I have not been around in AGES. I am so sorry. I just got back from visiting my parents in Oregon, where I was working on a few projects…but mostly, I was reading. I finished all the Twilight books and have much to say! For now, though, check out what went out in this morning’s mail! More next week after J&B get them!
Yes, yes, I have joined the masses in reading the Twilight series. I finished book 1 last week, and today I got a fantastic deal on the last three. Before I start New Moon, though, I really want to share my thoughts on the first one. If you intend to read them, don’t read this entry!
Overall, I totally liked the book. It was really addictive, albeit a little cheesy every now and again. I did have some feelings about it that I’m not sure most other people had, though, so I would really love to talk about it.
As a bit of a background, I had a verbally abusive and controlling boyfriend in high school. I’m not really sure why I decided to date this guy. I had super bad intuition about him, which I ignored. It ended badly: we had to call the police because he showed up at my house in the middle of the night, and he ended up stalking me. Maybe I needed to see what it was like to be with a “bad boy”? I’m not sure. In any case, a lot of the feelings that Bella had about Edward in the beginning were very familiar.
Edward had a lot of red flags. Off the top of my head:
Bella ends up losing herself in Edward. He is all she can think about. She is willing to give up her entire life to him, in order to be with him forever. This book is aimed at high school age girls, who are already susceptible to giving themselves away to guys. I am a little bit nervous about the message this is sending: ignore your intuition.
I obviously haven’t read the next three books, so I have no idea what happens next (and please don’t tell me!). I can tell you what I hope happens, though. Part of me really hopes that Bella does end up giving her life to Edward (becoming a vampire), and I hope that she really regrets it. I hope it ends badly, she figures out that being with someone forever that you met in high school isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you should always follow your intuition and you should never give up who you are for someone else.
Did anyone else have these feelings? I’m not judging yet, because I haven’t read the rest, but this is where I’m at right now. Thoughts?
I am totally thrilled with these Save the Dates! They’ll be going out in a few days. I can’t wait for M to receive them!
I just finished some awesome holiday cards for my friends S & H! Here’s a little preview:
I’ll post the detail shots in a couple of days!
I have a confession: I actually really don’t like the holidays.
I’m not really sure when this started, because I have very happy memories of my childhood Chanukkahs. My mom converted to Judaism, and the one thing she couldn’t let go of was a Christmas tree. Growing up, my mom and I had a tradition: every year, we’d go shopping and each get one new ornament for our “Chanukkah bush.” Those were very happy memories, along with the memories of lighting the menorah while our dog Allie howled along to the prayers.
At some point, though, I started to really hate the holidays. I think it happened sometime during or right after college. I started to get really irritated by the commercialism of the whole thing, and despite my constant efforts not to get sucked in, it’s impossible to avoid the crowds and the advertisements, and the guilt over not spending a ton of money. I also can’t stand that people are literally trampling one another for something as trivial as a videogame system from Wal*Mart.
Last year during the holidays, I had a job working retail at Paper Source. It was hell. I had to listen to Christmas music for 35 days straight, deal with extremely rude customers on a daily basis, and participate in a ridiculous number of expensive work-related gift exchanges despite the fact that I hardly made any money. It was the worst holiday season ever. I am very thankful not to have to deal with that again!
I would probably crawl into a hole the day after Thanksgiving and not emerge until December 26th if my husband would allow it. Unfortunately, he LOVES the holidays. LOVES them. Every year, he and his 8+ cousins get together for “Cousins Christmas,” which involves a gift exchange and a while elephant. Although I admittedly feel super pressured to find great gifts, it’s actually a really fun time. When I came along (my first one was three or four years ago), my ever-accepting husband changed the name to “Cousin’s Chrismukkah.” I feel like a bit of a traitor to my Jewish culture, but I’m trying to get over it and not be quite so serious about what it all means.
Another holiday tradition we have is a 24 Marathon, in which we watch the entire last season of 24 until we get nauseous. We always complete all 24 episodes in three days. It’s wonderful.
This year I actually started to get excited about the holidays at the beginning of November. I planned a bunch of craft projects to make it even more spectacular. Sadly, I started to get cranky the day after Thanksgiving when the crowds came out, and I haven’t been able to pull myself out of the I’m-just-a-cranky-Jew-on-Christmas funk quite yet. Even the craft projects haven’t helped. We haven’t finished decorating, but I thought I’d share what I’ve done so far.
My first project was a glittery “OY” sign. After the holidays last year, Paper Source marked these giant kraft JOY letters down 50%. I think they’re about a foot and a half tall–they’re super big. My sentiments around the holidays are obviously a little less of the JOY and a little more of the OY anyway, so I thought it would be appropriate to ditch the J and sparkle the letters Chanukkah-style. What do you think?
I actually still have the J and haven’t done anything to it. I was thinking it would be a great monogram for someone marrying into a J-last named family. Anyone need a J?
The other thing I created was this felt “Happy Chrismukkah” sign:
Close up:
I actually really like how both projects turned out, and they got me excited enough to take out our fake tree (we’re hippy environmentalists, what can I say?), but not quite excited enough to decorate it yet. ;)
I know I’m not the only cranky one on Christmas. Anybody else? Anybody got any tips for me on how to keep the crankypants level down? I would LOVE to be like my friend Marianne, who absolutely adores Christmas. Please, someone teach me how.
I recently started thinking about how different my wedding would have been if I’d started planning now, rather than in early 2007. The culture on my local knot board, which is where I got most of my inspiration, is much different now than it was then.
When I started planning, I went on a knot bio bookmarking spree. I was inspired by almost everything I saw–everyone was so creative and unique, it seemed! I was blown away by the women who planned weddings for the Summer of 2007, and was constantly amazed my my fellow brides-to-be, who were at the same stage in planning as I was and kept coming up with creative ideas.
I am sure that there are a lot of current bride- and grooms-to-be who would love to be inspired, too. Maybe you guys have found some awesome bios lately (if so, please share them with me!), but I haven’t really (although I admit, I haven’t really been looking!). Anyway, here are the bios that I found most inspiring, plus a few of my friends.
2007 knotties who inspired me:
A few brides whose bios have disappeared (or their pictures are now too small to see) but I really loved: MrsHoya, lickaflea, blackcurrant, kayrose.
The brides-to-be in 2007 who ended up with awesome weddings:
A few brides whose weddings turned out beautifully but didn’t update their bios (or I can’t find their bios)?, pearls&lace and bride2bJG.
Anyone else got any favorites to add?
Remember last week, when I told you C & C’s Save the Dates were on the way? Well, they received them, so now I can show you the whole thing!
Here’s the front:
And the inside:
C & C are getting married next year on the Fourth of July, and wanted to incorporate the holiday into their Save the Date. They also have a VERY handsome pooch named Brewer, who (as you pet lovers will surely agree) had to be involved.
I love how these turned out! C & C were a lot of fun to work with–they have such fun personalities. And of course, I love drawing people’s pets. :)
Thanks for letting me be a part of your wedding, guys!
Look what’s on the way! It’s C & C’s Save the Dates!
And a little sneak peek…
More next week!
Holy moly, it’s the last wedding post. Sad!! It also happens to be one of my favorites, though: the DIY (do-it-yourself) details. I slaved my butt off working on all the details for our wedding, and I’m thrilled with how they came out. The reception was perfectly executed by our wonderful caterers, and every last thing was photographed by our awesome photographer, Kim.
At least one or two guests commented on every single detail, which really made all of the work worth it. It made our wedding really personal and fun, which was exactly what I was going for. The reason I’m telling you all of this is because I think the DIY projects are worth it, for sure, as long as they add something unique to your day. I don’t think it’s worth the effort to slave over a centerpiece if no one will notice how unique it is, or how it tells a story about you and your fiancé, though. Enough blabbering, how about some photos?
Kim did a great job photographing our invitations (don’t forget to add this to your list of things to bring on the day of!):
And our programs (the one project I did not think was worth it, but it made for a funny story, so whatever!). This photo shows all of the colors I used, but it has the shoe-shop stitching:
One of very few “perfect” programs (with the zig zag stitch):
This is our head table at the reception. We had one small rectangular table that seated us and our parents. Ah! The colors of the favors so perfectly match the napkins!! LOVE!
One of the mini menus:
One of the table number sandwich boards with a placecard:
Our friend JD had a good time in the photobooth:
The cropped drawings that were hanging from the tall centerpieces:
One of the low-centerpiece tables:
The inside of the favor boxes:
And, just to recap some of the details you’ve seen before…
the bar menu:
The signs I made for the back of our chairs (there were also signs for our parents):
Actually, here’s a non-pro pic of Y’s dad with his sign (how funny is he?!):
The memory boxes:
The guestbook table:
The ceremony signs (well, one of them at least!):
The handmade-by-my-mom-and-my-aunt chuppah:
The Ketubah:
Holy moly. Looking back on this, I did a LOT. Whew!! No wonder I’m wedding-ed out!!
I don’t usually ask questions at the end of my blog entries, but I am really curious: what DIY projects did you do (or are you doing) that truly reflect you and your fiancé?
Thanks to my friend Jenny at Geek in Heels, I have recently learned something about blog feeds.
I use Google Reader to catch up on my blog reading. Some blogs really frustrate me by having only a tiny bit of the post listed in the feed, and then you have to click through to see the whole thing. This mostly annoys me if the blog is generally very image-heavy, and I don’t even know if I want to read the post until I see the images.
For some reason, I thought I could fix this. Jenny told me, though, that people actually set their feeds up this way, in order to drive traffic to their site. Now I’m wondering if I should be doing this? How else would you get to see my twitter status (which I know you would be riveted by) or my latest flickr image (you know you wanna see my dog and her new toy!)?
What do you guys think? Are partial feeds annoying to you? How do you read your blogs? Do you come directly to my website, or do you have my feed through Google Reader, Bloglines, or something similar? Please tell me. My curiosity is killing me (although I have no idea why).
