The Sanborns

My friends and I like to do murder mystery parties. It all started when I saw pictures of Lory at a murder mystery party and I really wanted to try one. One day wall at Wal-mart, I discovered a box in the board game section, a murder mystery party! I bought it and immediately Trina and I put together the shindig. We liked it a lot but didn’t do another one for over six months. Then this year, a whole year later, Trina put together another party during July. Afterwards I realized how much I really like doing them and decided to throw one this fall.

I’ve decided to host one for Halloween and I’ve picked one that happens to have a lot of “monster” type characters, I figured those would be the easiest to get cheap costumes around Halloween.

So far things are going well, the hardest part is getting people’s schedules lined up, thank goodness I have a lot of friends because I am having to go down a list.

I’m also trying to make my Halloween costume. That’s right, make. I’ve wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for years but the costume was so expensive! Of course making it will be pretty close, but I think I’ll end up saving some money in the long run. Gray and I went to Hobby Lobby tonight to find a pattern and I got lucky! It actually came in a set of five Halloween costumes for girls, both little and big. I sure hope I have a daughter someday to put some of these others into good use.

This week has been going by fast, probably because it’s only a four day week. Today turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. Although Steve Jobs did not announce a new iPod touch with camera (bummer), I did win a 4GB flash drive and I did my gram +/gram – stains perfectly in lab! Last week’s lab was pretty awful, I sucked at what I was doing, but today I got it right! Yes! I also had to call my old pediatrician today to try and get my immunizations records for nursing school. I can’t believe that in three months I will know whether or not I got in for the spring semester!

On a sad note, a co-worker has the H1N1 virus which means it’s probably a matter of days before I get infected. Maybe there will be mercy on me because I’ve already had the flu once this year… maybe. Of course there was the one time when everyone got sick at Encounter except for Lory and I, basically. I remember that we covered ourselves in hand sanitizer because Gray and Meghan were both sick. haha The good old days.

This weekend I plan on working on my costume and going to the state fair, hooray! We went ahead and bought cheap tickets and the ride wristband from Kroger. Last year we only spent a hour at the fair because we ran out of money… it was a bummer because the rides are so much fun! We’re going either Friday night or Saturday during the day, depending on the weather. We’re also planning on going to the football game… MTSU vs Memphis. Not to mention, we’re signed up for A-Team (sets up church and tears it down) this Sunday.

When did I get such a busy social life? I don’t ever remember being this busy in the spring. Oh well, I like it when the weeks fly by.

So, last night Gray and I were going around Target looking for some good gifts for the family. We’re trying to be frugal and creative with our gift giving and we started talking about ideas. Somehow, we came upon the fact that I once knitted a scarf. When I was a sophomore in college, my roommate Mandy taught me how to knit a scarf.

We had a great idea that I could re-learn to knit the scarf (and maybe other things as well) and give them as Christmas presents! I can’t believe we didn’t think of this sooner.

So last night I got online to look up instructions, seeing as it’s been four plus years since I knitted the last time. I had to get Gray, my husband, to help me because the pictures and instructions were awful! It’s a good thing I remembered some of it! Anyway, after like thirty minutes of frustrations, I’m finally back to knitting and we’ll see how it goes. I’m a little rusty.

What are some ways your trying to be frugal for the holidays?

So I wrote earlier about invitations and why not give you a peek into what I’ve been doing?  

The mess I made in the living room

My sad face because Gray watched television instead of helping me.

The never ending guest list

Lots of invitations ready to be sent out… almost.

Tomorrow I get to go meet with the lady we are renting some decorations from and then it’s off to Waverly to submit our wedding announcement to the newspaper!

My room has been covered in wedding invitations for over a week now. It’s been a slow process, but I’m getting some done a little at a time. My spring break will definitely be spent working on them and forcing Gray to do some work.

Aside from invitations, I had a very exciting day because I got to see my wedding dress in an altered state. The dress will be done and ready for me to pick up April 2nd and it was absolutely beautiful to see today. I’d post a picture, but Gray is not allowed to see until the wedding day. The lady who worked with us is absolutely precious. Her name is Diane and she’s working at David’s Bridal (where I purchased the dress) for years doing alterations.

As Gray stated in his last entry, we’re both excited about Spring Break. It’ll be a time to enjoy some time off and get some items checked off our wedding list.

So, here is a first for me, a diy post. 

I really liked the idea of doing a simple favor for our wedding and after a lot of thought, I chose to do bookmarks. Gray and I both love to read so the idea is actually perfect and if no one else liked the favors, I knew we could deal with having tons leftover.

I started off by designing a simple bookmark in Pages (like Word but for Macs). Well, it looked great, but wouldn’t print off on my printer. I finally realized that in order to get them all printed, I would have to attach them to paper in the proper place and then print them. This took several hours (over 3 in fact) to do and we printed them all off on campus to save ink.

Once they were all printed, the task of hole punching them was up to me.

Then it was time to thread the ribbon through and thankfully, my lovely and awesome roomie and beautiful bridesmaid, Lory, helped me while we watched Spanish television. Yes, this is how we spent our Friday night.

The finished product was worth it though.

A summary of total costs:
3 packs of blank bookmarks from Michael’s: 2.79 each (50 bookmarks in each pack) for a total of 9.19
I already had the ribbon and I printed them off at a computer lab.. so my total was 9.19! That’s less than 10 cents for each bookmark.

Wedding planning has turned into frustration lately. I realized about a month ago that I needed to look into hair being done for the wedding day… for me and my girls. I finally have that taken care of but not without some stress in my direction. I also have some rentals almost taken care of, with me looking into saving as much money as possible.  I thought wedding planning was going to be fun! hehe

I managed to finish putting together my invitations and I put my address on the response cards. Now all I have to do is push my dear mother into getting my addresses so I can get started on addressing. That’ll take up the next month. sigh.

It is definitely exciting to be getting closer to getting married, but the stress is starting to rise. I don’t know how people managed to do this in less than 6 months! Granted, I’m rushing a whole lot of planning into 3 months I guess.

I’m quite excited about a few projects for the wedding. I’ve finally designed the programs, and I’ll be working on them in April and I’ve decided to do a bookmark for favors, which I’m designing myself and will making myself. A post will come soon about those, once I get them started and such. Tomorrow is another pre-marital counseling session for Gray and I. I’m not sure how I feel about getting married. I’m definitely ready, but it still feels like a dream to me. 

I think once the invites are sent out, I’ll know it’s not a dream. Until then I’m busy deciding on wedding cake, finalizing songs for the pianist to play, deciding on rentals and finalizing that guest list so I can send out invites.