Thanksgiving Adventures of the Eye Sort

My eyes have this thing for Thanksgiving time. I swear it. They sense its coming, and WHAM an eye injury pops up like it was coordinated or something. Its becoming a serious problem, I tell you. 

I'm sure most of you remember my last Thanksgiving Eye Catastrophe which ended in me getting two stitches in my eyelid and rocking a lovely black eye the first time I met my (at the time unbeknownst to me future) in-laws. Well, this time around I have an eye issue of entirely different nature.

Probably about a month ago now, I noticed I had some slight loss of my inner peripheral vision of my right eye that is the vision from the center of my eye towards my nose. I got an eye doctor appointment where it was confirmed that I had significant vision loss and was referred to a specialist with various potential diagnoses ranging from a blood clot/stroke of the eye to an aneurysm or a tumor of some sort. Just a little terrifying. I went to the retinal specialist a few days later and was finally given a concrete answer which thankfully included none of the above. I had a detached retina in my right eye which was the reason for my vision loss. The doctor even thought that it might have been a problem long before I noticed it because unfortunately there was already scar tissue and the macula - the center of the retina - had also detached. 

After surgery - looking rough...

Long story short, I had to have surgical repair of my eye on Monday with a procedure called a Scleral Buckle where they place a band of sorts around the eye to press the retina up close to the eye again or something like that. (In the interest of full disclosure, do not youtube this procedure unless you enjoy nasty surgeries. I just watched the first few moments and now realize why it looks like someone ground off the outer layer of my eye. Only made it through the first 20 seconds and decided that was enough education for me for now on my still slightly nauseous stomach.) Anyway, I had surgery on Monday under general anesthesia and apparently things went well. I am still in recovery mode and my vision is still very blurry, but I am hopeful that by the time I have my follow-up appointment on Tuesday I will be doing much better. Namely, because I am sure to go crazy from being stuck in the apartment for long periods of time with nothing to do. Normally, I would try to get my craft on during this time, but of course this is limited by my lack of vision  (my depth perception is dangerous to all involved) and the fact that pain meds make me feel terribly nauseous. So instead, I am limited to mostly sitting around, mostly listening to television as straining my eye for long periods of time is no good, and being bored. Not as appealing as it may sound.

Luckily, before all this non-fun junk occurred, Kevin and I had a couple visitors here in Michigan - Turtle in October and Annie in November. We went out to all our favorite places in Michigan and some new ones too:

•  The Mega Mall - a huge warehouse like building chock full of antiques and junk where Turtle and I each got our own vintage aprons
• SugarBerry - our favorite frozen yogurt by the ounce establishment 
• The Daily Scoop - the local downtown ice cream shop 
• Lake Michigan - my first trip as well as Annie's...it was crazy rough water!
• The Twisted Rooster - a delicious restaurant we found that uses local produce and food to make uber delicious food
• MSU vs U of M Hockey Game - another first for me (and we actually won!)

Who would like to come hang out with the McCulloughs and check out probably most of the above locations because that's about all I know of what to do in Michigan as of yet? Just shoot me a text, email, letter, postcard, or fax and I'll get you all booked! The only requirement is you have to be willing to lead around the one eyed hostess at all public events. 

One of Those Wedding Bloggy Things

Shortly after we were married, Kevin said to me, "Now you can take all the pictures and make one of those wedding bloggy things you were always looking at". So here it is - my DIY wedding blog post. 

Wood Burned Ring Bearer Pillow made by Kate

When Kevin and I got engaged, and if I'm being honest some time before, I was very up front with the fact that I did not want to spend a fortune on a wedding. I didn't see the point in spending money on things I could do myself. I also love the look of homemade things and the thought that goes behind them. Lastly, I am always up for a good craft project. Put all those things together and give a girl access to the Internet and the world of wedding blogs and our day became one big beautiful collaborative DIY extravaganza.

Some of our wedding projects I had previously shown little bits of including the boys' button boutonnieres, our photo-booth props, and our dessert spread of delicious homemade pies. 

The button boutonnieres definitely came out better than I even imagined them. With my lovely sister, Andrea, as a color consultant, we matched up buttons I bought at antique stores and sewed them together and then attached them to floral wire to make the base of the boutonniere. And since Andrea had taken a floral arrangement class in high school, she was nominated to finish off the project by attaching fake leaves and covering the wire with floral tape. The only issue that we encountered with them was the fact that the boys had no idea how to attach them to their shirts. Thank goodness, one of our dear friends, Turtle, was able to come to their rescue. 

These also doubled as fans in the 95 degree heat

Another project we decided to take on for the sake of saving money was our ceremony programs. I had seen a lot of different things online and decided to go with a simple two sided program made out of 8x11 cream card stock that was left over from our favors and invites. All I did was design a simple one page outline of the order of events for the front side and then some fun games for the backside to entertain our guests with. I decided to do three different types of games - a mad-lib, trivia about Kev and I, and a word search.  I bought a box of golf pencils from Staples and used a drill to create a place to run ribbon through to attach the pencils to the the popsicle stick handles of the programs. With some glue and double sided tape, we folded the cardstock in half and secured the posicle stick in the center. And then voila, our programs were done! 


One of the projects that I probably loved doing the most (besides pies baking) was making our cake topper. I had originally planned on purchasing one on Etsy, but with our short engagement and my indecisiveness about which one to get the time line to order by passed me by. I was then down to the options of buying one from a traditional wedding store or making it myself. I decided to at least attempt to make one with supplies from Hobby Lobby. I used a 4 inch wood circle, two simple wooden doll figurines, a piece of a dowel rod, some scraps of fabric, twine, and paint. I will admit that my first attempt at doing the bride's face was not that successful; I ended up looking slightly Asian. However, the second time around was a different story and that is the one we went with for our cake (which one of our groomsmen's aunts made for us). 



I will admit that not all of our DIY wedding was fun and enjoyable. There were some projects that seemed never ending. Favors were a marathon event that Kevin, Andrea, and myself participated in. Our favors were wildflower seed packets made of burlap, tissue paper, and twine and probably cost us less than twenty dollars total. The price alone made the project worth it, but in the middle of the mess it was a little hard to remember that. It wasn't that the project was hard; it just involved cutting up square pieces of burlap and tissue and tying up little bits of seeds with twine with little tags attached. It was more the monotony of it; cut, dump seeds, fold up, and tie. Repeat. But at least it only lasted a few hours. 

The box of flowers & the finished project on the table

The next project took probably over half the time we were engaged - centerpieces. I decided to start making paper flowers early on in our engagement, but didn't really know where I was going to fit them into our decorations. I just kept finding different variations online and slowly but surely filled a large cardboard box with flowers. I can recall several nights sitting in the apartment alone watching TV and folding and gluing paper for hours at a time. We ended up hot gluing the flowers to twigs we found around camp and then placing them in glass bottles that we and our friends had found down along the banks of Dewey Lake.

Although, I had my hands in a lot of different DIY parts of our wedding, there were some things that I completely turned over to other people. Kevin and I are blessed to know a lot of very crafty, talented, generous people who willingly helped us with various projects that we could not possibly handle. My maid of honor and one of my bestest friends, Staci, was instrumental in all the decorations for our ceremony site and just in general keeping me sane. She made a beautiful background out of window shutters and old decking boards for us to stand in front of for the ceremony. She also sewed the curtains for the sides of the chapel and made the hanging flower filled jars that lined the aisle. Best maid of honor EVER.

Vintage Inspired Bunting Banner

Kevin's mom is a very talented seamstress and she agreed to make the bunting banners that we used down at the reception tent. We love them so much that they are currently hanging up in our living room and they make me smile every day. When I decided I couldn't bear the thought of spending fifty dollars on a veil, she even helped me pick out tulle and actually made my veil (for less than ten dollars in supplies). I couldn't have bought a more perfect veil and the penny pincher inside of me was doubly excited.



 One other big project that we could not do ourselves was a photo-booth. I asked my old crew leader, Tony, if he would be willing to undertake that project. He, in his typical style, went above and beyond and made the most amazing photo booth wall ever. I mean he put in a little bit of molding on the bottom and installed an outlet and light switch to make it more authentic looking. I'm sure if there was electricity at our reception he would have wired it up as well. And not only did he make our photo-booth, he also sketched out the tree for our thumbprint 'guest book'. I just sent him a picture of something I had seen and and idea of what size I would need and he did the rest. Now we have a beautiful unique piece of art that hangs in our living room to remind us of everyone that shared our special day with us. 

I told you, we know some extremely talented people.

So I'm sure that is not all of the crazy DIY nonsense that we decided to take on and delegate out for our wedding, but hopefully it gives a sense of the homemade feeling we wanted our special day to have. I would highly recommend that if you are planning on getting married any time soon or really planning any sort of large party to try and first see what projects you can tackle yourself or recruit a friend to help with. It makes everything really unique and personalized to you and allows you to spend a little more money on things that you maybe can't do yourself or really just don't want to.