I guess I'm doing all right

I weeded last night, listening to Steely Dan--so my neighbors told me--play at the Toledo Zoo. We're half a block away, and so when the zoo has their summer concerts we can sit outside, or open the windows, and listen. Once my fingers were blackened and most of the bindweed/wild morning glory had been pulled up, I went inside. For a time I sat on the couch, reading and eating salt and vinegar potato chips with the window open, but it was cold (last time for a while, I imagine--I appreciated it) and starting to rain, and the music was curiously sporadic, so I closed up the window--and, um, had some of the leftover ice cream from the wedding. Potato chips and ice cream. I also had a healthy dinner, honest.

Speaking of which, I've been using FitDay.com to record my meals every day, and discovering that I don't get enough calories before I leave work. That explains why I'm always so hungry when I get home, and snack too much as a result. So I'm going to try bringing more food for the mornings. I started doing this to see whether I need to concentrate on any nutrients in particular, but I’m getting an additional benefit from it, which is nice since it's a bit of a pain putting in every food I eat.

I'm working on Phoebe's baby quilt, and behind on it, but I expected that. Tonight we're finally going to start on thank-you letters--not to mention cleaning up the kitchen. We're trying to decide what to do with an "ABCs of Marriage" plaque we got from some family friends of Eric's. We're both pretty "eh" about it, but it was a nice thought from a couple who don't have a lot of money to spare. Honestly I'd just as soon use the frame for something else, but I'm waiting for Eric's decision, and Eric--as is common--either doesn't have an opinion or doesn't want to make a decision. I'm going to be one of those wives who decide everything, I can just tell.

The first ten days of married life have been fine. Mostly it doesn't feel different from before, but then in a couple of tiny ways it does--and the first time I said "my husband" to a stranger seriously weirded me out. (It was at my coworker-friend C's wedding, just a week after mine, and to which I brought two Tide pens which she happily did not need. I need to pick up my wedding dress from the cleaners today and see whether hers, which we ran dry at the wedding, saved the dress or not.) Some of the checks we received as gifts are made out to "Mr. and Mrs. [him]," which kind of worries me--Eric says the banks are pretty undestanding about this, though. And if not, well, it's not like we need the money; they're gifts, after all. Overall, life right now is pretty good.

Married.

Well. I'm married. It doesn't really feel different, which is a little disappointing. But then, we were already acting as if we were married. The only difference now is that (a) it's legal and (b) we don't have to worry about wedding planning anymore.

The ceremony went very well. The rain held off, and while the mosquitos didn't there was bug spray, which helped. The music, which we had selected twelve hours earlier and figured out the timings for twenty minutes earlier, turned out beautifully, and neither of us cried (we did that later during toasts). During the recessional the best man forgot to escort the matron of honor out, which provided her with some material for her toast. There was way too much food and ice cream, probably partly because the bride got doused with coffee halfway through the reception (picture me in a wedding dress with three women drawing on me with Tide pens) and that didn't help get anyone out of their chairs to dance and then eat more. Oh well. It was lovely, people said nice things, there isn't too much that I feel was an utter waste of money or time, and I’m glad it's over.

Now my garden needs weeding and my house needs cleaning (and the windows washing; my family decorated my car's windows with paint pens and then when we showed up at the house later that night having cleaned it off--the car wash guy gave us a free wash because we were still in our wedding clothes--they declared we had cleaned it too soon and did the same thing to every window and mirror in our house). And ice cream needs eating. And flowers need pressing and thank-you notes need writing and a joint checking account needs opening. And Phoebe's baby quilt needs making! Having no more wedding to plan definitely doesn't mean a dearth of things to do.

Not enough covered

Now that we're up against it, I don't want this wedding anymore. What I want is to ditch the dress with the neckline that my mom cut too low (apparently at my dad's suggestion--I guess they really want grandchildren quickly?), buy a light sundress that doesn't require a bustier, and forget the music and the processional. I want a small group of my closest friends and family gathering around in a pretty spot with trees around, I want them to be comfortable and have drinks and snacks, and I want to say my vows without a lot of fanfare. And right after the vows, I want to get the party started without posing in dozens of pictures.

I can't do that, because Mom's already made the dress, and…well, actually, I think that's the main objection. We paid a deposit for the chairs, but we could abandon it, and my current dream wedding would be more flexible in the event of rain--which the weather channel is still predicting--anyway. There are people coming we don't care as much for as some people who aren't coming, but that's inevitable for any event, I think. The bridesmaids could still wear their nice dresses, and the groomsmen could leave off their vests and just help out with serving food. Except we've got someone from the catering company serving.

Ah, well. It won't happen anyway. Right now Eric is making ice cream and finishing up the programs (I hope), and Mom and Dad are driving around town, buying things. We might not have music for the processional--if I can't think of something I want and that Eric will find acceptable--but there will be a processional and a recessional, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen lining up, and the people staring at my too-exposed chest, and toasts and cake-cutting and traditional silliness, and I think--I think--it's mainly because of the dress my mother made me.

White satin anxiety

I had the inevitable emotional breakdown last night. We weren't getting enough done and the peach ice cream needed work and my house was a mess and my parents were coming the next day and nothing would be ready for the wedding and it would thunderstorm all day. We did end up getting a fair amount done, but I was anxious and weepy all night. I think I'm over it now--crying is stress release, you know. I do have the feeling that once my parents get here, everything has to stop, but that's not true; they're coming early so that they can help us do things. And it's a good thing.

I'm feeling a little funny about the wedding. It's a little more than half the size we thought it would be, and so does it really make sense to get dressed in a funny impractical gown and put crepe in my hair? And what if people think our ceremony sounds stupid? What if it is stupid and I realize that there's something I wanted to say that I'll never get to? Which doesn't make sense; I can say it whenever I want, ceremony or no; but by having this wedding without an official solemnizer we elevated it from legal requirement to cultural ritual, and I'm afraid we won't measure up.

Once we polish up the ceremony--yes, we're still not finished, and the officiant hasn't yet seen it, which I'm sure is causing her some anxiety--not to mention we threw in a "Princess Bride" reference that she may or may not go for--everything else is, to some extent, unnecessary. The programs are basically done; we delegated the cookie-making to someone else; we have decorations and food. We don't need bookmarks. We don't need a bachelorette party. We don't even really need music, though that's also causing me anxiety and burning the reception CDs is probably something I'll ask Eric and Mom and Dad to do tomorrow while I’m at work (as well as grocery shopping and maybe straightening the house). I've been bringing CDs with me to listen to while I drive to and from work, and I've found a couple of songs that could work, though nothing that strikes me as perfect. I guess that's okay. The wedding won't be perfect, and neither will the marriage--but it'll be as good as we can do with what we've got, and the people I love will be there.

Q & A

Q: Is it possible to get tired of strawberry ice cream if you're having it night in and night out, trying out very slightly different variations each time but still basically consuming the same recipe each time?

A: No. No, it is not.

At least not with our recipe. To the approximately 40% of people who aren't coming to our wedding: Come to the wedding. We have ice cream.

Marching on

We went to the Toledo Symphony on Saturday, their season finale, Beethoven's Ninth. The first and second movements were great fun, the third was pleasant but boring, and the fourth was good except for the soloists. I feel like a Philistine, but the truth is I don't appreciate operatic voice. It doesn't sound like music. The chorus was great; it sounded like another instrument. But the soloists sounded dissonant; something about what they do to produce the full-bodied voice threw me off, and I wished they weren't there. Also the soprano wore color, which I didn't think was allowed.

We've also been talking this weekend about economic recession or collapse, and about climate change, and then about the two together, though only briefly because it's depressing to think about. It's confusing, talking about how I might live to observe how global warming triggers an ice age or how civilization collapses under the weight of its own advances, but I'm also planning a wedding, thinking about children, saving for my retirement.

But the wedding planning continues apace; we've figured out our vows and the ring ceremony (and explanation--Eric had way too much fun with this) and are just filling in the introduction and segues. We bought strawberries and peaches for ice cream (the first peaches of the season! We didn't think we'd see any!) and papyrus for the centerpieces (and to be potted for the gazebo) and a bed for us eventually but Mom and Dad in the next week.

We also bought lots and lots of fruit leathers from Target, because our only other source is Trader Joe's in Ann Arbor, an hour away, and a small bay tree (for me; Eric was only humoring me until he saw how big the leaves are and how much the small ones cost in the store), and five cucumber seedlings in two pots. We're doing our part to support the economy, though it's not as much as some. (We were talking about how the subprime (?) real estate businesses might bring about the recession, when all those people on interest-only mortgages default, and I wondered how much Americans spend as opposed to how much they have to spend. If everyone lived within their means--counting mortgage payments as rent--would we have a slower economy? A more stable one?) And we bought some fluorescent lightbulbs and installed them, so we're doing our part to support the environment, though that's a very very tiny part.

How to get married in Ohio.

From the Lucas County Probate Court. They're open from 8-4:30, no appointments, possible lengthy wait on Fridays.

For the license, you need picture ID, any divorce decrees or death certificates of past spouses, proof of residency, and $50 in cash. (No checks or credit cards, no appointments. Good grief. I bet even drug dealers take appointments.) No blood test or witnesses needed. Oh, and you can't be drunk or have infectious syphilis. Darn.

For the actual marriage, you can be married the same day. There are ministers who wait on the first floor, like taxis, or you can go to the Toledo Municipal Court between 1:30 and 3 PM for $15, also cash.

Why didn't anyone tell me I could just fork over $65 (plus downtown parking) and be done with it?

(Okay, I already knew that, or approximately. It'll be fun to see everyone next week. But I have this big long list with not nearly enough crossed off of it yet.)

Wedding-brained

Less than two weeks to the wedding. We made a test batch of strawberry ice cream tonight, using the new 1.5 quart test-batch ice cream maker. We're totally opening an ice cream shop someday. Anyway, the strawberry is, how do I say this...fantastic. We may not be serving it at the wedding after all because we won't be able to bear parting with it.

I have a bunch of people I need to call, including Dad to see if he's offended that I asked him to change the father/daughter dance song (so that it could become a parent/child dance instead). I have beans and amaranth (deep red seedlings) coming up in my garden. I finally, finally got rid of the trash pile by the driveway, at the cost of a pair of sunburn epaulets. Yesterday we went to the Toledo Zoo to see the baby polar bears (just like half of the Midwest) and I wore a three-quarter-length shirt and gained some sunburn bracers. It's like I'm playing World of Warcraft. If I get sunburned legs, do I get a set bonus?

(Also Mom's going to kill me. She told me I could only wear a tank top or a long-sleeve shirt outside until the wedding, and I was for the epaulets, but not for the bracers. Plus what she meant was that I couldn't get a partial tan, only a total one or none at all. I guess it's time to slather on some sunscreen and go work in the yard in my bathing suit? I have weeding and mulching to do...)

Ooh, and check out what I did today!



We made tabbouleh for dinner, and I made pita bread (out of The Bread Bible) to go with it, and it puffed up! Just like it was supposed to! I was so excited. It's probably a good thing the little things can make me so happy, because there will be a lot of little things going on in the next 13 days.

Gimme some sugar

A 25-pound bag of sugar sits in our kitchen, between the microwave cart that holds the cookbooks and the doorway to the pantry. Why do we need 25 pounds of sugar you ask? Excellent question. I'll tell you: because we fancy ourselves food geeks.

More specifically, because we're making homemade ice cream for the wedding. With our current response rates to the invitations, we're figuring on seeing about 60 people there (which is much less than I'd thought and I'm curiously let down, even though that's just about what I originally wanted--it's Eric's large family that's making the difference), and planning to make about 10 gallons of ice cream, just to make sure there's enough. (And who could object to leftover homemade ice cream? We have a chest freezer now, we can store it.)

And 10 gallons of ice cream requires most of a 25-pound bag of sugar. Also gallons of milk and cream, pounds of fruit and chocolate, a big bottle of vanilla, a few cans of concentrated orange juice, and about three dozen eggs. And that's it. All-natural ingredients, that's us. We calculated it at about $100 for the whole thing, which puts us at about the same price as Breyer's (when it's not on sale, anyway) and a little better than Ben & Jerry's.

We can probably get away with making less than the full 10 gallons, considering we're also having cake and a catered lunch and snacks and candies and also cookies as favors and possibly a chocolate fountain. But we think we're food geeks, and we want to serve homemade ice cream to everyobe we know and love (who can attend). Besides, if the ceremony (still unwritten, I might add) is lousy or it turns out to thunderstorm, our ice cream is--in our admittedly biased opinions--good enough to make up for it. How can it not? Look how much sugar is going into it.

This weekend, we will go to The Andersons for fruit (and I will probably pick up a plant or two because I can't help it--especially if their cucumbers are ready for sale; I can keep them inside a couple of weeks if necessary). And then the great ice-cream-making saga of 2007 will begin.

Flowers for Jennifer, part II

I had an astonishingly productive weekend. We got Eric's car fixed (mostly--to save $100 we also have to go in next weekend), got some AAA brochures about our honeymoon, visited a nursery to inquire about papyrus (and found some lovely stones we'll be going back for when we pave the garden path), bought a coffeemaker and a small ice cream maker for test batches, got the best man to try on his vest, mowed, mulched, discussed the gutters the city's asking us to fix with Eric's mom, and worked on wedding music.

And we ordered flowers. The florist at Hafner's never called me back, but Hafner's was between the AAA place and the nursery, so Saturday morning we stopped by. We got asked to come back in twenty minutes, so we went to the nursery first after all, but on the way back we stopped back in. The wedding florist (what do they call the people who do wedding flowers?) was with "a regular customer whose mother just died," so Tink, the wedding florist's assistant, asked what we wanted. She got everything down, took names, agreed to make a tiny safety-pin corsage for Eric's niece, made recommendations, asked if certain flowers would be okay as fillers. Her total? $258. And she didn't ask for a deposit. We agreed to pick up the flowers the night before the wedding and walked out, happy. "If you want the best flowers in town, go to Glendale," Eric said as we were getting back into the car.

"But we don't need the best flowers in town; we'd rather have the extra $220," I concluded, and he agreed.

Customer service

And I just remembered this other thing: I called another florist today, one that a couple of people have recommended as good and cheaper. The girl who answered said, "Well, the person who does wedding flowers has a note on her desk, and she's dealing with another bride right now. So I could take your name and number and have her call you back."

"That sounds fine," I said.

"Your name?"

"Jenny," I said, and spelled my last name.

"Okay, she'll give you a call. Thanks for calling, good--"

"Wait!"

"What?" she said, surprised.

"My number?"

"Oh, right," she said vaguely. I gave her my phone number. I'm not so sure I should expect a call.

Flowers for Jennifer

I just got back from the florist. Wow--serious sticker shock. She quoted me $480--$125 for my bouquet (admittedly a somewhat tricky one), $65 for two bridesmaids' bouquets, $20 each for several corsages and boutonnieres and a couple for $15. When I expressed dismay she said we could maybe reduce the corsages slightly and save me around $70, and started talking about how people would love the flowers, not how I could, you know, make another choice to save money. So I wasn't inclined to stay and get her to do so--plus I had been away from work longer than I liked anyway.

I was prepared to pay somewhat more than my mental budget ($200) for the sake of convenience, because I'm not that interested in flowers really, but that's way more than I'm willing to pay, even for convenience. So I asked around at work and got a couple of other names, and I guess I'll be calling them today. With less than four weeks to go, I need to move quickly on this.

Or I'll go to the farmer's market Saturday (they're open! Hooray!) and see if any of the flower growers there can provide me with enough that I can make my own. I saw a The Knot book on flowers at the florist, and read a little tutorial on making boutonnieres. It looks like something I could do. Especially to save hundreds of dollars.

The not-a-shower shower

I have dirt under my fingernails. I planted sunflowers and beans and flowers, and I gave away some plants (thank goodness--my windowsill was overcrowded--plus I got a couple of nice ones in return), and I finished the herb bed, but today was not really a day about gardening. (Although it was a gardening day. It was gorgeous outside, warm but not too warm--I've still got the kitchen window open.) Today was our not-a-shower party.

We spent the first part of the weekend cleaning and organizing, which I was really grateful for. I hate it when my house is dirty and disorganized, and part of living with Eric is living with dirt and disorganization because I'm trying to, you know, compromise and stuff. So it was nice to get the dust off the shelves and organize the books by category and vacuum the carpet where Eric's books are normally scattered, even though I kind of hate dusting and vacuuming. (Organizing books I like. We have an interesting library. In the nonfiction section I organized books into: science, religion (3 books total there), history, language, reference, psychology, nonfiction narrative/biography, trivia books people give us, and, naturally, 'other.' 'Other' included things such as One Good Turn, the history of the screwdriver.)

We served tacos and homemade ice cream, and I harvested my first garden produce for it, a handful of green onions. The homemade ice cream--chocolate chocolate chip and mint Oreo mint--was a hit. The peach-with-frozen-peaches was awful, we discovered last night--the frozen peaches have an off taste to them--so we threw it out. we had two babies visiting, which was always fun, and Eric's groomsman tried on his vest, and Eric's dad and stepmom gave us an iron and a knife block/measuring cup/utensil set. (Immediately after we opened these, Eric got up to show everyone our new Kapoosh knife block. I didn't understand this lack of tact until Eric said later that he hadn't seen the knife block part of the set. Eric's sister also commented at one point that the air conditioning was on, even though the windows were open, and why was that? Eric started explaining that it had been too hot that morning, which it hadn't, and as I crossed behind her to turn off the air conditioning I muttered, "Because your brother's a freak," and she laughed.)

It was a good party, even though some people we were expecting (and needed to see, like the best man to fit his vest) didn't show up. We should do it more often. We should also make more mint Oreo mint ice cream, because man, was that stuff good.

Hobbies, happiness, and me

A friend of mine at work, who's getting married the weekend after we are, mentioned that she and her fiance are getting premarital counseling from their minister. "He asked us a bunch of getting-to-know-you questions," she said, "Only he asked me the ones about R, and vice versa. Then he asked us to name one thing about the other that we'd change if we could. I couldn't think of anything for R, except that I wish he'd take the trash out more often. Then R thought that meant I wished he'd do more around the house, but actually I'm happy with it, I just don't like the trash."

I asked Eric this question a few days ago and he thought of two things: to make me happier, and to make it so that I didn't have so many hobbies. "You're not as deep into gardening," he said when I asked if there was any in particular he wished I'd drop. "But then again fresh veggies are good. I don't know."

(I'm not so sure I'm not in deep with gardening. I have dozens of little plants on my windowsill and under my SAD light, and I'm wearing a path between the back porch and the garden by checking on it so often. I suspect I'm going to end up simply making it a path and maybe lining the garage side with mulch and bushes to make it look better.)

We've been talking about working on having a baby once we get married, and I've been hesitating about it--which is unusual, since we've both been baby-crazy for quite a while now. My hesitation about it is the only reason not to: we'll have a home, good jobs, reasonable financial stability, strong relationship, the desire for it, etc. But I'm not sure I have enough--am enough--to offer a baby. I'm content in my current job, but I don't want to be this way forever. Possibly having a kid would help me feel more fulfilled, but that's a rotten reason to have one. I may have written about this before, I can't remember; I've been thinking about it lots.

I want to know what sort of mother I'm going to be--as a person, not a parent. (I think, I hope, I'm going to be okay as a parent. I'm going to try, anyway.) I was thinking, I know some things I would like to do. So why aren't I doing them? And the answer is because it's easier; because my time is filled up; because I'm occupied, reasonably contented, and in a position where I don't have to do anything different. And tonight I wondered if this would be different if I didn't have so many hobbies.

Right now, I've got the wedding to plan, of course; that'll be done in a month. I've also got a quilt to finish before the wedding (so we can sleep under it on the new bed we need to get so we have a spare bed to offer Mom and Dad when they stay here), and another one for a baby shower in late June; I've got yarn to spin for a present; I've got a Christmas tree skirt E wants me to piece together (even though she got a better sewing machine than mine for Christmas); I want to spin yarn for and then knit Christmas stockings; I was thinking about making shawls of some sort for my bridesmaids and me--it's too late to knit them, but I could sew simple ones. I always have projects. I got my spinning wheel the other day, and tonight, in between making summer curtains for the kitchen, I practiced on it. I love it. I enjoyed the curtains too, simple and repetitive as they are. But I could be spending my energy on other things. Harder things. I can see where Eric's coming from, wishing I had fewer hobbies (though it's not like I don't waste plenty of time in the computer room with him...but then, you know, I talk to him about them). I'm wondering if I have a better reason for wishing it myself.

(But I don't think I'll be giving up the spinning. This wheel is the awesomest thing ever. Plus I got lots of freebies and Michelle wants to use it to make a Mother's Day present for her mom. How cute is that? I could give up the quilting, I think, after the baby shower quilt, at least for a time--though I had wanted to start submitting patterns to magazines. But I never seem to have the time to sit down and write them out. Yeah, freeing up my time would be a good idea.)

Middles

So we were supposed to go to the florist yesterday. But Eric had to get an EEG (he's fine, it's routine), and so he had to shower the gel stuff out of his hair, and then we had to eat, and then it was too late. So I'm going today, alone, because Eric has a class. Pout. Anyway, we did the dishes and I watered the carrots and we went for a walk instead, and on the way home we stopped in at his mom's.

At his mom's was Addie, Eric's now six-weeks-old niece, and also the tail end of a confrontation between Eric's mom and Michelle. It's complicated, but suffice it to say that Brenda was unhappy about something Michelle had said, and Michelle had said it because of her lack of awareness of a situation she hasn’t been allowed to know about, so I think both were frustrated and I know both were unhappy. And Eric and I feel slightly caught in the middle, because Brenda more or less declared that she's not going to try to be Michelle's friend anymore (adding to us, "You two can do what you want…") and we kind of understand that, but we also understand that from Michelle's point of view that was uncalled for. And we're always being asked to do things with them, or watch Michelle for an afternoon, and she's in our wedding, and…well…it's uncomfortable. She's having a rough enough time with her parents divorcing, and having her home disrupted by this, even if it's temporary (and I can't think that Brenda will really be able to carry this out for long--she loves Michelle), isn't going to be any better for her.

My birthday present, my spinning wheel, is due to come today. I need to go to the florist, but after that I may invite Michelle over to see my new toy and give her a couple of hours in a house where nobody resents her.

After that I need to get spinning; I have a bunch I want to do before the wedding. And make curtains. And finish that quilt. And do the rest of the wedding planning--though that's mostly little things once the flowers and chairs are ordered. Oh, and planting a bunch of things and putting up some shelves and figuring out how to make my shoes not make that flip-flop sound. I have less than five weeks left.

We're having a not-a-shower party this Sunday, because we don't want a shower per se but we want to see people. We're having a taco bar (and Eric's dad offered to bring smoked ribs) and snacks, and we're serving three kinds of ice cream: mint Oreo mint, chocolate cherry, and frozen peach. The peach is a test batch using frozen peaches rather than fresh, since we suspect we won't get really good fresh peaches the week before the wedding. We made the mint Oreo mint already and it could use some more cookies but is otherwise pretty darn good. And I'm totally looking forward to trying the chocolate cherry. The peach is the only one we're planning on serving at the wedding (plus strawberry, orange, and chocolate), but our ice cream experiments remain interesting--and tasty.

A good Sunday

I'm pleasantly tired. Today I started more seeds, zucchini and cantaloupe and seeds from a delectable cantaloupe from Andersons which, I understand, might yield cantaloupes or might yield strange alien cucurbits of peculiar shape and size. Either way, awesome. I went to Home Depot (with Eric, who laughed at me the whole time, but that was fine since it meant he wasn't actually unhappy) and bought a final two hundred pounds of humus, plus a flat of strawberries. I have strawberries growing indoors from seed, but they're about a centimeter tall and I had visions of actual home-picked strawberries, you know, this year. When we came home I dug the humus into the tomato bed and planted some broccoli and Swiss chard and carrots (the old ones aren't coming up, and I think it's because they didn't get enough water--it's supposed to rain all this week so maybe these ones will do better) and watered and weeded and planted the strawberries and generally made myself sore. It's a good sore. It's been a lovely day out, and this next week promises to be lousy (at least as far as weather goes--I also really, truly, absolutely have to visit the florist, so possibly as far as the wedding goes too) so I'm doubly glad.

Then we made Mint Oreo mint ice cream and prepared for peach ice cream (we're planning on making peach ice cream for the wedding, but peaches might not be in season so we're testing our recipe on frozen ones), and Eric sauteed some shrimp and mushrooms in garlic butter and I made a couscous salad with blackeyed peas and carrots and an apple, and we had a good dinner. And we reserved a hotel for our wedding night and decided that we don't need to get Eric's wedding ring checked for size. And my brother called and I had a very satisfactory talk with him while he waited for some guy to show up to meet him. (He wants to know where he can find a white-haired Barbie for his daughter. I suggested that he take a regular Barbie, shave its head, glue a strip of white Fun Fur on it, and call it Mohawk Barbie.) It's been a good day.

Hope in spring

I'm sore from digging again. This is not good. This girl needs some exercise. I borrowed a bellydancing DVD (don't laugh) from a friend at work, but haven't looked at it yet. (That reminds me. I have chocolate for her. Do I deliver it now for maximum anticipation throughout the day, or later for maximum happiness when she's tired from work?) Now that winter seems to be in retreat (not a moment too soon), I'm going to try going for walks more often. I enjoy it when I go out...it's just a matter of going out.

The garden stuff is going well; the lettuce and spinach have survived, the peas are coming up, my cheap rake seems to be doing its job just fine, my seedlings are doing okay, I haven't gotten bored of it yet. Eric and I discussed yesterday whether there was a real chance we'd ever need to rely on a garden to feed us, especially if we have a few kids. "We might end up keeping chickens after all," he said, a reference to a link I sent him. You can keep chickens in your back yard! --If your city allows it and you don’t mind the yard turning into a dustbowl, that is. Once we find the house we're going to live in for twenty years or so, I could see setting up a nice big garden and planting fruit trees and bushes, maybe some asparagus or even artichoke (no rhubarb for us, though) in addition to the annuals, but not so sure about chickens. It came up because someone at work is advertising fresh eggs for $1. Someone else is asking us to buy rose-shaped suckers for $2. Hmm, which is the better deal?

I had planned to go to the florist today, dragging Eric with, but we have to pick up Shel at six, so that may not work. And then Friday we're going up to Ann Arbor for a trip to Trader Joe's and a benefit concert put on by Eric's old orchestra, and then Saturday we have a wedding. Sunday I know Ken's Flowers is open but I'm not so sure about them. Ah well...we don't need a florist really, do we? I could just carry a hydrangea, couldn't I? Sure I could. I talked to my dad about how anxious I'm feeling, even though we've got almost all of the big wedding stuff taken care of. He said, "Nobody will notice most of this stuff." I said, "People will notice if they don't have any chairs," but Eric is calling about that and he's right about the rest.

We're also going to be putting the towel rack up Sunday, since we're not going to be painting the bathroom before the wedding, and cleaning in partial preparation for our not-a-shower Sunday. Most of the cleaning will happen next Saturday, and that'll be the last cleaning the house gets before my parents get here the week before the wedding. We'll get things done, I'm sure.

And I'll be planting out broccoli and Swiss chard in the garden soon. Here's hoping they live. Someday I'll be able to do better than hope, I think; but this learning year, it's all about hope.

Flowers in the snow

It is snowing. Snowing. The yard is thickly covered in white. This is wrong, people. This is very wrong. I cut a tulip from our front bed--or at least what I thought was a tulip, as it was only partly open and was obviously not happy about the cold we've been having. I put it in a stupid bud vase that Eric's stepmom gave me for Christmas and within minutes it bloomed, spreading its petals wide like a Washingtonian spreading her arms to catch the sunshine. It is not a tulip. But it is very pretty. And I love that vase now--it looks much better with a flower in it. We turned the kitchen light off later and came back to find the flower half-closed again. I wonder if I'll get up early enough tomorrow to see it open again? Probably not.

Eric and I went stomping through the (hateful! ridiculous!) snow to his mom's to visit Addie, his new niece who was at grandma's for the night (her mom going out for a night with the girls, and her dad desperately needing a real night's sleep). We talked to her and held her and fed her, and got a few lessons on how to burp a baby from grandma. I also discussed wedding shopping with Michelle. We're going for her dress tomorrow, and she seemed to be feeling a little neglected with all the attention lavished on Addie (though Michelle also wanted her share of holding and feeding), so I sat on the stairs with her and discussed her shoes, her hair, what jewelry she would wear and what shops we should go to tomorrow. Her mom's going with us and wants to go to Kinko's, and I need to get to Joann or Hancock (they're going out of business, which means a sale) to get fabric for the summer quilt, so it's going to be a bit of a trip. We went shopping today, Eric and I, but it was purely for clothes for Eric so it took all of forty minutes to find slacks, a dress shirt, and two pairs of casual pants. Tomorrow will be more of a production.

That's the plan.

I started to write a post the day before yesterday and I ended up writing about something I hadn't intended to, and that led to an evening spent differently from the plan (well, to start with anyway) and some crying, but also some good discussion. It had to do with our eventual move to the West Coast and decision three years afterward on whether we're going to stay, and it involved us getting closer to actual fighting than we ever have and also some mutually agreed-upon blaming of Eric's mother. Anyway, here's the first, innocuous part of that post:

***
I hate O'Hare airport. This is probably not a surprise to anyone who's been there before. It was O'Hare that Bev and I got stuck at for a day when we were flying out to Baltimore to apartment-hunt. It was O'Hare that Eric and I almost didn't make our connection at because the previous flight had had to de-ice its wings and we arrived two terminals away from the flight we were catching. On Thursday night, it was O'Hare that delayed flights going in and out three hours so that my parents had to pick me up at 2:30 instead of 11:30. I admit it wasn't O'Hare yesterday that delayed my flight (I called my parents to complain right away, and they actually picked me up so we could talk for another hour while I waited) and didn't post its gate so that I had to guess which terminal it might be in and track down agents at three different gates to tell me the gate number. But it was O'Hare that rescheduled my initial connection for one that was due to leave ten minutes after the first got on the ground. I made the flight, but I had a plane full of people to stare at as I bumped my way down the aisle with my ridiculously heavy carryon and dropped into my seat very shortly before the safety talk began.
***

My whirlwind weekend trip was wonderful. It was sunny and warm there, I had a great time visiting with my parents, we finally got the family pictures done, and my wedding shower was lovely. I did decoupage for the first time and the food was all vegetarian (I love my matron of honor) and I got some extremely neat stuff--it was a craft shower, so people gave me materials for cake making and candy making and beaded ornaments and quilling (paper filigree…have you ever heard of this? I hadn't) and stamping and sewing and cooking. My project this week is to make handmade thank-you cards. (Then it's to finish up last year's queen-sized summer quilt. If we're buying a new bed--and we are, because that's cheaper than putting Mom and Dad up in a hotel, and we wanted a bigger one eventually anyway--we need a blanket to cover it, and I can't see a single reason to buy a blanket when I've got one almost ready-made in my closet.)

Mom gave me a pair of blue topaz earrings to wear in the wedding, thus explaining why I could never get her to answer me when I asked if she had any earrings I could borrow. I did borrow some earrings of hers for the family pictures; later she asked where they were and I said I'd put them on her dresser, and she said, "Why did you give them back? You can have them. I don't use them." She doesn't, since her ears aren't really pierced anymore, so I did take them. They're opal and gold, and she bought them in Korea a long time ago. Eric tells me I need to pack them in wet cotton. This makes me wonder if they'll get moldy--either that or whether I'll have to water them every week, like a plant. And I tried on my wedding dress, and it's too big but otherwise fantastic. Mom grumbled about the amount of work, and also about my asking her to cut a foot off the train (I asked for no train, but as Dad says, I didn't tell her three times), but I think she's okay with it, and I know I'll be proud to wear this dress on my wedding day.

When I got back my plants were on the dry side, but alive, and I’m plotting to repot them this week and figuring out how many to give away to whom. Next year I'll definitely be more conservative with the seed sowing. Happily, my outdoor plants don't seem to be dead either--the spinach and lettuce are hanging on, and there are a few tiny green points in the carrot rows, and the onions are sprouting in their corner. They're being threatened by some fresh green weeds invading from the neighbor's yard (the onions are right on the fence), but they're alive, and now that I’m back and the weather isn't quite so nasty I'll be being nasty myself to those weeds and the hundreds that are popping up over the yard.

Today we're working on the cars and the invitations. Eric is off for the week, which means there will be much wedding stuff and house stuff taken care of. Or at least that's the plan.

That which binds

I've been sewing wedding invitations. No, it's nothing as fancy or crafty as that; but they look like books, and so to give them a real "binding," I've been sewing the vellum to the linen cardstock. My needle is going to need changing as soon as this done, and I will be giving Caroline a well-deserved oiling...nasty thread-jams aside.

I have not been doing anything creative, other than considering which of my various leftover and stockpiled yarns would be best for this ruffled baby hat. I've been working on wedding stuff mostly, and getting over the cold (the cough is even yet holding on), and talking to Eric about marriage and babies and love. He considers us already married. So do I...sort of...but I wish I didn't, because I think I'm already into that settled, why-isn't-this-any-better stage. I don't feel I have enough time for everything I want to do--admittedly, this is because I want to do a lot. (Also because Eric wants me to get to level 70 in World of Warcraft because then he can play with his other friends.) But I don't feel I'm doing the things that will be most important to me. I'm not sure what they are. But preparing for a wedding to celebrate a marriage that's already, in our hearts, taken place, is not one of them. Doing creative work, of some kind, is...I'm pretty sure. And when these invitations are bound up--and the flowers ordered and the dresses bought and the hair figured out and the ceremony written--I will be able to pursue what it is I want to do and what I really, in my life's heart, need to do.