The End of an Era

I've been hinting away for a few weeks now, both on this blog and on Twitter, and the time has finally come to bid my adieu to Blogger. I am so very excited to finally share with you my new blog home base: A Little Coffee with my Cream and Sugar. You'll also notice that I have changed my name on Twitter to @alittlecoffee.

I do hope you will visit my new blog, update your blogroll links if you have been kind enough to link to me, and update my feed in your feedreader. The new feed URL is http://alittlecoffee.com/feed .

I will leave this blog here; however this blog started off as a wedding blog called From Sparkly to Spouse, so it will revert back to that name and I will be deleting all the posts since I broke up with Chris. You will find all the content from that point onward (comments and all!) over at A Little Coffee with my Cream and Sugar. This blog will be a record of my old engagement and will no longer be updated.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading here. I have met such lovely people through this blog and have found a true passion in blogging. Please keep following me and stay in touch at my new online space!

Bridesmaid Dress Shopping, Part III

Part I
Part II

My bridesmaid dress shopping excursion with my sister is finally done! Kelsey and I went back to Frocks yesterday on my lunch break from work and it was a very productive, satisfying trip. Kels tried on eight dresses, including all of those that Kate and I really liked, and we have now decided for certain that we will be going with a dress from the Simple Silhouettes line (note that the dresses featured on their website are the brand new 2008 collection, but we will be ordering from the 2007 collection.)

The jury is still out on whether to order the same style dress for each bridesmaid or allow them to each choose their favourite from the collection -- and in the event they all get the same dress, I have not yet decided which style to go with. We discovered some happy news at Frocks - they have adjusted their dress prices for the stronger Canadian dollar in the last week. Their $350 dresses are now going for $310, and if you order three or more of the exact same style dress, there is an additional $30 discount on each dress. I would like to offer my girls the option to select their favourite style from this collection, but there is a $30 incentive for them to all choose the same dress, so maybe I'll leave the choice up to them.

I should preface the photos of Kelsey in the dresses by mentioning that contrary to what I originally expected, Kate looked fabulous in both strapless and halter styles, and in fact was quite comfortable with the idea of ordering one of these styles. Music to my ears!

All of the dress photos below are dresses from the Simple Silhouettes line. Here is Kelsey in the first dress she tried on, a halter style. Please ignore her dorky facial expression and gimpy arm. She is a totally ham in front of the camera and was making silly kissy faces. She's also a snowboarder prone to falling on her ass, or in this case, her elbow. She's stuck with the cast for the next week! Hence, Gimpy Arm will be making guest appearances in all dress photos today.


I'm posting this photo first because this particular sample dress is actually the colour that we will be ordering! It is called Fern and I just love it. It's not exactly the shade of green that I had in mind, but it's got more depth to it than the sage I've been seeing everywhere and so far my mom, Kate, and Kelsey love it. I think it's the sheen of the raw silk fabric that makes it so attractive; the darker green colour reflects lighter and brighter when the light hits it a certain way. The sash is actually one shade lighter and called Sage. I'm on the fence about what colour sash to order.

Keep in mind that in the photo above, the dress is actually three sizes too big for Kelsey (you can see the clips on the back of her dress in the mirror if you look closely). As a result, I think the halter straps come out a bit too wide and make her look a bit flat-chested, but in the correct size I think this dress would be stunning on her.

Next up, strapless number one:

This photo features Gimpy Arm in all its glory, no? Gimpy Arm says hi.

This one is the colour Sage. You can see the difference in shades of green if you compare this dress colour to the one above. This dress is cut with an empire waistline. It's cut quite slim so it's not a very floaty empire waist, but you can tell it's empire because of the high placement of the sash. We quite liked this dress.

Below is the second strapless dress:

This strapless is cut with a natural waist and it is Kelsey's favourite dress. Shown here, the dress has a thin dark brown ribbon hemmed along the neckline, but we would order it without this detail if we choose this dress.

Lastly, here is the third strapless dress Kelsey tried on, called the "Tulip":

Kelsey wasn't too sure about the puffy skirt part; she thought it made her hips look too wide. I thought it actually looked quite fun, like a party dress more than a bridesmaid dress. But it was obvious she wasn't comfortable in this one, and then she also pointed out that the top of the neckline was cutting in and giving her a weird silhouette in the boob area, so we decided against this dress for her. (My mum loved the colour of this dress so much she tried to get me to switch to this colour, even though everything else at the wedding will be blue and green. Kels and I had a chuckle over that.)

So the current contenders are the first three dresses pictured, and will be ordered in the Fern colour, probably with a sash in the colour Sage. What do you think? Let me know which one is your favourite in the comments!

Spotlight on Sweet Thea Cakes

Chris and I recently began the hunt for the perfect confectioner to bake our wedding cake. I spearheaded this project as I'm the one with the sweet tooth in this duo. We joke frequently in fact that we each have our "candy": mine is baked pastries, and Chris' is meat. Such a carnivore, that man. We both thought it was hysterical one time at Whole Foods when we literally found a product called candied salmon. Someone must have thought that up with Chris in mind.

Anyway, as a baked goods connoisseur, wedding cake is obviously very high on my list of priorities for our celebration. I scoured the net looking for other Vancouver brides' recommendations, searched wedding vendor listings, emailed married friends for their suggestions and read up about wedding cakes in general.

We narrowed it down to three choices, one of which was Sweet Thea run by Thea Wilgress (pictured right) out of her home in New Westminster, which she has outfitted with a commercial baking kitchen. Her website should give you an idea of her creativity and the quality of her designs. Thea holds frequent "open house" cake tasting sessions which you must RSVP to, and then can drop in anytime during the open house hours. Chris and I attended one on December 1st. I was very excited because we went at 11 am so I got to eat cake for breakfast.

Ultimately, we decided not to go with Sweet Thea because my dream cake is white chocolate and raspberry flavoured, and while Thea does offer such a cake (see the "White Heaven" cake description on her Menu Sampler page), we weren't that impressed with it. The flavours were too mild. But it was a tough decision, because we were convinced that Thea would have been amazing to work with. She was so nice, professional, creative, and had excellent customer service. Her prices were reasonable, and of the five cakes we tasted that day, two were truly outstanding: she has an absolutely to-die-for lemon chiffon cake, and a flourless chocolate cake that was delicious. I'd never had flourless cake before and expected it to taste like something was missing, but really it was just smoother and more velvety in texture instead of being "cakey" with crumbs. That was not a bad thing! We are considering having one tier of lemon cake in our wedding cake, but decided not to have an entirely lemon-flavoured cake. We also didn't want a chocolate cake, so we didn't book her. But if you are interested in either of these two flavours for a wedding cake, you should absolutely check her out. You'll be missing out if you don't, because her recipes for these two are soooooo yummy!

2007 Review

Got this from And You Know What Else?

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before? Planned my wedding. Threw a gourmet dinner party for a few friends. Joined a company sports team and won the tournament. Declined attending said company's annual holiday party. And probably many others that I can't recall just now.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more next year? The most important one I set last year was to lose weight. By May I was down from 168 pounds to 155 pounds. Today, I weigh 162 pounds, so I put some of it back on and must really crack down on that, so as not to waste all my hard work from this year. Yes, I will be making new resolutions for the coming year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Nope! But my hairdresser, who is loosely in my circle of friends, is currently 7 months pregnant and will shortly become the first of my friends to join the parent club.

4. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? More fun. I've been feeling too much like I'm in a rut lately - just going through the motions, like there's no purpose to anything. I need to shake up the old routine.

5. What dates from 2007 will remain etched in your memory, and why? June 24, our best friends tied the knot.

6. What was your best achievement of the year? Deciding to suck it up and continue working at my job without constantly complaining. I have options that will change my career in the future, and I realized I need to be patient. I've also worked hard to maintain positive family relationships.

7. What was your biggest failure? I do still sometimes complain about work, and this has to stop if I want to be regarded positively. I also failed quite spectacularly in the second half of the year at eating a healthy diet, and my health is important to me, so I will be focusing on that in the new year.

8. What was the best thing you bought? An empire waist top from RW & Co. that is simply fabulous (and also no longer available, which is why I'm not linking to it.) It was cheap, a cute black & white pattern, and endlessly versatile - I can wear it on its own for a night out, with a cardigan at work, with jeans to dress it down, with black pants or a skirt to dress it up. It fit me at 155 and 165 pounds, and I could lose more or gain more and it would still fit. It would even work if I got pregnant until I was at least 6 months along. (NO, this does not mean I'm trying to get pregnant.) LOVE IT.

9. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Nicole Richie's turnaround since falling pregnant. She now looks healthy and appears to be on the right track with a good relationship and a new children's charity that she founded.

10. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Britney Spears. I've been rooting for her to get her act together, but I have finally given up hope.

11. Where did most of your money go? Paying off my line of credit (now officially paid off), rent, and paying off my car (finally own it 100%).

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Getting married.

13. Compared to this time last year, are you a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Sadder, thinner, and richer. That first one seems out of whack, hmmm. But then, it's hard to compete with this time last year, when I had been engaged for exactly four days. At least my answer proves that money and weight loss don't buy happiness!

Bridesmaid Dress Shopping, Part II

Thanks for the comments about Sparky, y'all. She was a sweet girl. I just needed to take a moment to give her a moment in the spotlight. The hardest part was the moment when I finished composing the blog post and got ready to click on "Publish Post." It felt so final, like she wasn't really gone until I published it. I'm feeling better now though, even though there are still lots of tears. What can I say, my family is nuts. We love our pets like they're people.

But back to wedding planning. Life goes on :)

As you will recall from Part I, I have four bridesmaids with different body shapes, and I am looking for a unified (though not necessarily identical) look that will flatter all my girls. I'm seeking a blue or green cocktail length dress in a shiny or silky fabric. Ideally green.

Now, brides planning a wedding with green as a main colour, take heed: most bridesmaid dress designers currently offer green dresses that fall into one of two camps. They're either in the washed-out sage & celery camp, like this:


Which, don't get me wrong, looks great on some girls, especially with a tan. Or they fall into the dark, hunter green camp, like this:


And I was looking for something pretty much smack in the middle, more vibrant than either of these offerings, something more like this:


This, as it turns out, is no easy task. After searching high and low, the best options I've found in a green resembling this shade are Aria in the shade "leaf," and David's Bridal in the shade "clover." My Canadian readers may notice the flaw in these solutions: neither of these lines are available north of the border. In fact Aria is *so* not available north of the border that you have to mail order sample dresses to try on and then mail back to LA, all at your own shipping expense.

So it was at this point of frustration when I began to consider a blue & green colour scheme, and having the girls wear blue dresses. There are a wealth of blue bridesmaid dresses available in every shade of blue imaginable out there, so this may be the solution we need. So I am now considering dresses similar to the vibrant green above, or a blue such as this one below, or possibly even darker:



I've noticed I've been very drawn to slightly shiny or silky fabrics rather than matte ones, and I wanted to look only at bridesmaid dress designers that carried silky fabrics I liked and an A-line dress silhouette with shoulder straps. The designers that fit these criteria the best, in my opinion, are Dessy, After Six, Jenny Yoo, Simple Silhouettes, and Charsa.

What do you know, I can hit all five of these designers with two stores in Vancouver, one of which is the bridal salon where I bought my wedding dress - how convenient! In fact, After Six and Dessy dresses are carried at a multitude of bridal salons in Vancouver, but my preference goes to Lisa's because they were so great helping me with my wedding gown. My favourite dress at Lisa's is After Six dress #6513:



The other store to hit up in order to try on the three other lines (Jenny Yoo, Simple Silhouettes, and Charsa, in addition to three other lines) is Frocks. Frocks is a fabulous, fabulous store. It only carries bridesmaid dresses, no bridal gowns, so they are specialized a bit and carry six designer lines. They have great lighting, friendly & helpful staff, comfy couches to sit on and a coffee table with candy jars on it. I have no idea how the candy jars are supposed to help anyone with fitting into the beautiful dresses they carry, but I digress.

Frocks highly recommends that you call ahead to make an appointment, to ensure they will have a fitting room and staff member to help you. Now to prepare you, Frocks is slightly higher end, as are the dresses they carry, and that is reflected in the $350+ price tags for each dress. But in my opinion, their prices are worth it. My very frugal bridesmaid Kate even said herself, "you know, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'd rather spend the extra $150 so that I can get one of the Frocks dresses." Oh, and did I mention you are allowed to take photos in Frocks? This is a big deal. Take your camera.

I'm not going to post my favourite dresses from Frocks yet, because there are just so many that I love. I need to narrow down my choices a bit. That will be occurring soon, because my sister and maid-of-honour Kelsey flew in from Ontario today for the Christmas holidays, and we will be going bridesmaid dress shopping shortly. Stay tuned for instalment three: our shopping excursion!

Farewell to Sparky

I was going to post the second instalment today about bridesmaid dresses, but sometimes life throws you curve balls. Today my lovely 14-year old cat Sparky was unexpectedly put to sleep, and it's all I can think about. So even though this is really a wedding blog, I hope you will indulge me in a slight departure from my usual topic so I can post a little goodbye to my sweet kitten.

We got Sparky when I was 13 years old. We actually adopted her and her sister Freckles when they were 8 weeks old, but Freckles only lived for a few months, so Sparky has been the lone cat all these years. My younger brother Andrew named her Sparky; I have always felt compelled to tell people that throughout the years because I always thought her name was more fitting for a dog! She was full of personality. She could play with socks for hours if she thought nobody was looking, but she would always play it cool if she knew she was being watched. Heaven forbid we thought she was having fun! In the photo above, she might look like she's glaring at the camera, but she always would close her eyes halfway like that when she was happy and relaxed. She loved to sit on the back of the couch looking out the window and have "conversations" with squirrels she could see in the trees.

Sparks has always been a bit of a queen. She's been a pleasantly fat cat for most of her life and we never could figure out why. I think she made a game (and a meal) out of bird hunting in the backyard because we never fed her enough to explain her rotund figure! She OWNED the house and considered the rest of us simply occupants who shared her space, with her permission, except for the pesky dog, who was most definitely there against her wishes. She would always demand tuna juice and bits of cheese whenever she smelled them, as though we owed her that much in compensation for tolerating the dog.

From day number one we've loved her loud motor engine purring, dainty little white "socks" and super soft fur. She runs the show so we only pet her when she decides it's okay, but she loves a good cuddle before falling to sleep every night on someone's pillow. And she's been really therapeutic to have around for my brother Andrew when he was recovering from severe clinical depression. That's Andrew with her about a year ago on the left - Andrew is showing off her "stretch cat" pose.

In recent weeks, our plump cat withered away to not much more than a skeleton and would never finish more than half her food. We knew she was getting old and that something might be wrong for her to get so skinny so fast. But then she started eating several tiny meals a day of wet food mixed with kibbles, and she put some weight back on, so we thought she was getting better. This morning though, my mum noticed she'd eaten nothing in 24 hours and had been drinking insane amounts of water, and so she took her to the vet. They did some tests and found a tumour in her mouth and advanced cancer in her liver, and her thyroid was all screwed up. He tested some fluid and the result was very bad. He told my mum that he could send the fluid away for testing and would get results back on Thursday, but he wasn't sure she would make it until Thursday. It was a big shock because Mum thought she was just taking Sparkles in for some tests and would take her home with some medication. But it was decided that it would be better to put our old girl to sleep, and she never made it back home.

It's been a sad day, but it sounds like Sparky turned downhill fast today and was really suffering, and I would never want to prolong that. We'll miss you, old girl. Wishing you endless cans of tuna and big blocks of cheese in kitty heaven. Maybe you'll even catch a squirrel up there.

Bridesmaid Dress Shopping, Part I

Taking into account the level of importance I'm placing on the bridesmaid dresses (medium, I'd say), my tastes, and the figures of my girls, I have come up with several criteria for the dresses.

First off, while I initially thought that bridesmaid dresses would be not only important but really fun to pick out, in reality it's been more of a PITA so they are now hovering lower on my list of priorities. I would like my girls to like the dresses and hopefully feel inclined to wear them again if the right occasion were to present itself, and I would like the dresses to fit in with the wedding colours. Other than that, I don't really care that much. I have a number of criteria that I created because I have to put some effort into finding these dresses, but in the end if the criteria are not all met, I will not be terribly upset. At the end of the day, they could show up in pouffy eighties meringue-like tulle confections and I wouldn't really care, because I'll still be married at the end of the day. I have my priorities. Those are the vows, and the cake ;)

So take my criteria more as suggestions than strict rules. You know, like the way Montreal drivers treat stop signs. (Sorry, Canadian joke.)

That being said, here are my bridesmaid dress criteria:

• The dresses must be tea length or cocktail length. I hope I don't see floor length gowns on any of my wedding guests except me, but I definitely won't be seeing them on my bridesmaids. It's not because I want the glory of being the only girl decked out in a floor length gown, I just don't like long dresses in general. I make exceptions for wedding gowns! Plus, shorter length dresses make them more re-wearable.
• The dress must be either blue or green. Initially, the wedding's colour scheme was primarily green with pink accents, so the dresses were going to be green. But I'll be damned if I can find a bridesmaid dress line that carries a nice, vibrant shade of green - the majority seem to offer either washed out sage or deep dark forest green, with the exception of a handful of US-based companies that we don't have up here in Canadaland. (David's Bridal and Aria are notable exceptions) So I started thinking that blue and green would look good together and the girls could wear blue. The jury's still out on what colour we pick.
• No bridesmaid will come within ten feet of chiffon. *Hates chiffon fabric.*
• I have noticed that when I'm browsing dress designs, I am always drawn to metallic or shiny fabrics. I'm like a magpie, what can I say? Satin would be okay, but ideally I would love the girls to wear taffeta or dupioni silk.
• I have not yet decided whether or not they should all wear identical dresses, or choose the style of their choice from a certain designer in the same fabric and colour.
• Lastly, I want my bridesmaids to be happy with the choice.

Next installment will feature dress designers I have found that meet my criteria. Stay tuned - there will be pretty pictures and lots of dress ideas if you have a blue and/or green colour scheme!

Rainbow Signature Drinks Series: Red

Oooh, lookit me, all Christmas-like. First I post green drinks, now red. How holiday-ish. In honour of that, here is a pepperminty signature drink (plus some other red ones.)

Peppermint-Cacao Cocktail

Adapted from Epicurious

1/4 oz peppermint schnapps

1/2 oz vodka

1 1/4 oz creme de cacao

Mini candycane

Red cake decorating sugar

Ice cubes

Method:

Moisten rim of a martini glass by dipping upside down in a very shallow dish of water. Then dip rim in red sugar.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice cubes and add liquid ingredients. Shake for 15 seconds, then strain into martini glass. Garnish with candy cane and serve anytime in December or January. :)

Spicy Caesar Cocktail

from The Art of the Drink

1 1/2 oz vodka

Dash of worcestershire sauce

Dash of Tabasco sauce

Salt & pepper

Top with Clamato juice

Celery salt

Garnish

Method:

Rim a Collins glass with celery salt. Add vodka and top with Clamato juice. Add worcestershire sauce, tabasco sauce and salt & pepper. Garnish with your choice of garnish items: celery stalk, green bean, asparagus stalk, or a stir stick skewered with a shrimp, green olive and lime wedge. Drink up for a slightly spicy, savoury thirst quencher!

Sangria Punch

From About.com

1 bottle of red wine

1 lemon, cut into wedges

1 lime, cut into wedges

1 orange, cut into wedges

2 tbsp sugar

Splash of orange juice

2 oz gin

1 cup sliced strawberries or raspberries (frozen or fresh)

1 small can diced pineapples (with juice)

4 cups gingerale

Ice cubes

Method:

Pour wine in pitcher or punch bowl and squeeze juice from lemon, lime, and orange wedges into the wine. Toss in the wedges (leaving out seeds if possible.) Add pineapple, sugar, orange juice, and gin. Chill overnight.

Add gingerale, berries and ice just before serving.

Tagged!

Apologies to all for the extended absence from blogging. I will explain at the bottom of this post. I've been tagged by Linda of Silly Little Mischief for the 7 Random Things meme, and it occurred to me that a meme might be a good way to get back in the swing of things for blogging. So without further ado:


1. In grade school, I was best friends with a girl named Ashley. Her birthday was January 22nd (I still remember that to this day!) and mine is February 4th. We once discovered that we were supposed to have each other's birthdays! When our mothers were pregnant, I was due on Jan 22nd and Ashley was due on Feb 4th. Weird eh?

2. I hate turtlenecks with inexplicable passion.

3. I will only chew the Extra brand of gum.

4. I am freaking awesome at conducting mystery customer calls to obtain information. I have to do it for work in an industry that does not like to share info, so we have to pretend to be customers.

5. I actually enjoy commuting to and from work in rush hour traffic, most of the time. I like blasting my music and singing along. It gives me a chance to get revved up in the morning or unwind after a stressful day. It's a good buffer between work and home.

6. My dog will only drink water from the bathtub, not from her water bowl. When she's thirsty, she sits in the bathroom next to the tub and whines until someone runs water for her and puts her in the tub to drink.

7. I used to be a competitive gymnast as a kid until I broke my arm on the bars at age 11. After that I refused to get back on the bars, so I couldn't compete, and I took up coaching gymnastics instead.

So that's my 7 random things! I'm not tagging anyone because I think half the Internet has done it already. Heck, I might have even done this meme before!

As for my extended absence, I've been going through a very rough patch recently and felt the need to take a break from a number of things - not just blogging. In the last few weeks, I've learned that my great uncle died, my uncle has been diagnosed with bone cancer and has been given less than two years to live, and my grandmother is going downhill rapidly.

And in addition to all these things, my sister is going through a personal dilemma that I'm trying to help her with, I'm dealing with a very unhappy and unstable work situation, and have been sick with strep throat two weeks ago and a cold right now. All of this put together has resulted in me spiralling into a significant bout of depression. I have not been diagnosed by a doctor because my work benefits don't cover much in the way of psychology, but we have plenty of first-hand experience with very severe clinical depression in my family and I recognise the symptoms beyond just feeling sad. I'm about 95% certain I'm suffering from mild clinical depression.

That has been my life in a nutshell lately and has resulted in my taking several days off work, blogging, exercise, and wedding planning. However, I am definitely feeling much brighter and happier at the moment. I don't think I'm cured, but things are going better, and I am back! Sorry for the absence but I hope you understand.

To my reader "desperatelyseekingvenue" who commented on the previous post, I decided not to post the venue I chose on this blog until after the wedding. The reason is that I've heard some pretty crazy stories about uninvited guests showing up at your wedding, or calling and cancelling vendors or stealing gifts from the gift table. It seems to happen frequently enough that I don't feel comfortable revealing the venue when I have also revealed the wedding date! But if you really want to know, email me and I will share. Laurashannonsmart at hotmail dot com.

Ten Thousand

Sometime yesterday, probably while I was watching Jennie Garth do the rumba on Dancing With the Stars, this site got its 10,000th hit. I am perhaps more giddy about this fact than I should be.