A lot of wedding blither · 19 days ago
Wedding frenzy has more or less eaten me lately. Things are…. almost… progressing, even if most things are still not in the tangible phase yet. My parents have been wrangling with tent guys, and met with a caterer who’s far too expensive. Yay. The caterer hunt is now top priority.
Stylewise, I’m thinking summery jewel tones, with some rustic touches, like simple flowers in mason jars. I love the feel of the things in this collage from A Practical Wedding.
Also, we have no clue what kind of music we’d like to have. Some kind of band? A DJ? We like such a wide variety of music (and only some of it danceable by people unwilling to jig….) that we’re kind of baffled. Suggestions very much welcome!
I did find a fabulous dress, which looked utterly stunning on me. It’s all in folded dupioni silk with a gorgeous corseted top, and it felt absolutely fantastic. But frankly it was just too expensive. I’d rather be able to have a couple of extra friends on the invite list instead! Also, the dress was really too formal for a wedding that’s happening in my parents’ pretty but not terribly grand backyard. One of today’s tasks is to call the bridal shop and regretfully tell them thankyoubutnothankyou.
Meanwhile, the original dress I’d fallen in love with is still do-able, and I’m still superexcited about it, despite this flirtation with the fancy storebought dress. It’ll be gorgeous and very romantic! And the idea of something handmade by a friend is just 1000000x better than anything from a shop.
Noting: Trying on bridal dresses is not spooky. They’re just big fancy dresses that happen to be white. But trying on bridal VEILS is terrifying!
Okay, that’s enough wedding blither for now!
Some completely unrelated quizzy things:Comments [1]
Size matters · 53 days ago
So… I’m about to take the plunge and join a weight loss program.
I know I’m not huge, and that my weight for the most part translates into bodacious curves. Which I love! But I’m still a good 25 pounds over the recommended body weight for my height. I admit I don’t really love having a convex waistline. And I’ve been going up in sizes in the past couple of years, and would really like to make that stop, if only because outgrowing my clothes is annoying. And then there’s this whole wedding thing coming up, and I guess I am just girlie enough to want to look a little bit more svelte in the fancy white dress.
But the biggest reason is that I don’t really feel quite like ME anymore. I’m by nature a sproingy, bouncy person, and this extra weight has been making me feel far more earthbound than I can handle. I don’t expect to become waify, but I do want to be able to do the Plow in pilates class without so much belly chub getting in the way. And I want Tim to be able to toss me around without it being a major exercise.
There are also health concerns. First of all, I am more of an “apple-shaped” person, which is stereotypically the more disease-prone way to carry weight (you hourglass and pear people are lucky!). And secondly, obesity and diabetes run in both sides of my family (I come from a long line of ladies who loved their abundant salami and ravioli and cream and Sunday roasts and Finnish coffee cake…), and both are things I would dearly like to avoid.
So… the diet. I’ve watched friends have great success with Weight Watchers, and I’ve been steeling myself to give it a try. I hate the idea of having to spend the $$, but then again I know I’m too flighty and impulsive to keep track of things without the structure of some sort of external apparatus. (In the interest of economy, I just checked out two free online diet-tracker sites, but intensely disliked both of them. WW seems friendlier and better-designed.) WW plus kicking myself over to the gym more often seems to be the way to go.
I love my bodaciousness, and, believe me, I know it is genetically impossible for me to be anything but curvy. It would be mental to try to do away with that. I just want to be healthy, and I need to feel free to move again.
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Darth Sans · 57 days ago
Just a quick link for the afternoon… Someone has constructed Darth Vader and Princess Leia out of letters, and it is awesome.
That is all!
Wedding Insanity: It begins?? · 59 days ago
After a great deal of uncertainty and heel-dragging and fielding the ‘When’s the wedding!’ question, things might actually be starting to take shape.
I have to confess here that my mom is a New Agey, spiritual sort of person. She meditates, does Qi Gong, pays attention to astrology (more Chinese zodiac than Western), and is a licensed Feng Shui consultant. I don’t take these things nearly so seriously as she does, but then again I admit I don’t entirely discount them either.
So she called her one of her teachers from the Feng Shui school (god this is so kooky…) to see if he could look at our charts to see when the most auspicious time for our wedding might be.
And it’s… this August. Or early September.
$%&*$%&$!!!
Moreover, 2009 looks like it’s a much rougher year and would not be auspicious at all.
Double-$%&*$%&$!!!
Despite the swearing and the PANIC, I have to say, it’s tempting to give it a try. Tons of people I know are getting married in 2008; it seems like there really is some positive energy in the air for this year. Something inside me says this really IS the right time to do it, even though 4 months is a ludicrously short amount of time to pull a wedding together. Batshit-crazy-INSANE, even. But then again I am notorious for thriving on last-minute-deadline pressure. So… it might be possible? The first weekend of September? Maybe?
My mom suggested that we could have it in their backyard in Stamford — which would mean no worries (or $$) about booking a venue. They do have a pretty backyard, complete with pond and nice trees and little garden, and there would be room for a big tent. So it’s kinda tempting to string the whole place up with lights and paper lanterns and just go for it. Keri has already agreed to be our minister, which is awesome. And then we’ll just have to worry about catering, cake, we’d love to brew up a batch of wedding beer, plus renting tent and chairs, music, and getting me a dress finished in time. Also some sort of cooling system for Tim, who will be dying of heat at that time of year (perhaps a kilt? plus getting people to fling small ice pellets at him periodically?). And, you know, a million other little details.
This is by no means a sure thing — it’s just a sudden whirlwind of ideas. Tim and I haven’t really gotten a chance yet to talk properly about it yet, though he didn’t run screaming at the idea when I mentioned it yesterday. But I’m not sure how keen he is on it either. We’ll see what happens!
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Gutenberg, and inflatable Nessies · 73 days ago
Scraping myself out of a swoon for long enough to post this link to a BBC programme about Gutenberg and printing presses, hosted by Stephen Fry.
Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press
... SWOON!
Also on YouTube today is an air-powered Loch Ness Monster, arising from a NYC subway grate. Inflating Nessie! (There is some uncertainty as to where this is, since Gothamist is reporting a location that’s physically impossible for a subway grate to exist, but it’s in the vicinity of 21st St and 6th or 7th Ave). Incredibly groovy!
And finally, some cool 8-bit street art.
Spring Greens · 74 days ago
Not that anyone I know needs reminders about environmental consciousness, but I just wanted to wish you all a happy Earth Day!
Adventures
On Saturday we expeditioned to Philadelphia (and beyond!), because I wanted to participate in my favorite knit-blogger’s 1,000 Knitters photography project — a portrait study of knitters each knitting their own individual row on the project’s communual scarf. It’s a really sweet project and the portraits are all quirky and lovely. We traveled to Kennett Square, PA for this, since I have a strong hunch that he won’t make it to NYC before he reaches his goal of 1,000. In fact, I was something like Knitter #749 (or thereabouts…). Kind of a dorky and silly reason for an expedition, I realize, but hey, silly expeditions are a lot of fun. It felt GREAT to be out of the city exploring someplace new, even if that someplace new isn’t terribly exotic. Plus, afterwards we got to drop in on friends who live in Philly proper, which was a treat. And then we had real Philly cheesesteaks on the way home and they were deeeee-lish.
(Note on the classic cheesesteak Wiz-vs-Provolone debate: Contrary to our normally uppity tastes, both of us preferred Cheez Wiz to provolone! Provolone is a lovely cheese, and we applaud it for being real cheese rather than a toxic orange food science experiment. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t stand up to the powerful meat and onions in a cheesesteak. I’m surprised to report that I’m a “Wiz wit” girl!)
Photowalking
Last Wednesday I fled work with my camera in tow and went on my first photowalk in months. What joy! There’s something spiritual about photowalking for me. Some people meditate by sitting quietly, blocking out external distractions, and retreating inside themselves to a still, interior place. I think I find that same feeling of inner peace by doing just the opposite, by getting outside and getting in tune with my surroundings. My camera acts as a catalyst and a focus, much like a mantra does for a meditator. I find I’m just as relaxed and nourished by this as any Zen meditation practitioner.
View the set
I don’t think I’ve ever explored the more easterly end of Alphabet City before; whenever I’m there it’s usually dark out, and I’m invariably beelining to meet friends at a bar. I had no idea how many community gardens there are in the neighborhood! Each block seemed to have at least two, some tiny little green spaces wedged between buildings, some big enough to be called parks, and all of them beautiful and quirky. I stumbled upon the famous Snack Dragon taco shop (tasty!), eavesdropped on a guy noodling on his guitar in the front of a neighborhood bar, and also got to hear a small chamber ensemble playing something wild and neoclassical inside a shuttered storefront. Distance from the subway is definitely helping keep things real out there. I hope it stays that way.
Knitting
I’ve leaped a big hurdle in my knitting lately: I’ve picked up 2-color stranded knitting. Which is exciting, because it means I can now start tackling all sorts of beautiful Scandinavian-style colorwork and also make things with pirate designs on them. Yarr! (I’m a couple of years late to that party, I realize, but I don’t care.) The technique makes me feel superbadass, because it means that I’ve got a strand of yarn in each hand and am knitting ambidextrously (for lack of a better word…). I had no idea how much fun this was going to be, and now I am thoroughly hooked. It’s like knitting crack!
Vermilion Dots font · 85 days ago
I’ve completed my first-ever font, which I am calling “Vermilion Dots”, and it’s now available for download on the Fontstruct site.
You can download it here, or, if you’re unwilling to create a Fontstruct user account, leave me a comment and I will be happy to send you a copy.
I’m thrilled because I just noticed they’ve given it a “Top Pick” badge, and 26 people have downloaded it already! Sweeet!
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Self-distractions · 89 days ago
If it’s April, I shouldn’t still be wearing my wool mitts in the office, right? Sigh. The cherry blossoms are starting to appear, and I’m ready to start shedding some of these outer layers already!
The most exciting thing of my morning is the new Fontstruct tool from FontShop. It’s a flash-based app that allows you to build your own fonts (within certain limitations). VERY cool! I just designed my first set of uppercases:
(I have an awkward headline to design here at work. Fontmaking is a GREAT way to procrastinate!)
I’m regretting the decision not to go to I-CON this weekend, as it sounds like it was a whole lot of fun. With the exception of a lovely dinner party on Friday night, my weekend was kind of blah. I was a dutiful daughter on Saturday, and then spent Sunday doing some housekeeping.
Actually the blah part is not entirely true. On Saturday night my parents and I tried a Thai restaurant in my neighborhood that turned out to be exceedingly delicious, and cheap! (Song, on 5th Ave between 1st & 2nd.) And on Sunday I had time to play with Chris’s shiny Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens. I ran around the apartment shooting the cat, my boots, various knitting projects, and pretty much anything sitting relatively still.
Speaking of the cat, Jezebel’s been full of woe lately, as an old wound in her cheek got reinfected and then turned into a tremendous abscess. No fun! So the poor beast is stuck in a cone until it heals (and until we can trust her not to scratch the scabs off).
She’s completely pathetic and at the same time hilarious. The ribbon makes the cone look like an old-fashioned bonnet. And she keeps trying to run into her usual hiding places only to have the cone bounce her away, which means our house has been full of even more slapstick than usual.
But she’s been a total love, too; the cone has her so disgruntled that she’s been needing extra snuggles, and I’m only too happy to oblige her.
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Peep Show · 102 days ago
Meanwhile, this year’s finalists from the Washington Post’s Peeps Diorama Contest are beyond bloody brilliant.
Yay Peep Art!
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DILO: Spring Equinox 2008 · 102 days ago
It was a gloomy, gray Equinox this year, and so far it’s been pretty hard to tell that Spring has actually sprung, apart from the tiniest hints of buds on the trees. I am really, really tired of wearing my winter coat.
This DILO’s theme was “Numbers”, which led me to photograph my alarm clock, building addresses, street signs, bus stop signs, subway signs, neon signs, and Adobe InDesign and Scrabble on my work monitor.
