On this day 83 years ago my grandma was born.

On this day 13 years ago my grandma passed away.

********

Today Chris & I completed another step on the road to marriage.

**Let it be known 2 things before reading: 1. Chris has a very bad habit of talking to me in his sleep, providing me with endless entertainment. 2. I am an instigator by nature, and I discovered that I can provoke these sleep conversations. Hilarity ensues. Case in point:

The other night I wasn’t quite ready for bed and Chris was dozing off  much to my annoyance. Remembering I can get him to have ridiculous conversations with me while he’s sleeping, I jump on the chance for some laughs.

Me: “Chris!! Are you DRUNK??” (he was in no way drunk)

CW: “No, I don’t think so..” (at this point I’m not sure if he’s awake or not so I question him further)

Me: “Are you sure you’re not drunk? How do you know?”

CW: “I know because I have secrets”

Me (trying to stifle laughter): “What kind of secrets?? Secrets about what?”

CW: (whispers)” Pretzels….”

Me: “What secret pretzels?? Is that the secret?”

CW: “I don’t know..I can’t tell you because I don’t have the schedule in front of me…”

Me (laughing uncontrollably at this point): “Schedule for what?” (I’m going to hell for this, I’m so mean.)

CW: *sighs* “the schedule of events…”*realizes I’m laughing hysterically at this point and am furiously texting my friend Brittainy* “what’s so funny??”

I tell him about his apparent secret events involving pretzels and Chris, less than amused at this point, decides to ignore me and go back to sleep.

The next morning I get this in my inbox:

At least he has a sense of humour.

**this post was inspired by Allison and her man’s rendition of Kiss me thru the phone

Dear Blog:

Please don’t feel abandoned, I promise I still love you. To be honest, I’m just tired. I promise to shower you with love and attention the rest of the week.

****************

Dear Life:

Whoa… Slow down!!! Like really, is summer seriously almost over? Am I really doing my Pre-Cana class on Saturday already? And I just realized I’ll be in Pittsburgh in less than 2 weeks- meeting with the (prospective) photographer, a trip to the family jeweler, and I get to try on my dress for the first time. MY. ACTUAL. DRESS. Let’s just take a weekend and chill in PJ’s. Deal??

****************

Dear Cat:

Thank you for tearing open the bag of cat food on the counter, FATTY. Also, gorging yourself so much that you throw up all over the bag was a nice touch. You are totally beating me in the sloth department, so congratulations. Good thing I have my awesome fiancé to clean it up for me.

****************

Dear Fiancé:

Thank you for cleaning up the cat puke, even though you left her food out and you know she can’t contain herself. You pretty much deserved to clean it up. But thanks anyway. And thanks for trying to make breakfast for dinner but burnt the bacon. It’s the thought that counts.

Just because I’m in one of those moods:

• plain M&M’s. I can’t resist their chocolately goodness! and they’re just a simple pleasure by nature.
• kittens. technically any baby animal, but I squeal with delight when I see a kitten. seriously, it’s kind of embarrassing. ask chris.
• a good nap. double points if it’s on a rainy day. triple points if I never have to get out of bed all day.
• a good cry. As a girl, sometimes you just need one.
• Bonfires. Living in the city makes me realize how much I miss them.
• Long pointless car rides with friends. Not really having a destination, just enjoying the journey. Another thing I miss since moving to Chicago.
• Hugs. Seriously-who wants one?
• all of my friends, but especially these two girls.
• the baristas at my Starbucks because they know my drink order by heart.
• The aroma that fills your house when you are cooking/baking something
• Staying in to read a good book in PJ’s instead of going out and doing something.
• the moment I realized things will never go back to the way they were, and realizing I’m finally okay with that.

So…What are you loving? What makes you feel better on those days?

This past Saturday I went to Velika Gospa, which is the Croatian Festival held at St. Jerome’s in Bridgeport. I’m half Croatian, but until recently I haven’t given much thought to that part of my heritage. The other part of me is Irish and of course I know a lot about that heritage. Up until recently I’ve always tried to identify myself with this half, asserting myself with my Irish heritage. I’m not sure the exact turning point when I started becoming more curious about the other half occured, but I think it had something to do with my distant cousins finding me on facebook. That sounds really lame, I know. I’ve always known I still had distant relatives that lived in Croatia because my dad had gone to meet them wayyyy back in the day, but it was really cool to have them reach out to me like that and get to know one another.

Going to Velika Gospa was quite a cultural experience for me. I’m sure what I experienced on Saturday is similar to what goes on in the old country. Everyone knew everyone. Guys that looked like my dad and uncles were everywhere. Even Chris made comments about how he thought he actually saw my dad a few times. They were holding High Mass when we tried to duck into St. Jerome’s to take a look around so I got to hear Mass being given in Croatian.

Then there was the food. OHHHH the food! First of all, in a semi secret location, they were selling whole lambs and pigs, or selling them by the pound. This lamb and pig stuff was serious business. The guy in line ahead of us had called in a special order and he paid $180 for whatever it is he ordered. $10/lb = this dude ordered 18 pounds of meat!!! Sadly, they had sold out except for special orders by the time I got to the front of the line. Next year. But then I came across this goody:

Those, dear readers, are pork ražnjići. I’m not generally a fan of pork, but these were absolutely to die for.

Then for dessert: Fritule!

Basically fritule is just deep fried dough balls rolled in powdered sugar. They’re so delicious and popular the line wrapped around the entire stand and down the sidewalk.

We wrapped up the afternoon with a trip inside the church. It was absolutely gorgeous. I wish the church I was getting married in resembled this:

Religion is a very important part of Croatian culture (something like 85% of Croatians are Roman Catholic) and it shows. The church in this neighborhood is clearly the center of the community. It felt like I was at a giant family reunion and I loved every second of it.

Going to the festival definitely gave me a whole new outlook on my culture. Now more than ever, I am pushing Chris to choose Croatia for our honeymoon. Not only does it have beautiful beaches, but delicious food, and maybe I’ll get to meet my family!

**there are more pics up on Flickr! check them out here.

So today is Vlog Day at 20SB and I didn’t find out about it until, oh…1230 this morning. While I was climbing into bed. Awesome.

I had to make a mad dash home from work to throw something together for you all, so pardon the suckiness- this was like last last minute:

I should’ve totally included the takes that had my cat fighting with herself in the mirror. Classic.

Moving on…

Can I please just say I’m having a blast watching all of your videos? Because really, you guys are all amazing people. I love seeing what you look like and hearing your voices. I relate to the points you make. You guys are all the silly, crazy people I imagine you to be and I love that.

Next year though I definitely plan on being more prepared. Maybe I’ll do an interpretive dance for you all.

Or not. That has bad idea written all over it.

I’d like to announce the winners for the free jeans gift certificates but first a little bit on how I selected the winners:

I used Randomizer.org to pick the winners of my Gap Born to Fit Giveaway because all of your entries were awesome and it wouldn’t have been fair to pick based on that alone. Based on the order you commented, that was how you were assigned numbers. If you entered via twitter as well, I went through and assigned numbers manually to those tweets as well.  So here are the results:

So the winners are Melinda and Greg!! I’ll be emailing you guys soon to get information on getting those gift certificates to you. Here’s the entries they posted:

Congrats to you both and thank you everyone who entered. Your entries were great! And an extra special thanks again to Brand About Town and The Gap, without them this giveaway wouldn’t have been possible.

So, what are your thoughts on a Nintendo DS  for my next giveaway??

I swear I didn’t send this in to post secret, but I might as well have. ugh-PET PEEVE!!! Whoever you are that sent this in: we are microwave soulmates!!!

Anyway, this week was a pretty busy one. I was supposed to have some guest bloggers but that plan fell through. Perhaps maybe this week. Some highlights of the week:

• I’ve been working diligently on a super secret project that I can’t really talk about yet. I don’t like keeping secrets, so when I get the OK to tell people, you guys will be the first to know. But needless to say, it’s been keeping me quite the busy bee.
• Tuesday one of my faves Jamie got us tickets to a special sneak preview of the Time Traveler’s Wife. We met up with Suze & Angie and patiently waited in line for about 45 minutes and had a good time just BS’ing. I also got to see fellow GG writer Desiree! Since the book is probably one of my favourites of all time, I was really worried about the movie ruining it for me. Thankfully it didn’t, but the movie didn’t evoke quite the powerful emotional response the book did. Sure I cried a little at the end, but it was nowhere near the gutwrenching sobs I experienced reading it. The more I thought about the movie, the less I liked it. Maybe it’s one of those stories that doesn’t translate well to film because I felt the movie lacked serious character development.
• Friday Chris & I went to see Paper Heart. Must’ve been movie week or something. Chris is more the romantic type than me so I tried to ignore his eye batting at me throughout the movie. It’s not overly gushy, but it IS a movie about love. It’s expected. (but that doesn’t mean I have to start melting and being all swoony!)
• Yesterday I had the pleasure of going with Chris and our friends Blagica and Michael to Velika Gospa. I’m going to post later on it in more detail, but damn can my peeps (Croatians) cook!!!
• Today was pretty much a lazy day. Chris & I were supposed to go see District 9 but didn’t get around to it yet. I would say there’s always next weekend, but it’s my other fave Jess‘ birthday and I can’t wait to celebrate with her.

So how was your week/weekend??

Giveaway Note: Winners will be announced tomorrow!! Thank you to everyone who entered, your stories were great!!

**I’d also like to thank my friends and readers for your support/advice on my breakup post. My friend ended up reading the post, so that pretty much was the end of it. I’m pretty sad about it because it’s never easy to lose a friend. I moped around for the first few days as if I had lost a boyfriend or something. But I suppose it’s for the best. So thank you all again for your words of wisdom & support.