Bottle Barn and he set up a private tasting with me at my winery for them. Anyway they loved how we took care of them, etc and so because they knew we were getting married this year they brought us back a present. They told Jason that they had to fight it through security because it was wrapped but they got it here. We opened it up and it's a beautiful crystal frame, we are going to wait and put a wedding photo in it. It was so sweet of them to do that.

I'm going in for my first dress fitting on Monday!

My mom and Heidi got together yesterday to work on my secret bridal shower... I'm not sure what's so secret about it though... I did hear rumors of a clown covered in balloons, riding a pony and eating BBQ chicken wings with his bare hands! No... I'm sure it'll all be so lovely! :) They are the best for doing it all. It's so nice to have something being planned for you and you don't have to do any of the work.

There's not much else going on... 72 days till the wedding!

Oh, and I get a three day weekend, we are closed on Easter so that means mimosa's at the parents on Sunday!

I'll leave you with a picture of Captin who has found a new place to hang out in when he's out in the back yard. He's not going to be happy when we plant our tomatoes in a couple of weeks. :)