Hey you guys, you're getting a whole four sentences from me even though I just posted yesterday. Wow, right?
I'm super excited to have a post up over at Happy Sighs today. It's part of a series called Why We Wed, Rachelle's awesome idea that's now being hosted by the equally awesome Liz at Happy Sighs. Go check it out (and keep reading while you're there, trust me).
Oh look, that was five sentences -- bonus!
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Friday, October 14, 2011
time warp
Is it weird to do a more thoughtful, introspective blog post on a Friday afternoon? It feels out of place when the rest of the internet is all "gah, I can't think anymore. here, look at this picture of a kitten in a hat!"
For a while now I've been trying to figure out why The Awesome Husband and I never seem to have enough time. We don't see friends and family as often as we like because we're constantly feeling like any precious free time needs to be spent decompressing and de-stressing. It's especially perplexing because we don't have children to look after (the pup is a lot of work, but I'm sure kidlets are a whole other ballgame), and The Awesome Husband isn't currently working 40 hours most weeks. Running the household should not be this hard.
I had an epiphany, though, as I was feeding boneless pork chops through a food mill to be ground up and turned into filling for baked egg rolls. In one sense, we live as though it's 1954. Obviously, I don't mean that our lives are 1954-esque in the sense of a wife maintaining the home while her husband goes off to work. Around here, the reverse if the norm more often than not. And I definitely don't mean it in the sense of getting all dressed up for dusting, because really, who dusts these days?
We tend to be a bit retro, though, when it comes to how we get things accomplished around the house. We try to live in accordance with our values (frugal/healthy/environmentally sustainable), so we do things like dry our laundry outside in the summer, reserving the dryer for rainy or cold weather. We grow a lot of our own vegetables, watering the garden from a rain barrel rather than a hose hooked up to the water supply. We make pretty much all of our own food -- not to the level of churning our own butter or anything, but we certainly don't buy a lot of processed or otherwise "convenient" foods (sliced bread, bran cereal, and granola bars are about the extent of it in a normal week). There's never been a dishwasher in our kitchen, and when our microwave died a couple years ago, we purposefully never replaced it.
For the most part these are all things we do happily and by design.* We don't really take anything to the point where it becomes unpleasant. I mean, if the tomato plants have a bad year, we just go out and buy tomatoes at the store. We're lucky like that. But there's nothing like a salad made entirely out of vegetables that you grew -- or our really low utility bills, for that matter.
The catch, though, is that a lot of this stuff takes extra time. Science and technology as a sociological catalyst, allowing households to run more efficiently and thus freeing up time for both spouses to work: that's great in theory, unless you opt out of many of those time-saving advances. And when one spouse works part time while the other works more than 40 hours a week, it's essentially the equivalent of having both people working, which of course is the expectation now for households without small children.
I suspect there may not be an actual solution here. I mean, there's very little chance that we'll just up and decide to have frozen pizza for dinner every night to save time. No way, no how. I'll have the pesto and spinach stuffed pork chops with bakes sweet potato fries, thankyouverymuch. (Did I forget to mention as one of our core values that we love-love-love good food?)
It is nice, though, to come to this realization that we're tired and we don't have as much time as we'd like because we're living the lives we want to live. It's so much better than thinking "what is WRONG with us?"
*The exception? Dishes. Oh man, the dishes. We would install a dishwasher in a heartbeat if we could.
For a while now I've been trying to figure out why The Awesome Husband and I never seem to have enough time. We don't see friends and family as often as we like because we're constantly feeling like any precious free time needs to be spent decompressing and de-stressing. It's especially perplexing because we don't have children to look after (the pup is a lot of work, but I'm sure kidlets are a whole other ballgame), and The Awesome Husband isn't currently working 40 hours most weeks. Running the household should not be this hard.
I had an epiphany, though, as I was feeding boneless pork chops through a food mill to be ground up and turned into filling for baked egg rolls. In one sense, we live as though it's 1954. Obviously, I don't mean that our lives are 1954-esque in the sense of a wife maintaining the home while her husband goes off to work. Around here, the reverse if the norm more often than not. And I definitely don't mean it in the sense of getting all dressed up for dusting, because really, who dusts these days?
We tend to be a bit retro, though, when it comes to how we get things accomplished around the house. We try to live in accordance with our values (frugal/healthy/environmentally sustainable), so we do things like dry our laundry outside in the summer, reserving the dryer for rainy or cold weather. We grow a lot of our own vegetables, watering the garden from a rain barrel rather than a hose hooked up to the water supply. We make pretty much all of our own food -- not to the level of churning our own butter or anything, but we certainly don't buy a lot of processed or otherwise "convenient" foods (sliced bread, bran cereal, and granola bars are about the extent of it in a normal week). There's never been a dishwasher in our kitchen, and when our microwave died a couple years ago, we purposefully never replaced it.
For the most part these are all things we do happily and by design.* We don't really take anything to the point where it becomes unpleasant. I mean, if the tomato plants have a bad year, we just go out and buy tomatoes at the store. We're lucky like that. But there's nothing like a salad made entirely out of vegetables that you grew -- or our really low utility bills, for that matter.
The catch, though, is that a lot of this stuff takes extra time. Science and technology as a sociological catalyst, allowing households to run more efficiently and thus freeing up time for both spouses to work: that's great in theory, unless you opt out of many of those time-saving advances. And when one spouse works part time while the other works more than 40 hours a week, it's essentially the equivalent of having both people working, which of course is the expectation now for households without small children.
I suspect there may not be an actual solution here. I mean, there's very little chance that we'll just up and decide to have frozen pizza for dinner every night to save time. No way, no how. I'll have the pesto and spinach stuffed pork chops with bakes sweet potato fries, thankyouverymuch. (Did I forget to mention as one of our core values that we love-love-love good food?)
It is nice, though, to come to this realization that we're tired and we don't have as much time as we'd like because we're living the lives we want to live. It's so much better than thinking "what is WRONG with us?"
*The exception? Dishes. Oh man, the dishes. We would install a dishwasher in a heartbeat if we could.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
last weekend was 99% fantastic
If you ignore the part about the foot injury, I had a pretty great few days last weekend. One of my dearest friends (she doesn't have a blog, but you can go read about another time when I talked about her) got married. This is the friend with the fiesta-themed shower a couple weeks ago.
It was really fun getting to watch someone else go through the whole actually-getting-married process almost exactly a year after having done so myself. For one thing, the rehearsal on Friday was a decidedly lower-stakes event, that's for sure. The rehearsal dinner they hosted -- 20 of us around a hibachi table! there was drumming! -- was pretty much the polar opposite of what we chose to do -- drinks and mingling over hors d'oeuvres before dinner -- but it was great to see how each approach was ridiculously fun in an entirely different way.
Saturday was an absolute hoot, wherein I poured mimosas (a calming elixir, don'tcha know) and took care of random odds and ends. Walking down the aisle of a church knowing everyone was craning to see past me, not bothering very much to look at me, was pretty awesome too.
One thing was definitely more difficult, though. The toast. Good lord, the toast. I gained an entirely new level of appreciation and admiration for my friend sitting next to me in her white dress, recalling how eloquently she spoke about me last year when the shoe was on the other foot. My voice wavered and my eyes watered and I got through about half of what I intended to say about her and her husband (HUSBAND!) before I cut my losses, asked everyone to raise their glasses with me, and wished the happy couple years and years of the joy together that they so richly deserve.
The Awesome Husband and I twirled and spun on an empty dance floor when the song we'd used for our first dance was played, commenting to each other how much more enjoyable that was without the pressure of all our loved ones staring at us. Later in the evening, the song we'd used as a processional wafted out of the DJ's speakers; I sobbed uncontrollable tears of a thousand different emotions into my husband's tie (the first few bars might always do that to me), and thankfully I think nobody else in the room noticed.
Crying-in-public aside, though, the wedding of one of your favorite people in the whole wide world is pretty much the most fun day you can have without actually getting married yourself.
Oh, and bonus: if anyone wants to invite me to a swanky holiday party this year, I'm set, because the bridesmaid's dress she chose was a super fun black cocktail number. (See, I toldja she's pretty awesome.)
It was really fun getting to watch someone else go through the whole actually-getting-married process almost exactly a year after having done so myself. For one thing, the rehearsal on Friday was a decidedly lower-stakes event, that's for sure. The rehearsal dinner they hosted -- 20 of us around a hibachi table! there was drumming! -- was pretty much the polar opposite of what we chose to do -- drinks and mingling over hors d'oeuvres before dinner -- but it was great to see how each approach was ridiculously fun in an entirely different way.
Saturday was an absolute hoot, wherein I poured mimosas (a calming elixir, don'tcha know) and took care of random odds and ends. Walking down the aisle of a church knowing everyone was craning to see past me, not bothering very much to look at me, was pretty awesome too.
One thing was definitely more difficult, though. The toast. Good lord, the toast. I gained an entirely new level of appreciation and admiration for my friend sitting next to me in her white dress, recalling how eloquently she spoke about me last year when the shoe was on the other foot. My voice wavered and my eyes watered and I got through about half of what I intended to say about her and her husband (HUSBAND!) before I cut my losses, asked everyone to raise their glasses with me, and wished the happy couple years and years of the joy together that they so richly deserve.
The Awesome Husband and I twirled and spun on an empty dance floor when the song we'd used for our first dance was played, commenting to each other how much more enjoyable that was without the pressure of all our loved ones staring at us. Later in the evening, the song we'd used as a processional wafted out of the DJ's speakers; I sobbed uncontrollable tears of a thousand different emotions into my husband's tie (the first few bars might always do that to me), and thankfully I think nobody else in the room noticed.
Crying-in-public aside, though, the wedding of one of your favorite people in the whole wide world is pretty much the most fun day you can have without actually getting married yourself.
Oh, and bonus: if anyone wants to invite me to a swanky holiday party this year, I'm set, because the bridesmaid's dress she chose was a super fun black cocktail number. (See, I toldja she's pretty awesome.)
Sunday, September 4, 2011
365
Awesome Husband of Mine, I still promise to treat you with the respect I would wish for myself,
to comfort and support you always,
to work together toward our shared and individual aspirations,
and to apologize with sincerity when I stumble in these efforts.
I'm so lucky to have you as my friend, my love, and my husband,
beside me and apart from me,
in laughter and in tears,
in conflict and tranquility,
to honor and cherish,
for our similarities and our differences,
as long as we both shall live.
Happy anniversary, my dear. Here's to many, many more.
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Part Two
Yes, Part Two. For more on what the Copycat Project is all about, read Part One here.
A Practical Wedding has plenty of readers, so the paltry handful I might steer their way is sure to be a drop in the proverbial bucket in terms of a benefit to Meg, the driving force behind APW. But to the paltry handful themselves, I suspect the benefit will be substantial. I mean really, when has reading intelligent, confident (and witty!) posts that remind you that you're awesome and that anyone saying otherwise is insignificant -- when has that not been beneficial for you? Never? Ok then, go read.
I was prompted to use A Practical Wedding as my second Copycat blog when one of the anchors of the morning news (yes, I know, calling it "news" is a bit of a stretch) said this about the upcoming nuptials of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton:
"... he'll have no input on the dress, of course."
*record scratch*
What's this, now? If the bride- and groom-to-be have decided that she'll be choosing her dress independent of all opinions he may have, that's fine. More power to 'em. That's totally their call. The assumptions, though -- and forgive me, but I'm just going out on a limb here and guessing that Ann Curry hasn't popped in for tea and chatted with the happy couple about their wedding planning philosophy -- are what get under my skin: that of course the groom has no interest in what the dress will look like, and everyone knows that men are useless when it comes to weddings, and obviously, even if he did have some thoughts on elaborate dress vs. simple dress, his opinion doesn't matter because hers is the one that counts. Because she's the briiide.
Even with all the sarcasm, it still sort of gave me the heebie-jeebies just typing that. Who's with me?
A Practical Wedding has plenty of readers, so the paltry handful I might steer their way is sure to be a drop in the proverbial bucket in terms of a benefit to Meg, the driving force behind APW. But to the paltry handful themselves, I suspect the benefit will be substantial. I mean really, when has reading intelligent, confident (and witty!) posts that remind you that you're awesome and that anyone saying otherwise is insignificant -- when has that not been beneficial for you? Never? Ok then, go read.
I was prompted to use A Practical Wedding as my second Copycat blog when one of the anchors of the morning news (yes, I know, calling it "news" is a bit of a stretch) said this about the upcoming nuptials of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton:
"... he'll have no input on the dress, of course."
*record scratch*
What's this, now? If the bride- and groom-to-be have decided that she'll be choosing her dress independent of all opinions he may have, that's fine. More power to 'em. That's totally their call. The assumptions, though -- and forgive me, but I'm just going out on a limb here and guessing that Ann Curry hasn't popped in for tea and chatted with the happy couple about their wedding planning philosophy -- are what get under my skin: that of course the groom has no interest in what the dress will look like, and everyone knows that men are useless when it comes to weddings, and obviously, even if he did have some thoughts on elaborate dress vs. simple dress, his opinion doesn't matter because hers is the one that counts. Because she's the briiide.
Even with all the sarcasm, it still sort of gave me the heebie-jeebies just typing that. Who's with me?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The cake. Oh, the cake! (and other wedding food...)
My mother outdid herself. The six test cakes she slaved over (of which at least two were multi-tiered) were worth the effort. The frosting was perfectly executed, and the cake topper took about as much money, time, and effort as I think any cake topper should take (which is to say, very little), but still managed to be a perfect visual addition.
More importantly, the cake was delicious. Like, the venue staff was amazed how little was left at the end of the night, it was so delicious. I know for a fact that one bridesmaid had three slices (if that's not validation of yummy cake, I don't know what is). Said bridesmaid's husband also apparently had a hilarious conversation with my mother wherein he caused her to be thoroughly flustered -- and likely red as a boiled lobster -- because of 1) well-deserved compliments on the cake, and 2) profanity for emphasis as to just how very impressed he was. Mom's a little faint of heart with the language...
During the reception, The Amazing Husband and I each had about as much cake as one can eat in the time it takes a group of family and friends to snap a few photos. Not surprisingly, we didn't really consume much of the non-cake food while mingling and dancing and taking in the evening, either. I suppose we could have set up a table for us to make sure we got some sustenance, but then we would have missed out on a lot of really fun conversations and interactions with our nearest and dearest. (Plus, everyone would have been watching us eat. No thanks.) The Amazing Husband, it should be noted, needs vast quantities of nutrition to appease his overachieving metabolism, so just "not eating" wasn't really a good way to go.
What's a freshly married couple to do?
You book your wedding at a venue where the staff is so awesome, they'll pack up leftovers for you (and surprise you with two complete, unrequested meals, in case the leftovers aren't sufficient) and let you hang out with your spouse in the industrial kitchen after the festivities have ended, eating phyllo-wrapped asparagus, priscutto-wrapped grilled peaches, and pieces of mangled wedding cake with your fingers. And you talk and you laugh and you rehash the previous ten hours, and you enjoy the most memorable meal of your entire life.
That's what you do.
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