Jess and Torsten

The blogging world is an interesting community. You "meet" people and become familiar with them through their daily musings. I found Jess through blog-hopping (Stacey to Emily to Kali to Jenn to Nilsa to Jess if you're interested!).

Jess and Torsten's engagement photo

Jess is getting married in a few short weeks, and some lovely blog friends of hers decided to throw her a surprise virtual bridal shower - since she didn't have a real one (good call Jess, I like you even more!). I thought this was a GREAT idea (so 2008) and jumped at the chance to participate since I love Jess's daily thoughtful, smart, and sincere daily blog posts. Part 1 was sending in some of our favorite recipes (I sent in my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and Bryan's low-carb tilapia if you're wondering). Part 2 was sending the recipes in a card to her real-life friend who is presenting them as a surprise with a beautiful recipe box and the cards at a lovely dinner (tonight!). Part 3 is to leave them some well-wishes on our blog for them to read when they get home from said dinner. So here goes (in purple, her favorite color):

Jess,

As a newlywed myself, let me tell you that marriage is wonderful. I love reading about the fantastic relationship you have found with Torsten. You seem to have all of the important parts covered - great communication, time for fun, a companion to work through hard issues, and an openness with each other that is vital for success. You clearly know that the important part isn't the wedding, it's the lifetime you have ahead of you. You are setting the stage for an amazing future, while having fun in the process (purple shoes! purple earrings! what fun!). I wish the two of you the happiest future, and I couldn't be more excited about your upcoming wedding! I eagerly await the pictures of you all beautifully adorned in your wedding gown, committing your life to your best friend. In a few weeks I'll welcome you to the married club. It's certainly a great club to belong to :)

Tia

The end of the wedding fun

Last Sunday we had our belated wedding reception in Portland at the beautiful McLean House. I highly recommend it if anyone is looking for a party or meeting venue - inexpensive, all the supplies you need, and beautiful grounds and house.

We had a fantastic time, and we were SO excited about all of the people that came from far and wide to celebrate with us. My Aunt Trish flew out from Atlanta (I hadn't seen her in 5 years), Bryan's Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill flew up from Sacramento (some of the nicest people I have met in a long time), my friend Stacey was visiting from Salt Lake, Bryan's parents were in town, my cousin Kelli came down for the day, and lots of local relatives/friends/neighbors/co-workers came out. I think there were about 50 people there, which was great considering how many people were away on vacation.

The Russell Street BBQ was enjoyed by all, as was the Eye of the Bee wine that we brought back from our favorite vineyard in New York.

Here are a few pictures, although I'm sure more will come as others send them to me. Us with our cake - top layer was carrot cake, bottom layer was chocolate with chocolate and raspberry filling. My favorite part was the blue bow on top, which was entirely made out of chocolate.Theo was dying to eat the bow, so we let him try part of the ribbon. Needless to say, after this no one ate the ribbon. That certainly isn't a natural color! Theo was a cute kid though, and he loved it.

Me with my cousin Kelli and Aunt Trish.
My family. After looking through the wedding pictures our photographer took, we sadly realized we didn't have any pictures with my entire family. This hopefully makes up for it. Note Bryan with his untucked shirt and flip flops. You can take the boy out of Florida, but you can't take the Florida out of the boy. I guess this is considered appropriate reception party attire to him. Sigh...it was a battle that wasn't worth fighting. Well, I guess I did fight it and he agreed to tuck in and change shoes after set-up, but he coyly "forgot." He's lucky I love him anyway :)

So after many months, lots of planning, flying all over, moving, and moving again, the wedding festivities have come to an end. We managed to stretch it out over 3 months! Thanks to my mom for helping make sure the reception went out without a hitch, and thanks to her fantastic co-workers who pitched in and helped us set up.

Now we're on to "real life," whatever that means. For now it means a new job for Bryan (with another one possibly looming on the horizon), tons of fun new things in our apartment, figuring out how to balance work and play, and a trip to Vegas over Labor Day. I think we'd both agree that we love being married (watch for his snarky comment in retort!), and things are going great. Now if only we could figure out how to merge two totally different financial systems.....we're all ears if you have any suggestions!

Should I.....

.....be offended when someone wants only one photo printed from my wedding, yet it doesn't include me in it?

Finally - proof is on my side!

Bryan and I are very unsure about having kids. We know they are not in the "five year plan," and the more I think about it the more I lean towards never. Now, this doesn't remotely mean I hate kids. But you tell anyone with children that you don't want kids, and they instantly think you are a horrible person. How could you NOT want this screaming-pooping-expensive-restrictive-boring-biting-dirty ADORABLE little guy/girl????

We have plenty of friends and family members with kids, and I'm completely content spoiling them. I can play with them, giving their parents a break, and hand them back after a few hours. Win/win for everyone. I still have money, flexibility with what I want to do, and I got to spend a few fun hours with a child I like, sanity still intact because I actually get to SLEEP at night.

The most recent double issue of Newsweek has an article finally giving me data to support why I don't want kids. As a researcher, I love data! Here are some of the highlights of the article:

"In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book 'Stumbling on Happiness,' the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child - and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's 'Gross National Happiness' finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless."

"Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions, and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers."

Take that!

Good deed #1

Sometimes I feel quite spoiled. I, along with my husband, grew up with parents who will still sometimes send us money to enjoy a nice dinner (which we are too frugal to go out for on our own) or they graciously help us furnish our new kitchen with some sparkly new items, because they know we will thrift hunt to save some money. We are very grateful to have fantastic sets of parents. I am also very lucky to have a great job that pays me pretty well. Because of our frugalness and amazing ability to bargain hunt, we've managed to furnish our apartment for the same amount we made selling our stuff before we moved. Wedding presents have filled in the gaps. Sometimes I'm brought to my knees when I realize how lucky we are to not worry about pennies anymore.

On Tuesday, a coworker mentioned in passing that she had accidentally gone WAY over in her cell phone minutes (totally unlike her, she's a straight-laced woman in her late 30's). She was feeling really stressed out about paying for it, because she struggles with money as a single woman. I've known her for about 3 years now, and she is a wonderfully kind woman that I just adore. It helps that she's really good at her job too :)

Unfortunately, she didn't know that she could beg them and they would probably reduce the bill, so she had already paid for it with her credit card. She said that she laid awake at night trying to figure out how she was going to be able to pay these new credit card charges because the interest would eat her alive. She formerly had a zero balance, so she usually lives within her modest means.

We aren't talking about a huge sum of money here, but it was fairly significant to her. I had a couple of checks lying around from my birthday, so I decided (with the okay of husband) to cash them and loan her the money so she could pay off her credit card and stop worrying about it. We feel extraordinarily lucky to not worry about money, and the loan to her wasn't enough money to make much difference to us.

I handed her the cash when no one else was around, and her jaw hit the ground. As she refused the money (which I knew she would), her eyes began to fill with tears. I insisted she take it as an interest free loan that she could pay back as she was able. $10 a month is fine with me if that is what she can afford. As her tears threatened to spill over, she reluctantly took the money and said she didn't know how to say thank you because this would make a HUGE difference in her life. She said she would pay it back with some interest, which I of course told her was silly.

She headed off on a planned vacation to see her parents the next day, and I felt really happy that I knew she could enjoy her trip and not worry about the stupid cell phone bill. She said it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her. I felt good about it, she felt relieved, and we were all happy. It was a nice win/win.

What good deeds have you done lately? Brag away!

I long time ago, I talked about a rough meeting that I had where I left in tears. It was part of a long, grueling process in working with a school district on a grant application. I am an evaluator, which means my piece is the evaluation section. However, this particular high need district had been rejected for this grant THREE times before, so I was heavily involved in re-vamping it.

Yesterday, we got the news.

THEY WERE FUNDED!

This is super news for myself (as I got this project going all on my own with my own connections) and super news for my work. All that hard work paid off, and we will be the evaluators for the next 4 years.

My sweet husband took me out to celebrate at Pastini. It was SO yummy and nice to be able to go out together (especially with the likely gall bladder removal in husband's future). The restaurant is in a new outdoor mall, so after dinner we walked around enjoying the nice summer night (and I got a shirt on sale at JCrew). It was fabulous to finally have a night that wasn't 50 degrees or 100 degrees!

Sand ceremony

Awhile back someone asked about the sand ceremony we had at our wedding.

A typical sand ceremony uses 2 glass containers filled with different colored sand - one for the bride, one for the groom. They each pour some into a third glass container separately, to represent their individual lives. Then they pour it in together, to represent the blending of their lives in marriage. The final container is then a nice keepsake from the wedding.

In ours, we decided to have our moms participate with their own colored sand, since they (and our dads) provided the foundation that made us who we are.

The vows that we used for the sand ceremony:

Bryan and Tia, today you join your separate lives together. The two separate bottles of sand symbolize your separate lives, separate families and separate sets of friends. They represent all that you are and all that you will ever be as an individual.

They also represent your lives before today. As these two containers of sand are poured into the third container, the individual containers of sand will no longer exist, but will be joined together as one. Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into individual containers, so will your marriage be.

There are two women for which words could never relay the gratitude in our bride and groom's hearts, their mothers. Audrey and Diane you have contributed so much to Bryan and Tia's lives and they wish to symbolically thank you by inviting you to join them in their sand ceremony. Please come forward.

Diane and Audrey, we invite you pour some sand from your individual vases into the container to represent you giving them life, as well as all of your wonderful contributions to their lives. Without the two of you, and their fathers, providing them with a foundation of love and support, they never would have been the people they are today.

Tia, pour some of your sand which will represent you as an individual. Bryan, pour some of your sand which will represent you as an individual.

Bride and Groom, now pour your remaining sand into the container together to represent the joining of your two individual lives into this union of marriage

This isn't the best photo (there are some better ones under the professional photos), but you get the idea here:


There are companies that have the kit made for you (etching on the glassware, sand, etc), but they are fairly pricey. We decided to make our own using supplies from Michael's, and one evening we did the etching together. I think our final cost was $34, vs the $70 they wanted online.