My Magical JourneyCreating a fabulously fantastic life!

Hello Friends!

Our wedding was everything we dreamed of and more!  Every aspect of it was so wonderful and perfect!  I have a few photos to share with you!

13 of 25 family members arrived in Newport Thursday night.  We had an amazing drive down the coast from Portland.  We took the scenic route through Cannon Beach and down highway 101.  Beautiful drive!  Oh My GOSH!  Towering evergreen trees, mountains, ocean…simply incredible.  We even stopped at a roadside stand to get some cherries.  Yummy!  I loved how the farms were so varied.  In Texas, farmers strip a huge plot of land and plant one crop.  Not so pretty.  Most of the farms we drove by and flew over in Oregon were planted with different vegetables, grapevines, had cute roadside signs, and looked so natural and earthy.  Wonderful! They blended in with the landscape.

Thursday night we went to Cafe Mundo for dinner, which had rave reviews on TripAdvisor.com.  I was not a fan of the food.  We had fun anyway, just because that’s how we roll

Friday dinner was at Bay 839, right on the water, and it was FABULOUS!  I can’t say enough how great the food was, the view of the water, and the owners are.  Danielle, Ian, and Arlene were fabulous!

Mark and I are on the left.

My mother-in-love, Aunt Alaire, and cutie Evie practiced their act for the talent show on the Bay 839 patio.

While waiting for her food, Evie browses the Toys R Us catalog.

After having a fabulous dinner, we went back to Ocean House Bed & Breakfast (DIVINE!) for the talent show!  That’s right!  We convinced all our wonderful family members to participate, and we had an awesome time

Saturday morning, my grandmother surprised me in the spot where our ceremony was to take place in a Glenda the Good Witch/Fairy Godmother costume.  I was so thrilled!  When we first started talking about our wedding, I had asked if she would wear that costume to perform the ceremony.  Later, we decided against that, but she still made my costume wish come true, magic wand and all! I don’t have the photos from that initial meeting yet, but I do have one of Grandma Petey, Me, and My Mom at breakfast:

At one o’clock, my mom and I were ready to come down the stairs and walk to the garden.  However, several members of Mark’s family (who shall remain anonymous) were not ready yet, so my mom harassed them until they took their seats

Mark and I walked with our parents to the back of the ceremony site, walked a short distance by ourselves, and then walked to my Grandma Petey (officiating the ceremony) together.  We wanted to symbolize that our parents guided us through the first part of our lives, then we had many years as single adults, and finally enjoyed the past several years as a couple.  It was very important to us to recognize the beautiful journey we’ve been on for the past two years.  (By the way, my top is from the etsy dealer Plum Pretty Sugar and was a gift from my mom).

The necklace was worn by Mark’s grandmother (MamaMama) at her wedding and cousin Kelly at her and Ethan’s wedding.  It matched my dress perfectly.

We had so many moments of laughter in our ceremony, which I loved  If you haven’t already heard, I made my dress from a white duvet cover I bought (still in the package) at Goodwill for $15.  I designed and sewed my dress, dyed it teal, painted flowers on it, and beaded the flowers.  It turned out perfectly!

Mark and I stood next to each other during the ceremony, which was just perfect.

Beautiful photo of saying our vows that shows the back of my dress.  At this point in the ceremony I looked over and saw Evie, the beautiful girl in the photo.  She sprinkled her magic and fairy dust and we continued. It is one of my favorite memories from the ceremony.

Here’s a photo from our reception.  We left our beautiful homemade streamers up from the talent show the night before.  So lively!

After the reception, my Grandma Petey, Jim, my mom, and my brother provided our getaway car to go to town and enjoy the Newport Seafood BBQ and Clam Bake, which is an annual food, crafts, and music festival in Newport.  We had a fabulous time!

Saturday night we had a bonfire at the beach and watched the sunset.  It was the perfect fun, romantic, and relaxing end to the day.

Mark and I are wearing our Bride and Groom hats from Mark’s mom.  My mom’s in red in the middle, and Petey and Jim are on the right.  I’m enjoying leftovers from the cheese tray at the reception, and Mark’s enjoying even more champagne

We had a wonderful day Sunday, relaxing, hiking to the lighthouse and tidepools, and enjoying the rest of the time with our family.  We drove back to Portland on Monday and headed home to 90 degree Texas weather.  Ha!  What a difference!

So what’s next?

Mark and I bought tickets to Dublin last night to start our tour of Europe.  We don’t have anything planned except our one-way plane ticket, but everything in due time, right?  We bought hiking backpacks and boots last night, and we’re going exploring!

I hope you’ve enjoyed our wedding adventure!

Love,

Melanie Rummel (!)

This past week I’ve been feeling a rush of emotions, as you might have guessed from my latest newsletter.  We’re figuring out details on our wedding, our trip to Europe, moving, and what’s next after that in our lives.  So much going on in just the next 3 months.  Really amazing stuff, actually.  Now that I see it written down, I’m brought to tears (again) from the joy of it, rather than the overwhelming feelings I’ve been experiencing this past week.  I can feel big energetic changes happening within me and my mom as well.  We’ve been reminiscing and spending more mommy-daughter time together, which has been essential to me.  My mom is my best friend, and we’ve always been so close.

Because of my mind going overtime, I’ve found it very challenging to sit and meditate, which I know is the best thing for me to do.  Last night I finally decided to set my alarm for 5 minutes and commit that period of time to just being still and meditating.  I read a great quote once that meditating isn’t yet another thing to do, it’s the time we take to do nothing.  Mark decided to join me.  When the alarm sounded 5 minutes later, we both wanted to continue, so I hit the snooze button.  After our 15 minutes of meditating, we both felt relaxed and peaceful and were able to fall straight to sleep.  Yea!  Sometimes just a little bit goes a long way.

Since I haven’t been getting my messages via meditation lately, I’ve been getting reassurance in other ways, like dreams, signs, and other things I happen upon.  The other day I was thinking about catering options for our wedding and wondering if the one we are thinking we would like would even be in our budget.  I had just started crinkling my brow as the circle of possibilities and worries started turning again, when I looked over and saw a sign that read, “Newport. Now On Sale.”  We’re getting married in Newport, Oregon.  I got the message and immediately felt everything would work out just fine.  As it always does.

Ah well..

Just wanted to let you know why I haven’t been writing this past week.  I’m giving myself some me time.

Love,

Melanie

Only 64 days until our wedding (I just checked our website to find out). We’ve been going through so many wonderful changes the past few months…make that the past few years, and I love it. Today I felt like spring was in our home because I could feel it in my heart. A bright expectancy of even more wonderful events to come. Our wedding is already going so smoothly. We’ve come up with so many fun ideas, and our family is the most loving and supportive family I could ask for. I have very close relationships with my mom, my grandma Petey, and my mother-in-love (”Muvie”), and they have constantly repeated, “Whatever you want or need me to do…” I am so blessed.

Mark is so supportive of the changes I’m going through, of course. I love that every day we ask ourselves (internally or aloud), what do we really want? What is our ideal life in each moment, and what can we do to be there or work toward that ideal now? I found a wonderful website and blog by Anna Maria Horner, a fabric designer, who has bright colorful photos on her website. I showed them to Mark, telling him I want our home to be filled with bright colors, our artwork, eclectic fun things, and an appreciation for all things creative. I want a sewing/writing/painting/art studio in our home. Mark loved the photos and said he wants the same things. Our home is really going to be magical. I can already picture posting before and after pictures of different projects on my website. I’m so excited!

We’re planning our trip to Europe and figuring out where we want to go. We watch Rick Steve’s videos on Hulu and make note of beautiful towns we’d like to visit. So far, we’re planning to focus on England (where my mom’s side of my family lives), France, and Italy. We don’t know yet how long we’ll be there, but when we get back I suspect we’ll start exploring the US to figure out where we would like to live. Our lease is up in July, so after we get back from our wedding, we’re going to pack all our things and put them into storage, then fly to England. I’ve already started sorting through my things that are still in boxes in my mom’s garage – school mementos, college papers, photos, and journals. I’ve been finding wonderful memory treasures.

In other news, today I designed a new heading for the website. I’ve asked my tech support (Mark) to help me develop a new theme for the site and transfer it over when the time comes. That’s probably weeks away, but I got a really great start today. I realized one of the reasons I had technical difficulties with my other idea a few weeks ago was because an even better idea was coming. I’m really happy with my work-in-progress. Everything comes together in perfect timing.

Love,
Melanie

I just asked Mark what he was going to do about his honey’s dinner.  I was hoping he had a quick solution that would mean I didn’t have to figure out what to cook tonight.  He said he was going to pray about it.  I started laughing.  Then he said he was going to meditate about it.  We both started laughing.  Then he said he was going to ask his Spirit Guides about it.  At this point I asked, “Are you mocking me?”  He said he wasn’t at first, but now he was.  So, he continued, “Then I’ll write a blog about it.  Then I’ll call my mom and talk with her about it.”  I said, “You are one sassy man!”  Can you believe that?!  He is so funny.

Last night, I had a great time making dinner for myself.  I made an impromptu tomato soup, making up my own recipe, which turned out much better (I’m thrilled to say) than my vegan brownie experiment.  I played some tango music and had a good ol’ time.

In other news, I ordered my sewing machine the other day!  I’m so so excited.  I took the past two days “off” and have been spending hours upon hours looking at patterns online and figuring out which ones I would like.  I’ve even started a file to write the numbers down and notes from the reviews I’ve read.  ”Reviews?” you ask?  Yes!  I found a pattern review website (which I’ve also spent hours upon hours on) where people post their experiences and photos of what they sewed.  It’s so cool!  I feel like I know these people – and not from the we’re-all-one-energy sense.  I mean, I feel like these are my girlfriends now.  Sewing buddies.  I can’t wait to start on a project and post a review.  Some people post their works-in-progress, and I kinda want to post some just because I’ve bought the pattern.  Which, by the way, I have!  I bought three patterns in the past 2 days because my local big box (it’s a sewing-person’s term – ha! I’m a groupie!) sewing store was having a big sale just in time for my obsession to emerge.  They’re having another sale next week – 99 cent Butterick patterns.  Oh, yeah, people, this is BIG news.

The other super cool thing?  A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to make a quilt.  I was going to do it all by hand (HA!HA!HA!).  I asked the Universe for some help because I didn’t have any fabric, and I needed a lot.  I didn’t want just any fabric.  I wanted the super nice, great-quality quilting fabric.  I was driving along one day and saw a big sign that a quilting shop I didn’t even know existed (even though I must have driven by it at least a million times) was going out of business.  The lady who owned it was going to do something different, exploring different passions and interests and trying something new.  ”More power to ya,” I thought, gasping at the gorgeous fabrics that were all 50% off.  Let me clarify – they were 50% off the already discounted price!!!  I can barely type right now, I’m so thrilled just thinking about it.  This is what can happen when you listen to your intuition!!!!!  Anyhoo, so I grab a basket and pile it full with fat quarters (already cut pieces of fabric for quilting).  I mean, FULL!  When I got home, I counted over 200 fat quarters.  AH HAhahahhaah!  (that’s hysterical laughter, in case you couldn’t figure it out).  Guess how much I paid for it?  Keep in mind, this fabric usually goes for $8-$12 per yard, and I bought about 50 yards of fabric.  Please humor me and guess a number in your mind.  Okay, are you ready for the reveal?  Normally, this much fabric would have cost me $400-$600.  I paid just over $100 for it.  I think it was $106 or something like that.  HOLY COW!  Can you believe it?  Picture me taking a bow right now.  Thank you, thank you (applause, bow, more applause).  I know, I’m a great manifester.

Guess what else?! Guess what else?!  I found the pattern I’m 85% sure I’m going to use to make my wedding dress!  Yes, me, a beginnerish sewer is going to make my wedding dress.  However, it’s not the long silky white dress you might be picturing.  I’m not very traditional – you may have noticed .  I can’t post it yet or say anything about it, because only one other person knows, and that’s my mom.  So you and my mom.  Shhh!  It’s a secret.  Okay, well I told my honey I found it, but he doesn’t know what it looks like.  I couldn’t help myself, I was so excited!!!  I saw it and cried a little.  Awww  So when I said my honey was mocking me at the beginning, he was right on.  I first prayed about finding the perfect dress.  I pictured it in my mind during meditation.  I talked with my Spirit Guides about it.  I found it.  I called my mom.  I blogged about it.  HA!  My honey really knows my routine.

I took the past two days off from doing any sort of “work”.  It’s hard to call it work because I love what I do so much.  However, the one downside to working from home is that I work a lot.  That is compounded with the fact that I’m somewhat of a workaholic.  Actually, I just get so focused and excited about what I’m doing that the rest of the world shuts off.  I only realize the passage of time when I realize I’m starving.  Anyhoo, so at first I was feeling bad for resting.  I didn’t know if I was resting or just procrastinating.  However, I had a dream last night that cleared things up for me.  I’ve been recording my dreams for the past several days because I’ve been getting such great insight from them.

Okay, that’s the latest from Melanie’s world.  I hope you have a fabulous day and thanks for reading.

Melanie