It’s been far too long since I last posted, but at least I have a really good excuse: my sister Emily and her fiancé Forrest were married on October 20th!
My beautiful sister-in-law Jenni snapped this photo right after the wedding–which is the only reason she’s not in the picture with us. Her photography skills are out-of-this-world! (Be sure to check out her Facebook page here.)
As you might imagine, we were extremely busy the week before the wedding. Jenni and my brother TJ flew in on a Wednesday, we spent most of Thursday in the kitchen, Friday bubbled with decorating, last-minute prep, and rehearsals–and Saturday was the wedding. And then during last week’s wedding aftermath, we simply enjoyed being very, very hobbit-ish 😉
The wedding could’ve alternately been called “Operation Sunflower,” haha! Mom and I made 216 cupcakes over the course of two days (thank goodness for Wilton’s 24-Cup Mega Muffin and Cupcake Baking Pan 
* worked really well–highly recommended!For the tiny 6-inch cake at the top of the cupcake tower, Anna made icing sunflowers. She simply made them on square pieces of parchment paper and kept them in the freezer until it was time for her to put them on top of the frosted cake. (There were three sunflowers left over after she’d decorated the cake. Anna, Jenni, and I…uh…made them disappear. Yum.)
All in all it was a lovely wedding. My sister was gorgeous, the ceremony unfolded without a hitch, and the flower girls (Forrest’s two-year-old niece and Joy) were adorbs. The food, too, was abundant, and the line dancing so much fun, and the strong coffee greatly appreciated. This was also my first time in the role of Maid of Honor–a new and different responsibility!
Thankfully Emily and Forrest are only living fifteen minutes away. It’ll be neat to see where the Lord takes them in the coming years (although hopefully it’ll never be too far from home).
We spent last week taking it easy and putting the house back together. TJ and Jenni stayed through till Wednesday, and it was wonderful spending quiet days and/or evenings with them. Now that they’re living in Colorado (soon to be Virginia, in a few weeks!) we don’t get such opportunities very often. Our Cinnamon, who is very shy of strangers (especially male strangers), even decided TJ was a good boy…on Tuesday evening. Oh well. Better late than never.
And then I received a beautiful surprise. Amid wedding preparations my grandmother reminded me that she’s been keeping an antique writing desk specifically for me in her house. She told me about this desk a couple of years ago and that it “had my name on it,” but I never thought I’d be able to claim it until I had a home of my own.
Turns out I didn’t have to wait quite that long after all 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I. AM. SO. EXCITED. I love sitting here with a portion of my personal library at my feet and my Funkos on that little shelf, and all my notebooks and flash drives and writing paraphernalia tucked into the drawers and secret cubbies. (Yes, secret cubbies–there are so many of them!) It makes me feel very “author-y.”
But wait, there’s more…
Thanks to my first payment with the Amazon Associates affiliate program, I was able to order my own Clara Oswald FunkoPOP! Many, many thanks to those of you who’ve made orders on Amazon after clicking through the asterisked links on this blog, because she is ADORABLE and I love her…in spite of the fact that her (very lifelike/accurate) pigeon toes make her very wobbly. I’ll just keep her on the actual surface of the desk rather than the top shelf, where I can prop her against the drawer and she’ll stay upright.
But of course she won’t stay there all by herself. My little Twelve would never tolerate such a thing.
Okay, enough of weddings and desks and Funkos. I have NO intentions of neglecting my blog again for the rest of 2018. I have solid plans for blogposts all the way to New Year’s Eve and I’m quite excited about several of them, so stay tuned! And thanks for your patience over the last few weeks 🙂
Maribeth Barber Albritton 