The Luckiest Girl in The World (continued)

I love this dress. I knew this was *the* dress before I ever touched it. I was meant to wear it. I was meant to belong to him.

I love my husband-to-be. It's perfectly strange how little will change once we are married. We've been best friends- utterly inseparable best friends- for almost five years. I knew from our first date that I could never fall in love with anyone else. It was over. I didn't ever want to be married, I didn't ever want to be somebody's wife, I had never wanted to settle down, to have a home, to have a life. But there was no fighting it. There was no doubt. Jason is the reason I exist. He is my purpose. He is the ideal man. I could not live with myself, had I ever let go of such an incredible human being, who, for reasons I will never understand, is and always has been totally enamored with me. I could never explain how undeserving I am of his attention, his affection. But it's useless to try. I could never convince him of the fact that I am so unworthy. He's delusional! He is blinded by love! But that's just fine with me, because I do love him so totally. I'll just have to spend the rest of my life trying desperately to become the kind of good that he is, (though I know I'll fail). He is a prince among men, an angel among mere mortals, my knight in shining armor!

Luck doesn't begin to describe it. I was meant to be with him. My whole life, I've been waiting for something really good to happen, disbelieving that there was such a thing as a truly great man. Then one hot summer night it just happened. It was just an ordinary day. I tiptoed out of the house in the middle of the night. I was meeting a friend, who took me to this tiny video store that I just had to see. And it changed everything. Meeting him, falling in love with him, it completely changed me. I am not who I was. I feel like I didn't exist before I fell in love with him, that I couldn't live without him. He the source of my every happiness. No, luck doesn't cover it. Maybe fate. Maybe providence.

I cannot wait to wear this dress, to promise myself to him. He is my belief in life.

What about the ring?

I feel so incredibly blessed. A lot of girls never get the big white dress, the first dance, the fancy cake. A lot of girls don't even get a wedding. And no girl gets a husband as perfect as mine.



It's been almost a year that I've had this ring on my finger. I grew gorgeous pumpkins, adopted the perfect puppy, and made highest honors on deans list all year. I was so afraid before... I was afraid I wouldn't finish college, that the money wouldn't work out. I was afraid I'd never have a family again. I was afraid I wasn't strong enough to carry all of this. But then Jason asked me to marry him. And I don't have to be afraid of anything, anymore, ever. He is my foundation. He is all of my strength, my courage, my joy. It's about trust.


We will be married in this room, at the Frank Lloyd Wright Westcott House in Springfield, Ohio just before sunset on September 4.












Our wedding cake (pending a few modifications) complete with gumpaste cymbidium orchids and copper, not chocolate, ribbon. The tiers will be hexagonal, to reflect my gorgeous engagement ring. The top and bottom tiers will be white cake with raspberry preserves and the center tier will be strawberry- Jason's favorite- all coated in Italian buttercream icing! The center tier will feature a sort of 1920s craftsman/art deco design that we used on our invitations and the top and bottom tiers will be decorated with little ∴s . It will be beautiful and delicious!







This is the room where I'll put on my dress. The prettiest thing I'll ever wear.







The dress. The dress that makes me look like the barbie doll you stick into a 3-year-old's birthday cake. The dress that I could conceal my entire balance ball beneath. The dress that doesn't fit through a doorway. The perfect dress that fits like a glove and gathers and flows as magically as if it were skimming the red carpet. The perfect dress.













I am so incredibly, unbelievably, lucky to be able to post this blog from this big, gorgeous house as I sit beside my fluffy, happy, snoring dog and as the love of my life is asleep and dreaming upstairs. I am so in love with my life.

Goodbye Summer

Gone are these lazy summer days of River being eine Hausfrau. Gone, I say! These are the days of waking up extremely early to commute ever so slowly to Big Girl School (AKA WSU) where parking is ridiculous and classes are loooong. Away we go! Armed only with our laptop, our statistics text and our sheer will to resist the overwhelming urge to skip class to paint the garage, pick pumpkins, and plan our engagement party.

Life has been so good to us this summer. Our house, yard and garden have become our retreat, our sactuary, our fortress against "the real world", that is to say, all of the facts, such as the fact that my fiance hasn't had a single day off from work in about a month, the fact that I have really complex classes starting fall quarter on a campus which my female brain (sans decent spatial reasoning skills) as of yet seems incapable of navigating, the fact that somewhere amidst this busy chaos we have a formal, intimate wedding to plan. These facts loom. Yet the warm breeze of the coolest summer on record still insists that global warming is by far the hugest hoax in history, and it makes me happy. Our big, cool house and its big cool rooms make us happy. I take solace in still another fact, not the looming kind, but instead, one of the reassuring variety: after an impossibly long and stressful day I will arrive home, here, to my own house, still collapse with a sigh into a warm bed in a beautiful room, and when I wake, this summer will be all but over, and I'll have the first fall of leaf-lined streets in my new neighborhood to look forward to.

Perhaps I am too optimistic, but I am compelled by everything that has ever happened to me to believe fervently in a benevolent universe, one in which mostly good things happen. And lately, mostly good things happen to me.

I love my life!

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Originally uploaded by rivercarrot

I am so happy my pumpkins turned out so well. There are even two still on the vine! Which reminds me, I should go check on them... :D

Me and my babies!

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Originally uploaded by rivercarrot

I love these pumpkins. I didn't do a thing to them all summer and they still grew up big and strong and ready to become jack-o-lanterns!

River picks a peck of perfect pumpkins!

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Originally uploaded by rivercarrot

I picked 5 pumpkins last week! They were grown in 100% organic soil with zero herbicide and zero pesticide. And they got HUGE.

every 15 seconds

So I have an AVEDA t-shirt that says EVERY 15 SECONDS A CHILD DIES DUE TO LACK OF CLEAN WATER. Disturbing, no?
You know what else is disturbing? A guy came to our house today to analyze our drinking water and made a glass from the tap look like Nigerian well water. Wow. Gross. It was rather unnerving to see all of the minerals, chlorine and sediments that are in the water coming out of our pipes. So unnerving, in fact, that I might be brushing my teeth with Culligan water tonight.
Seriously though, despite the hidden grossness, I count myself extraordinarily lucky that my water is as clean as it is. I mean the odds of me getting giardia from drinking my city water are infinitesimal and that is something I quite appreciate. However, eww. All the sediments and minerals and icky floaties this guy showed us in our water gave me the creeps. No wonder our water tastes like crap! No wonder it takes me a handful of shampoo to wash my hair! I was seriously considering investing in a combination softening/filtration system to clean and soften all of the water that we use in the house.
But is it worth it?
The salesman that came to conduct the test was (of course) also peddling the solution to our every water quality problem: a whole-house water purification system. It cost more than my car. However it is said to extend the life of water-loving appliances, like the dishwasher and clothes washer, as well as cut our costs on cleaning and soap consumption, as well as make our daily personal hygiene practices and household cleaning tasks "green", which simply means it would make biodegradable soap and cleaning products their most effective. It all sounded good. But I noticed our salesman/mad scientist had a few tricks up his sleeve. For example, when testing our water's hardness, he used the hottest water from the tap in order to ensure his sample contained sediments from our ancient gas water heater. I thought that was funny at the time, but now I'm really curious- how hard is the cold water that we use for 90% of what requires water, like cooking and clothes washing? I should have asked!
Alas! Amidst the noise of rushing water and clanking beakers, I was whisked away to Clean Water Land. Dr. Salesman had us wash our hands, one hand in the purified water and one hand in our icky water. I fell in love with the softness of my left hand, and discovered a fresh hatred for tap water due to the gritty feeling it left on my right one. He tested two glasses of water, one which was straight from the tap, and another glass of tap water which he'd had Jason swish his fingers around in. The tap water contained chlorine; the finger water did not- proof of how human skin absorbs toxic chlorine every time you shower, wash your hands, or wash your face! Save us, Dr. Salesman! He then went on to prove, through a series of simple tests, how poor a rinsing agent hard water is, how abrasive it is to clothing in the wash, and how much money we "poured down the drain" by using too much soap to compensate for our hard water, among other things. "This unit will pay for itself in just a few years! Think of your health!"
This company, which is endorsed by a major home improvement store, seems rather reputable. The water tasted good and felt luxurious compared to the gritty city water we drink and (attempt to) lather up in daily. But I'm torn. Is $5,000 (around $75- $100 per month for 5 years) a reasonable price for *better* water? Or am I just being lavish with myself? I mean, there are people in the world who contract unspeakable illnesses from their drinking water, and I'm concerned about the ~luxurious feel~ of mine?