A New Chapter of Anne, A New Chapter for Me

Many thanks to all of my podcast and audiobook listeners who send me such encouraging emails and comments - I can't tell you how much it means to me. And thanks especially to the Anne listeners who've been nudging me to get on with it already! I am truly sorry to leave you all hanging for so long. Life has been busy and my motivation seemed to wane for a while. But I miss recording and LibriVox and plan on making it part of my routine again. So, without further ado, Chapter 29: An Epoch in Anne's Life is now available. I have already recorded Chapters 30-33 for an earlier group version of AoGG so those are ready and waiting in the wings. I plan on releasing a chapter a week and by the time Ch. 33 is released, I should have the rest of the book recorded and ready to continue on that schedule.

One of the things keeping me busy these days is wedding planning! Stephen and I got engaged the night before Thanksgiving and will be married May 10th.

Yes that is a pudding pop in my hand. I didn't know we were about to be photographed or I would have held off on dessert! Anyway, it will be a good sized wedding, probably between 75 and 100 people; but we're keeping it as low key and stress free as possible. We want our families to be there and this will be as small and laid back as is possible while still including everyone (I have around 35 first cousins alone hence the large number for a family only wedding!). No loud band or DJ, just nice background music of our choosing (we'll pre-program an iPod and they have a system to pipe it through their speakers). We'll have a short civil ceremony followed immediately by dinner, all at Orlando Gardens. Orlando Gardens is a very nice banquet hall and weddings are their thing so they've been very accomodating with everything.  I ordered my dress online from Nordstrom's and I think it is perfect:

I don't think I'll even need to have it altered. I'll probably knit up a little pink shrug to wear over it. Here's a close up look at the overlay, it's a sort of netting with sequined diamonds in gold and silver:

My sister Julia will be my maid of honor and she has picked out a darling J. Crew dress in a gorgeous deep purple/blue. Invitations are ordered and here. I'm sort of just dealing with one thing at a time and that is working well for me. Next up is flowers, we'll do pink and white flowers I think. And though I'm generally not big on gifts or jewelry, I am truly in love with my ring:

It's a classic round solitaire in white gold and I think it's perfect. So far the planning has been lots of fun and only a little bit stressful.  I have an aunt who works in a bridal shop and is great help with planning.  And Julia is my perfect maid of honor, she knows what is in style and what needs to be done.  I can't believe it's only three months away but I'm glad we didn't drag the whole process out for a year or longer.  So, that's my fun news.  I don't know why I didn't post it sooner, I tend to have mixed feelings about posting more personal stuff on the blog but I guess the time felt right.  (Now I just hope Stephen doesn't die when he sees his picture on the website - he was appalled when I posted a picture of his birthday socks on his feet without his permission!)