So What Do You Do There?

I've been at a loss as to what to blog about and my dearest Elspeth is convinced that people would find reading about my internship interesting. So if you get bored, blame Ellie. 

As a refresher, I'm an intern (currently the only intern) at 96.1/107.5 The Q, more specifically on the morning show with Maney, Riley & Alexis Grace.
I get to do some technical stuff like the timing of the commercial breaks that isn't that easy to describe without a bunch of radio jargon that I barely understand myself. So if my day seems light, that's the stuff I'm leaving out.

A big part of what I get to do is topic gathering for the show. Any ideas, blog readers?

 I've also been learning to edit the audio clips that we use throughout the show, like the movie clips Maney plays early in the morning or the American Idol clips we play on Thursdays and Fridays. Or I've edited the promos where Maney & Riley talk about the next days show, which is probably the most complex bit of editing I've had to do thus far. And a big thank you to my wonderful teacher, Riley, for showing me how to do that.


My favorite thing to do is to write the E! on the Q! blog since it's more my niche, clearly. Though it does come in handy that I tend to agree with Riley on the celebrity gossip since it is a first person blog written from her perspective. So if you're bored at work and want to read a raquel-blog and I haven't updated this one, mosey on over to there. And clearly, I am only talking to Robyn when I say this. 

Other than the above, I do a lot of typical internship tasks: getting coffee, making copies, running to the printer, answering the phones.

Btw, some shameless promoting right here: listen to the Q next week, Alexis Grace has a commercial out for her new apartment at Centennial Gardens and I helped her write it! And the T-I-G-E-R-S spell out at the end is me & Alexis.

Also it should be noted that while I love what I get to do at the radio station and the opportunity is priceless, I'm pretty excited that I've found a friend and reed's future wife out of the deal. Official blog shout-out to Alexis & Baby Ryan :)

And now I'm off to get ready for the Memphis Premiere Bridal Show. A perk of my internship? Getting to go all of these events.

What It's Like to Be a Wife: Day One

the wedding is over. check my facebook for pictures.

Adam & I are now married.
He is my husband, I am his wife. I am Mrs. Hinson.
I assumed, since literally nothing of our daily life would change, that being married wouldn't really feel any different. Granted, I'm only about 22 hours into this, but it does, in fact, feel different.
But what is more interesting, to me, is the wedded bliss thing that has, however momentarily, clouded our usual line of thinking. (the same thing happened after we got engaged- we didn't have a single fight for about 6 weeks)

Exhibit A
"Honey, wherever you want to eat tonight is totally fine. You put all the work into the wedding and this is your treat."
Okay, Adam can totally be the sweetest guy in the world but the man has strong opinions about food. Not only did he suggest sushi (I love it, he's not a fan so I don't eat it that often) but he asked our sister-in-law for a recommendation to a nicer place than usual.
It was his wedding night too but he made sure dinner was a treat for me :)

Exhibit B
I woke up this morning at 6 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I reached over to Adam's bedside table for the remote to catch up on our DVR'd shows. Adam stirred and I asked him if he wanted me to watch television in the living room: "Nope, I'm not going to ask my wife to watch television without the warm blankets we have in her"
Yeah, a week ago my ass would have been on the couch.

Exhibit C
At 9 am, I was bored and hungry (not bored enough, however, to get up and cook something for breakfast) so I woke Adam up and asked him to go get breakfast with me.
Normally, this is a sin against nature. Adam wakes up at 4 am nearly every morning so if happens to be capable of sleeping in, he really isn't to be woken.
Married Adam, however, rolled over and told me he'd love to as soon as he brushed his teeth.

It seems like I'm making unmarried Adam out to be a jackass (which he wasn't) but it's funny, marriage didn't seem to be a big deal to Adam. It seemed like he figured we were more or less married, but we should probably make it official for reed.

However, it seems as though Adam is pretty pleased to be a married man, and honestly, I couldn't be happier that the wedding is over and that I am his wife.

Now we get to go pick sweet little reed up from school. And yay, no more wedding blogs :)

wedding weather

Dear Fall Weather, 

Thank you for making an appearance. It was a tad late in the game
for my comfort, given the impeding wedding, but alas a fourth-quarter appearance
is better than no appearance at all.
Being slightly chilled in the morning before school and needing a hot cup of coffee, rather than my
fiance-made iced toffee nut latte was a nice change of pace from peeling my thighs off of my car seats every morning in the Central parking lot.
I expect the leaves changing colors will follow and my sweaters and scarves will be out within a few weeks.
I am not thrilled that your appearance will apparently lead to people wanting to sit on the Crumpets patio, as
though I want to walk another 10 feet to seat them, but with great joy comes a slightly less great sacrifice (or
something like that from Spider Man).
I'm further pleased when, according to my Weather Channel iPhone app, it will be a pleasantly brisk
68 degrees on Sunday, October 3rd.
Perfect Fall Wedding Weather.
So thank you, Fall Weather. Stay exactly as you are until Monday. Then everything can go to
hell in a hand basket if you wish.

Love, 

the not-so-demanding bride Raquel

PS, if you could figure out what's going on with the precipitation in Memphis before we all drop dead of dehydration, it would be much appreciated.

Did my arm fall asleep or did it fall off?

I have started to write several blogs this week. Clearly, they did not make it to the light of day.

There are a lot of contributing factors to not being able to get through a single blog post this week. If anyone is keeping count, there are 11 days left until the wedding.

If anyone is wondering, I am freaking out.

It's definitely not the marriage, I'm pretty excited to get married. This wedding, however, may be the death of me. I'm trying to focus on positives, like my friends and family all being together. The actual getting married part. Looking pretty in a dress and having Adam look ever so handsome in his suit. All good things.
I'm not too successful at it but I sure am trying. Stress is not attractive on me.

School, work and spending time with sweet baby Reed are always factors but mostly it's the fact that I've been catching up on the last season of both Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.

It's not the time of watching them. Honestly, Private Practice is on while I'm writing this. It's the fact that I've had this bizarre headache for the last five days and due to these medical shows, I'm 95 % sure that I'm dying of some sort of rare brain disorder.
It's pretty time consuming to think that you may be dying of what I can only assume is a fictional brain disease that can only be cured by the possibly-dead from a gunshot wound Dr. Derek Shepherd.

So let me (and my friend Heather whose husband has forbidden her from watching House after she was convinced of many medical abnormalities between her and her children) serve as a cautionary tale for anyone out there who may think of picking up medical shows as a habit:
Tread lightly, friends. It's not something to be taken lightly. Therapy and medication are rarely helpful and there are extreme emotional attachments that are formed with the characters. The will-they/won't they of Meredith & Derek caused many a cookie dough eating spree.

All of that being said, my headache is really terrible and its a weird one so if there are any neurologists that happen to read my blog, holla.

Wedding Wednesday: Tales of a DIY-Bride

i'm starting a weekly segment in my blog called Wedding Wednesday. I refuse to explain this further. So if you hate the wedding talk, avoid me on Wednesdays (but hey, at least you know when to avoid now).

this week, I bought some jars from Target for candy at the wedding, did some more shopping on Etsy for decor and did some looking around for musicians for our ceremony music. All exciting :)

however, the big wedding thing of the week is....(drum roll, please)....INVITATIONS! 

I'm beyond excited, inviting people to our wedding makes it real.

as you might have guessed from the title, my (okay, OUR) invitations were one of the DIY projects that I've tackled as a bride. before anyone worries, no one is receiving hand-written, crayon invitations. 

I went to Michael's, who sells a collection from Brides Magazine, and went over to my lovely sister-in-law, Dara's, (well my brother, David, lives there too but whatever, he's out of town) and used her printer to print out my invitations, response cards and address labels.

I'm a little biased but I think they look great. And I couldn't have done it without my new sister (& bridesmaid) help! So thanks Dara!

 the invitations kit :)

David & Dara (just to give the readers a visual!)

Oh and you can't see him but my little baby nephew, Luke, is in the picture too (in Dara's belly :)

More Wedding Updates Next Wednesday!

And the award goes to...

i'm so excited, my infant blog was given an award! granted, it's from a friend of mine that I've known since the sixth grade. Hi Amanda, thanks dear :)

As everyone who has ever seen or read Spiderman knows, with great power comes great responsibility and that means there are rules that come with accepting this award, according to Amanda's blog:

Numero Uno: Thank the Person Who Gave You the Award.

thanks for indulging my blog Amanda, I can't wait to see you when you get back to Memphis!

Numero Dos: Share Seven Things About Yourself.

I want to write non-fiction books for a living.

My favorite color is green.

I love birthdays.

I'm addicted to coffee.

And the ghirardelli brownies that Ellie makes :)

I've always wanted to try stand-up comedy (but I think I'm a different kind of funny).

I want reed to grow up on the east coast, but still a little bit in the south.

Numero Tres- Pass the Award Along to 15 Other Bloggers Who You've Recently Discovered and You Think Are Fantastic.

Okay Amanda cheated on this too and I'm new to the blogging world so I'm going to pick as many as I can:

The Broke-Ass Bride

Your's Truly (Sending the award back to my girl Amanda)
Rauwolf Family

Buckadore

Chicago Girl...by way of Memphis

Life in South Carolina 

The Beans

I Love Memphis
Etsy Wedding

and lastly: Contact the Bloggers and Tell Them About the Award!

And now I'm off to help my dear friend Nathan move a couch...I wonder if he has any idea that the little upper body strength that I have comes from lifting a thirty pound toddler exclusively with my left arm?

The "Ah-Hah!" Moment in Wedding Planning

I have just had a wedding planning epiphany. I've been trying for the last two months to plan a wedding that would be representative of Adam & I as a couple as well as make everyone in our known universe happy.

as most people would expect, that's actually impossible.

actually, in addition to attempting to include everyone we've ever met as to not hurt feelings, i was also trying to make this wedding way more fabulous than either of us actually wanted it because, for some reason probably explained by high school insecurities, i wanted to impress these people. and, ladies and gentlemen, as Carrie Bradshaw has always preached, fabulous comes with a hefty price tag.

so how does my wonderful epiphany translate into wedding planning?

well I'm not spilling all the beans because I want to leave some intrigue but here are a few things Adam and I decided tonight while he played x-box live and i had a mini anxiety attack:

1. We're Cutting the Guest List. it's not the prettiest one on the list and I'm still torn about it. but if I'm honest with myself, I never thought I'd get married in front of 150 people and if it were entirely up to Adam, we'd be getting married in a field alone somewhere. Sadly, our extended families are huge and our parents would be deeply offended (and rightly so) if they weren't there and that means that some of our friends won't be invited. we're not crazy about it, but a few things had to give. 

2. We're Changing the Venue (again). this will be the third venue. i know, enough already, right? I'm not giving it away because I won't put the deposit down until tomorrow but I will say that it's not in the boonies and I'm very excited about it, despite earlier hesitation.

3. I'm Not Trying to Impress Anyone Anymore. This one says "I" and not "we" for a reason. anyone that knows Adam knows that that's pretty much the last of his worries. don't get me wrong, I do want to have a nice ceremony and reception and let our friends and family know that we're glad and excited for them to be there to celebrate with us. but we aren't Rockefellers and I'd like to stop putting up the pretense.

4. I'm Getting Back to Making the Wedding about Me & Adam. (this one's pretty self-explanatory).

that's essentially much all the big stuff.

so now I'm going back to buying wedding stuff on Etsy, tomorrow I'm booking the new(est) ceremony & reception venue and the invitations are going out by the end of next week. 

thanks for indulging this lastest wedding rant, faithful blog friends. I sincerely hope it will be the last.

but please don't hold me to that :)

It's Just Another Manic Monday

hello blog friends, happy Monday morning. hopefully everyone in Memphis survived the trek to wherever they're going without a boat after our wonderful flash flood warning. I'm blogging from the fabulous Starbucks Poplar Prescott so I can have free wifi and sneak a peak at my handsome man while the little man is at school.  We had a busy weekend and I must warn you that I'm sleep deprived and thus it's likely this will be more rambling and less coherent thoughts.

the Hinson-Miranda family weekend in snap shots:

Raquel & Reed date at Memphis Pizza Cafe (reed's enjoying a potato chip and wearing my sunglasses)

  a visit with our precious baby cousin Natalie (and my baby cousins Anna & Megan and Aunt Nora)

 the post-birth baby shower of our friends Liz & Rocky for sweet little baby max.

Midnight talks, Target, pizza, swimming & a movie with Aunt Ellie :)

babies were the theme of this weekend.

and now I have a Mama day, as I don't have to work while reed is at school. I had grand plans of getting a lot done but the downpour is putting the kibosh on those dreams. however, the most exciting part of the day will be meeting for a cake tasting with Ms. Karen Mulford, our adorable and tiny friend, who is also making our wedding cakes :) She's so creative and everything I've tasted of hers has been delish.

wedding plans are slightly coming along, I'm still not wild about the size of the wedding but when I think about not having all of our friends and families there...well, I'm not wild about that either. I guess the side of me that has panic attacks when I spend more than $5 can't justify spending tons of money on what is essentially a party.

then again, the side of me that turns into a giggling girl someone calls me "the bride" hates the part of me that just called my fabulous and important wedding a party. (Friends quote from Monica: "Honey, I love you but if you call our wedding a party again, you might not get invited")

I've gotta get out of this coffee house for a few hours. Friends, have a great Monday.

Oh and for my ladies, Hot Irish Guy just came in, winked at me and called me lass :)