I'm drunk on sugar

T'Was the night before Christmas. . .and all 

through [Stacye + Bob's] house. Not a creature was stirring [except for a Maxine, 2 doggies and 2 kitties]. Not even a mouse. Mainly because I would have already found something to squish it with.. . 

Zachery just

departed for Atlanta after a day of consuming unnatural, excessive, diabetic coma inducing sized portions of fudge. 

Our personal poisons: Me-- Butterfinger Fudge and Peanut Butter Fudge. Zach-- Rocky Road Fudge, Chocolate/Walnut Fudge and Toffee Chip Fudge. He argues that he's bringing one piece to his dad but I only half way believe him

We spent the day bouncing around in small-mountain-town-esque stores and well, eating. Next time we'll come equipped with hike-worthy shoes. It's hard to believe that a little over a year ago Zach and I were going on our first date. I think just experienced a temporary lapse in woman-li-ness....how could I forget that we exchanged gifts!? Zach has once again made it impossible for me to "one-up" him. First I get a killer ring-- now he's presented me with a gorgeous designer wallet, a new edition version of my signature scent [Chanel/Chance] and 2 really amazing Nike pull-overs [featured on me in the photo above, and also in the post concerning the 5k I ran in reindeer antlers and knee high socks]. I don't care how tacky it is to broadcast my new digs via the internet. I'm stoked. In exchange, I gave Zach some Bose Noise Canceling headphones, a snow boarding trip, a handful of Michael Kors ties and his favorite socks. Needless to say, we're both lucky that our significant other has such fantastic taste! Even more needless to say-- I think both my brown-eyed boy and I are ready to hit the snow [since we can't hit the surf]. On a semi-related note: I've pinky promised Zach that I will FINALLY purchase a new long-board over New Years weekend. I think the reality of this pinky promise is that Zach wants HIS board back-- I've been holding it hostage for.... months.

I suppose that I'd better focus my attention on the 24-hour "A Christmas Story" marathon and dive into some more wedding research... . before the sugar high dissipates. .. .Speaking of Christmas. ..There's a 60% chance that I'll have a white one up here..  .which would soil my plans of driving into Atlanta for the morning/afternoon.. .however, it would give me ample time to concoct/take the most extravagant bubble bath EVER. 


In lieu of revealing some tid-bits of wedding research that I have yet to conduct.. .here are some photos of my last Christmas here in my North Georgia sanctuary.. . 

 

As per usual: Love & Hugs

Z+M

Where's the money tree?!

It’s Officially Winter. Which means—

the cold? It ain’t goin’ no where. 

Zach and I thought that in celebration of the ACTUAL arrival of winter and accompanying chilling temperatures—we would take our engagement pictures! 


Sunday afternoon we met with our photographer [founder of Sharif Hassan Photography/The Bowtie] around 4 to so that the symphony of shutters could begin. First and foremost—let me tell you about our photographer.. . 

His name is “Beefy"

okay, so maybe on his birth certificate it says “Sharif Hassan” but who pays attention to the fine print, anyway!? Beefy sports the most impressive handle bar mustache in all of the land. He lives in Atlanta and shoots everything from pin-up girls to extreme sports and outdoors to engagements and weddings. He probably dedicates about 50% of his time to his amazing photography and 50% to waxing his mustache. Either way, I HIGHLY recommend him. He did a ton of research to help us find some good spots to shoot and was totally easy to work with. He’s goofy, laid back but incredibly talented and professional. I don’t know how many of you have actually experienced having your engagement pictures taken—or even portraits but I will let you into this little gem of knowledge: no matter how much you love each other or how comfortable you are in front of a camera.. .it’s unavoidably awkward. 

Feast your eyes on our photographer and his mustache.... .

We hit up Grant Park first to skip in the leaves and kiss under weeping willows before moving onto the bridge on Estoria and then the infamous Krogg Street Bridge where “Everything Lasts Forever,” we ended the shoot on some seemingly abandoned train tracks between East Atlanta and Grant Park—there were rows of stationary choo-choo trains covered in graffiti. It was pretty dark by that time but I’m hopeful that at least some of the later shots turned out. It’ll be a few weeks before we’re able to broadcast a sneak peek but we’re incredibly anxious/excited to see the end result(s)—which we will send out with our invitations.

Oh, invitations. We should get on picking those out… . .

After our engagement pictures were finished and our noses, fingers and toes were sufficiently frozen we headed to our friend’s house to make gingerb.. er, graham cracker houses. Zach and I teamed up and decided that we would put his architectural genius to use by constructing an impressive double wide trailer .complete with obnoxious colored “Christmas lights” and even more obnoxious lawn ornaments. 

[Glorified Trailer Trash... ]

Although it feels like we haven’t done much else aside from emptying our pockets on behalf of this time of year [spending ample amount of time in the home-goods section in Anthropologie has been the demise of my bank account]—it’s nice to have festive time together. And seeing friends has been awesome as well. Between edible house building, tacky Christmas sweater parties, cut-throat games of scategory and traditional holiday parties with some of my wonderful friends.. .we’re feeling festive. Slightly cheesy. But festive none-the-less.

[Us Plotting to Win Scategories]

Followed by:

[The crew of newly-weds and soon-to-be-weds at Clark and Monique's Tacky sweater game night]

Followed by:

My French friend Shelley, My professional ballerina/personal shopper friend Liz and I at Liz and Jeremy's Christmas party]

In other news, I’ve eaten the equivalent of my body weight in peanut butter fudge today. I’m incredibly anxious to hit the gym after work. Then I’ll probably just eat some more. I was so excited to get back into a size 2 and now it seems as if my new goal is to compete for the highest weight against a small elephant. I've arrived at my vineyard sanctuary to indulge in some heavy duty relaxation and more heavy duty wedding research. And running on mountain roads. But we’ve already covered that in a previous post—no one is supposed to tell my mother, remember? I’ll probably reveal wedding color possibilities and expose our [my] possible ideas for décor this.. . .Oh, and flowers. I need to pick those.

I wish someone would tell me: Does this wedding "to-do" list EVER end!?

Back to the Anthropologie stuff: Zach has forbidden me from decorating our entire house in such a way. Mainly because this style CAN be over-done.. .and in large doses it could transform a space into the likes of a fashionable grandmother-type's home. So, I'm sticking with accents here and there rather than following a stuffy color scheme-- okay so I'm sure our "grown up" dish ware will have some sort of consistent theme. Back to the here and now: Our kitchen is modest in size and the paint color will likely remain the same champagne-ish-dark-ivory that it currently is... .I'm hoping that we can eventually install a backsplash of subway tiles. Like I said...accents.


Item # 1: Fancy Paisley Spoon Rest. Which my sister-in-law to be also owns but if some thing is cute enough, I will shamelessly play copy-cat.

Item # 2: Un-designated Containers. They're cute. They were $4. And they can look killer displayed with or with out a purpose.. . 

Item # 3: Measuring Cups. These are pretty self-explanatory. And adorable. Hello Fashion. Meet Function. 

Item # 4: These are supposed to be candle votives. But that ain't happenin'. Okay so. FIRST of all. I did NOT buy purple. I bought a really killer bright turquoise and a bright-ish yet mustard-ish yellow-- they just weren't featured on the website. And they will serve as toothbrush holders in our bathrooms. 

Until Next Time

Z+M

A Million Miles A Minute

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed.. . .but.. . .it's cold. And cold means... 

HoLiDaYs!! 

.. . and lots of road races.

After bandit running the Thanksgiving Day half-marathon,joining LA Fitness [which has become my second.. .err, third home], and the impressive amount of food I've consumed over the past few weeks: has anyone ever eaten at Ria's Blue Bird Cafe? It's down off of Memorial across from Oakland Cemetary-- best pancakes ever, and I know a thing or 5 about good pancakes. Oh! And my dear friend Monique Hilton introduced me to the Nutella + Burnt Marshmallow milkshake at Flip. Oh! And lots of holiday cookies. I could go-on with the Oh-ing but I'm not sure if I want to verbally regurgitate all of the sinfully delicious [fattening] things I've consumed in the past I-don't-know-how-long. The moral of the story is that I'm really addicted to running. My room mate and side kick Jenna Kimble, and our good friends Lina Weathers [new to road races] and Brady Alles [road race virgin] decided that we were going to participate in the Jingle Jog.. .which was this morning. Our attire consisted of knee-high white + red striped socks, reindeer antlers and of course, jingling bells on our shoes... . *Pause for photo interruption*

[our socks are pretty epic and the bells on our shoes kept us annoyingly aware of our pace as well as how many joggers surrounded us]

[From Left: Brandy Alles, Lina Weathers, Yours Truly and Jenna Kimble

I'd give our attire a thumbs up. However, there was a group of high school dudes who dressed in brown, adorned reindeer names on their shirts, and ran holding reigns that pulled a "sleigh," in which sat a very young, thin and beardless Santa Clause. I think they win in both creativity, impracticality and narcissism-- either way, it was impressive]

[After finishing in relatively awesome time, collecting our t-shirts and catching our breaths.. I decided to ambush Lina, who ROCKED at her run]

We returned home with frozen noses and fingers but with a sense of satisfaction and anticipation for the next road race-- which will take place January 29, 2011.

In Zach and Maxine news: we've sent out most of our "Save the Dates"-- we were still waiting on a few addresses [in my defense, said addresses were my dear fiancee's responsibility to acquire] and are eager to move onto creating the rest of our "paper stuff." The wedding madness has taken a back seat to the holidays and chaos that is every day existence. Zachery will finally be able to catch his breath after this coming weeks finals at which time we'll do our professional engagement pictures and finalize invitation verbiage and design. Oh, and spend some quality time together. In the mean time, we're doing things like Christmas shopping, yawning and bleeding the days together. 

In 175 days we will be husband + wife. I'm looking forward to being able to do things like: DECORATE our house-- right now it's full of boys who are too busy and sleep deprived on account of their respective educations and careers to worry about the aesthetics of the house: ENTER MAXINE. I can't wait to throw in some feminine [but not too girly] touches, organization and style. We're so blessed to have such an amazing [future] home-- we're in a debt of gratitude to The McClure's for all they're doing on the "home front." I'm constantly reminded how lucky Zach and I are to each have such great sets of parents. Back to the things I'm looking forward to being able to do....GROCERY SHOP/COOK-- it's hard living in two separate places and not having an abundance of time we can spend together to warrant grocery shopping [for 2] and having a constant supply of things that make cooking possible oh, and utensils...kind of important. And of course.. the most important and most exciting thing will be when both Zach and I will be referring to the same place when we say "HOME." Also, I'm REALLY* looking forward to registering for our "wish list" of wedding gifts. I'm trying to slowly accumulate things here and there-- the next BIG* purchase I intend on making is either going to be a fancy T.V. or a living room set. Of course, we WELCOME hand-me-downs and I already have some things waiting for me [us] in storage.. .but IF possible and IF affordable, new stuff is great too. We recently embarked on a Christmas shopping mission and made out by only buying a few things for ourselves [I HAD to invest in these adorable latte bowls from Anthropologie and some vintage gift tags... .

<-- I mean, seriously. They were $5/each. I got 2 in this color and I let Zach pick a color as well. Of course, he kept in manly + went with a gray. Which actually is a killer color combination. I am an advocate of Anthropologie's home goods.

Adorable? Yes. 

Unique? Yes. 

Classic Vintage with a Contemporary Twist? Yes. Overpriced? Absolutely. 

.. .but who cares!? I'm piece by piece collecting things from my beloved and favorite store to place around our home. It's all about the details. 

As for our actual Christmas festivities: I am going to take a 3 day hiatus from life and spend Christmas Eve through the 26th housesitting at the most beautiful place in the world. We're talking ACTUAL* rest, people-- all of the bubble baths I can handle, love from the sweetest puppy around and probably an [un]healthy abundance of reading. And of course running. I love running on those mountain roads... .although, they're wind-y and don't have "shoulders" let alone sidewalks. Don't tell my mother. I'll pop into town on Christmas morning to visit with The Tis family and to watch the little boys tear through wrapping paper [if you know me at all, you know how close to my heart these people are]. My momma bear is working on Christmas but of course Zach and I will make a pit-stop by Chateau De Dounis to see Georgie [aka Scrooge], Joseph and Grandpa Victor either before and/or after making our way to McClure-ville. We'll schedule a Dounis Christmas re-do on a day where my mother is free from Grady's grasp.

Nothing REALLY* exciting has come to fruition in the past few weeks. Or maybe the have and we're just holding out? We can't spill ALL* of the beans or else no one will have to come to the wedding to know what it looks like! And we would like to maintain our guest list as well as our element of surprise.

I'm counting seconds until Zach is done with finals so we can wreak havoc all over Atlanta. I admit that watching him suffer through finals is making me miss being in school...I anticipate returning.

We'll leave you with this "gem." Zach had a full-on beard and decided, after numerous itch attacks and feeling like an animal had taken up residence on his face-- he shaved...only...he shaved a really offensive and really hilarious mustache....which I made him shave off.. ..

Anyway. We love you ALL*

Until next time.

Z+M

Oh Hai Blog. We Meet Again

After addressing 100+/- envelopes for our "Save the Date" cards.. . .licking 100+/- envelopes.. . .creating a wedding website and of course enduring the frustrating and seemingly endless process of collecting addresses.

I.Am.Spent.

...and it's only just begun.

Uh-Oh.

And, I'm pretty sure that my taste buds are forever tainted.. ..

The Ugly Truth I've learning through this process is that: Wedding Guest Lists are impossible. Deciding who makes the proverbial cut and who doesn't is exhausting and emotionally draining... . but we have to draw a line in the sand at some point. The Beautiful Truth: we've fabricated a list of the people who we love to share in celebrating the beginning of our Happily Ever After.

A new post complete with pictures and a legitimate, [as usual] long-winded update is in the making and will probably go public tomorrow. Somewhere in between, all of the licking, excessive running, long hours at work, Zach's life-consuming homework, the sudden presence of winter and my impressively filthy car... I've not made the time to update. But don't give up on us just yet. With the holidays at our fingertips and being seconds away from freedom [from Georgia Tech's death-grip]-- we are feeling more motivated to giving our blog the TLC it needs to be brought up-to-date.

Stay Tuned. Please?

Re: Wedding Website: www.theknot/ourwedding/MaxineDounis&ZachMcClure

We included the link to our blog [aka: here] on some of our "Save the Dates" so that our guests, specifically those who are traveling, can access the details about the monumentally epic day that will be June 4, 2011 as well as additional information about our sketchy, glamorous town--A T L A N T A.

Tomorrow. I promise. Just get comfortable on the edge of your seats until then and I promise-- I PROMISE that your curiosity will be satiated. I'm not sure that I completely understand the concept of patience but I'm hoping that you do :)

Tomorrow!

I promise!

Z+M