Flowers

I almost cried when the florist told me peonies won't be in season in early March. Behold their beauty:

bridal bouquet of peonies

I love whites with hints of blush and cream. But no peonies for me.  Hydrangeas will have to do.

This is close to what my table centerpieces will look like, I think:

hydrangeas in clear trumpet vases

Or maybe they'll look completely different? My florist is taking me to the wholesale market a couple of weeks before the wedding to pick out what's prettiest of the season. 

Knives

Forget China and and crystal. I'm all about knives. Really, really nice knives. 

Shun Premier Santoku knife and pairing knife

Shun Premier 8" chef knife

Shun Premier knives are reminiscent to the hand-forged knives of ancient Japan. Every blade features a VG-10 steel core, clad with 32-layers of Damascus stainless and special hammered tsuchime finish. The tsuchime finish reduces the drag when cutting to assure a clean easy cut and adds beauty to this collection. The hammered blade is enhanced with a contoured walnut-stained Pakkawood handle. Made in Japan.

Look at the pretty hammered blades! And those handles. I've never had anything this nice. I may switch out the Santoku for a bread knife, as I've read you really only need a paring knife, chef knife, and bread knife. But the paring + Santoku set is such a steal. Now I need to learn to cook a little better. I cook often. Just not well.

Early Christmas with the relatives

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with the relatives on my dad's side. Meet my future flower girls:

She got five grown men to join her in a rendition of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Magic Christmas princess 

All toddlers are adorable, but these two especially so. Sadly my third niece, Tabs, is missing. I'll see her Christmas morning though.

Another thing that makes our Christmas amazing: we do a Secret Santa exchange instead of buying gifts for everyone. Each relative draws a name to buy a present for, and then that person says explicitly what they would like, preferably with an Amazon wish list. It's the best. I got Beech Tree sheets that I'd added to my wedding registry as soon as I got engaged. These are the best sheets I've ever had. They're super soft and half the price of luxury sheets from Nordstrom. Highly recommend.

In other news Hunter and I are sick with head colds. His is worse than mine.

Invitation, rehearsal dinner dress, rings

My invitations came today: letterpress on card stock with a slate gray backing.

(I removed my parents' names from the top for privacy. Maybe I should've taken mine off too but meh.)

And I bought my rehearsal dinner dress:

La Jola dress from BHLDN

I'd actually uploaded this dress to my Pinterest three months ago, then my mom and I picked out the same one when we were out shopping without realizing we'd seen it before.

This is not en vogue, but I've decided on plain white gold wedding bands. I originally wanted to weld a sparkly band to my engagement ring, but I want a wedding ring I can wear everywhere all the time. I take off my engagement ring whenever I wash my hands, work out, put on lotion, etc. (Colored gems show dirt and look cloudy faster than clear ones.) This is my engagement ring:

1.8 carat Kashmir sapphire / designed & hand set in Jaipur, India

All I want is luggage that looks like it's from a Wes Anderson film.

On my wish list: luggage that belongs in a Wes Anderson film.

Custom-made Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton luggage for The Darjeeling Limited

The Entrepreneur collection from Steamline Luggage 

The Monarch collection from Steamline Luggage 

Is this too much to ask for a wedding gift? Apparently so. Only a handful of designers even offer vintage-inspired luggage to begin with. And the carry-ons start at $500. A bit much for a registry item. (I'm impractical, not insane.)

I guess some of the mid-priced stuff from London Fog is cute? 

I remember as a little kid I always thought nice luggage was the worst prize on game shows like The Price Is Right, up there with winning a vacuum. I wondered why anyone would ever get excited about stupid suitcases. And now I'm one of those people who gets excited about stupid suitcases. 

Vanity sizing

I sneaked a peek at my measurements at the bridal store out of curiosity. The sales lady had subtracted an inch or more from every measurement. (I remeasured myself at home to make sure: yep, at least an inch had been knocked off of my bust, waist, and hips.) Why would you do that. Is this some tailoring practice I'm unaware of? Below is the size chart for my dress:

But this chart is completely inaccurate. The waist of their size 6 is actually about 28 inches, not 25.5. I guess it's like how guys' size 32 waist pants are often more like 33 or 34 inches. I can understand making a size 6 larger to accommodate Americans' expanding waistlines, but shouldn't the measurements listed in the size chart be adjusted to reflect this?

Here is an interesting excerpt from a term paper on vanity sizing. Essentially women's clothing used to be done by age and start at size 14, as in fit for a 14-year-old. Yes, the smallest size was a 14. The bust of a size 14 was 32 inches. Now a size 00 has a bust of 32 inches. This timeline pinpoints when sizes smaller than a 14 were introduced to cope with vanity sizing:

Dress is here

Tried on The Dress today. Oh dear god. DEAR GOD.

Let me walk you through the wedding dress process. First you try on samples in size 12 because that's all they have in the store in order to torture you. All of them will look like you are standing in glittery white sleeping bags. Some lady will then hook jumper cable clamp things to your back to gather up the extra fabric. You will pick the least sleeping bag-like of the dresses. Six months later it will arrive, and you will get to see if the size arbitrarily selected fits. (You're a street size 2? Great, we've ordered you a size 8.) Then you'll pay hundreds of dollars to have it altered.

Mine mostly fit; the waist has to be taken in a little and the hips have to be taken a lot because I have what I've decided to call an "athletic" build with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Also this dress is long. Very long. And it can't be hemmed because of a special lace trim plus I ordered it that length on purpose to go with heels, which may have been dumb. Now I see that these heels will need to be about 5" high, meaning I'll stand taller than my fiance. How cute. Look at us breaking heteronormative standards.

The sales lady was sweet and tried adding a petticoat to the bottom part of the dress to poof it out and take some of the length off. Looked like I was hiding a class of toddlers around my legs. Is there a movie where children emerge from the petticoats of a dress? Maybe Wizard of Oz when Dorothy meets the little constituents of the Lollipop King?

I don't know if they'd be constituents. I highly doubt anyone is democratically elected in Oz. That place's government seems unstable at best. Political assassinations by tornado & "water" (it was acid). And that wizard charlatan blowing Emerald City's budget on painted horses. Where was the press to report on that? Probably strung out on poppies, that's where. Horrible.

So imagine this dress plus a foot more of poof in either direction at the feet.

 Oh yeah, that's my dress. It's simple. My rules were no sequins, no rhinestones, no asymmetry, must have room for flask(s). It comes with these neat detachable sleeves. 

but I can't wear the sleeve-let thing because of my aforementioned athletic build. 

My options are: 

1. Wear 5" heels (maybe thick heels or wedges?) and definitely be taller than fiance and possibly fall while dancing.

2. Wear 4" heels and hope that pressing the dress makes it a little shorter. And if it doesn't, just let it drag the floor some.

3. Forget about shoes until the last minute, buy both 5" and 4" heels, have a panic attack, go barefoot, trip, ruin photos/entire life.

Leaning toward option 3. 

K I think I need to go volunteer at a soup kitchen to make up for how self-involved I've become. 

Hunter is offshore again as of yesterday afternoon. I didn't do a very good job making plans for myself. So of course I'm sort of down. Today I rewatched three Errol Morris documentaries and went to the gym. How come I never see anyone I know there when it's so close to Montrose and Midtown? Don't get me wrong, that's the best part about going to the gym. I've run into, like, two maybe three people I know in two years. I love it. My safe space.

 I don't like who I am without him. I'm brooding and quiet and a little mean. I think my hair even gets darker.

 Whenever Hunter says something bad about a stranger, even if it's deserved (which it always is), he follows it up with "I know you probably hate hearing this type of stuff," and I grin with my palms pressed together, fingers tapping, "No, no, please go on." It's so great to hear the good be bad if even just for a sentence or two.

Tuesday I try on The Dress again. You're supposed to schedule your alterations like 12 weeks out, which is pretty stupid considering my weight can change 10 lbs in that time. I should be giddy. But the whole dress part is a panic attack. Measuring tapes, ten different pairs of heels, veil styles, specialty bras. And I haven't added much of anything to my registry because I'm afraid I'll pick the wrong things, hate them, forget to return them, then pretend to use them for years to come. I guess I should get to the galleria and choose some stuff but the mall is not my safe space.

Which gods?

Hunter and I are not religious people. But my dad says we have to have god at our ceremony. But, like, which god? Buddha, Allah, Yahweh, Kali goddess of destruction? Do the each get +1s?

You won't remember your wedding at all.

I've heard over and over again that I'll remember "nothing but a blur" from my wedding. How depressing. Why pick out my flowers, why make a special playlist. Why anything. I can understand feeling overwhelmed at your reception, but blacking out and forgetting the entire evening? Are these brides being drugged?

Adventures in the gym part 2

Today at the gym I was staring at the squat rack debating if it was worth it to remove all the plates and put it at shoulder height when this guy started helping me.

He started taking the plates off two at a time and busted his finger. I said nothing and he kept going then the blood started. Just like dripping all over the fucking floor.

 "Are you okay?"

 "It's nothing."

 Then he tried to show me form still bleeding all over everything. So I got uncomfortable and told him I was blind. I'm a flirt.

What keeps me going on the stairmaster

Today at the gym I ran into a girl I had a class with in college in another life. I really hate running into people in places like the gym or the grocery store or really anywhere.

 She said hi and I nodded then she kept talking (the horror!) and said something I didn't hear.

"Sorry, what?" taking out my ear buds.

"What keeps you going on the stairmaster?" she said.

"Oh I think of everyone I've ever hated."

She looked confused. It was at this point that I realized she had meant my music, like what was I listening to. So you know I just walked away.

We bought a tiny, yellow house.

In September we bought a house in Brooke Smith Heights. It is tiny and yellow. Gated yard for future dog.

This is our new backyard. Except the grill is gone. If you'd like to provide us with one, we will accept.


We live by fancy restaurants. Love the guy's style on the left. Maybe he is a neighbor? Next on our list: Join the Brookesmith Civic Club.