We decided to host a dinner for any other couples who are recent transplants to Portland as well. As it turns out, there's only one couple coming. Steve and Katie moved here from North Carolina in August. Steve is a lawyer and Katie is a professor at a local college. They had friends out here already, but didn't have any plans for Thanksgiving. They said they'd just been planning to stay home and have a chicken. I told them that we were making tofurkey, so they may still want to bring the chicken.
Adam's making his honey-roasted fake turkey, roasted vegetables, and mashed potatoes. I'm making cornbread, vegetarian stuffing, and my mom's peanut butter bars. Steve and Katie are bringing okra (this will be an experiment for both of us), apple pie, and wine. None of us are particularly into football, so we'll probably play board games instead.
In other life, Adam is finally winding down the end of his semester. He's working on two exegetical papers, and then goes straight into finals. He's pretty much holding on by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin, and counting down the days until he gets a couple of weeks off for Christmas.
Charlotte's is pretty much same-old, same-old. We're already beginning to get fully-booked on the weekends. There was minor drama last weekend. We were hosting a trunk show for Aire Barcelona on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, Suzanne had me call the designer for the tracking numbers on the boxes. It turns out, the dresses were still in Utah and weren't scheduled to reach us until the following Monday. Obviously, since our trunk show was on Friday and Saturday, Monday just wouldn't work for us. Most of Thursday was spent arguing with Aire that they were going to upgrade to over-night and pay for it themselves. Krysta was finally able to pick up the gowns from the FedEx hub late Friday night, however it was definitely not our most successful trunk show. I'm sure part of this was also due to the fact that Aire is one of our most couture (read most expensive) designers. On the up side, I did get to play with my most expensive dress to date, $4500!
Last weekend, I had a family of African descent. They were hilarious! The mom spied the dress she wanted her daughter to wear on another bride, so I had to steal it from someone else's appointment. She loved the gown, it had "The Drama" she was looking for. She had to practice dancing in it. On the surface, it was an ideal appointment, loved the dress, loved the veil, loved the jewelry, found bridesmaid dresses. They wanted to get everything taken care of so they wouldn't have to worry about it all later. I'm like "Awesome! Let me get the paperwork." The mom responds with "Great, and then we'll start talking price." And my heart sinks.... They're going to want to haggle. We don't haggle. The gowns cost what they cost, we only mark them up what the designers say we have to price them at. Eventually, I gave them a couple of discounts, on bridesmaids, on accessories, and they left happy... Three hours later! That was a marathon appointment, but it was one of the most fun experiences I've had at the store.
After five years with Verizon, Adam and I finally switched cell carriers. We realized that we were paying as much for calls and texts with Verizon as we would be for full smartphones with web and data with T-Mobile. Adam being the tech-guru that he is, has been researching phones for the last six months. We both got Samsung Vibrants and actually managed to find brand new, un-opened ones on ebay, saving us about $300 from what T-Mobile would charge. T-Mobile also has the option of a no-contract plan, which is also less expensive than something that would lock us in to two years with them. Win-win!
We have officially hit winter here in the Northwest. This last weekend we actually had some snow, and of course, the entire city panicked: "Get your chains, stock up on food, estimate hours for your commute!" Total accumulation: 1/2 inch. But it has been ridiculously cold, not reaching above 30. We've been walling ourselves off in the second bedroom around the space heater.
Looking forward to the holidays. Love and miss you all! Christian out!
