rainbowtatt

Today, a friend came up and asked

“Hey, did you know someone’s written on your car?”

Ummm, I’d kinda forgotten that Dan had woven his magic on the weekend (click the pic for bigger):

I didn’t realise how visible it was.

And it was visible.

I drove to work in that.

Before I knew it, someone else came up to me and commented on it and I bolted out into the company carpark – bottle of water and box of tissues in hand – and I “resolved the issue”.

Cause there were big wigs visiting today, and they probably saw it before I washed it off.

(I’m telling myself they didn’t see it, though)

At least it meant I was able to drive home again tonight with at least some of my dignity.

Dan and I are still laughing about it, though.

We’re officially going on our first ever cruise. Squee!!

It’ll be our first overseas trip together (recent health risks = no flights), and I’m just so excited to be getting away from it all (quite literally, there’s hardly any interwebs in the middle of the ocean!).

We originally snubbed cruising as a holiday option because of the cost, but we’ve discovered that leaving from a port that isn’t Sydney is MUCH cheaper. Also, given the crap we’ve been through in recent months (read: we had to cancel our “proper” wedding, #stillprettycrankyabouthatthankyouverymuch and I had my mother moved into a nursing home). So, South Pacific honeymoon, here we come!

I can’t stop looking at photos of our destinations, which includes the Isle of Pines:

Can’t wait to get the sand between my toes and sniff some New Caledonian fresh air!

This post has been several days, drafts and revisions in the making. Let’s see how I go this time ’round…

(takes deep breath)

We’ve cancelled the wedding.

And we’re going to elope.

(exhales. slowly)

There are a multitude of reasons for our decision, some of which I’ve eluded to in my previous posts. The minor details are far too personal, and to be honest, it hurts my head to explain it. But those of you who have (tried to) arrange a wedding will have been there and understand all the complexities; we’ve just decided that we need to strip it back.

For our sakes.

It’s not been an easy decision. Last week we were in a daze, weighing up all the options, possibilities and potential fallout. I cried. Hard. But we ultimately know that our perfect day would just be a simple one that allows us to focus on each other, so we know we’ve made the right decision.

While elopment hasn’t happened much in my family, my in-laws prefer it and heaps of friends have eloped or had a small ceremony. And if I’m completely honest, I’ve had a massive crush on the idea of eloping after Jon and Heather eloped back in 2002. Yes, if the circumstances were different, I would have happily continued to organise our pizza-and-cupcakes wedding. But it’s just not meant to be.

I’ve unsubscribed from all the wedding blogs and site alerts. I’m packing away my wedding books and hoping to find them a new home. I’d be lying if I said that I don’t still feel pangs of hurt when I remember what we’ve surrendered. But as the days pass, the happier I am that we’ve made this decision.

A weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And I’ve always been lazy, right? ;)

Best of all? Dan and I are even stronger and closer than we were this time last week.

God bless the Queen for having an un-birthday and giving us a long weekend. Cause we needed it.

This weekend I managed to:

• Catch up with local and non-local friends and their offspring (kids are cute, but they’re cuter when I get to hand them back to their parents/grandparents
• Have the wedding make-up trial with my BFF a.k.a The Chief Bridesmaid
• Catch up with my sisters to plan the next stages of how we look after mum, who’s still unwell and still in hospital
• Attend Jarod & Liz‘s Informal Wedding Celebrations™ and stuff our faces stupid with pizza, pasta and icecream and make copious notes of what ideas we’re going to copy for our wedding/pizza/cupcakes party
• ZOMG I BOUGHT A WEDDING DRESS. Not unlike the one pictured above. This shot was taken just as the shop assistant suggest I strike a pose for the trial photo

Needless to say, after such an eventual and social weekend, I’m kinda looking forward to a week at work that’ll slow the pace down a bit.

I get an email every  month to remind me how long til we get hitched.

So with four months to go, here’s what I’m “supposed” to be focusing on

1. Reserve bridal suite for wedding night
2. Select gifts for each other
3. Select gifts for bridal party
4. Hire wedding vehicles for the bridal party, you will need to decide what sort of transport you need and where the two parties are getting ready

Instead, I really need to be focusing on

1. What we’re going to wear (because at this stage we’ll be nude)
2. Who our celebrant will be (we have his phone number, so that’s a start)
3. How we’re inviting people (because apparently Facebook won’t cut it for everyone)

What else should I be doing to plan Our Big Day?

Another week, another round of Noice-ities. Already!

This week has been full of lots of noice-ities (cupcake decorating class, happy clients, crocheting), and not so noice-ities (car issues, funerals and issues with that still-alcoholic mother).

But the best part of this week has been the fact that we’ve pulled our finger out and set a wedding date! And a ceremony location! And a reception venue!

I know, it’s quite ground-breaking.

Everything has been pretty much set around the reception venue, which is our favourite pizza restaurant that conveniently has a function room:

And thankfully there’s a huge park nearby, complete with Jacaranda tree. Dan’s agreed to the Jaca and I love that we’ll be under the tree of my hometown, the jacaranda city. Jacaranda trees don’t usually bloom until late October, but we’re hoping they’ll make an early appearance in light of global warming and whatnot. And there’s my selfish anti-environment wish for the day.

I’ve created a visual approximation of how the tree might look in October:

There has been MUCH! EXCITEMENT! that we’ve set a date. I was hoping to hide under a rock until the week before, but I don’t think I’m going to get away with that. At all.

But we’re happy with what we’ve chosen so far, and the venue means we can invite family, friends and current/former work mates to join in the fun. C’mon, it’s a pizza party, what’s not to look forward to?

October ninth, twenty ten. Cause that’s how bride blogs say I should write the date ;)

Last year I ripped off a post from Fifikins (aka the woman who keeps kicking my arse in Words With Friends), reflecting on my 2008.

It’s actually one of the better meme/survey thingos out there for that sort of thing, so I’ll use it again later this month.

But it goes without saying that 2009 has been my year. Sure, some of it has been shithouse, but it pales into comparison to the rest of my year.

And on that note, I present my 2009 top five:

1. Started by own business (now known as Rah!Creative) Things have been slow, but that’s kinda how I need it. I can’t handle having a full-time job as well as a needy home business. I’m learning heaps, I passed the Tax Man’s rules and regulations and I even made a profit in my first financial year. WOO!
2. Got my first blog gig (at That’s Noice!) I helped Leigh with setting up That’s Noice! at the end of 2008, but we launched in Feb this year. Fark knows why Leigh trusted me enough with one of her projects, but I’ve LOVED it. It’s not always easy coming up with content and I’ve had to get my head around all the technicalities of having a ‘real’ blog, but it’s been a great experience and hopefully 2010 will be an even bigger year for the blog
3. FINALLY had our water feature repaired After 709 days, our leaking loungeroom wall was repaired. We were also told our building should be condemned in the next 5-10 years, so we at least have a goal for moving out (?)
4. zOMG Dan proposed!1!!!!!! Easily the most amazing event to happen to me. There’s someone in my life who’s willing to tell the world he wants to make it permanent? Crazy. Just don’t ask when/where/how the wedding will happen, cause we still can’t decide!
5. Ben Folds at the Opera House, thrice Ahh, the week that Dan and I played excited fangirls, seeing Ben Folds at the Opera House. Each of the gigs was unreal, but the hands-down favourite was the ‘by request’ gig where we had perfect seats, Ben played my favourite song and played Dan’s actual song request. Blew my mind and we still talk about it to anyone who’ll listen

Have you got a top 5 of 2009? Join in and do yours too!

No, I’m not turning this into a permanent bridezilla blog.

But you’d be forgiven for thinking such.

But my brain is fried with dealing with life atm.

I miss you.

But really, I did find my wedding dress:

I probably haven’t mentioned this before, but I love Momversation. Apart from seeing some of my favourite bloggers in video form, the topics and resulting conversations are interesting. I even find the “mommy” topics interesting, when I haven’t even got offspring yet.

This Momversation was posted a couple of weeks ago:

And given my current pre-wedding state, this really struck a chord with me.

This is a topic that has come up over the years with me and Dan. My surname will end if I get married and change it; there are no more boys on my dad’s side of the family to carry on the Kane family name. Same thing happened with my mum when she married Dad.

I feel a connection to my surname given I lost my Dad when I was 8. And Pop, Dad’s dad, was a Senator involved in the creation of the Democratic Labor Party. I’m proud of my Kane heritage and proud of what Dad and Pop did in their lifetimes.

Dan had even said years ago that he would consider changing his surname to Kane if we got married.

That said, now that we’re engaged, I’m planning to take Dan’s surname when we get married.

For me, the last eight years with Dan has been my transition from being a sheltered, wide-eyed, innocent and gutless victim of my own life. The person I was before is unrecognisable to the person I am now. Not to say that I’m done with my transformation – because there is still SO much of me that needs repairing.

But there have been steps in recent years that I see as real progress in reclaiming “me”. Starting and completing a TAFE course. My 2007 UK Christmas holiday. Starting to take better care of my health. Stepping away from friendships that caused more harm than good. Starting my own business. And getting engaged.

“Me” is evolving. And I see that changing my surname is a continuation of that evolution. Accepting my past for what it was, how it got me to where I am and how it got me to this point where I’m ready to make a life-long commitment to my future husband.

Can’t believe it’s been almost three months since I got the promotion from girlfriend/defacto to finace.

I can’t string enough words together to explain what I’ve put myself through in terms of planning The Event – and we still haven’t made any real decisions about anything. It reached the point where I’ve banned myself from thinking about it for the time being. (Smart move, Rah).

One thing I’ve tried to do is stay on the healthy wagon. Which is going pretty damn well considering I haven’t done much more than try to eat better. I’m down 3kg overall, including the 1.2kg I lost in the last week.

So while I’m stoked that I’m starting to get a bit more room in my work outfits, the downside so far is that my Beautiful Handmade Diamond Ring doesn’t fit the Correct Finger anymore.

I think it’s also to do with the cold snap in Sydney this week (can Mother Nature please turn up the heating now, kthnxbai). But when I attempt to do the little housework I do and The Ring falls off three times? Yeah, time to keep it in a safe place for a little while.

I hate not wearing it, so after a few days I decided to wear it on the wrong finger – but it’s too loose even for the ring finger on my right hand – so it’s back on my left hand.

Eventually we’ll get our gorgeous jeweller to weave her resizing magic, but I’m in no rush just yet.