When you love something too much

I was musing recently about why I still haven't even attempted to put an album together (no one else, by the way, seems to think this is a big deal, not the man, not my parents, not his parents, no one), and it struck me last night while I was ordering some photos from Shutterfly, because I got another one of those awesome 101 free prints e-mails, for no reason, other than that Shutterfly is awesome, that it's because most albums contain about... 80-160 images or so.

Our photographer gave us over 1,000... I cannot narrow down my favorites past 300-some! I mean come on!! How do you do it?? So here I am blogging about albums again because all this time I thought I was holding back because of price when in reality it's because I don't WANT to narrow down my favorites anymore.

At the end of the day, I know I have all 1,000+ images from our wedding day on a DVD, all hi res, that is ours forever. However, like so many other brides out there, I know that I still want a hard copy album that we break out every anniversary and giggle at, that my daughter(s) may someday fantasize over (and point out how skinny Mommy used to be! And Daddy used to have brown hair?!)

So, my newest scheme/solution is this:

1. Order prints every time Shutterfly sends me these awesome deals, 101 or 50 or however many at a time, until I have ordered all my favorites!
2. Spread them out on the table by category; details, formals, portraits, ceremony, reception, cake cutting, etc...
3. Now that they're all spread out in front of me, finally conceptualize that I don't need five shots of my dress, even though Ben put the dress in so many beautiful spots and there are so many awesome shots to be favorites!
4. Narrow down my favorites to no more than 180 or so, I'm sure I can find an album that will let me squeeze that many in, and finally put together an album
5. DAMN THE EXPENSE!! and finally get my hard copy that I can hold and touch and see whenever I want, and get parent albums even though they never asked for them, because that's what a good daughter does; says 'Look how pretty, Mama!! Just what you needed, more pictures of me!'

The end, that's my five step program to finally be able to stop talking about albums. Can I talk to you about some other stuff???

We're slowly putting our house together, we have lots of hand-me-down furniture which was all chilling in the basement, well, now our guest rooms are arranged! The baby's room is getting set up, which has me super excited:

The ceiling is burnt orange, the walls are pickle juice green. Say what you will, it looks awesome in person. This is the first time I got to pick a room color and no one try to talk me out of it, and they actually go really well together, add our awesome new crib, and it's officially a baby's room! Freaky, right?!

It might seem jarring, but picking our color scheme; orange, green, and brown, was similar to picking out wedding colors. His favorite color is green, mine is orange, we didn't know if it was going to work, but when then when you add brown, it makes everything else mesh. Trust me.

Since this picture was taken, we added a few dressers and a lamp, and a freaking awesome rug:

It's my new favorite room in the house, that rug is 7.5' by 9.5', so it covers almost the entire floor, and it's super soft and super awesome.

This kid is going to be the coolest in town. I always wanted to be different, but our tiny human has no choice :)

In other news, anniversary/birthdays/Christmas is coming up. First anniversary is supposed to be paper, and I once ruined a copy of the Lord of the Rings that I borrowed from Kyle (I put it in a bag with a coffee mug that I thought was empty... it wasn't). It was never a real collector's item anyway, so it was no biggie to him, but it's one of our favorite books and so not only do I want to replace that copy, I also want to have a really nice copy for our library.

For the record, Kyle doesn't read my blog but I know there are those out there that do that are friends with him, PLEASE DON'T MENTION A WORD OF THIS!!

After extensive searching, I found a whole bunch of this:

However, you have to be willing to pay the price for this kind of thing... and we're talking the $600 variety. Cheaper on eBay, but harder to find a complete set in great condition. SO, then I reflected on the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien himself wanted the three books of the Lord of the Rings to be one volume, but at the time it was written, this was going to cost too much paper, so I'm also considering getting a one volume edition, but those are much cheaper and so they make me feel like I'm cheating... which sounds stupid, but I don't know whether to go with separate volumes for the cool, leather-bound look, or one volume for the author-intended look. Any ideas???? Suggestions????

We're also movie buffs, and one of The Man's favorite movies is The Big Lebowski:

For anyone who's been living under a rock since 1998 or has no sense of humor, it's a very silly movie about a guy who does nothing but bowl and drink white russians. That's The Dude, and his last name happens to be Lebowski but everyone calls him The Dude (either that or His Dudeness or Duder or el Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing).

There does exist, however, an older, much richer, much more accomplished man named Lebowski and there's a classic case of mistaken identity. Rugs go missing, toes get chopped off, and The Dude finds his zen-like world thrown for a loop as he has to run around trying to make shady deals and ransom trophy wives. Also John Turturro wears purple and refers to himself as The Jesus.

Anyway, Jeff Bridges, The Dude, rocks this sweater for the majority of the movie:

And unfortunately, the company that makes this sweater is no longer in business. Kyle and I consider it the essence of The Dude and I found the pattern online to knit this sweater!!

I couldn't keep this one a secret because I knit it right in front of him, but the point is, this is his birthday/Christmas present, and I'm telling you because I'm super excited about it!!!

Last Christmas/birthday time was chaotic and sort of dismissed because of the wedding but he's been so awesome and worked so hard for the past year and done so much for me, and now we've got a baby coming and I don't want to act once again like this is just another unimportant birthday/Christmas/anniversary because 'too much is going on.' (Also I never know what I want, I never really want anything in particular, so I always just say, 'Oh, let's just go to dinner and a movie.' and he ends up paying for everything and then we call it "birthday/Christmas" but it's always one-sided and it always feels like a cop-out). It might be one of the last times I can afford (time AND money) to do some really nice things for him.

Lastly, my baby shower is next weekend!!

My invitations!!! They're so cute!! And how funny is it that we found ones in our color scheme?! See, I told you it works!

So, I'm super excited about everything that's going on, it's a good time right now, work is slow but it will pick up. And although there's a lot to do around the house and Kyle stresses non-stop about getting everything done AND getting all his work done, we're doing awesome.

Life is good, I am thankful. I hope everyone else has a super awesome day!!

A doctor and a baby

What a jerk I am, I know it's been way way too long. In normal circumstances, I might consider ditching a person who hadn't updated her blog for this long! But as I'm sure we all know, sometimes life happens. This is what's been happening:

Writing a thesis...

Writing a thesis...

Writing a thesis...

DONE!!

Preparing for my defense...

Preparing for my defense...

.............

DEFENDED!!! GOT A PhD!!!!!

Can't believe it's over, still hasn't sunk in, but I am done reporting to committees and dreading every meeting and feeling inadequate... well, I am sure I will continue to feel inadequate in life, but not in this sense anymore. I'm supposedly the equal to my doctor peers now, so they have to respect my authority!

Here's how a defense goes: You give a presentation that sums up, in about a half an hour to 45 minutes, five years of intense, spirit-breaking work at a bench or a computer or wherever, and then everyone claps and no one asks you any questions because you had to leave so much out that they never really followed you anyway (and according to Kyle, I spoke too fast). Then everyone leaves and your committee grills you about anything they felt you left out. It's funny, you think, they don't ask you any questions about your presentation or your thesis, which you're prepared for, they ask you all the questions you didn't think about first.

They asked me a few questions about what I thought was going on; like a model of cell behavior, that I really really had no answer to, and I gave it my best shot but I really didn't think it was going to fly. But I guess they were satisfied enough with the effort. At least I didn't cry :) (that's a joke. I would not have let these people see me get frazzled).

And then it was over and they switched from this:

To this:

It was gross. Just kidding, but it is weird, it's a very bipolar experience.

Anyway, so that's the PhD process. They call you doctor and you go on your way, it's over, go find something else to do! Hopefully the funding for my new job will be all set and then I can sit back and just relax till the new job starts. I'll hopefully be working at Fox Chase Cancer Center starting late August or early September.

Buuuuuut, that's not my only news... of course, Kyle and I are also expecting a little bundle of joy!! (or poop, depending on how you look at parenthood) It'll look a little something like this:

Crazy yes?! I'm five months pregnant!! I had no morning sickness, no problems so far, and I've officially felt it moving around. I want sweet things all the time. I can't function without my morning waffles anymore or my afternoon jello. And I'm starting to show enough that I had to get new pants and a few new shirts... but mostly I just feel fat! I can't reach my toes anymore!! Although I might just be out of shape flexibility-wise. If I have one piece of advice, it's stay at least a little active, it's made my weight gain not so so bad and kept me feeling good. I was really really tired at first, and then I started walking, nothing major, just a half hour in the mornings, and I stopped feeling like I had to take a nap every morning and afternoon.

So the blog focus might shift a little again, don't worry, it's not going to be crazy baby. In fact, a good friend is getting married (yay!) and has asked me to be bridesmaid, so I will still be talking about weddings. I am also going to start album planning as well, because my mom wants an album, and I'm still interested in DIYing an album, you know, self-binding. I think it'll be fun! I also want to play with the pictures with this instagram-like website called pixlr, it makes your pictures go from this:

 To this:

That's a little extreme of an example (I already loooooove that photo as it is), but you know what I mean, you can modify the colors of your photos AND add effects. It's pretty awesome. More on that as I make more.

That being said, there will be some baby stuff. For now, just me, five months preggers!

Just starting to pooch out a little :) I've started a poll with my family and friends, I'll post more about that later. Right now it's been a half an hour and of course, I have to pee again :P

[Mis]adventures in album-making

Hello All... a very distressed lady greets you today. I'm so frustrated that it only made sense to get it all out... I plan on doing some good ole' fashioned bashin' today!

Ready? Here it goes!

I was supposed to do this long, tedious experiment today that then fell through, so I had some time on my hands to... do a whole lotta' nuthin'. I decided to look at wedding photos, since it's past time to start thinking about albums.

It's really hard nowadays just to find an image of an old fashioned album... I won't say 'crappy' per se, but I think we all know that the days of glued-in-pictures albums are history. Taking the place of these not-so-sturdy albums is the flush mount album of course:

This should come as no surprise to most. Even the super cheap companies like Shutterfly and AdoramaPix use this fancy shcmancy technology. Those albums you can get for probably a maximum of $100. We use them for vacation photos and gifts for family members... but they don't exactly qualify as wedding album quality. No offense to these companies and others like them, the purpose of Shutterfly and AdoramaPix is ease and affordability. Shutterfly photobooks are the bare bones; thin pages, regular binding, but still great quality, and hardcover to boot! Adoramapix pages are slightly thicker, quality is slightly better, and they have the added bonus of having lay-flat pages with no seam in the middle so you can add panorama shots. Pretty cool, but still, not high quality enough for a wedding album.

So I set off on my search for professional album companies. The first place I looked was my own e-mail archives. Ben had originally told me his album pricing, and I knew there was a reason I had disregarded it in the beginning:

Eww... I don't get it! Those prices are ridiculous right?! But I'm not faulting Ben, I know that those prices are standard... Wha?!?! How?!?! That's just the way it is I guess (except I know for a fact that that Blurb book only costs a little over $100... who you tryin' to fool, Buddy??). I was most upset at the limited number of photos you're allowed. Finally I remembered the only other professional album company I had ever heard of, Muujee:

I didn't know it at the time, but this was to be THEE ONLY professional album site I would find that allows a normal person (as opposed to a professional) to order their own album. Their prices are not much better (if you want the good stuff), BUT the key difference is that they allow you to add more pictures per page. For $500 less than Ben's albums, I can get the same album with 30-40 more images. So the company's concept is slightly different obviously, and because it's direct to you rather than through a photographer, it's a tad cheaper. I was still baffled though when I realized how much it would cost to get an album for us and three parent albums... Ready?? $3,000. Yes, that's more than I make in one month. That's more than three month's rent.

So I still wanted to find something else out there that was reasonable but still high quality. I mean, do people just save up their pennies forever and only buy albums years after their wedding?? Well, I was determined not to get discouraged just yet. I found a resource online that had a whole list of online retailers of flush mount albums!

As you can see, I went to every single site within the US and only one even let me create an account and log in as a normal person and see their prices. Seriously? Fine! I'm not a part of your system!

(My computer? I very nearly threw it on the ground). Anyway, the point is, since I only sneaked into one company somehow, I don't know how their price versus quality really compares... but the prices shocked me. Direct-to-photographer prices are ONE FIFTH what photographers charge brides. Now, I guarantee some photographer out there will tell me I've got it all wrong, that this is some isolated incident, that I don't understand everything that goes into it... nice try. I finally changed my search terms around (I don't remember to what) and found some other sites that don't need special logins and registrations to order... all the prices pretty much maxed out at $600 for 12x12 albums with leather covers and thick lay-flat pages and up to 60 pages (~120-180 images).

Bay Photo:

 

Nations Photo Lab:

And my favorite, Black River Imaging:

Also, the same resource that I mentioned above, Modern Album Designs, that had that whole webpage of unhelpful other websites, they also help individuals, even if it's just by hooking you up with a photographer, you can still possibly get discounts... I dunno' though, I haven't checked. Probably not with my luck. Anyway, I was particularly peeved because one of the websites that's only for professionals had something I'd never seen before but instantly wanted:

 

HOMEMADE PAPER ALBUMS!!! These are from Core Albums, and they just in general have really cool stuff. They all have a very modern, yet homemade feel but are still super professional on the inside. I contacted them pretty much begging them to let me order through them or at least hook me up with a photographer that I could order through, and I'm waiting to hear back... Very discouraging and disappointing.

Pity me yet?? Well continue pitying, because then, fueled by the idea of rustic design, I changed my search terms yet again and I found this!!

Ohmigod Ohmigod OHMIGOD!!! Are you serious?! Rustic on the outside, modern on the inside flush mount albums from Loktah. If you're thinking 'Oh, how fun! They kinda' look like your invitations!' Well then rub it in, why dontcha'! Because every single one of these is out of my reach. These guys are totally upfront about only working with photographers...

**Side Note: By the way, they humiliated me twice over by making me realize I've been spelling loktah (or lokta) wrong this whole time! In my defense, the website I was buying it from was spelling it wrong, but still... how'd you guys let me do that all this time?! You know what's hilarious too is that once I spelling it correctly, I couldn't believe how many vendors online sell it! I had such a hard time finding it when I needed it for invitations... Well no wonder! I feel so ridiculously dumb now!! **End Side Note!

Point is, this would have been pretty ideal. I have contacted them as well to find out if I can pair up with a photographer in my area, but, no word yet :(

Part of me feels like I'm going behind Ben's back and the other part of me resoundingly reminds me that there is no way I'm paying $2000 for an album with only 60 pictures in it. Sorry. I have no idea how much these last two companies cost but for me, the design element automatically justifies the cost. After seeing the Loktah products, all I wanted to do was learn how to mount a book myself; that was the whole thought process behind making my own invitations, why not DIY this too?!?!

Well, I wish, because if I could, I think I'd've found my calling in life... *stops and looks up... thinking... re-evaluating...* I also just remembered my new cousin-in-law is a graphic designer... I wonder if she needs an assistant...

Well, anyway, while I contemplate a new career move, I desperately searched the last place I knew might possibly help me (do you like the drama I'm setting up here??). Also I was on a handmade kick, where does every self-respecting, smart, bored woman go when she wants something handmade?! ETSY! My lovely Etsy was less helpful than usual in this realm but I finally found one designer or, let's just go ahead and give them the all-inclusive title of middle man, who "sells" custom wedding albums:

Inspired Album Design:

They have contracts with these companies (some of them I already mentioned earlier in this post!) and they get through the red tape for you, and the albums are still only around $600. Now, another thought strikes me, that maybe the reason these albums are cheaper is because they are not as good a quality. But, consider this, this website only lists these companies but says they can order from any other company as well (they must have some sort of design studio or something that allows them to be eligible for a professional login) so I'm contacting them as well to see if they can order an album for me through my two favorites; Core and Loktah! I'm not getting my hopes up but this is exactly what I'm hoping for, and at a price that makes so much more sense! (Also, consider that if a Blurb book gets marked up 500%, how much are those $2000 albums really worth??)

I'll keep everyone informed, in the meantime, I just wanted to get off my chest how frustrating it's been to try and figure out this whole album thing without taking out a loan! So now I need advice/help/suggestions: How did you do your wedding albums?? Old fashioned slide-in? Through a "fast and cheap" company? Through your crazy-expensive photographer? Through a middle man?? How did it go?!?!