I barely remember how to blog so bear with me while I try it back on for size.  It’s hard to believe we’ve been home for six weeks; harder, still, to believe that the wedding is less than three weeks away.  It’s not that I haven’t thought about blogging – I’ve written one-half of a dozen or more posts in my head over the last several weeks.  I hate to overuse the word “overwhelming” but it exactly describes the limbo in which Josh and I are living as we transition from Alaska to Texas, via Upstate New York.

Upstate New York – in the summer!  I know you all think this hasn’t been much of a summer but I found it to be perfect.  I love the heat, the humidity, the thunder and lightning!  I love warm summer evenings with stars in the sky and I love the big, beautiful, shady trees.  I love the fruits and vegetables, the farmers’ markets, and WEGMANS.  Josh and I can’t stop going to Wegmans...FRUIT THAT TASTES LIKE FRUIT, PEOPLE.  Strive for five?  PSHHHHHH.  Try ten!

We’ve filled our days and nights with the things we love the best; things we’d talk about on a dark, sub-zero winter afternoon in Fairbanks in front of the wood stove: visiting family, wine tasting, golfing, and eating at our favorite restaurants.  We’re both working part-time – very part-time.  Our entire life is a vacation right now and it’s amazing.  Of course, we’re working hard on the wedding and as it gets closer we get more and more excited.   My girlfriends threw me a beautiful shower and then a rockin’ bachelorette party, which was the same night as Josh’s bachelor party, so we suffered together the next day over big plates of food at Connie’s Diner.

In short, I bagged the blog for awhile.

I can’t blame it all on my hectic life of leisure.  It is, at least in part, a crisis of confidence as well.  What the hell do I blog about now?  My blogging identity is at a crossroads and the challenge lies in where to go next.  I understand why people would want to read about my life in Alaska but as hard as I try, I can’t figure out why people would want to read about my life in Houston.  No offense, Texas. 

I guess I don’t have to make any major blog decisions just yet.  For now I’m content to wander through the Finger Lakes and rediscover all that it has to offer.  Oh, and I still have to get married and everything...

In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite photos from the bachelorette party, and one from the Happiness House golf tournament at the SFCC:

Me & Jenna (Sinicropi) Crandall

My Bachelorette Wine Trail Chauffeur, Frank Sinicropi:

Tasting wine with Kathleen (Kelsey) Sinicropi:

Me, Kathleen, & Jenna:

Big kisses from Jodie (Docteur) Verkey:

One hot bridal party: Andrea Tedesche, Kathleen, Jodie, Jenna, me, Alison (Childers) Uticone, Jessica Sinicropi.  My other bridesmaid, Jayne (Clemenson) Moskal had to head out right after the shower but we wish she was there!

We almost threw down with a rival bridal party at Goosewatch.  They got mad when the bachelor party they were tasting with threw them over in favor of our company.  The bachelor party was a group of cops and firemen from downstate (that's one of them with us, below) and they were H-O-T.  If I were those other girls I would have been mad, too.  I mean, damn - we're good-lookin' women.

I had left my sunglasses at Red's the night before the bachelorette party and we retrieved them after the wine trail.  I lost them again - and for good -within the hour.  I know I had them, as this photo of me at the Clarence Hotel proves...