Friday, August 8, 2008

Where Was This List Six Months Ago?

Questions to ask acquaintences to see if they make the cut to a wedding guest list (answer 60% correctly to get an invite):

Name the city I'm living in now.
Name at least two of my closest friends.
Name my current employer and my past employer.
Do I have any kids?
Do you know the name of my fiancé? Bonus question: Where and when did we meet?
Do you know where my parents are and whether they are still alive?
Name at least two of my hobbies.
How old am I?
Where did I go to college?
Name my last boyfriend before this engagement. Bonus question: if you can name the last two and why we broke up. If you get the bonus question right, that might automatically get you in.

Borrowed from I Do Sugar

Sunday, August 3, 2008

We Survived!

Been married a week and loving it!

It's not really easy to tell how great married life is when you spend the first week on vacation in a B&B near the ocean where the high is 80, the breezes are cool, the lobster is fresh, the martinis are blueberry, the tub has jets, the kayaks are tandem, the sun sets and rises over the ocean, the beer tastings are free, the gelato has zero calories, the mountain has a paved road to the top, the bed is king sized, the breakfasts are 3-course, the tea is hot, the cake is coffee, the grass is soft, the sailing ships are pirate (and almost private), and the library houses Shakespeare (and your husband reads to you!)!

Can you say, Mrs. S-P-O-I-L-E-D?

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

3 Days Left!

Throwing Rice

Pelting newlyweds with uncooked starchy vegetables is a time-honored tradition meant to shower the new couple with prosperity, fertility and, of course, good fortune. Oats, grains and dried corn were also used before rice rose to the top as the preferred symbolic sprinkle. Rice lost its popularity when it became widely rumored that if birds ate the rice, it would expand in their stomach and kill them. This is decidedly untrue, as is evidenced by the fact that birds eat dried rice and corn and other dehydrated vegetables and grains from fields all the time and we have yet to see any mention of a national, exploding-bird epidemic running on the CNN news ticker.Rice can be a hazard to guests, who can lose their footing on rice covered pavement and take a nasty spill. Turns out, even rice alternatives have their drawbacks. Two Texas women were badly injured at a wedding in May 2008 while trying to light celebratory sparklers to send off the bride and groom. The group of sparklers ignited all at once and exploded, burning one woman’s face and both of their arms. One guest at a Russian wedding in Chechnya last March decided to buck tradition altogether and threw an armed hand grenade into the unsuspecting crowd, injuring a dozen people. Our advice? Stick with rose petals. They are soft, non-hazardous, non-lethal and biodegradable.

FYI: I'm not paying money so you'll have something to throw at me. If you want to throw money, go ahead!

Friday, July 18, 2008

These Are a Few of My Favorite Foods

Finally, a tradition I can get my taste buds behind! Not so keen about some of the origins/traditions (trust me, I'm not saving the top for a year. I'm eating that puppy that night!)associated w/ the cake, but I am in favor of cake. Yes indeedy! In fact, it's my favorite food. Well, wedding cake, anyway!

The Wedding Cake

We have to believe that there was a time, somewhere in history, when the whole, “Will they/won’t they smash cake in each other’s faces!” scenario was actually clever and original (even if we couldn’t find any evidence of it). What we did find was the granddaddy predecessor to cake-face-smashing: the breaking of baked goods over the bride’s head. Customarily, the groom would gnaw off a bite of barley bread and then the remainder of the loaf was held above the newlywed bride’s head and then broken, showering her with crumbs and a soul-crushing message of her husband’s male dominance. Guests would then scramble to pick up any wayward crumbs off the floor as they were said to bring good…wait for it… luck!This tradition evolved as cake emerged as the preferred confection for wedding celebrations. Fortunately for the bride, a whole cake doesn’t break in two quite as dramatically as a loaf of bread and so it was sliced on a table instead. Rather than scrounge for lucky crumbs on the floor, guests would stand in line while the bride passed tiny, fortune-blessed morsels of cake through her own wedding ring into the hands of the waiting masses. This act also fell by the wayside, as we can only assume the bride determined that it was a lousy waste of her time. Thus began the tradition of giving out whole slices of cake to each guest, not to be eaten, but to be placed under their pillow at night for (yup, here it is again) good luck and, for the ladies, sweet dreams of their future husbands.
Refusing to Throw Away the Leftovers
This leads to another sweet, delicious, buttercream-iced mystery to be solved: Why do couples eat freezer-burned wedding cake on their one-year anniversary? To answer this, we must look to the lyrics of a schoolyard classic: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage! It used to be assumed that when there was a wedding, a christening would follow shortly. So, rather than bake two cakes for the occasions, they’d just bake one big one and save a part of it to be eaten at a later date when the squealing bundle of joy arrived. Eventually folks warmed to the idea of giving the poor kid his own, newly baked cake, but the custom of saving a portion of the wedding cake far longer than it should be saved and then eating it and deluding oneself to believe that it actually tastes good is one that persists to this day.

Tradition courtsey of http://www.mentalfloss.com/

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Great Debate

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Sandra Day O'Connor

Timilyn Towers Downey

Timilyn Renee Downey

Timilyn Renee Towers Downey

Cyrus Towers

Casual Friday

Ya'll know that my casual is other people's dressy, and I'm disappointed in the casualization of society. You may disagree with me, but you'll have to agree that this co-worker has taken it too far!

I'm Sticking to Chocolate and Strawberry: Beautiful and Delicious

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue (and a Sixpence in My Shoe?)
A common theme that you’ve no doubt noticed throughout this post: humans used to be a superstitious bunch. This rhyming phrase neatly lists a number of English customs dating back to the Victorian age which, when worn in combination, should bring the bride oodles of fabulous good luck. The something old was meant to tie the bride to her family and her past, while the something new represented her new life as the property of a new family. The item borrowed was supposed to be taken from someone who was already a successfully married wife, so as to pass on a bit of her good fortune to the new bride. The color blue (Virgin Mary-approved!) stood for all sorts of super fun things like faithfulness, loyalty, and purity. The sixpence, of course, was meant to bring the bride and her new groom actual, cold, hard fortune. Just in case that wasn’t enough, brides of yore also carried bunches of herbs (which most brides now replace with expensive, out-of-season peonies) to ward off evil spirits.

via http://www.mentalfloss.com/ (again)