I Care Too Much What People Think

On Monday, I joined a group of my female coworkers for our monthly lunch out on the town. At the end, I got into a conversation with a girl that I don't know well about my wedding (she didn't even know I was engaged). She asked me if I was having a big wedding, and I said no - we'd only be having around 80 to 100 people. Not small, but by no means big!

Then I felt compelled to say, "I'm so over it though - I wish I'd have just gone to the courthouse."

But I don't wish for a courthouse wedding. Why did I say that? Why do I always say that when people ask me about my wedding? Is it because I feel the need to justify all the attention I'm paying to a day that is all about me? Is it because I feel the need to justify all the money we're spending? Is it because I don't think it's "cool" to be into weddings?!?

And then yesterday I read this great post by blogger Mrs. Cheese on Weddingbee. She said everything I was thinking - and so much better than I could have said it. Here's my favorite part:

"When I was engaged, I felt the unspoken pressure to make excuses for having a real wedding, to blame my parents or my husband or my family’s traditions for making me go through with it. For a while I even tried to convince myself that I had no choice. But I did, and clearly it was my choice, since my sweet husband would have gone along with whatever made me happy. And I’m glad I chose our wedding.


Weddings are awesome and I’m not afraid to say so. Because it needs to be said, don’t you think?"

I know it goes both ways, though. In some circles, there are those who feel the need to rationalize why they chose a courthouse wedding rather than a more elaborate affair. Or why they chose a sapphire instead of a diamond as an engagement ring. Or why they decided not to have a sit-down dinner or why they aren't serving alcohol or whatever! 

The thing that really pisses me off about weddings is how they so often become pissing contests, and even if you couldn't care less who pissed farthest (is that the object of a pissing contest?), you get caught up in it by proxy. I often wonder if people are looking at what I'm doing thinking this or that about me and my family and my future fiance.

My friend A is also engaged, and she is throwing a huge, elaborate, high-budget wedding in a big city. Sometimes I find myself comparing the different aspects of our weddings as we plan them. I feel like I have to rationalize why we're limiting ourselves to a $100 invitation budget, or why Mr. Gorgeous doesn't want to honeymoon in the Caribbean.

I'm so sick of comparing my wedding to other people's. Why can't I just accept what I'm doing for what it is: Not a huge and traditional extravaganza. Not a simple courthouse union. Somewhere in between. When will I stop feeling like I have to rationalize myself to others?

Did any of you have struggles like this in your wedding planning?

Merging our Finances

For several weeks, Mr. Gorgeous and I had planned to go to the bank to create a "joint account." That's what we'd been calling it: a joint account. I asked him the night before to talk with me while I was doing the dishes so we could talk through how it was all going to work. We both assumed we were on the same page about everything, but I just wanted to talk it out. Good thing, because it turned out we weren't even in the same book.

Here, he had thought we were going to start a joint savings account to save up for the wedding together, and I assumed we were going to start a joint checking account to start paying for our combined expenses together. "Shit, I'm glad we decided to talk about this," he said.

We so rarely sit down with the intention of having a serious conversation, that once we decided to do so, we really had no idea where to start. After some muttering and fumbling and looking at each other funny, I finally told him: "OK, you tell me what you thought and why."

Once we both explained our positions, he decided he really liked my idea. It was clear to both of us that if we combined forces financially, we could really see where we stood every month. He could better track my spending, I could better budget my personal expenses (I'm the frivolous spender in the relationship; he's very frugal), and at the end of the month, we'd have the clearest picture of what we'd used to support ourselves and how much we had left to put toward various savings ventures.

We are each keeping our own personal bank accounts, and we will take a specified amount of money from each paycheck for that account as a personal fund. We will also keep our own personal savings accounts, for now, although I suspect we will combine them soon.

Mr. Gorgeous and I grew up with very different attitudes about money. I was an only child, and my dad was a CEO of a hospital. He was the third of four children and his family, at times, struggled financially. I grew up to believe that if I wanted something, I could probably have it. He grew up with a much stronger work ethic and knew from the get-go that money didn't grow on trees. While I've learned a lot about managing my money in the last four years or so, I bring home a pretty decent paycheck and never felt an overwhelming need to save. So if I wanted something and I had the money in the bank - I bought it!

Going to the bank to open up our joint account was nearly as symbolic as I imagine marriage to be. This is where we truly combine our lives. This is where we take on each others' liabilities and benefit from each others' successes. I knew that my spending habits would have to change. And I'm totally ok with it. There's no I in tieam. Oh look, I snuck one in there!!! ;)

Seriously, though, I know we're headed for bigger and better things. Between the two of us, our decent salaries, and our kick-ass rent, we can save a lot of money for all those things we want in the future, like a nice wedding, a home, and then maybe a baby. We've had the joint account open for almost two weeks now, and it's gotten us talking a lot more about money. We ask each other, "Did you spend any money today?" And it's a question of genuine curiosity, not coming from an attitude of accusation.  I know that we'll have fights about money, and I told him so when we were talking. But I also told him, "I want us to recognize right now that we'll fight, but that we'll get through it because we're rational beings and we love each other... more than money."

How do you and your significant other manage finances? Do you have a joint account? If so, do you each have your own as well?

My Family is Crazy

I always wanted a really normal family - one that truly enjoyed being together. One that had wholesome holiday traditions. The kind you see in sappy holiday films. But that's just not my family. (Is it anyone's?)
I originally decided that Mr. Gorgeous and I should go to my mom's for Thanksgiving because, now that both of my brothers are in college, I rarely see them. And we already spend a lot of time with his family, so I thought we should split it up a bit. The "guest list" was originally just myself and my fiance, my mom, and my two brothers. By Thursday, though, it had grown to also include Carol - a dear friend of the family - and my mom's boyfriend.

You see, with my mom, nothing ever goes as planned. We originally set out to eat around 11. I don't think dinner was on the table until two. Carol arrived at my mom's around 7:30, and I got there at 9. We started drinking immediately - mimosas, then Red Cat wine, then beer. Carol took charge of most of the cooking, while Mr. Gorgeous and I helped, I made my friend A's mac & cheese recipe, and my mom mostly just drank. Bless her heart.

It ended up being my most memorable Thanksgiving ever. We all helped. (Except for maybe my mom, but she hosted - so whatever!) It really felt like a group effort, and by the time we all sat down to the table, it was obvious that - in some crazy ass way or another - we were all family. To me, this Thanksgiving was all about forgetting all those standards I thought my family didn't live up to, and accepting them for exactly who and what they are.

I give thanks for the family that I have instead of sending pleas out into the ether for a family I don't have. "Grass-is-greener" mentality, begone. I have a family who doesn't look at me funny when I start drinking at 9 in the morning. Or earlier. I have a family among whom I can say anything - no, really. I have a family to whom I am always a success. I was happy to play a part in creating a Thanksgiving dinner for these people, and they were happy to be with me as well. What more can any one person rightfully ask for?

I wanted to share my mac & cheese recipe that I got and tweaked from A. I'll include it exactly how I did it; just know that pretty much, you can do no wrong with this. A told me that, and she was absolutely right. I did my thing, and it turned out wonderfully.

A's Mac & Cheese
4 cups uncooked macaroni elbows
Cooking spray
2 T butter
1/4 cup finely diced onion
2 cans (12 oz each) evaporated milk
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 block of Colby-Jack, chopped into small pieces

Cook the macaroni. Spray the inside of your slow cooker with cooking spray. Don't go lightly on this... you'll need it. Toss your al dente macaroni into the slow cooker with the butter. Add the onion, dump in the evaporated milk, then stir in all your cheese. Cook on high for one hour, then move the heat to low for another hour - and you're done! I stirred frequently throughout to make sure the cheese distributed evenly while melting.

It was so, so good. Mr. Gorgeous loved it, too, and he's a huge Kraft fan. You could really taste the onion (in a delicious way), so if you don't like onion, you may want to use less. (More if you really love it!) The Colby-Jack gave it a unique flavor, so if you're into a more traditional mac & cheese, you may want to replace it with more cheddar.

I hope all of you had fabulous Thanksgiving holidays - I've enjoyed reading about them! Is there anything about your family that you'd change? How have you come to accept the people that you're bonded to by blood?

The Spoils of War

As you know, shopping even this close to Xmas can be hazardous to your health. Shopping with my friend A, who was just in visiting from Houston this past weekend, can be doubly so. We spent no fewer than five hours scouring the Park City Center in Lancaster, PA for cute finds and great deals. Here are some of my favorite purchases!

New York & Company - Antique-Button Flower Cardigan

 

New York & Company - York Avenue Pull-on Heathered Stripe Pants

Sephora - Aquolina Pink Sugar

Giving Some Extra Thanks

On Sunday, some friends of friends were involved in a horrible 4-wheeler accident.

Every so often, a big group of folks get together for a 4-wheeler poker run. This past Sunday was one like any other, until one of the riders flipped his machine. Apparently, as he swerved to avoid hitting another rider, the machine flipped. Neither he nor his passenger were wearing helmets.

"I thought they were dead," my mom told me later. The rest of her description is too graphic for me to want to publish here. They were both life-flighted to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, PA.

The prognosis was grim for the driver - they didn't think he would make it through the night, but he is now showing some improvement. However, they've kept him sedated so they're not sure what, if any, permanent damage was done to the brain. His passenger will be sent home in a couple of days, or at least to a hospital closer to her home and her significant other.

The part that hits closest to home for me is that this could have been my mom and her boyfriend. She was there. It could have been another good friend of mine, who was also there. It could have been my 18-year-old brother, who was on the 4-wheeler directly behind the accident. It could have been my little brother, damn it.

Needless to say, I am so, so thankful to be spending Thanksgiving with my mom, my two brothers, one other person who was on the poker run, and my fiance - and I will be making sure to hug each one of them a little tighter than usual.

37 Days Until Xmas

There are 38 days until Xmas. Luckily for me, I have Etsy and all sorts of resourceful bloggers in my life. I am so happy to have discovered, through Peonies and Polaroids, Etsy seller littlebrownpen. Talk about some great gift ideas!

 

This calendar is totally the gift that keeps on giving, and I can totally see it on the wall of a dear friend who loves Paris and all things European! 

Yum. Who doesn't love whoopie pies?? This is such a cute idea for a gift, too. Seller littlebrownpen will send her tried and true recipe, as well as these adorable muslin bags and whoopie-pie gift tags so you can share the love with eight of your closest pals (or those family members for whom you have no idea what to buy). 

And then just by happenstance, as I was searching for cookie recipes the other day, I stumbled upon this recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Mix in a Jar. I am going to make people fat this Xmas!

Also, check out this great holiday gift post by Fabulously Broke in the City.

Have you gotten any cool gift ideas lately?

**all images courtesy of littlebrownpen on Etsy

Houses Become Homes

Going through the engagement process, I think a lot about home and family. I am, essentially, creating my family with every move I make. By this time next year, I will have a husband. By this time three years from now, we'll likely be trying for a baby (though nothing's set in stone, I know he's more than ready). It's important to me that the life we create feel like home.

I moved out of my parents' home when I was 16 and never cared to look back. I'm 26 now, so by the time I'm married, I'll have been "on my own" for a decade. Right after I moved out, my parents sold my childhood home and moved away. So I felt a little bit transient all through college. When I got my first real apartment by myself, six years later, I started to feel more comfortable alone, but it wasn't until my second apartment - in a town where I knew no one - that I really learned to feel at home all by myself. I don't know what it was that finally clicked. It could have been that I was in a comfortable relationship, even though we hardly ever saw each other. Or it could have been just plain time and maturity.

{Us in 2007 - speaking of maturity!}

It actually took me a lot longer to feel at home when I moved into Mr. Gorgeous' house. It was his house, you know? And our relationship hadn't truly been tested yet. I'd been living out of town for the past year. We went through rough patches. We had our moments. But sometimes, I just wished that I lived alone again.

Now, though, our relationship has matured a lot. We're engaged. We know each other through and through. And we have these two beautiful dogs that make my day beautiful, every day. Home has finally become, to me, this place that we create - the two of us. It's coming home from work to two wagging tails in the window or at the fence line. It's coming in the door to paws on my chest and a hug from the mister. It's making dinner together then sitting down in front of the TV and talking about our days. It's drinking a glass of wine in my pajamas. It's being totally cool with watching the other TV if I get bored with whatever sports game he's watching. It's being ok with not sleeping next to one another every night, if one of us falls asleep on the couch or if he stays downstairs to watch the fire in the winter.

{Mr. Gorgeous and our girls - 2008}

My fiance - and this place that we've built to be our own - is home to me. And I look to my future and know that wherever we are, as long as we're together, we will be at home together. Sometimes I will make him dinner. Sometimes I will fold his laundry. Sometimes I will wipe his whiskers out of the bathroom sink. Sometimes he will do the dishes. And sometimes we'll do those things together. Someday we'll buy a house. Maybe we'll do some landscaping in the backyard, or build a deck. Maybe we'll have a child together, and teach it how to grow, to learn, to play, to think, to live. We'll have rough times, and we'll have beautiful times.

We won't have extraordinary lives. We won't be actors, models, or rock stars. We won't make millions of dollars. We will struggle at times, and sometimes we might even question the decisions we make now with such optimism and glee. But as long as we have each other, we're home.

{One of our engagement photos - 2009}

What does home mean to you?

Cookies.

The Mister and I love to bake. My favorite things are muffins and breads with any and every kind of fruit in them. He likes brownies. Heavenly chocolate brownies. But with the holiday season fast-approaching, our focus is turning toward cookies. Last night, I decided to try my hand at from-scratch cookies (we typically use the bagged mixes). While I am a chocolate-chip or peanut-butter kinda girl, Mr. Gorgeous specifically requested oatmeal raisin - so I went on the hunt for a recipe.

I found one. Oh, LORD, did I find one: "thick, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies" at Smitten Kitchen.

This is a half recipe. It makes a couple dozen standard-size cookies. (I get more because I make them tinier.) I always feel like I’m swimming in cookies when I make the full volume, but if you’re feeding a crowd, go ahead and double it.

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt (I often use a half teaspoon, but I like more salt in my baked goods)
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.

At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them. You could also bake them right away, if you’re impatient, but I do find that they end up slighly less thick.

The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

I followed Deb's directions pretty much to the letter - hey, it was my first time! - with the following exceptions: I replaced 1/3 of the flour with King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour in an attempt to be semi-healthy. I did not chill my dough... we were too impatient for that. I did not use the walnuts. And I made my cookies pretty big; we ended up with about a dozen. Though I made the cookies rather large, I still only baked them for ten minutes. The Mister likes his baked goods just this side of done, so the mushier, the better.

These cookies did not come out super-sweet. They were delicious, though, and had sort of an earthy undertone. I imagine this is because 1) this recipe doesn't call for a lot of sugar, and 2) I used that whole wheat flour. Despite my not typically being a huge oatmeal-raisin fan, these cookies were phenomenal, and I will definitely be keeping them in my repertoire. Next time I make them, I'm doubling the recipe, as we only had five or so left this morning!

Serendipitously, A at Accordions and Lace also posted about a Smitten Kitchen recipe: "martha's macaroni and cheese," adapted from Martha Stewart... and it. looks. fabulous. It is on my Must Make list!

Do you have any great cookie recipes?

Wifing Skills

wifing [wahyf-ing]
-verb
1. the act of being a wife

I have a confession to make........ I'm (a wee tiny bit, on occasion maybe, sometimes) lazy.

I used to be proud of my ability to do nothing. Give me a comfy chair, a laptop, and a television (maybe some movies if there's no cable), and I am the master of just being for days on end. But I was single then... and now I'm not. It's a hard thing for me to admit now, as I get older; I don't want to be lazy. And now that I'm engaged, I've been thinking a lot about my changing roles in life and in the household.

I see all these strong women around me, working all day then going home and working all evening to make sure their house is spotless, their significant others/kids are fed, and everyone is happy. I want my house to be clean. I really do. But after leaving the house at 7 a.m. to get to work and arriving home at 5:45, I don't want to clean out the fridge. I don't want to wash the coffee pot. And for goodness' sake, I don't want to wash the dishes, by hand, since we don't have a dishwasher. (We've moved away from making instant meals like frozen bagged meals or things from a box in the interest of health, and I'm sure you know how many more dishes that dirties and how much longer it takes to prepare.)

I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I want done and still have time to myself. I have big aspirations for myself - reading all those new books I still haven't cracked, blogging, and watching all those new movies I want to see. Not to mention that I haven't picked up my guitar in over a year.

Those are the things I don't have time to do, but there are these other things, too - the things that I don't even know how to do. I'm not crafty, I can't make cute things, I don't know a lot of fabulous recipes for dinner parties, and I've never sewn a stitch in my life. Not one.

It seems like the 50s-style homemaker is really coming back in vogue now. Women are proud to be happy housewives. And that's alright! But I'm a career-minded woman, I have a master's degree, and I'm not very, well, motherly. I get pissed off at my fiance when I come home to his lunch plates still sitting on the coffee table, or when I go into the bathroom in the morning and his dirty clothes are still on the floor.

So, I've been thinking... will I be a bad wife?? 

I hope not. But just for funsies, I Googled "being a good wife." Everything seems to be focused on the housewife - but what about us ladies who work? I leave a half-hour after my fiance in the morning, and get home typically between 30 - 45 minutes after him! So what kind of role does the wife play when she shares duties with her husband?

What do you think it means to be a good wife?