We Made It!

Hello ladies! Just a quick check in to let you know that we made it in safe and sound.

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What we have done definitely hasn't sunk in yet, with Mr. Milk and I both feeling like we are here for a vacation.

It's a little after midnight here so I am going to hit the sack. But there was a little drama that went on in the last few days, so I will be back to tell you all about it soon!

On A Jet Plane...

As you ladies read this post, Mr. Milk and I are (hopefully) on a plane heading out with our 5 suitcases and 4 carryon bags! We have 2 stops, the first in Calgary and the second in Germany. All our bags can be checked in all the way to Cyprus so we don't have to worry about them at all. Unless they aren't there when we arrive. Then I will have a mini melt down :)

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who have followed along on this journey thus far. While I plan to keep blogging and know I will be following all of you just as before, I am also feeling like I am leaving people behind, making me feel kinda sad. 

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You have all been great! I feel like I've made awesome connections with so many of you, and its been much more fun taking this wedding on with such avid supporters and people who understand what I am going through! 

Have a great long weekend! Next time I check in, we will be on the other side of the world! And home :)

Fridays with Mr. Milk - It's Time...

Ten years. It's time to go.

I love this country. I came here in 2000, in search for a path unknown to me and Canada helped me find it. I studied, I worked, I partied, I enjoyed the nature and the outdoors, and took notice of the little things Canadians do that makes them the wonderful people they are.

You see, to me nothing epitomizes more what a "Canadian" is than seeing a hubcap positioned by a light post on the side of the street. This is a country were consideration is in the collective agenda, every day. Where "thank you" and "please" are not just nice words, but mandatory words. Where everyone is equal and there is a proper way to do things and a not-so-proper way to do things, and society is your judge. Where people stand in single file to get on the bus, and where tipping a waiter 18% is a society-imposed rule that compensates for the minimum wages servers make; and everyone does it.

Love it or hate it, Canada is a wonderful land. When I tell people that we are leaving, the immediate response is a big, stunning, "WHY?" (with an undertone of "why would anyone think of leaving Canada?"). People pray for the opportunity to move here. We are leaving.

Back in September, when Chocolate Lover and I began thinking of leaving to go back home, I must say the journey ahead of us scared the crap out of me. Not for the amount of work that it was going to be, but for the weight of the decision we had to make. What if we regret it? What if we make the wrong call? I asked friends, family, strangers, I made pros and cons lists, thought about it every morning in the shower and in my sleep. January came around and our final decision made sense.

Tomorrow we are leaving and I could not be more certain that this is the right thing to do. Family first. Nothing is more important than being close to the ones you love. That's exactly what we are doing, and I'm happy to be leaving on a super high note.

Work has been amazing to me, and if it wasn't for the lack of anonymity on public blogs I would go into more details, but let's just say that I feel very satisfied with what I have accomplished here and I am eager for Chocolate Lover and I to do the same back home.

Home was Cyprus when we were in Canada and Canada when we were in Cyprus. It's time to choose.

We are going back to Cyprus. We are going home.

From sunnier pastures and loving surroundings, but with memories of a wonderful decade in Canada, we'll be touching base soon. Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk signing off.

Whats On The Schedule For Today?

Although Mr. Milk is still technically working, he will be leaving early from work today to come pick me up so we can get some more necessary chores done. He'll be borrowing the truck from work to help us out.

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We need to load and deliver our couch to a friend of Mr. Milk's. We might also have a buyer for the kitchen table who will need it delivered. While it is a bit of a hassle to be doing the delivering, we are thankful that they got sold!

We have 3 boxes that we will need to ship by airfreight. That includes our invitations. While I am still a little hesitant about this, we have no choice, so I am letting it go and hoping for the best. As you might recall from my previous airline rant, passengers are now only allowed one piece of checked luggage for transatlantic flights. Luckily, we just found out that Mr. Milk's elite status transfers to our Lufthansa flight so he is actually allowed 3 pieces. This makes things so much easier as we only have to pay $50 for one extra piece of checked luggage, bringing the total to 5 suitcases. I was able to squeeze my dress into a carry-on bag, so that will work out too. Anyway, we need to take our 3 boxes to the freight company and get that shipped off. It takes about 5 days, so not bad at all.

Then we have 2 large boxes of household items which we will be donating to Gather and Give, an agency I found online which donates the items to low income families and those in need. We then head to our local food bank to donate some non-perishable food we have left over in our cupboards. 

A friend is coming over later in the evening to pick up our bed. Luckily we have an aerobed we can sleep on on Thursday and Friday nights. We'll then leave that with a friend, as well as the bed sheets and such, for him to donate. 

Anytime left in between will be spent cleaning and packing the rest of our stuff. Hopefully by tomorrow night, most things will be done, giving us some time to chill out on Friday and maybe even enjoy our last day in Vancouver. Our flight is at 8am (PST) Saturday morning, when the dreaded long flight back home begins. 

I will hopefully get a chance to post something tomorrow before I say farewell to you ladies from this part of the world. But rest assured I will back as soon as possible, even just for quick updates.

Thanks for following along on this non-wedding related journey! Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well in the next few days :)

4 Months!

Yup thats right! We are down to the 4 month mark already! I don't know where the time has gone! The last month or so has been consumed with the move and getting everything sorted out for that, that there has been no wedding progress. Not that there's a problem with that. I feel we are on a good path. The only thing that I wish I had finished was the invitations for the reception. But I will get my mum and sister to help assemble those, which will also make it more fun. What do we still have let to do? Well...

- Get a videographer. Hopefully this won't be too difficult
- Decide on favors and purchase them. Also favors for kiddies
- Talk to our florist about the flowers, centerpieces, boutonnieres, decor, 
- Get venue lighting sorted out
- Find people for hair and make-up
- Seating chart and name tags as it gets closer to the date
- Send out rest of wedding invitations. A lot will be hand delivered too.
- Wedding cake
- Get a garter
- Gifts for groomsmen
- Book a HONEYMOON!
- Welcome baskets for our guests
- Transportation for OOT guests to wedding if they need it. 
- Decide on a guest book
- Get a marriage license
- Decide on TTD/Location shoot for the next day. 

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Thats the gist of it. Once we get settled in I'll get back to work on this and try to get as much done as possible over the summer. Plus I need to get a tan! And look for a job! I anticipate a lot of interesting times ahead...

News From the Chocolate Milk House

I have beef with the airlines. Can someone please explain to me why airlines think it is logical to only allow you one bag for transatlantic flights?! Don't we pay enough for tickets as it is? We will have a minimum of 5 suitcases by the looks of things! I'm looking around and kicking myself for not shipping more stuff! There is a box that is just wedding invitations! I was nervous shipping them in the container, but now we are looking at shipping them by TNT or UPS or something. Dumb cause now we need to spend more money doing this, when it wouldn't have cost all that much to add to our initial shipment. Oh well. We are learning the hard way.

We still have a bunch of stuff to sell, namely the bed and the kitchen table. These are the last 2 large items left and then we can rest a little easier. We have a ton of photo frames, plants, a couple of phones, fans, and so on, but these things can be given away for free or donated. We've decided to donate our towels, quilts, and bed sheets to the RSPCA. I'm sure they can use all those things for the animals. I also found a charity that will give household items to families in need, so we'll be giving them all our kitchen items, cups, plates, cutlery, pots and so on. 

Luckily Monday is a public holiday here in Canada (Victoria Day) so Mr. Milk will be home, giving us 3 days to get a lot done. I've found that its hard to pack his stuff. I'm not sure what he will need cause he is still working and needs work clothes, he has a ton of shoes, some of which he may be donating, or what he wants to wear on the plane. It was so much easier when I was moving from San Fran and it was just my stuff. 

So I've decided that today I will watch trashy tv, read your lovely blogs, go to the gym, do mindless chores, and take on the bigger stuff come Saturday. Also, I picked up my dress yesterday afternoon! Initially I was kind of blah when I went into the store to get it, but when I saw it all steamed and looking lovely it put a smile on my face.  I will (hopefully) take some pics of it to show you gals. 

Hope you all have super weekends!

Motivation Issues

This week I am having trouble getting motivated to do anything. Even cooking which I usually enjoy has become a drag cause I have no idea what to make! Maybe its the move and living in limbo, with half our stuff gone and no where really to put the rest other than suitcases. Even calling the bridal store to ask them to prep my dress for pick up didn't do it for me. 

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Mr. Milk and I went to the mall last night looking for a gift for his boss. We kind of don't know what to get. He wants it to be meaningful and symbolic of his appreciation for all his boss has done for him (he's been more of a mentor than a boss). But we came up with nothing. We'll try again tomorrow, but if you ladies have any ideas, your help is appreciated! 

The trip wasn't a total miss though, as yours truly bought a box of 3 pairs of false eyelashes for 10 bucks! I've never used them, but love the look on all of you who did, so will be trying them out before the wedding. Hopefully they look just as good as yours!

Crazy Weekend

This weekend we had an open house in an attempt to start to sell our stuff. It was a huge success, but left us exhausted. Poor Mr. Milk has to be at work today for a board meeting too. All that is left to sell is the bed, kitchen table and chairs, a swivel chair, and coffee table. The rest is just small things, like frames, plants, phones, that we can give away if they don't sell. We had people coming from 11am till about 6.30pm. The apartment looks so different, so bare. Sigh. I don't think either of us will be wanted to spend too much time in here over the next couple of weeks. 


Ironically, we invited a friend over for a bbq to celebrate his birthday, and the first thing that sold was the bbq! Smart huh!? Luckily our building has one in the communal garden that we were able to use. We'll keep posting until everything is gone. We have two more weeks so hopefully we'll be able to sell what's left.


On a brighter note, the bridesmaid's dresses arrived and I picked them up Friday evening! They look great! I love all the colors. I'll take some pics and post them soon for you all to see. 


Hope you all had good weekends!

Interesting Story

Last night Mr. Milk went out for a pseudo stag night. The guys at his work wanted an excuse to get out to do this for him before he left, so they all got together, made a plan, and threw him a more North American style bachelor party. 

One of the things that went on apparently was that he was given a list of things that needed to be done before he was allowed to come home. He needed to get lipgloss, an eyeliner, a tampon and so on from random girls. He also needed to get 2 bras and a pair of undies.  So how did he go about this? Well it went something like this (so he says):

Mr. Milk: Hi there. Can you help me?

Random Girl: What do you need?

Mr. Milk: Well, you see, I'm getting married...

Random Girl: Awwwwww

Mr. Milk: And my friends want me to do a bunch of things before they'll let me go home to my fiance.

Random Girl: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. How can we help?

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They were more or less putty in his hands after this and would have given him nearly anything. He does say the bra and panties required a few takes, but he got those too.

So basically ladies, my lovely hubby-to-be, used ME to get random girls to take off their underwear for him! What a guy! LOL

I just had to share cause I was too amused by all of this. What has amused you by your guy's bachelor parties?

*Friday's with Mr. Milk will likely need to go on hold or be more sporadic than it has been, taking into account how busy the Mr. is. 

Hair Accessories

So I have my veil picked out, I know what I want to do with my hair, and now I have a hair clip too! 
I love the idea of fresh flowers in my hair for a late summer wedding. But I'm not sure how well they will last in the Cyprus heat. Even though we are getting married in late September, the temperatures can easily reach 95 degrees plus during the day! So I don't want to risk having wilted flowers in my hair on my wedding day. I therefore went on an internet scavenger hunt for a hair clip. I love orchids so I wanted something as close to the real thing as I could get.

I came across the site Flower Clips and found exactly what I was looking for! They have a huge selection of hair accessories so take a look ladies. Here's what I picked out.

Images from flowerclip.com

They didn't ship to Canada, but I was able to mail them to my chocoholic friend, who brought it up with her this past weekend. The flowers are a good size, pretty sturdy, and look quite natural, which is what I wanted. Now all I need is another hair trial to try it all out together!

What hair accessories are you using?

Quick Hello

Hi Ladies! Sorry to have been MIA. We had a busy weekend with friends visiting us from San Francisco and celebrating Mr. Milk's birthday, and now I am coming down from it all. Not too much to report on the wedding front either. I am busy assembling and sending invitations. Still need to assemble a ton for our reception, but all the wedding ones are done, and I am sending them out this week to most of our international guests. It's a bit early, still 4.5 months to go, but I figure they can be a reminder to start looking into flights and arranging accommodation.

We also need to start posting all the things we want to sell on craig's list. We have less than 3 weeks before the big move, so it is coming down to crunch time. Mr. Milk is already starting to feel reality sinking in, and after 10 years here, you can imagine how hard it will be for him to say goodbye. He's also started training the person who will be taking over for him, and this has added extra stress. He really loves his job, and if we lived closer to our family and friends he would not be leaving this job. 

Anyway, I'll post whenever I can and when there is something to post about. In the meantime I will enjoy reading your blogs :)

Happy Birthday Honey

Today is my wonderful fiancé's birthday. We will spend the entire weekend celebrating!

I Love You Babe! Hope you have an amazing birthday weekend!

XOXOXOX

Fridays with Mr. Milk - Lending A Helping Hand

So Chocolate Lover has been slaving away recently, in order to get all the invites prepared. As one would expect, the excitement of it all ended shortly after assembling the first few pocket folds. With a few hundred to go, the stick, press, fold, insert and repeat routine, got to be quite the mundane task. So I was called in to help, and if it took CL 'x' amount of time to be bored by the task, it took me 'x/10'.

I always like to come up with quicker and better ways of doing things, so instead of focussing on the task at hand, I spent more time staring at the double-sided sticky tape in order to figure out a contraption that would make it work faster. I think I frustrated Chocolate Lover a little, but I eventually called it quits and begun researching internet videos for ideas. Low and behold, the Scotch ATG 714 applicator!

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The economics may appear a little frightening at first, with the device costing over $60, but they make a lot more sense when you see how fast one can apply the glue and how cheap the replacement tape is ($4 for 60 yards). So I eBayed the little miracle device and now I'm patiently waiting for it to arrive in the mail so that I can continue to be of service to the boss in charge of the invite assembly.

Hang in there and a review is coming up shortly.

Until next Friday, this is Mr. Milk signing off.

Bloggie Love

A little while back, the lovely and newly married Patience over at A Reason or a Season passed along this award to me. Head on over to her blog and check out those beautiful wedding pics of hers! Because of all the craziness over here, I never got round to it.  

The rules
Accept and thank the person who gave it to you!
List 10 things about yourself
List 5 additional things you DON'T like
Then pick ten people to give this lovely award to!

1. I am really looking forward to our move back home, but I am also dreading it a little! If that makes sense! To be expected with a big change I guess

2. I am dumbfounded by how much stuff we have, and now that we shipped most of it off, how much we actually don't need it all!

3. I am looking forward to buying a house with Mr. Milk! We don't have any solid plans yet but will be looking soon after we move.

4. I am enjoying this phase of wedding planning. I like that things are starting to fall into place and that there are no longer thousands of options!

5. I am really surprised that I have stuck to exercising! Its been a really long time since I've stuck to a routine and I am actually enjoying it

6. Sometimes I desperately miss San Francisco

7. I know I've said this before, but its so true, I LOVE blogging! I have met so many wonderful people through this process

8. This weekend is Mr. Milk's birthday and we will be celebrating all weekend with friends who are visiting from San Francisco. I can't wait!

9. I love living with Mr. Milk. Although it has been tough being here without a job and such, I would do it all over again!

10. I love chocolate chip cookies! (need to end on a chocolate note!)

Things I don't like...

1. Lack of consideration for others

2. Arrogance

3. People with no sense of humor

4. Anonymous commentors who have nothing constructive to say

5. Slimy things

So I pass this on to the following lovely ladies

Mrs. T

PartyPlanner Gal

Bicoastal Bride

Salt

Peach Bellini Bride

Burning River Bride

Jem Aqua Bride

Ams

Always A Bridesmaid Finally a Bride

Ghenet

Invitation Teaser

Hardly anyone who is invited to the wedding reads this blog. BUT, if you are one of those few, this is NOT a post you can read! So hurry along and do something else. Thanks!

A Technology Free Weekend

This weekend Mr. Milk and I decided to try to put our technology addiction aside, and see what it would be like to live without these things for a couple of days.

No cell phones

No computers

No internet

So that also meant no facebook, messenger, twitter, and all the other countless apps and ways every single person in your life can reach you! It was great!

We woke up, grabbed some bagels for breakfast, went to the bank to get some chores out of the way, donated some clothes and shoes to charity, went for a pretty drive, and grabbed some burritos for lunch. We just hung out, chatted, laughed, window shopped, and had some real alone time. Sunday consisted of some grocery shopping, assembling invitations (pics are on Mr. Milk's camera so will get those ASAP), having some pizza, and watching TV. I think we both needed and enjoyed the detox. Hope you all had a good weekend!

Have you tried being sans technology for a bit? How did it go?