Hurrah! I finally found bridesmaid dresses! I am totally in love with them.

Long story short, Lindsey and I took a harmless shopping trip to Anthropologie yesterday after work, and ended up finding the perfect dress. There was only one and it was in my size, and after trying it on, we both agreed it was the one! You might remember that my original inspiration was the grey floral garden dress (pictured at left). The “Charcoal Drawing Dress” from Anthro is the next best thing (and not $9,000)!

See the final bridesmaid dress selection at right! Even though I thought I wanted grey, I ended up really liking the black instead, with the grey coming in through the flowers. Plus I think they will look nice with the boys’ black suits. We’re going to switch out the scarf for either grey or pale pink, but the girls will all still have the green sashes to for re-wearing. And obviously this dress is totally re-wearable, since it is off the racks! I think it is also very reasonably priced at $148 – hopefully everyone agrees!

Getting it has been a challange though, to say the least! I think this first test proved I am a pretty determined bride-to-be. The store in Cincinnati had only one dress, and I was horrified to discover when I got home that it was sold out online! As soon as I got to work this morning I jumped into action. First things first, a psycho panicked email to all my bridesmaids asking for dress approval and sizes! They all loved it, so I proceeded on with my rampage. Anthropologie stores across the country opened at 10:00am. By 10:22 I had successfully located and placed on hold all six sizes I needed in four different stores across the country! I am picking up three of them tomorrow night in Indianapolis, since luckily we were already planning on going up for dinner with Casey’s parents. Mary Ann’s size was available at her home store in Jacksonville, FL and I’m ordering two more from Nashville, TN!

On a cheesy side note, every employee I talked to at the various Anthro stores told me they thought it was a perfect bridesmaid dress, and that they would love to wear it in a wedding! Sometimes it is nice to get approval from an unbiased stranger.

So I finally made a decision on something! I guess it’s the first of many, and it feels good to have something decided and planned. My friend Leah picked her bridesmaid dresses this week too, so we can celebrate that first decision together:)

Thanks to my fabulous bridesmaids for dealing with my insanity this morning, and for trusting me on a dress no one has seen or tried on! I promise you will all look faaaaabulous.

Not gonna lie, yesterday’s first training run wasn’t the most encouraging start to marathon training. Three miles of pure hell. I don’t know how I’m going to train through a Cincinnati summer. It was so pathetic I actually had to stop and walk for about a minute during a three mile run which should have been a cake walk. Guess I shouldn’t have taken the last month off – whoops!

Tonight’s run is 5 miles, supposedly at a 9:09 pace (which we all know isn’t going to happen) and I know it’s going to be rough. I’m telling myself that it will come back quickly. I don’t really remember the first few weeks of training for the Pig. I think I blocked them out, most likely for a good reason. I’m hoping we get reconditioned pretty quickly and are back on track in a few weeks. For now, we are panting, sweating, and gasping around the streets of Hyde Park.

A new twist – for this marathon, Lindsey, Casey, and I have all signed up to run with a fundraising team! We’ve each committed to raise $500 for Team LUNGevity in Chicago, with all the proceeds going to lung cancer research. Once again, we’ll be running in memory of Ron Ritzert, Lindsey’s dad. We even get cool Team LUNGevity singlets to wear on race day! You can check out my fundraising site here. (Note: the fundraising page has very limited formatting options. Please know that I am aware of how ugly it is, and it keeps me awake at night…)

Our training schedule is a bit harder this time around, with a few more of the super long runs. I was slightly horrified to see that our 20-miler falls on the same day that we will be attending the wedding of Casey’s friends, Matt and Leigh. The upside? The wedding is in Chicago! So our plan is go to up Friday night, but get to bed early (instead of partying with the other wedding guests), and then do our 20 mile run on the streets of Chicago – hopefully on parts of the marathon course itself. Then we can nap and shower and head to the wedding to eat and drink and celebrate!

We’ll also be in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, when we are scheduled to run 13 miles, so that will be another opportunity to practice running on the flat course. Hopefully two practices will be enough!

Today is the last day of school for kids at Springer, so no one is really getting any work done. Obviously I am blogging, so that includes me!