Wedding Wednesdays: Bachelorette & Shower

When we started planning the wedding we weren't really expecting much in the way of a bachelorette party or a shower. We don't have a huge circle of friends (moving around too much combined with being introverts?) and our close friends and family are fairly widely geographically dispersed. For the most part I had accepted this as a sad but true reality, while Becky was privately pining for these celebrations. Blame it on the big evil Wedding-Industrial-Complex (or just theknot.com) if you will, but somehow having a bachelorette party and a shower felt like an important right of passage as brides/further legitimizing force/just plain good time.

Happily, our friends and family came through. And they did it in fun ways that fit us. I apologize for the exceptionally poor quality of some of these photos; we were having camera issues.

Bachelorette

Our friend Kara, who has been featured in several of our bloggy adventures (Staten Island, Superbowl, Dim Sum, probably lots more...), had vaguely hinted that she might do something bachelorettey for us. We even had a suspicion on the day that it might be the day. But then when we confirmed plans it seemed to genuinely be a low-key business as usual meet up in Central Park. And truth be told, Kara is usually a horrible liar, so we took this at face value. In fact, so much so that we called and told her we were running 20 minutes late because we needed to do an errand. We were quite surprised when we approached the appointed meeting spot to see two other friends (Kim and Stephanie) and learn that another was supposed to meet us later!

Kara delivered us goody bags filled with candy and plastic engagement ring shot glasses and dorky bride-to-be tiaras and water bottles filled with Strongbow cider. She even decorated our water bottles in our wedding colors (and apparently also deserves an award for securing bachelorette swag that did not have penises on it!). Here's us in Central Park with the lovely tiaras:

We then started off a whole afternoon/evening full of shenanigans with our friends sponsoring a carriage ride in Central Park. Becky and I started a New York City to-do list before we moved here, after having had tons of fun checking things off of our Boston and London to-do lists. Almost five years settled in to our Big Apple experience we've gotten lax with the tourist pursuits, and there are still items unchecked on our original list. Kara secretly consulted the list, which is scrawled on the back of an envelope and attached to the side of our fridge, and picked an activity to help us complete. I apologize to the animal rights activists and cheeseyness police, but the carriage ride has been a quintessential New York experience in my head since early in my Midwestern childhood! And now I can happily report that we did it on our bachelorette day.

From there we headed to a delicious dinner (and drinks) at Five Napkin Burger. Becky and I try hard to be frugal when it comes to eating out, but Kara knew we had been salivating over the idea of these over-priced burgers and so she put them on the itinerary. And I can tell you they're seriously worth the price. Yum. Definitely competition for the best burger I've had. We followed that up with drinks at a local bar, and then capped the evening off with desserts at Edgar's Cafe. We cannot thank our friends enough for pulling off such a fun-filled surprise day of bachelorettey-ness. And, we especially enjoyed spending time with these lovely ladies, as they were among the young friends who were decidedly unable to make it to the also amazing shower.

Shower

The shower was not a surprise, as that would have been logistically impossible considering that it took place in Minnesota. But initially the fact that a shower was being thrown in our honor was definitely a surprise, as was the content. My sister (and matron of honor) was the mastermind behind the shower, though she also had a lot of help from both my mom and Becky's mom, and from a family friend who is also the mother of my bridesmaid. Neither my bridesmaid nor Becky's sisters (her wedding party) were able to make it, but my bridesmaid did make an appearance on Skype live from her German home!

We managed to coordinate a weekend about three weeks before the wedding for a whole host of people to descend upon the Twin Cities for wedding-preparation-palooza. Becky and I flew in from New Jersey, Jen and her son Matthew (free under-2 flight FTW) flew in from Massachusetts, and Becky's mom and aunt drove in from Eastern Wisconsin. We did hair trials, tied ribbons on favors, re-tasted cakes, folded program parts....and partied! (And yes, you read correctly, we tasted cakes for a second time.)

Our lovely hosts did up the fellowship hall of my church for a delicious English tea, and invited all of the women who were invited to the wedding. There were tables set up with small flower centerpieces in our wedding colors, several kinds of tea, fruit, scones with jam and clotted cream, and finger sandwiches. But most of all, there were three desserts, all cut into scrumptious tea-style bite size pieces. The desserts were designated Carrie's dessert, aka a childhood favorite called Chocolate Indulgence, Becky's dessert, aka pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting, and the joint dessert, aka the cake that we adored at cake tasting but rejected due to the personality and attitude of the baker herself. It was pure caramel apple deliciousness, and for a shower cake the baker apparently did not feel the need to insult our design choices or stuff it full of styrofoam dummy cakes. A few points off for my mom though, who accidentally revealed my sister's well plotted surprise by including Becky and I on a planning e-mail. Oopsie!
Becky's mom planned a fun little trivia game regarding places that we have traveled together, and put together a photo album for us of pictures from many of those travels. She also supplied many of those pictures (y'know, the ones of us with food...because we apparently love to take them!) to my sister for use in an ingenious shower gift, especially for people with lots of long distance friends and family. We received a cookbook filled with recipes and memories, submitted by tons of our wedding invitees including many who were able to attend the shower and many who were not able to attend. It was especially nice to see some of our younger friends represented who both couldn't attend in person and weren't able to send shower gifts - but obviously still wanted to send love! Here is us examining our cookbook with my sister:

And here is an unfortunately blurry picture of our mothers bonding at the shower (note our purple and red wedding colors in the centerpieces!):
But yes, we did also receive lots of very generous shower gifts for which we are very grateful as well. During the gift-opening Matthew entertained himself very well by ferrying gifts to us and used wrapping materials from us to the trash bag. He also did an excellent job helping set out folding chairs and helping my dad load our presents into the car at the end of the event!

Hippity Hop (on Easter... Bunny Cookies*)

Happy (now belated) Easter to all who celebrate!

As any of you who have been following for a while or who know us in real life could predict, we spent the holiday weekend in Massachusetts with my sister and her family. My parents also flew in for the holiday (and of course the grandbaby time), so we spent lots of quality time with my family.

Becky and I lived with my sister and brother-in-law for eight months several years ago, back in their relaxed pre-children days and our pre-grad-school days. I've always been close with my sister, and I have recently been (lovingly) accused of being obsessed with my nephews. They live near enough that we can easily go for a weekend, but far enough that it really does have to be a full weekend. We have their garage door opener, know the security codes, and pretty much get how the place runs. Which all leads to the fact that their home is kind of like our second home. I must say that I am very lucky that my wife for the most part enjoys spending time with my family, and has also become close with my sister and brother-in-law and of course adores our nephews. (And I like her family too, but unfortunately they're a bit farther away!)

And so, yes, we spend a pretty large percentage of our holidays in Massachusetts.

Becky decided last week to get her bake on and whip up a batch of her aunt's delicious sugar cookies, with anticipation of convincing the nephews to help decorate. On rainy Saturday afternoon we stripped them down to diapers and set them to work. The highlights were probably Matthew's decorating technique of biting jelly beans in half, eating half, and using the remaining halves to decorate and Thomas' technique of letting us know he was done by picking up an undecorated cookie and licking the frosting off of it.

The finished toddler cookies:

And some for the adults (haha, we continue the ruse as if we are football fans):

We also had a lovely Easter morning, complete with baskets from the bunny for the little boys. Sadly my mom seems to have declared that we are adults now that my sister has children (it's my blog I get to say it, Mom!) But here's a nice family picture of all their booty:

And here are the boys playing with their new toys. Cardiologist Matthew is carefully ministering to the heart health of his monkey:

And even the doctor needs a check-up now and then:

Thomas invited the monkey to enjoy some tea with him:

And Auntie Becky read the monkey a bedtime story (that is one spoiled monkey!):

We also had a lovely time at the playground and just hanging out around the house. And lest you think that the weekend was entirely focused on babies, Becky and I also got out of the house in the glorious weather on Sunday and had a long walk around a local lake. I actually think I got a bit of a sun tan on my pasty pasty self for the first time since last summer! (Don't spite me with skin cancer for saying that, please?) I dipped my toes in the frigid lake and we wandered in the woods. It was a very nice break from the wilds of NYC, and of course the horrid stand still traffic in the Bronx that awaited us on our trek home.

* Jen - is it Easter... Bunny Cookies? Or Easter Bunny....Cookies?!?!

Ten Random Things

1. We used gift cards from our wedding to purchase a lovely expensive set of Calphalon pots and pans. For completing this item on our registry (and filling out some paperwork) Calphalon sent us a free 11" round "griddle gift." So far the pan we've used the most is the free one.

2. Our cat Cricket loves boxes, especially boxes that are a little bit too small to entirely fit her chubby body. She really enjoyed wedding gifts, although she is also still enjoying a shoe box my brother-in-law left here several years ago. Yes, we indulge her by keeping these ridiculous boxes.

3. In the 16 months since we got Android phones I fell in love with the NY Times app. It recently broke my heart. No, not by introducing the pay wall, but by ruining the app. I am so sad for this loss.

4. My favorite ice cream is Blue Bunny's cookie dough, because it has a delicious cookie batter ribbon.

5. We are spending a 3-day weekend in Ocean Grove in May and I am seriously impatient for it to come. The shore is by far and away my favorite part of living in New Jersey.

6. For the past 3 years we've had 10,000 places to see before you die wall calendars. This month we're visiting China's Yunnan Province. There will be pandas, which will make Becky happy.

7. Once I went to Edinburgh, Scotland and knowingly chose not to go see Emperor penguins at the zoo. I have regretted this decision since.

8. Becky made sugar cookies today, and she saved a tasty chunk of uncooked dough for me (true love). We're planning to decorate them with our nephews in Massachusetts this weekend; maybe we'll let the other adults play too.

9. Our cat Piccadilly has been waking us up precisely at 6:00am several mornings this week. This has led her to receive death threats from her mommies. Kitty needs to remember that tired mommies are not fun mommies!!

10. Happy Easter and Passover to all who celebrate either!

Wedding Wednesdays: Invitations & Paper

Our wedding was almost 6 months ago, but we never really did full-on recaps afterward. And since I know a few of you wandered here via the wedding blogosphere, we figured a few pretty wedding posts couldn't hurt! For the next few weeks, we'll (try really hard to) have a Wednesday post with wedding-related content. If weddings aren't your thing, well, we'll see you next post!

To kick things off, I wanted to tell you a bit about our invitations and other paper items. Sadly, we forgot to have our photographer take a picture of our invitation, so some of the pictures here aren't the best. (memo to brides-to-be: send an invite to your photographer or have an invite there on the day of and then remember to give it to him/her to photograph.We missed that step.)

We sent out Save-the-Date postcards about six months before our wedding. We designed them in Microsoft Publisher and then got them printed through Vistaprint. If you're looking for cheap postcards, they're a great source, but make sure you do a quick search for freebies first! We got our postcards free but had to pay for shipping and a set-up fee for the custom design.

Image came out a little blurry here, but they printed great!

The back of the postcard had information about the where/when and a link to our wedding website. We had to send out the postcards before we had our actual engagement pictures done, but fortunately we were able to con a friend into doing a photoshoot for us in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, our favorite spots on the Jersey Shore.

The invitations...were probably the one area of the wedding where I went the most insane. From the moment I heard the word "pocketfolds", I was in. They're so organized! And neat! And all the little cards line up so nicely! Also, they are expensive, so clearly we needed to find some ways to make them less so. We ordered the folders and envelopes from Cards & Pockets, and I seriously cannot say enough good things about them. The prices were great, quality was excellent, their shipping was quick, and the customer service was awesome. We designed the invitations and inserts in Publisher, with a little bit of work (map cards, some image stuff) done in a free 30-day trial of Adobe Illustrator. I used this tutorial to design the map card, and I am proud to say that I managed to get through it without actually throwing my computer out the window, though I was tempted at many times.

We then had the lovely custom printing people at Cards & Pockets print the invitations. Our printer is ten years old and we don't bother to keep color ink in it, so printing the invitations ourselves would have involved buying a new printer. By getting them to do the printing, we ended up saving money and avoided the hassles of printing and cutting all of the pieces. And their rates were extremely reasonable--much cheaper than we were quoted anywhere else.

Once we had all the pieces, step 1 for us (well, me) was addressing the envelopes. Since I did these by hand, in cursive, it took a little longer than I anticipated. While I worked on that, Carrie painstakingly stamped our return address and the little squares we cut for the belly bands. For those of you who are new here, check out these awesome pictures of us hard at work on these projects.

Once those steps were complete, we dragged everything up to Carrie's sister's house for a weekend of invitation assembly. We set up a big table in their living room, and Carrie, Jen, and I became a craft factory, while Sean kept the boys out of the way for a miraculously long period of time. (Thanks again, J and Anonymous!)

Important lesson: old medical school textbooks are extremely good weights for ensuring your adhesive is stuck.

Finally: the finished product!

We used the belly band squares in place of the inner envelope, so for everyone else, these said the guests' names.

Once those were on their merry way, the biggest paper project left was the ceremony program. We designed these in Publisher, and after trying to find a local printer that was even remotely reasonable, we decided to have Cards & Pockets print them as well. Then all we had to do was cut the vellum, hole punch them, and tie ribbons through each one. Voila:

Photo by Becca Dilley

You can't really see it at all in this photo, but each program has a red ribbon, similar in style to the ribbon on the belly bands but much thinner, tied in a bow. And here's a tip: if you're printing something that has to be hole punched, mark the holes on your design so that they're printed right on the paper and you don't have to mark it on each one later.

For those of you keeping score at home, here's what we used and where we got it:

• Folders, envelopes, silver backing for belly band squares, and printing: Cards & Pockets
• Purple hemp paper for backing on main invitation panel: Paper Depot, Minneapolis, MN (also great customer service and lots of ideas--definitely worth a trip if you're in the area!)
• Adhesive: Tombow MONO adhesive (Bought at Paper Depot but I've since seen at A.C. Moore)
• Custom return address stamp: Etsy seller kiss + tell
• Ribbon: Michaels (gotta love their coupons!)
• Swirl stamp and ink pad: The Ink Pad (super-cute stamping store in NYC)
• Vellum paper for programs: Paper Presentation (in NYC)

Fancy Shmancy Trunk o' Books

This evening Becky crawled to the back of our storage room and pulled out an unopened cardboard box. On the side of the box is printed "Harry Potter boxed set 1-7. Do not display before October 16, 2007." Seeing as it is now 2011 I think she's safe from the publishing powers-that-be coming after her! Inside the first cardboard box is a spiffier looking cardboard trunk, which I suspect in turn contains the aforementioned books. I tried to open the trunk and check on the books while Becky took a break to dish up some ice cream. But I got yelled at for my actions. So I guess I will just have to have faith that the trunk truly contains all seven books. For now I'm enjoying the "Deliver to: Hogwarts" label, the yarn handles, and the printed hinge graphics.

Although I already owned several of the books (and now of course cannot find most of them), in 2007 Becky and I were not anywhere near engaged, and therefore she felt a burning desire to own them all herself. She obsessed. She pre-ordered. She obsessed more. And then she stashed. Every time another of the movies has come out we have chatted about a need to re-read the books. Every time we have chatted about pulling the trunk out. And every time we have eventually gone to see the movie without re-reading the books. But this summer the final movie is coming out, and by golly (haha, I can't believe I just wrote that), this time we're going to re-read the books.

I'll keep you updated on whether Becky lets me peek in the trunk. In the mean time, here are some pictures from way back in 2007 when we attended the book release party at Scholastic for book 7:

UPDATE: After exclaiming "My trunk got locked!" she figured out how to open it, confirmed that her books were still shrink-wrapped, and started playing with the enclosed bonus stickers for decorating the trunk. And then she declared that her books are exempt from the joint property conferred by marriage, and that the trunk is locked so I cannot get in. I am feeling the love, how about you?

P.S. For some reason blogger is having a lot of issues with my attempts at spacing lately. I apologize.

New York City's Backyard

Yesterday we enjoyed a day that I previously dubbed Becky-style (although that's a bit of a lie, since I like 'em too). The weather gods poured buckets and buckets of rain on us as we sprinted between the car and the various stores we needed to visit. And we hung out at home and relaxed.

Today though...we got to have a previously dubbed Carrie-style day! (Also a misnomer, since Becky had an awesome time too.) It was the first really gorgeous spring day that happened to fall on a weekend, which felt especially lucky after the end-of-the-world storm on Saturday. But first we enjoyed nutella-filled Frenched tortillas.
Then we headed to Central Park, which was swarming with people who obviously had the same train of thought as we did. Sheep's Meadow was filled with little groups of people sunbathing, tossing frisbees, and watching their adorable children toddle around. It's intriguing to me the way that people in cities do so many things in public that suburbanites save for private, but city dwellers do them in parallel, hardly acknowledging the crowds around them.
Tavern on the Green, formerly a fancy iconic New York restaurant, re-opened as a parks gift store and food truck food court. To celebrate the re-envisioning and kick off the season they had sample day today. Each cart offered part of their usual fare for free! Rickshaw dumplings were delicious as always; Pera Turkish tacos left something to be desired (unadvertised pickled beets have no place in my lamb taco, and cheap grocery store tortillas are not alternatively called "lavash bread"). Even standing in line forever for hit-or-miss food felt lovely though, with the live band, warm sun, and cool breeze.
After eating we decided to do something unplanned: we rented a tandem bike! Becky had never ridden one, I had not ridden one since childhood (Itasca State Park, family?), and between us we've logged about 3 hours of bike riding total in the past 10 years. Becky's going to come back and argue that she rode occasionally in college, but I'm not sure you can call the hunk of junk that she rode in college a bike. We managed to survive a full 6 mile loop around the park, including hills! And it was pretty freaking awesome! On several occasions Becky whimpered that I was trying to kill her, but that's all part of the fun, right? Unfortunately while on the bike we were too focused on pedaling and not crashing to try for a decent picture, but here's one of Becky steering it back to its owners:
We then wandered to the east side (a place we typically avoid going!) to attempt to use a Crate and Barrel gift card before a wedding completion discount ends. We couldn't choose though, so ended up just browsing. And then for some inexplicable reason we decided to walk the 2+ miles back to the bus terminal. On the way we happened upon a premiere party for the new movie Water for Elephants. Quintessential New York, right? (It was a fabulous book too, so hopefully the movie is good!) As proof, here is the back of Reese Witherspoon's head:
In other news we did make a decision on the cable issue, but probably not the one Cablevision or Verizon wanted us to make. We canceled the cable, to save us about as much as Fios would have saved us. And this way we don't have to spend an entire day at home, get landlord permission, or otherwise deal with the hassle of changing providers.

I hope all of your weekends were as lovely!

Clutter

In case you haven't sensed it from our blog, the last few weeks have been...insane. Both of us have been pretty stressed out by our jobs and putting in a lot of hours at work. By the time we get home, we end up throwing something together for dinner, leaving the dishes for later, and sitting on the couch staring at our computers.

Needless to say, this cycle isn't doing much for our individual mental health, nor for our relationship. (The delay in dish-washing doesn't do our kitchen any good either.) I mean, we're surviving just fine, but our lives are definitely a much happier place to be when we're both feeling less stressed and exhausted. Of course I know what some of the most obvious solutions are to this problem: sleep more, clean as we go instead of letting it pile up, spend less time online and have more quality time together, and spend less time at work. All of these are logical steps to take, but all of them are much easier said than done. For example, the irony is not lost on me that I am currently writing a blog post about spending less time online and more time with my wife. I swear that as soon as I post this, I'm going to put the computer down. Pinky swear, even!

I posted this picture of us (from our engagement pictures, by the lovely Becca Dilley) because we look so calm and peaceful. It's one of my favorite pictures from that day, and it's actually the wallpaper on my computer desktop. Unfortunately, I rarely see the full picture because it's covered with a ridiculous assortment of files saved on my desktop. I've frequently noted throughout my adult life that my mental health bears a strong correlation with both the state of my home and the state of my desktop. All three seem to get cluttered up and reach a breaking point of "OMG something needs to change NOW" around the same time. I don't know if there's a cause/effect here and if so, which way it goes, but I seem to have reached a point where all three need some attention.

The desktop, of course, is the easiest thing to organize. And the apartment, while a disaster, is a fairly straightforward set of tasks--it doesn't even really matter which one I tackle first, as long as I just do something. But getting the rest of my life sorted out in a way that I'm able to spend quality time with my wife, have some time to myself, get my work done, and keep up with online friends and interests, is a little trickier.

So I ask you, dear readers, how do you balance all of these issues? And since I'm currently looking for ways to de-stress, what's your secret?

Today I gay worked. You?

(As seen on Queer Skies Ahead and A Homegrown Wedding.)

Ima sucker

I sort of maybe kind of got talked in to actually buying something from a door to door salesman today. I'm a little bit ashamed to admit it, and now I can't decide what to do about it. I signed away my first born to the Verizon Fios men. I thought I was being smart. I asked a million questions, tried the "I can't make a decision without talking to Becky" line, and asked about fifteen times if I could change my mind fee-free. I even almost walked away at one point when we were doing some wacky over the phone government registration of the phone line thing. (Not that I even want a phone line, mind you, but every cable/internet company seems intent on discounting my internet by giving me a phone line I don't want.)


And yet, here I am with a contract in my hand. How did that even happen?


Luckily my contract does explicitly state that I can cancel within three business days and the whole thing will be forgotten. Ignore the fact that the salesman (accidentally?) back dated the contract by a day. So now I'm stuck. I almost want to call and cancel because I'm just plain mad that despite my best efforts I fell for their song and dance about discounts and good deals. But then I remember that if it's real, it could actually save us $30/month or so, which is pretty decent for Austerity April. Given that Frugal February and Moneyless March both failed it'd be nice to have a win for one month!


I wonder if other people feel as much annoyance at falling for gimmicks as I do. Decisions, decisions.

Recharging

We spent this weekend mostly hanging out at and near home. We did not even leave the state once. Our activities included grocery shopping, finishing our taxes, movie watching, baking homemade cinnamon rolls, Wii Sports Resort, cleaning, laundry, and scrapbooking. And rumor has it that Becky is going to play her trumpet in a little while! Rest assured, I did my part on cinnamon roll making….when an excess of frosting called for emergency action I was ready, willing, and able.

Although I enjoyed the weekend, I call this a Becky-style weekend. You see, we have somewhat of a fundamental difference of opinion regarding optimal weekends. After long draining weeks, which face it, we’ve had too many of recently, I believe that a weekend filled with some sort of exciting outing or adventure is the best way to recuperate and prepare for what comes next. Becky prefers bumming around the house, spending time together doing routine errands, baking, and taking time for other at-home hobbies.

I think this debate is a little bit like the introvert vs. extrovert question, except that we are both decidedly introverts. Introverts prefer to recharge their batteries by spending time alone or with small groups of closely known people; extroverts prefer to recharge their batteries at big parties. I learned in a psychology class in college that something like 75% of the world is extroverts. I think it might be lower among people who like to socialize on the internet though!

Our difference of opinion has caused many an argument, but I suppose this kind of disagreement is part of marriage. Do you and your spouse/significant other agree on how to recharge after a draining week? What is your point of view on lazing about vs. adventures?