One thing that has been really amazing to me about the whole wedding planning process is how many people have stepped up to help us in a lot of different ways. It’s been a real blessing. My aunt’s boss stepped up to help us plan centerpieces and flowers for the wedding. She used to be a flower arranger awhile ago before she started her current business. Before we met with her on Sunday, I thought that she was just going to help us with creative direction and aesthetic sort of things. She’s making all of our centerpieces and she’s making other decorations to fix up the space. She spent a few hours with us on Sunday. We toured the site so she could get a good idea of the space and then she spent over an hour with us going over ideas that she had for centerpieces and other decorations. She’s incredibly detail oriented so she saw a lot of places where we could have decorations that I hadn’t even thought of. She really made both the Architect and I feel really comfortable instantly. She is amazing at very quickly getting to know people’s likes and dislikes. She came with a whole list of ideas for centerpieces that she had already thought of. We found a lot of ideas we loved and were able to come up with an idea that incorporated the things that we loved. She’s going to work closely with us over the next year!

To top this all off, she also stepped up and offered to be our day of coordinator. She truly enjoys doing these things and said that she’d be very happy to help us. I’m really excited about working with her. I feel really lucky that she wants to help us. I was starting to kind of worry about the centerpieces and actually the photographer that we met with last week had just suggested thinking about getting a day of coordinator. It wasn’t something that I had thought of before but once the photographer started talking about that, I started thinking it was a really good idea and began wondering if this was going to have to be another person I was going to hire. My aunt’s boss is a gift that came just at the right time. I love when things fall together like that.

We also met with a potential photographer last week. I think she’s going to do a good job. She comes highly recommended from a college friend and also the event planner for our wedding site. She includes engagement photos in her packages so we can see how she works and get comfortable with her. We’re going to have pictures done in my hometown this coming weekend. I’m really excited to see how the photos turn out.

And here’s another case of being in the right place at the right time: apparently there were two little explosions on the Red line metro (the line I ride) this morning. I rode to work with the Architect. Eek!

Oh hai! Not to be a stick in the mud or anything but I gotta say it’s a little weird that President Obama would take time to jet off to Copenhagen to bring the 2016 Olympics back to his hometown. There’s a lot going on here at home that needs to be taken care of.

Here are a few things that probably should be taken care of before worrying about the Olympics:

• Economy of sucktastical proportions
• Health Care
• Stuff going on with the wars we are fighting
• <insert other imperative national issue here>

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that these issues are just a twee bit more important than the Olympics. I also strongly believe that sending the First Lady, Mayor Daley and Oprah over there while stating that the President is busy trying to address one of the above problems would have sufficiently excused the President from his Olympic lobbying. Honestly, the First Lady’s speech on the Olympics was better and more touching than the President’s anyhow.

Lobbying aside, I believe that it wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture to have the Olympics in this country. If I were one of the taxpayers in Illinois, I would be throwing a fit. The U.S. does not federally fund the Olympics which means it’s going to fall to the taxpayers. Oh but no, wait, the city of Chicago says it will fund raise so that the burden of the Olympics doesn’t fall on the taxpayers. Fat chance, I’m sure that some of the burden will still fall on the taxpayers. Yes, the Olympics have the potential to generate income but there is a ton of upfront costs that must be paid and one can only hope that the Olympics turn a profit. That is not guaranteed. I don’t believe that it’s a good idea with the state of the economy to pay out all of that upfront cost.

Grr! Life is about priorities. None of us are capable of doing everything and it is up to us as to what we prioritize and what we choose not to. In the case of all the problems we are currently facing, I think not having the Olympics in Chicago falls low on the proverbial national problem totem pole.

What do you think about President Obama going to Copenhagen? Good idea? Bad idea?

*Edit*: Yes, yes, going to Copenhagen obviously did wonders…

I think I’ve written about this before but just to give you a bit of background on our fair city, most of us are on a schedule. We have places to go, people to see, etc. No one likes to deviate from their schedule so chances are that if you ride the Metro at the same time every day, you will see some of the same people every day and furthermore, if you ride in the same train car every day, you will probably even sit with the same people each day. Schedules control us all it would seem

For the past couple weeks or so, I’ve ridden the train with this woman. She looks either in her late 30s or early 40s. She’s short, maybe about five-foot-nothing or something of the like. She has long, long, long hair down to her butt. This woman seems to like to use her hair as both a scarf and a blanket. She drapes it around her neck; she pulls it tight across her chest. She always has her hands on her hair; pulling it tight, puffing it out, rinse, repeat. It’s both entrancing and amusing to watch and makes me terribly glad that I don’t have long hair like that; I would be playing with it all day as well. I don’t think she works in an office since she is always in jeans and a t-shirt (we definitely live in dress-up land if you work in an office) but I can picture how distracting it would be to sit across from her in a meeting. Although, let’s face it, sometimes meetings really do need distractions… for serious.