Weddingbee Blog

Hello! It’s so very nice to meet you all!

Poking out to say hello and show off my manicure!
Photo from Wikipedia.org

I’m Miss Mole, the newest Weddingbee blogger. I currently work as an instructor for a large test-prep company. Specifically, I teach the GRE. I ended up in this field after leaving a PhD program in English and, later, a high school teaching job. So if you want to talk about medieval literature or Oxford commas, I’m in. (As you can imagine, I am also interested in talking about weddings!) In my free time, I enjoy reading my Kindle, going to step aerobics, and watching A&E’s Intervention. In addition, I love to run. I have done a variety of races and distances, including some half-marathons and marathons. I am just getting over an injury and starting the process of getting back in shape.

After the Boston Marathon

I am engaged to a wonderful man who works as a user experience architect at a video game company. He is the person who designs websites and interfaces to be easier to use for people like me. He also makes my life better by being in it. He spends his free time reading The New York Times on his iPad, riding trails on his mountain bike, and playing video games.

During a cyclocross race

We just recently moved to Los Angeles, California from Chicago, Illinois via Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We live together with our 3 year old, 80 lb, rescued greyhound, Tom Boonen. In case you are wondering, we do call our dog by his first and last name. He is named after a Belgian cyclist with an interesting racing career (and an even more interesting personal life). Our dog’s racing career was not as interesting: he was 0-6, so he retired early. His original owner’s loss, our gain.

What a goofy dog (and goofy snow shoes!)

So why the Mole as my avatar? I had my pick of several adorable woodland avatars, including the Turkey and the Opossum. But the Mole stood out for several reasons. First, when I was young, I used to burrow like a mole at night under a pile of comforters with a flashlight and a good book. I still love to read! Second, one of the books that I frequently read after my lights supposedly were out was The Wind in the Willows, starring the affable and mild-mannered Mole. Third, I like to think of myself as pretty mild-mannered when planning this wedding. Don’t get me wrong: I am absolutely amped up to marry Mr. Mole. But I am trying to keep the wedding in perspective and the marriage itself in focus.

Focusing on each other (the dog, however, looking elsewhere)

We are planning a small destination wedding on our third dating anniversary in the fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. The next weekend, we will be having a party in my hometown in Wisconsin. Later, sometime in June, we will be having a Chinese reception in New York. We are now calling this group of events our wedding roadshow—and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

I am very excited about narrating my attempts at planning a low-key wedding without getting too high-strung on the event’s details. I have been trying not to stress too much about centerpieces or hair clips or ceremony readings, but I imagine that I will be blogging about them at some point. I also will try to blog about other topics, like relationships and family. I hope that by doing so I can connect with some like-minded—and maybe not so like-minded—brides and bees.

I can’t wait to share this with you! Thanks for reading.

Cheers!