best hug ever

I have seriously always wanted to hug a lion.

Inspiration Boards

Sweet miss Michelle posted a couple of idea boards I made on Oh, Mishka today. You can take a look here.

This Summer...

...after I move back to Portland, I will finally put new tires on my cute little red bike. And then I will use it to do lovely things like ride down to the farmer's market to fill my basket with fresh flowers.

A case of the Mondays

Things that made this Monday more bearable than most (even though I didn't get president's day off...womp womp)

-Free parking downtown because of the holiday. Score!

-Starbucks meeting with our September Bride to meet her mom and discuss details. Three great things about this. 1. got me out of the office for an hour and a half. 2. I got to show the bride some inspiration boards I spent a lot of time on and I think they were at least a little helpful. yay!
3. Grande soy latte with vanilla.

-There was nobody in the office so I got to catch up on Lauren and Michelle's blogs(not all day! just a little. I did work. a little.). My favorites. Look how stinking cute Lauren's latest outfit post is.

-Also, got to talk to Michelle a bit tonight which was double awesome.
She was my first friend in college and the only person I know who really shares my interest in all things pretty/bloggy/bridal/styled.

-While I was at work my dad posted a bunch of great photos like this one of Joseph at the dog park.


-My valentine's flowers are still kickin. The tulips gave up on me this weekend but I re-worked the rest a little and they still look quite pretty. My branches are even growing little leaves!



-Sorta related, went through the first pictures I took with my new ($40 from BigLots!) camera and there are several drunken/silly photos of Pat and I that are enjoyable even if not necessarily attractive. For example,


-The drive home was a breeeeeeze because of the people who had the day off. Beautiful sunset and it only took me 40 minutes. If only that could happen every day.

-My parents made really delicious brussel sprouts for dinner.

-And now, I know that I get to sleep past 5am tomorrow because I don't have to be in the city till 9 for an Administrative Assistant Conference. Which means although I don't have the day off, I will not be in my office. So, that's a perk.

I hope this sets the tone for the rest of the week. It is waaay past my bed time. Happy Monday!

use your words

"So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays."

John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society


...I love the word morose. And also I love this quote.

Sweet Dreams/Bravo Show

I'm in wedding mode lately. Been doing lots of work with and lots of thinking about Sweet Dreams, the wedding planning company I intern/work as an assistant for. I hadn't really done a post about them (I don't think. I forget things) so I thought while I'm knee-deep in wedding things I might as well do that.

The ladies I work for, Lisa and Tilly, are seriously amazing. I adore them.
They adore me too. But that goes without saying.

Obviously being very professional and testing out local photo booth vendors.

Brides Against Breast Cancer show. Selling dresses for healthy knockers.

They authorized me to do a friends and family promotion. SO, I don't know if anyone who reads this is engaged or soon-to-be engaged but if you book an appointment for a free consultation and tell them I sent you, it's $250 off our day-of services or $500 off our full-service package. You can check out the website to read about our services and look at some photos. These ladies are top notch. And not just because I work with them. They really are amazing at what they do. Every bride should have a planner. I believed it before and now having worked several weddings of different sizes and styles I believe it even more. If anyone has any questions about planning/what we do please ask me. My email is mridderb@gmail.com. Or you can always ask Lisa and Tilly at info@sweetdreamsbridal.com.

Now onto the show...

We just did the Bravo show downtown at the Embassy Suites. It's a really fantastic show where you get paired up with several vendors and then collaborate to design a room that showcases everyone's talents. We were working with Royce's Prop Shop and Event Floral to design the room.(our other vendors were JaCiva's, Simply Thyme Catering, The Oregon Garden, and Alyssa Jul Photography) The show is such a creative opportunity and I really loved being able to help create our room and looking at what other people had come up with.

The Bravo Site will most likely post pictures and video from the show but here are a couple (crappy phone) pictures of our room. The theme was Spring Garden Romance. Everyone else went elaborate and over the top. Ours was romantic and pretty. Amazing drippy spring flower arrangements everywhere!

I'm not generally into the sashes on chairs...but most weddings have something similar. If there has to be a sash, I enjoy the side tie with the small votive arrangement. Simple and pretty.

In love with the tall antiqued stand for the arrangement. And also, the arrangement. Swoon. It has sunset heather which is my favorite shade of pink and one of my favorite flowers. Not big into the diamonds. But my wedding planner ladies are all about the bling.
They're not terrible, I suppose.
(we don't always agree on decor. I like wildflowers and hay bales. They like crystals and orchids.)

You can just barely see the pretty bistro lights and tree in this one. The tree has lovely little votive arrangements hanging in it like the ones on the chairs.

new favorite wedding

Umbrellas hanging from trees. Sparklers. Living room furniture in a forest. Hand painted signs.
Ring toss. Buckets of beer. Photo booth. Just, incredible.

Heart Day

We actually celebrated yesterday with sake and dessert followed by a wonderful vegetarian lentil loaf dinner at his place. We watched Strange Brew and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And drank red wine. He gave me sweet framed photos of the two of us and I gave him a brewing book and handmade card.
I was so smitten with our day-early valentine's celebration and on top of it was surprised with flowers at work today. Wonderful, asymmetrical flowers.

A very thoughtful and lovely first Valentine's day. We realized that there are very few photos of us together when he gave me my gift. I went digging and found this on my cell phone. The quality is too poor to make it big enough to frame but I like it. It's pretty old, from probably last April or May.



Happy Love day to whomever reads this little blog. I hope your day was half as lovely as mine.

Do you ever feel like...

...there's just nobody worth looking up to? No heroes?


Well, luckily for you, there's me.




I fixed the dishwasher.

I love me some red40

Sometimes you are presented with such a beautiful opportunity that you just can't turn it down. Sometimes that beautiful opportunity is a BUCKET of cherry sours. Cherry sours are a weakness of mine. I've only ever seen them in small bags, though. However, the downtown Rite Aid carries them in 1.5lb buckets. This is both dangerous and wonderful.

This is the bucket I brought back from Rite Aid at 3pm yesterday.

This is the bucket right now. It's 4:45pm.
I used the word weakness, right? That might have been an understatement

Battle: Dishwasher Part I

The dishwasher at work has broken. I asked the google and it told me that I may have a tripped overfill sensor. You see, the damned thing just keeps running water through the filter. Can't get it to stop unless I turn off the breaker. So then I asked the building handy man. He said it was the control board because he couldn't get the lights and buttons to respond (and suggested calling a repair main. pishaw!) but I knew because the google told me that the flashing little glass probably meant that the overfill sensor was activated so it won't let you press buttons because it thinks your dishwasher is flooding your house. So, me and the google got him on that one. Called the manufacturer and sure enough, they agree with me and google. So, Leticia (the nice lady with the southern accent on the phone) sent me instructions on how to do it myself. They look very easy.

Obstacle 1: Weird ass screws. They require a Torx screwdriver. The look a lot like this:
So I called the building maintenance guys and they let me borrow their fancy dancy screwdriver, which is awesome by the way. And I want one. Bad. It's 15 in 1 and it ratchets. Not sure if ratchet is just a noun or if it's a verb too but I verbed it. So, yeah.


This is the screwdriver. And uh, the earring I had to remove so that I could press my face against the ground to properly see under the dishwasher with which I am engaged in battle.
But, first problem solved.

Obstacle 2: This dishwasher was not meant to fit where it is. So, when they installed it, they took off the usual toe panel (that part on the bottom that you can usually pull off to get to the guts) and instead screwed this weird metal frame thing around it. So, I have to remove weird metal frame thing. I sliced my fingers open doing it and it took me at least a half hour and some dishwasher wrestling to figure out how but I got the damned thing off. Victory.

Obstacle 3: My screwdriver is toooo big. Not the bit. The bit is the right size, and the correct funky ass shape. But there are only about 3 inches between the ground and the screw going up into the dishwasher that I must remove so that I can remove a panel so that I can get inside and...
sponge a little bit of water out of the drip pan. Yes, that's all I supposedly need to do in order to correct this issue.

So, I called several hardware stores looking for an L-key torx thingy. Sortof like an alan wrench...but with a torx end instead of an alan end. Nobody carries it. So I just ordered it for 2 dollars. And paid eight dollars to ship it. If this doesn't work then I will break down and call the repair man. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the victor.