One year and two days ago, Bryan and I were married. It was a gorgeous and perfect day. I was woken up by a clap of thunder and pouring rain, they say it’s lucky when it rains on your wedding day. By 11am, the sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The weather was the perfect complement to our perfect day.

For our first anniversary, we decided to visit Allerton Park about half an hour outside of Champaign. It was the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary. The Park was once the estate of Robert Allerton. The mansion in the park is amazing but the gardens are the main attraction, they are absolutely stunning. There is a conference center now in the mansion.

The mansion has it’s own kitchen garden with all sorts of herbs, any cooks’ dream. Also in the kitchen garden is a sundial. I’ve always found sundials to be so fascinating. When I have a garden in my backyard, when I finally have a house, I will definitely have a sundial.

The back of the mansion overlooks a pond with a meadow beyond the pond.

The formal gardens are amazing and they are just down a path from the mansion.

Four of the gardens are seasonal gardens and they are separated into quadrants with a sculpture of Adam by Rodin in the middle of these four gardens. The Spring garden is a peony garden with many different peonies, they weren’t blooming when we were there, but I’m sure it’s breathtaking in the spring and summer when they are blooming. We decided to take a break from our strolling through the gardens on a bench in the Spring garden. The four gardens are separated by these tall “walls” of trees.

The Autumn garden was absolutely breathtaking. We walked into the garden and were taken aback by the thousands of butterflies flying around, I have never seen so many butterflies in my life. Literally, hundreds of them were Monarch butterflies. It was amazing to just stand there and watch the butterflies flutter around.

From the seasonal gardens, the formal gardens move into the Chinese par terre. It’s a garden with the shrubs cut to form a the pattern of two Chinese symbols and two sculptures in the middle of these Chinese symbols. Then there is the Avenue of the Chinese Musicians. This avenue leads to the Sunken Garden, which is amazing. The Sunken Garden has four entrances all framed by these art deco pillars and with stairs leading down into the elliptical garden. The garden echoes and I’ve been told that two people can sit on the opposite ends of the garden and talk to each other.

From the Sunken Garden, there are trails that lead back into the woods. We decided to take the trail that goes down to the Sangamon River. The woods were so peaceful and beautiful. All we could hear were birds and the occasional squirrel chirp. Every once in a while, there was also the sound of acorns falling through the trees.

When we arrived at the car to leave, we realized that someone was taking a little nap on our car. Unfortunately, the monarch went to monarch heaven because of our car on the way there.

As we were leaving, we realized that there were quite a few parts of the park that we didn’t even see, so we’ll definitely be making a trip back. I’m sure when the trees start to change that the park will be amazing.

I got home last night after another long day of work. It’s been very crazy and I was so fed up with a project that I’m working on that I left at 5:15, which is early compared to the last few weeks. I’m so tired when I get home in the evenings, I just want to sit on the couch and knit and knit, which is what I have done the last two evenings. It feels like a lot of work just to heat up dinner that Bryan made earlier. Then in the mornings, I should be getting up earlier (I made a commitment to Bryan that I would get up earlier) to exercise in the mornings but that has only worked out twice in the last two weeks. Last night, I was so tired and I was going to go to bed early, but I didn’t because I wanted to get my wedding photo page updated and then when I finally got into bed, I wasn’t tired. So I read for about 1/2 an hour and when I turned my light out, I was asleep really quickly. Tonight, I’m going to go to bed EARLY. Bryan, if you’re reading this, I’m going to have you hold me to this.

In my knitting adventures yesterday. I finished the crocheted edging around the edge of the Fair Isle Hat (see post below of photo). When I came home last night, I worked about 1 1/2 cm (0.6 inches) on the Hobo sweater. The I picked up Pagan and worked about three inches of it. I’m finished with the decreases at the bottom and have about four rows until I start increasing. I’m taking my time with Pagan but I want to finish it before it gets warm outside, I have another three good months before anything sleeveless will be appropriate so I think I have enough time. :) My goal is to have the first part of Hobo finished by the end of May. It seems like a long time, but it took me an hour to do the work that I did on it last night and that was just six rows. I have another 72 rows (or about 12 hours of knitting) to go before I can bind off the bind and just work on the sleeve.

Knitting classes can be so much fun. Last night’s class was fun in a weird way. I didn’t have a chance to stop and think about one thing. Last week, I taught them how to cast-on and purl. So this week I taught them to knit. I thought it would move along a lot quicker, but then I realized I needed to get them started on their hats. So basically all I was able to teach was the knit stitch and, of course, a review of casting on. But they are doing stockinette stitch this week, so I think they will be ready for the lesson next week without any problems. Each class always has one problem that makes it unique. Sometimes it’s dropped stitches and several people have problems with dropped stitches. It’s never several problems, it’s like a little illness that they all catch from each other, it’s kind of funny in a way. This class’ problem is wrapping the yarn counterclockwise. I understand that it seems counterintuitive, but almost all of them want to wrap the yarn clockwise. So I’ve been dealing with a lot of twisted stitches. :) Someone could do a study on the dynamics of knitting classes and attempt to figure out why there is one problem that all of the students seem to deal with in that class. Next week, I’ll teach them to increase and decrease. Then the following week, we’ll sew the hat’s seam. I am now wishing that the class was a six week class so that I didn’t feel so rushed, but I think part of that is just getting back into teaching.

My excitement for knitting is really starting to come back. The weather is really helping! It’s getting cooler and I want to be curled up on the couch with a nice project. Last week, I was dealing with post-wedding withdrawal pretty badly, but this week seems to be better. I’m starting to move into the relief stage. I’m still sad, in a way, that it’s all over but I’m moving to, “Hey, I have time to do other things.” It seems weird not to be planning but I’m enjoying the time to work on knitting. Being married has been great. It feels different but since we lived together for over a year in a way it doesn’t feel different. It’s really hard to explain, it’s different and at the same time it’s not. I’m sure it doesn’t make any sense, except to those people who have done the same thing. Bryan posted a few wedding photos on his website and a few honeymoon photos too. I hope to get several of the photos on a webpage at some point. Finding the time to do it is part of the problem. And knitting wise, if I could just finish the giraffe blanket! :) Just to give you an idea about how excited I am about knitting again, last night after I got home from class. I went to my knitting basket, which has been very neglected in the last year, and pulled out the Lang cardigan. I finished the second button band and now all I have to do is sew it together! So I may have a project to add to my completed list soon!! So it’s only taken me about 26 months to finish but hey, it’s going to get done. While I’m at it, I should sew the side seam of the Joy top. It just needs one side seam, but I’ve copped this attitude that I’m probably not going to wear it soon, so why should I sew that one seam.

Well, I hope you’re all enjoying the fall leaves, if they are changing near you. They were beautiful here this past weekend, but now the trees are starting to look a bit bare. I wish that the trees would take a little longer to change so that we could enjoy them longer, but maybe that’s why we need to pay attention to them because it’s only beautiful for a short moment in time.

I’m applying to library school soon! I need to do an interview with a librarian and then get the information to my references. I’m nervous but I’m really excited. My application is due in mid-January but I want to get it off to U of Illinois before Christmas so that I don’t have to worry about it. For a while, I was afraid that I would have to wait until next summer to find out if I get in, but then I checked the website and they let everyone know in mid-March!

I am teaching a papermaking class tonight. It’s a private lesson because my class at the high school that the woman signed up for was cancelled. It will be interesting. I haven’t taught papermaking as a class before, so I hope it goes well. I’m a bit relieved that the papermaking classes were cancelled because I wasn’t sure how I was going to teach the class. It’s not something that you can just say get these supplies and show up. It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Currently reading: Secret History by Donna Tartt

Bryan has been a very busy husband. :) He not only posted wedding photos yesterday, he posted a few honeymoon photos today. The photos on the Bay of Fundy are great, but obviously not posted yet.

We didn’t stop in any yarn stores, I don’t need any more yarn. I could go through about four very harsh winters where I couldn’t leave my house and have enough yarn to knit with. We did stop in at a store in North Rustico, Prince Edward Island called Rustico Bay Wool Sweater Shop that had all handknit sweaters, hats, mittens and scarves. They had some beautiful stuff. We stopped there because it was very windy and chilly on the north shore of PEI and I didn’t have a proper head attire, so we bought a nice hat. The sweaters were very reasonably priced and the hat, scarf and mitten sets were selling for $75 Canadian. They gave us their website url, but I can’t find it right now.

After losing my template once again, I’m back up and running. I seem to lose my blog template more often than normal. I don’t know what happens and when I contact blogger, they give me this nice email about customer service being important and then I never hear from them. So I took my archive and copied it into a text document and made the necessary changes to get the knitting blog back up. How annoying! Then I found out I was moved into the queue on the knitting blogs, so I was knocked out of the knitting blogs ring for a while. I lost my template on Thursday and I was knocked out of the knitting blogs ring on Friday. It’s not my fault that my blog template just disappears. I know the blog looks a bit messed up right now. I will work on fixing that soon!

So I did get some knitting done this weekend. I worked on the sample hat for my class at the park district. I didn’t get the pattern from my friend, Dawn, until the night before my class because I didn’t ask until the day before my class started, so I’m now trying to get the hat knit so that I can take it to class and show the students. What a concept, show the students what they will be making. :) The class went well on Tuesday. I did meet with one of my students on Saturday to get her going again. She was having a bit of a rough time but I was very confident and I think she was too about her knitting after our hour together. I’m anxious to get them started on their hats because they will be working on something that’s real and that they can wear. It’s more than just a weird hotpad-looking item.

Bryan put a few of our wedding photos on his blog - check them out here. We hope to have more up soon. In case, you didn’t see our engagement photos, here’s a page that I put some photos on but didn’t do much with the layout.

The wedding was fabulous, the honeymoon was wonderful and now it’s back to real life as a married couple. I haven’t knitted since the Olympics, I think. I start teaching on Tuesday, so I’ll be back to knitting very quickly. I’ve even had a request to teach knitting to a local Girl Scout troop. :)

So you’re probably wondering, did I or didn’t I change my name. Well, about four days before the wedding. I figured out what I wanted to do. I kept telling everyone that I hadn’t made a decision, but I didn’t want to tell anyone before I told Bryan. And I didn’t tell Bryan until after the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. I really enjoyed keeping everyone in suspense - would I change it completely or would I hyphenate it? I read on indiebride.com that one woman just made her maiden name a second middle name. I thought that was a grand idea, so I could keep my middle name that I love and still hold onto my maiden name. So I decided to instead of hypenating it and making it complicated for everyone trying to figure out what my last name was and constantly getting incorrect mail, I would just have four names. So now I’m officially Erica Voell. :)

It still feels weird to call Bryan, my husband. I know it will feel weird for a while, but I’ve had a few people correct me when I’ve said “my fiance.” They’ve said, “Don’t you mean, your husband?” It just seems really funny to be calling him my husband after being my fiance for 19 months and 4 days. (So I’m being a bit technical here, but hey I’m allowed to do that, it’s my blog!) The first time we had to acknowledge to people we don’t know that we’re married was when we were getting our rental car in Nova Scotia, on our honeymoon. Bryan asked if we needed to pay to add me as a driver and the woman asked, “Is she your wife?” Bryan hesitated for a second and then said, “Yes.” I think we were both a bit taken a back for a second there. We had been married two days and we weren’t used to the whole wife and husband thing yet. The first time Bryan introduced me as “This is my wife Erica” was at the Lunenburg Inn when he was introducing me to one of the innkeepers.

I would love to write more now, but I need to go. I’ll try to write more later today or tomorrow.

Thank you to all of you who wrote me very nice notes! :)

Whoa, two posts in one day! I still can’t concentrate today at work. The photographer at the wedding gave my mom all of the rolls of film that she took because the photog was going to a conference and didn’t want to have to worry about our photos. So my mom got them last week and FedEx’d them to me and they’ve already arrived at my house. I can’t wait to see them!! So I’m having trouble concentrating because I really want to see the photos! Darn meeting kept me from going home for lunch. :(

In addition to the photos and just being back from my honeymoon, I have to take George to the vet today. Warning: There are kitty bad habit references ahead, if you have a weak stomach or just don’t care to hear about my naughty cat’s new bad bathroom habit, please skip the rest of this paragraph. He’s been a very naughty little cat since we left for the honeymoon. The day after the wedding, we came home for just one night so that we could catch our early flight from Chicago to Nova Scotia, we didn’t want to fly out of Kansas City the day after the wedding at 6:30am. George adopted an old bathmat we were going to throw away about a year ago and he’s slept on it almost every night since adopting it last fall. The night we were home, George left a surprise on his mat in the hallway. So we cleaned it up and left for the airport thinking George would be the good kitty he always is when we leave for several days. When we came home, the pet sitters left a note saying that the kitties had been very needy. Based on Chloe’s current condition, I know that George was the very needy one! Not only did he manage to completely soil his mat, but he also used the bathmat in the bathroom and the plastic bag that the pet sitters put over the spot where George’s mat used to be. The mats were so bad that we ended up throwing them out. George has been very angry at us for throwing his mat out. He was yowling last night after we went to bed and I thought, maybe if I put a towel down for him he’ll sleep there and forget about his mat. But NO! He managed to make a mess of the towel this morning. I am at my wits end with him. I’m so lost on how to handle this kitty. He’s a very demanding cat to begin with. He demands attention and expects to be fed on his schedule by Bryan. If I feed him, he’s not happy, Bryan must feed him. So there is trouble in the Voell household with the Georgey-cat. I hope the vet can help me solve this behavioral problem with him, we’ve used up so many paper towels!

So I must get something done today. Thank goodness for a meeting at 2pm and then I have to leave at 2:45pm. :) Unfortunately, I just found out Bryan has to work until 6pm, so I have to wait until 6pm to see the wedding photos! Oh, the excitement is going to make me crazy!

I’m leaving tomorrow on a jet plane for Kansas City. One more day of work for both Bryan and I. He’s really busy at work trying to get everything done before he leaves. The list of things to do is quite short!

I don’t know how many times I’ve answered the questions, “Are you nervous?” or “Are you getting excited?” The answers are “No” and “Yes” respectively. I’m not nervous, if I was I wouldn’t be getting married. I am nervous about everyone getting there and about crying through my vows. :) I am very excited! Why wouldn’t I be excited - I’m getting married! The one question that really bugs me is “Are you getting cold feet?” NO! If I was getting cold feet, I shouldn’t be getting married. I was asked if I was getting scared. It seemed like such a ridiculous question to ask, it goes along with the cold feet question. Anyone who is scared or gets cold feet, should call off the wedding. I don’t mean call it off the day of the wedding or not show up at the altar. So to answer all of your questions - I’m very excited and I can’t wait. I just want the day to last for about three days! I know the whole day will be wonderful! And to top it all off, it’s going to be 86 degrees F (30 degrees C) and sunny! It’s a bit warmer than I would like, I’m not going to complain about a nice sunny day for my wedding! :)

So Bryan and I leave tomorrow night for Kansas City where we will be for two nights. Then we’ll go to Lawrence on Friday. We need to pick up our marriage license and the guys need to pick up their tuxedos. Then the rehearsal is Friday evening and the rehearsal dinner is after the rehearsal. I think the rehearsal dinner is going to be so much fun. I can’t to give all of our attendants their gifts. Okay, so it won’t be quite as exciting as Oprah’s car giveaway, I know they will all like their gifts. :)

Then Saturday is the big day!! The women attendants and I will beautified at Headmaster’s, a really great salon in Lawrence and then it’s back to the hotel to get dressed. From there the day will fly by with photos, the ceremony and the reception.

We leave for our honeymoon on Monday morning. We’re going to Nova Scotia! I’ll post the websites for the inns that we’re staying in, later. They all look so great! I can’t wait for the honeymoon. The weather is rainy this week, so who knows what it will be like next week. It completely blows my mind that this time next week, I will be a married woman and on my honeymoon.

After the honeymoon, it’s really going to be crazy with the papermaking and knitting classes I’m teaching! :) It will be fun though.

If I don’t post before I leave. I hope everyone has a good two weeks! :)