lovingeveryminute

They chose them before they were even engaged. They bought them with their own money. I just thought this entry would be a fun excuse to show how pretty they are. 12 months ago

There was never even a discussion about this. They could have had some live music, or a DJ, but they chose to make their own Mix CD. I think the most difficult decision was the groom picking a song for the Mom-Son dance. I don’t even remember what the song was, and his mom didn’t care—she just wanted to HAVE a dance with her son.

Our daughter chose the song, Just Fishin’ for her Daddy-Daughter dance. It was awesome. They talked and danced and hugged and the photographer took some really sweet pictures of both dances.

(Next wedding, the Daddy-Daughter dance is Butterfly Kisses, so I’ll need tissues, but our sweet, red-headed Middle Daughter called dibs on that song the day it came out in 1997! She was in 4th grade. Eldest Daughter’s song is I Loved Her First. Oh, boy. I can’t even read those lyrics without sobbing. Her dad called her in October of 2006, after hearing a pre-release sneak preview of that song on the radio.)

Whoa, back to THIS wedding! The rest of the reception was filled with Bride’s and Groom’s favorite love songs. Groom did an excellent job with the timing and quality, and the sound system worked great, so everyone could hear without anyone getting blasted out.

My favorite part of the whole reception was dancing with my Dearest at our daughter’s wedding.

Ohhh . . . there was another, perhaps even sweeter moment:
Dearest’s mom has 2 prosthetic legs and is in a wheelchair. She wanted to stand up for the 4-generation photo with her mother, her son, and her granddaughter. My Dearest, lifted his mom to her “feet” and held her up while the picture was taken, then danced with her for the rest of the song that was playing. It was SO cute!!!! 12 months ago

. . . of my hand in Paris.

It was about 10:15pm. The sun had just set and we watched the lights of the City of Light go on as we stood on a small hillock overlooking the Champs Elysees.

It was our best single moment in Paris. 12 months ago

I love the word ‘tuxedo’. Probably because I scored over 100 points with it in a Scrabble game once, but I digress…;p

The Groom’s tux was white with a burnt orange vest and tie. His boutonniere was a burnty orange mango calla lily hugged by small red, gold, and orange roses and a James Storie orchid. The ‘bittersweet’ ribbon came from a bolt of my grandmother’s from circa 1952.

The groomsmen wore black suits with red neckties and large Freedom rose boutonnieres.

The couple left on their honeymoon the morning after the wedding, so I had to take the tux back to the rental shop. He had chosen a store right down the street from the house we used to live in, and the owner is a good friend of ours. It was nice to talk to his daughter for a little while. 12 months ago

Both the Bride and Groom were welcomed into loving new families. We love him, they love her, and being the florist, I had a singular opportunity to help them express their love for their new mom-in-laws.

I made two huge flower arrangements for the reception and ring ceremony. Orange and maroon snapdragons, gold French tulips, parrot tulips, Dutch tulips, cremones that looked like sunflowers with yellow centers (awesome!), Viking Daisies, giant Freedom roses, and lots of smaller orange and gold spray roses.

Ooh. The pictures were so close. I had the disk IN my computer, but they came over today and took it with them before I got to download anything. Dangit. Oh well, I’ll get pictures and add a bunch to these entries.

Anyway, near the end of the reception, the bride and groom were supposed to go to the front and pick up the arrangements, then HE would give one of them to me, and SHE would give the other to his mom.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, someone got out the sparklers and all of a sudden we were all outside lining up for the Grand Exit. It was the only frustrating part of the evening, but I still gave the groom’s mom one of the arrangements, and she still thought it was great, so it all turned out all right in the end. :) 12 months ago

Today, I found my writing notebook, ALL my handwritten notes, my writing exercises, and the other writing stuff I had left wherever I had been working on it and gathered at separate times into the same room.

Now it is all in one stack, ready to be thoroughly organized. :) 12 months ago

Ok, so the place itself wasn’t all that wondrous, although I hadn’t ever been there before. It was an outdoor venue, where we were invited at the last minute to attend a steak fry and concert with our new in-laws. They had the tickets handed to them the day before, so we all got to go for free.

The food was pretty decent: Med-Rare steak (which I ate about 2/3 of and gave the rest to my Dearest), baked potato with sour cream and butter, salad with Ranch, a roll, and a delicious chocolate chip cookie. They also gave us cups of ice, but offered nothing we could drink, so we bought some water.

The opening act was the corporate band from the company sponsoring the event. They were awesome. Tons of familiar songs done really well. Then came Joe Nichols. He was good, too, and we enjoyed his performance, but he hardly sang any songs we knew, and almost all the ones we did know were someone else’s songs. Finally, we figured he was holding out his currently popular tequila song for his finale, but we didn’t want to deal with all the drunks that would be leaving the concert at the same time, so we bailed before he got that far.

No matter—all in all, it was a really pleasurable evening. 13 months ago

There were three.

I knew from my Christmas card list that I would have about a hundred invitations to send out, maybe a little more, for relatives I don’t send cards to. We finalled out at 118.

The groom has more local family than we do, so I thought their list would be bigger, but they only sent me 78 names. Of course, his mom was very busy with a couple other family events, so she never had time to finish compiling their list. She just used the one from his sister’s wedding. The groom removed his sister’s “random friends” from that list, which brought it down to 62. Then his mom said she would like to add a few more, but didn’t know their addresses, so I looked them up for her.

The third list was from the couple themselves. They had another 35 or so names to add, so I think we sent out 220 invitations.

I was in charge of addressing and mailing them. The kids probably should have done it, but they were both in school, and my daughter was doing a math class in half a semester so she could finish it before the honeymoon. She did finish, btw.

I did NOT look forward to hand-addressing 220 envelopes. My hand cramps up even now, just thinking about that prospect. But I certainly did not want my daughter’s wedding invitations to look like bulk mail, with address stickers on them, either!

So, I went online and found a font very similar to my pretty handwriting and ended up printing directly onto each envelope. Yes, I had to do it one at a time, but I would have had to write them out one at a time, too, so in the end it saved me a lot of time and pain. They looked beautiful.

My Dearest didn’t realize there was a font that similar to my handwriting, and I had to tell him what I had done, so he could be impressed with my genius, because he thought I had written them. ;)

I saved $2.20 on mailing them, too, because I bought the stamps before postage went up to 45¢, so pah hah! Yay for me. :) 13 months ago

We had a hearing today. Some yahoo had called the city to report that he didn’t like our old truck or the neighbor’s junk in our yard. Guess what, we didn’t like the neighbor’s junk in our yard either, but we went out there and helped them clean it up instead of reporting them to the City.

The day the inspector came out to take pictures was the same day that we moved some couches to Youngest Daughter’s and (at that time, almost) Son-in-Law’s new apartment, but he got a picture of the big blue tarp over the neatly stacked furniture on the driveway before it was moved.

We didn’t do anything about the first notice because by the time we got it, the couches had been moved and the neighbor’s junk wasn’t ours.

Then came a second notice about “weeds and trash” so we helped the kids next door get their stuff cleaned up.

Then all of a sudden, we get this full-blown citation about “inoperable vehicles” on our property, but there are none, so I called the guy and he said the old truck didn’t look like it was running. I told him it was, but he said we would have to pay a fine anyway. BA – LO – NEY. We decided to fight that baby!

We turned the truck around and switched its place in the driveway next to the sandrail, just to show that it does indeed run, took a bunch of pictures of the front and sides of our house and set off to prove our case.

But we never had to open our mouths.

First item of business was to clarify that everything on the first two notices had been taken care of (even the neighbor’s crap, which should never have been in our case file to begin with).

Next, the hearing officer asked the code compliance inspector to show him where he had notified us about the truck before he issued a citation.
He searched his documents.
He said hmmm.
He squirmed in his seat a little.
He said uuhhh.
The Hearing Officer asked him if he’d like to move for dismissal.
He said yes.

We smiled and thanked them for their time. 13 months ago

OK, technically, the groom’s parents “gave” this part of the wedding to my daughter and their son, in that they paid for the food and convinced an uncle to prepare it and serve it up.

Our part was to reserve the building and set up the night before. Getting the church to let us use one of the large rooms was only a matter of making a phone call or two.

We had some nice ladies from church show up to help us the night before. They tried setting up tables so 60-80 people could eat in this room, but although it was one of the largest rooms in the building, it was too small to set up 15 long tables side-by-side and end-to-end, the way they were trying to do it.

Enter—My Dearest! He had seen this same room set up once for about a hundred people and the format had stuck with him: Set the tables up diagonally! Wow. Everyone fit and no one had to climb over another human to go get their lunch or to come back from the kitchen.

My part was to convince the parents of the groom that their chicken cordon bleu idea was maybe not the best choice for the luncheon because several invited people don’t like chicken breast, or won’t eat rice. There would be a lot of people either not eating or wasting what was there. The Bride and Groom wanted sub sandwiches, but his mother said, and I quote, “Subs aren’t fancy enough for MY son’s wedding.” Oi.

Fine, so they asked for lasagna and salad. The groom’s dad said he didn’t want to eat lasagna that day because it’s too messy and he didn’t want to have to change his tie . . . or his shirt. ...Really?

My daughter and their son tried a few more requests, all to be shot down by his parents, who were always ready with the “we’re paying for this” answer, which took them back to the Subs idea.

Anyway, we had a both-families meeting and finally My Daughter and My Dearest said the groom’s parents could serve whatever they wanted and that they would stop by Subway on the way to the luncheon and get food they could eat.

FINALLY, the other parents relaxed a little. They could see their stance was unreasonable. They could also see their future daughter-in-law crying and the fact that my Dearest meant what he said.

So lasagna and salad it was! The Uncle also made a batch of some cheesy chicken pasta that was delicious, so whoever was going to die without chicken and cheese could live to see another day.

In the end, it turned out great. We ate and talked and laughed. The father of the groom started an activity wherein everyone in the room took turns telling a memory about the bride or groom.

My story took place in St. Mark’s Plaza in Venice. Middle Daughter had been there before, so she knew what would happen. She had a packet of crackers in her pocket, which she crushed to dust, then took it out, handed it to Youngest Daugter (aka, the Bride) and told her to open it. Then she took several large steps in the opposite direction. At first only a pigeon or two landed on her, but within a few seconds, there were about 200 birds (which I’m told have soft feet) bombarding my daughter, and a few dozen worldwide tourists taking pictures! It was hilarious.

Dearest’s story was about her working construction with him during her high school summers. She learned many facets of the trade and she can run crane signals, which pleases him to no end.

Good Fun. Good Food. Good Company. ... Good Day! 13 months ago

We used to call it Indian Fry Bread, or Navajo Tacos, and around here, yes, the Native Americans do make it, but so do our Tongan friends, and lots of other people, including us, so now we just call it FryBread.

Anyway, it was delicious. My Dearest made the bread from scratch. Then all we had to do was cook some refritos con jalepeños and some chili meat, shred some cheese and chop up some lettuce. Topped with salsa, our FryBread turned out oh, so tasty, and it was fun to work in the kitchen together! 13 months ago

My Dearest makes this clanging sound to imitate my brain. He says everything that goes in there gets filed away for safe keeping. I’ve informed him that it’s called scaffolding and he is a construction guy, so he makes the clanging sound when I pull something out of the blue like I did tonight.

I was trying to remember some guy’s name whom I had heard only once a few days ago. I needed to let someone else know to call this guy to help her with some stuff.

I was describing out loud how my brain put his name away (with a silent consonant after a vowel), when all of a sudden, BAM! there it was! I had only heard it once before and didn’t know it would ever need to be recalled.

My Dearest called me Amazing.

Hmmm. :) 13 months ago

I’ve never heard of charting out chapters the way it occurred to me to do it today. After I had it all drawn out, I thought of combining my charting with a favorite method for journal prompting, and I think I may have found a surefire way to bust writer’s block!

Necessity being the Mother of Invention and all, I am still stuck in Chapter 4, knowing what has to happen, but not in contact with the words to describe it yet. I’ll know this week if my new idea will work. 13 months ago

Well, we were already planning on cleaning the part of our house that I call “The Tee” this weekend anyway, but then Middle Daughter called to say that her fiancee’s family was going to be in AZ on their way back to NM from UT and wanted to stop by and meet us. They have family here, so they would be in town anyway . . . it’s not like they were going to drive a hundred miles out of their way just to meet us, but still—we wanted to make a nice first impression.

So we cleaned.
And prepared a good lunch.

“The Tee” consists of the front living room, which, as I’ve said before, I call The Peaceful Room; The Family Room; The Library; (those three go from the front door to the back door); The Dining Room; and the Kitchen (which form a T with the other 3, over to the side of the house). We worked all day and I stayed up late last night, as well. The Dearest also cleaned up the Back Yard so they could play golf, and I cleaned up the Courtyard in the front, so …well, it was too hot to spend any time out there this afternoon, but I wanted it to look nice anyway.

We served pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, and quinoa salad. It was all delicious and is now mostly all gone. They liked it! :) We had a really nice visit. Not at all like strangers meeting for the first time.

My bonus is that now the house is all cleaned up from the wedding last month and I can go back to my previous morning routine before I tackle my housework every day.

This next wedding will be in Utah, so my house probably won’t end up being the Staging Area and hopefully I can keep up with it now that there’s only two of us here every day.

Exciting Times. :) 13 months ago

Middle Daughter is highly accomplished in the artistic fields of sculpting, drawing, painting, portraiture, animation, digital arts, CGI, videography, and photography.

She took the engagement pictures. They got engaged on New Year’s Eve at a large park not too far from our house. They came back here and gave us the good news before the groom went home around 1am. They announced the engagement to his family on New Year’s morning.

The next day, Middle Daughter made them all get up at 6:30 am and return to the park for a reenactment. The photos are darling.

She also created the wedding announcements. Using several of the engagement shots, she designed the announcements and had them printed. They are postcard style, with the couple’s names and several photos on one side and the invitation over a faded photo on the other. I made inserts to go with them, in the wedding colors, to tell people about extra activities that perhaps not everyone would be invited to, such as the family luncheon. We’ve had so many compliments on the invitations and the way they were presented. It’s nice to know when people notice the work you put in!

She also did the bridal shoot. So many wonderful pictures to choose from, but we only printed a dozen or so in various sizes that Youngest Daughter now has on the walls, shelves and counters of her new apartment. The most beautiful one, I was going to post with this entry, but I chose the dancing one instead because it was also on the announcements, as well as in the video.

Then she made the video. Not just a slideshow. A lot of weddings these days have slideshows going, usually somewhere near the guest sign-in table. People can stand around watching the couple grow up, one ten-second memory at a time. It’s pretty cute, but kinda boring.

Well, Middle Daughter did not do that. She took a bunch of STILL photos and transformed them into moving people. SO CUTE!!!!! So Bride and Groom are walking across the screen, toward each other, and in the background are all the photos of their growing up years. About 150 pictures of each of them as their story unfolds to music. OH MY GOSH!!! It’s really incredible. My middle daughter has talent. Real, God-given talent. Plus skills. Skills that she worked long and hard to achieve. She graduated from college this week with a BFA in Studio Arts. She’s Awesome. :) 13 months ago

Middle Daughter has what it takes to turn out amazing wedding work, should she ever choose to do that for a living, but we wanted her to be IN most of these photos, so we went looking for a reasonably-priced professional.

I have a friend who esteems herself to be a “professional” photographer because after taking a couple of classes and learning to operate PhotoShop, she has been paid for some of her work. She is very enthusiastic about photography, so to listen to her, you’d think she would have a fairly good eye.

I looked at her website. It made me sad. There were lots of pictures of pretty brides smiling for the camera, but they were just standing there and so was the photographer. There was no use of light other than the fact that there WAS light enough to take a picture. No interesting angles or silhouettes. No pizzazz.

In one shoot, a blended family (on the wedding day of the parents) were placed in front of a building, apparently under a tree. No tree could be seen in the pictures, but the shadows from the leaves and branches were all over the faces of the family. One entire side of the BRIDE’S FACE was in dark shadow. It was pitiful. I mean, I could understand if I was just looking at rough proofs, but this was the finished product she chose to post on her website as an advertisement! I was really disappointed.

We kept looking. I found an AMAZING photographer, but he charges $350 an hour. heh. No.

Eventually, it occurred to me that we might get the wedding cakes at the local vocational school for cheap. I’m glad they were closed over Spring Break and couldn’t do it, because I love, love, love the bakery we went with, BUT! the school also has a photography program.

We made an appointment to meet the instructor and peruse the work of a few student photographers. Two boys and a girl. The boys’ work was very similar. They each had a little wedding experience at a sister’s or a cousin’s wedding. Lots of standing around, immortalizing yards and yards of fluffy, shiny satin. Not exactly the style I was hoping for.

Then we sat down with the girl. She had no wedding experience at all. What she did have was TALENT!!!

Finally. :)

She showed us a professional shoot she did with a friend that was every bit as good as the expensive guy.

She showed us a studio shoot of a young family with an adorable little girl who would not smile. Our teenage photographer got out a bottle of bubbles and then sat down on the floor to record the toddler laughing and playing with the bubbles while totally convincing us to go with this girl. I loved her use of light and angle. She has the eye to be excellent.

Her teacher actually set her price: $250
. . . for . . . the . . . entire . . . day!!!

There were four events the day of the wedding and she showed up at all of them. She must have taken five hundred pictures! She edited a bunch of them, put them all on a CD, and put together a slide show of her favorites with music the bride and groom picked out.

Middle Daughter watched her throughout the day. At the end of the night, she gave her the greatest compliment: “I haven’t seen your work, but I have seen YOU work, and I’m glad, since I couldn’t take the pictures myself, that you were the one doing it, because you are really good.” Oh don’t worry. She’s getting a huge tip, too. ;)

I heard from her today that the pictures are ready. I can hardly wait to see them!

Another awesome little miracle. :) 13 months ago

A big trend lately is to have sparklers instead of throwing rice or confetti as the bride and groom leave. Less mess to be sure. My daughter’s friends have had beautiful Grand Exits using them, so she wanted them, too.

Fireworks are not that easy to find in the middle of March, though.

I tracked down the guy who operates a couple of the seasonal fireworks tents in our area and gave him a call. Turns out he carries sparklers in the back of his truck all year round. GREAT!!!

We went to his place of work and he took us around back to do the “buy” in the alley. It was all very clandestine. Hilarious!

So we had twelve dozen sparklers blazing at the end of the reception. Everyone loved it. And it made for beautiful pictures…I hope—I haven’t actually seen them yet.

One WARNING though: DO NOT go barefoot outside while the sparklers are burning. My feet were so tired that I did just that. At first I thought the burning ember under my right foot was a sticker, and I kept trying to brush it off. It just kept boring deeper and deeper into my flesh. Finally, my brain said FIRE!!! and I moved to the grass. Five weeks later, the wound is almost healed. It was not very big, but it was a third degree burn. Ow. I ended up with a several blisters on the bottoms of both feet and my brand new pantyhose got melted, so I had to throw them away. I was glad no little kids were barefoot!

Other than a minor injury, though, the sparklers were a big hit and we would highly recommend using them. :) 13 months ago

. . . at the Mexican Market! Or at least the ad for it.

My Dearest reads it to me in Spanish and I find that I can tell him everything back-and even answer questions. In English, but still—I know all my fruits and vegetables. That will at least get me fed in a Latin country!

Along with a sincere but obligatory por favor and gracias, of course. 13 months ago

As soon as Youngest Daughter announced her engagement and said she wanted goldfish in tall vases on her tables, her sisters took off on a grand carnival theme, planning out everything while their little sister slept.

They knew her colors were dark red, gold and burnt orange, and they knew that I had been teasing, “ketchup, mustard and hot wing sauce” before the couple was even dating. She decided on her colors a couple years ago, along with the fish.

We own cotton candy, snowcone, and popcorn machines, so they envisioned having them all set up around the reception and serving hot dogs, hamburgers and hot wings to our guests.

Youngest Daughter, meanwhile was not amused. She had in mind a more elegant affair. OK, then—GARDEN PARTY!

That worked! We made pomander trees and set the tables in a horseshoe pattern around the dancefloor, instead of having the tables clustered and the dancefloor on the other side of the room. The lights were halfway dimmed and there was an arch with twinkle lights.

The outer walkway also sported twinkling rope lights, making the entrance look like a garden path.

On the inside, at one end, three long tables were pushed end-to-end, creating a border as well as a buffet. The cake on its marvelous stand graced the center of this table. Two big flower arrangements on either side, and then plates with cake or chicken salad sandwiches. Dark red tablecloths in a diamond pattern overlayed the floor-length white cloths that a couple ladies painstakingly ironed for hours.

On one side was a portrait / bouquet table. Instead of having the bridesmaids tote their bouquets around all night, or lie them down to be squashed on one side, we set pretty round vases around the portrait table with their names on them, so they could have somewhere to put the bouquets and decorate the reception at the same time! Brilliant, huh? That’s because I was the florist and didn’t want the flowers to get messed up. :)

The portraits were taken the day before the wedding. Middle Daughter (the one who’s engaged now) took bride and groom out first thing in the morning, while the lighting was perfect, and took a bunch of bridal shots. ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! Getting them ready meant a quick trip to Dollar Tree for frames and a one-hour jaunt to WalMart for prints. Fluffy gold chiffon enveloped bouquets and pictures and looked like a golden dreamland.

The other side of the reception hall was nearest the kitchen, so we had the beverages set up over there. A large table was all decked out with plants and vintage punchbowls. It really looked like a garden. Half of the punchbowls had water with strawberries floating in them. The others had orange frappe. A burnt orange tablecloth deepened the effect of the beverage table .

Everything turned out really beautiful. Not at all carnival-like, although that would have been fun, too. ;) 13 months ago

I haven’t yet finished writing about Youngest Daughter’s wedding, when last night Middle Daughter announced HER engagement!!! They received their rings exactly 3 months apart and will end up getting married four and a half months apart.

My daughters are doing this in opposite order. The oldest has been saying all along, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” She’s a wise young woman, and so excited for her sisters.

It’s a good thing I’m still in Wedding Mode!!! . . . ! 13 months ago

Not far from the Borghese Villa (and gallery, but it was closed when we got there), in the Spagna section of Rome, is an inexplicable attraction: The Spanish Steps.

So, OK. There’s a big staircase that goes up a hill. Obviously, no cars can drive there, and yes, people do use it as a thoroughfare IF they can manage, but what it really is, is a rest stop for all the weary pedestrians. A few hundred people at any given time, mostly dressed in purple, can be found just hanging out on the steps.

Granted, the architectural beauty and the AGE of the structure is worth a visit, but all there is to do is sit down. ...Of course, after walking on cobblestone all day, who wouldn’t want THAT!?

There’s a pretty fountain at the base of the steps. Some people were filling their water bottles from it, but I’m not so sure that one’s an Artesian Well, so we didn’t.

From there, we walked a little way to a cute ristorante where we had to go down into a basement. Dinner was delicious. I had green beans! 13 months ago

A beautiful heart-shaped park. During her time in Rome, my daughter and her friends had danced in one of the fountains. We sat on the benches and watched a couple on a date. He picked her a flower and she acted all shy upon receiving it. Cute. Then a little family came into the park. Two adorable children chasing the pigeons and trying to walk the curbs without falling off. Seems like they had all gotten the “purple” memo. Purple shirts, purple dress. Even the flowers were purple.

We passed an interesting sight on the way back to the metro, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate to take a picture, so I wrote it down: it was a homeless man with a bag of chips. He was sitting on a high curb with his back against a fence; not begging, just sitting there with his chips, and maybe a bottle of water,and was completely surrounded by pigeons. On the ground. On the fence. On him. Up and down, begging for crumbs. He didn’t seem to mind. The scene reminded me of the Bird Lady in Mary Poppins. I had to stop myself from singing “Feed the Birds” . . . out loud. 13 months ago

The one about Ricky
The one I’m ghostwriting
The one about CJ
The one about Lola
The non-fiction with the alphabet
The one about the ghetto
Plus editing the one about Janette

That should be enough of a reminder. I don’t want to forget what they were before I get to them all. 13 months ago

I’m really rather pleased with this.

I heard last night on TV that a wedding these days costs about $27,000 American. USD. Really? Because we were sitting at about a tenth of that. For real.

Of course, our church lets people use the buildings for free, so we didn’t have to pay for a reception hall. The rest was a wonderful series of miracles and wangling that saved us a boatload of money.

. . . which is really good, since it looks like there might be another wedding coming up in the not-too-distant future. 13 months ago

They ran everything by me. Not because I was holding the pursestrings, but because they actually wanted my opinion on pretty much every decision they made. That’s good. I’m glad they value my input.

It’s probably because people started squawking about one thing or another from day one. Nothing too bossy or mean, just aggravating, but I wasn’t having that. I sat the couple down and told them that we wanted them to have what they wanted as long as it didn’t break the bank. (I believe I’ve already mentioned that the “bank” wasn’t very big to begin with, but they are both surprisingly frugal for a couple of kids who were living at home until the wedding!)

One night, my daughter was in tears because someone didn’t want to cooperate with someone else and someone else was demanding to have things their way.

I quietly reminded the bride and groom that this was their wedding and that it was okay for them to plan their wedding the way they wanted their wedding.

“Maybe not everything you want will be feasible, but at the end of the day, you will be married and that is what really matters. So ask for what you want and we’ll do our best to make it happen. Everyone else can just . . .”

”. . . suck it?” my daughter finished my sentence with a wet-faced smile.

“Yes. Everyone else can just ‘suck it’, including me, if I start adding to the stress.”

After that, they trusted me to do whatever I thought would be good.
And I did.
And it WAS! :) 13 months ago

For a little over two weeks now, I’ve been keeping super careful track of my sugar intake. I have not made a significant cutback on starch yet, but that will come.

What I did was get a piece of graph paper and date each column. My graph paper is 40 squares by 28 squares, so I used landscape format and numbered the lines going down the left side by each HOUR in the day, from 12 midnight to 12 noon, and back to 12 midnight.

Then, I just run a little line vertically through each HOUR that I go without sugar. Yes, I count the overnight hours when I’m asleep. I’m not eating sugar then am I? No. So there’s 6 or 7 more hours with no sugar. When I do eat sugar (one jelly bean, a piece of bubble gum, 4 m&ms, a cookie…), I write what it was really tiny inside the square of that hour. I’ve been very diligent about it.

So far, in 17 days, I’ve ingested less than 300 empty sugar calories! Wow, I thought my little chart would have been more full of writing, but it’s my chart and I’m the one who wants to stop eating sugar, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Plus—it’s easy to remember not to eat sugar when I have to go mark a chart every hour! 13 months ago

I cannot believe I have not already written this entry. It was major. Perhaps I was saving it for last.

I was the florist. I am a florist, so it was a natural choice, but being the mother of the bride was already quite a job as it was. Lots of people told me I was crazy, but it’s the dream of all three of my girls to have their mom do their wedding flowers. I think it’s the Dearest’s dream, too, since I can get them wholesale!

Having been around flowers all her life, and after watching me do dozens of weddings, my daughter had formed some lofty opinions of what flowers should be in her wedding.

Mango calla lilies.
Gold French tulips.
Flaming Fringed tulips.
James Storie Orchids.
viking daisies.
dark red, gold, and orange roses.

Wow. 13 months ago

I should have written about this right after the DRESS entry. I made her veil. It was exquisite. I used the most delicate white tulle and surrounded it with hand-beaded edge lace. My friends either said they were jealous or that they want me to make veils for their daughters when they get married.

My daughter wanted to wear her hair in a bun, with the veil attached just below, so I folded and gathered a very large square of tulle and sewed the lace all the way around by hand, then attached a comb to it so I could just stuff it under her bun that morning. It worked great.

I also made some flower hair clips and we fastened them to her head around and in front of the bun. It was very beautiful. 13 months ago

Her garter, of course. That’s been the standard “something blue” for generations now.

I made it for her. Blue and white lace. The fiancee didn’t even want to have a garter ceremony-too scandalous-but she maneuvered the garter to just above her knee so he wouldn’t have to reach anywhere unseemly in front of all their friends and … mothers.

Good boy. Really, really good boy. We love him. :)

And…his eyes are blue. 13 months ago

She was going to borrow a favorite necklace from her best friend and matron of honor, but her fiancee gave her a gorgeous heart necklace for Valentine’s Day, which she’s rarely taken off since.

So what would be “Borrowed”?

MY slip. Yep, and it really was only borrowed. I already have it back.

Dilemma solved. 13 months ago