Miss Chief

Sometimes I would like to be a superhero, so I could have my own action figure. I still have my brother’s underoos superman cape that he wore when he dove into the empty bathtub and bonked his head. Apparently, the cape is not imbued with superpowers. It is, however, imbued with eau de my mom’s basement. But I love it.

Well, I may not be a superhero, but I can make myself into a cartoon character! Using FotoFlexer.com, you can apply all kinds of effects to your photos, including cartoonizing them. (Some people get annoyed at turning nouns into verbs. Like “calendar.” When did we stop saying, “I’ll put that on my calendar,” and start saying, “I’ll calendar that.” Interesting. So I’m sorry to those non-verbizers out there.)

The best thing about fotoflexer? It’s freeeeee! You upload a photo, mess around with it, and save it back to your computer as a jpeg.

I think I might call my cartoon strip, “Miss Chief.” I’m bossy, so the chief part works great. Add the Miss, and you get the very thing into which I get myself all the time. Mischief.

I think the cartoon thing would work out for me, because I’m always learning some kind of funny lesson. It usually takes more than four frames’ worth of experience to get there, though. If only I learned as quickly as Ziggy! Then I’d have more time for wedding planning! But I would also be a tiny little bald guy.

“The Mister” already sounds superheroesque. Miss Chief and The Mister! Here we are . . . .

Royalty

I do not want to wear a glittery rhinestone tiara at the wedding. I know, I know, everyone says the wedding is my day to be a princess, but really I’m just a regular girl who’s marrying a prince of a man. Kind of like Cinderella.

To be honest, I just don’t like sparkly things that aren’t real. I mean, if the Queen of England offered me a diamond and platinum tiara, I’d wear it for sure. Something made out of foil-backed plastic and spray-painted base metal – not so much. If you have a tiara, more tower poo ya, as my friend Erika used to say. They look amazing on other brides (and downhill skiers), but they just aren’t my thing.

But today, I saw this amazing diy craft to make my own crown . . . out of lace!

All you need is some lace and a little modge podge or white elmer’s glue. You can jazz it up a bit with paint and gold or silver leaf, too.

While I might not be royalty, I do like to think that I’m a lady-in-waiting on the diy wedding court. Whether I have the chutzpah to wear a crown on the wedding day still remains to be seen. So for now, I’ll just leave you with the royal wave.

Re-stuck

Well, my sticky situation is re-stuck. No details now . . . . But please think good thoughts for me. I need 'em.

Sticky Situation

After fretting for weeks about the who-walks-Jules-down-the-aisle conversations, they went great. Mr. Mama, with whom I lived growing up, was more than happy to share the honor(duty?) with Pop. And Pop graciously did the same, with nary a ruffled feather or word of complaint. Whew!

Then I started thinking about what would happen when we got down to the altar. The officiant usually says something like, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

The tradition of giving the bride away apparently came from the days when marriage was as fiscal a transaction as a relational one. One set of parents was giving money to the other set, and the act of giving the bride away signified that the arrangements were complete. It also meant that the bride was no longer financially dependent on her parents, and was now dependent on the groom.

I am a feminist. And by that I mean that I try to differentiate the position of women from that of a doormat, to paraphrase Rebecca West. So I gave no small measure of thought to the idea of nixing the “Who gives this woman” part of the ceremony. First of all, I’m not a possession to be given away. I’m a person, for heaven’s sake! Second, to the extent I “belong” to my parents, they’re not giving me away--they can’t get rid of me that easily! They’re just marring me off. (Wink.) Finally, I’m not going to be dependent on my groom! I don’t like being dependent on anybody. (Does anyone else have trouble clicking on the “Submit” button on internet forms? Can’t the button say, “OK” or “Enter” or something?! I do NOT want to submit! (I guess that makes it clear whether we’re going to say “obey” in our vows.) Humph.)

source

But the Mister is nothing if he’s not traditional, and if I wasn’t going to say “obey,” he wanted the “who gives this woman” yadda yadda yadda in the ceremony. I do like tradition as much as the next gal . . . so I agreed.

But I wanted to change the response! “I give myself freely!” seemed just about right to me. It effectively says, “I own myself!” Mama and Pop were horrified. Horr. If. Fied! Apparently, the idea of a ukulele band was more palatable to them than me giving my own self away. They might not agree on much, but they backed each other up on this one. Who am I to fight this kind of parental unity?

Besides, I realized that this is their one really active role in the ceremony. I’m not doin’ the unity candle. If I take their speaking part, they might feel compelled to speak now rather than forever hold their peace, if you know what I mean.

OK. So what WAS the response going to be? I didn’t want to leave anyone out of the equation, so the usual, “Her mother and I do,” wasn’t going to cut it. I belong to Mr. Mama and Mrs. Pop as much as I do to Mama and Pop! If I’ve done nothing else in this blog, I hope I've made is abundantly clear. I also wanted to avoid the dads talking over each other or murmuring different things. So, with the help of Mama, I came up with a two main options:

Pop and Mr. Mama: We do.

Pop and Mr. Mama: Her parents do.

I pitched these to Pop, who murmured something about it not sounding very official. He doesn’t get to be too involved in the wedding planning. And this is his speaking part! He’s not the type to come up with ceremony wording, but he does like to vote on the options. So I called Mama to brainstorm. And she came up with a winner! Without further ado . . .

Officiant: Pop, do you and Mrs. Pop give this woman to be married to this man?
Pop: We do.
Officiant: Mr. Mama, do you and Mama give this woman to be married to this man?
Mr. Mama: We do.

Sticky situation . . . well . . . unstuck.

Out Loud

My favorite part of planning the wedding so far has been the opportunity for people to say nice things to each other. After my twin died, I realized that while people say lovely things ABOUT their friends and family, people hardly ever say those things TO their loved ones. I made a conscious decision to communicate all the nice things I heard about others directly to them. Life’s too short to only hear the spiteful gossip, no? And when I’m thinking something nice, I go on and say it. Why not share the love?

When parts of the wedding involve saying kind things, it makes me even happier than I already would be planning a giant hoedown with a big white poofy dress and lots o’ cake. That’s pretty danged happy.

One opportunity we had to say the good stuff was at our awesome engagement party. First of all, it was a party to celebrate that another party is comin’ up! (The wedding. Duh!) If a party on its own is great, then a party to celebrate another party is great squared.

My MOH planned the shindig. It. Was. Amazing. We had about forty people there! Nearby friends . . .
. . . and family.

I wore the special locket with my twin’s picture inside, so he could be there too. Here I am showing it to Mrs. Pop.

Super-MOH didn’t do it all on her own – this lovely lady (I’ll call her Soul Sister) helped with the preparations and laughed so much, she got us all in on the act.

Did I mention there was cake?

But my favorite parts of our engagement party were when people got to say and write nice things. My MOH put engagement pictures of us on each table, along with bottles of wine, which the guests signed with well-wishes and funny quips.

My MOH and Pop each gave a toast.

And I toasted the host, my best girl.

My neighbor once said that he didn’t want flowers at his funeral. “Don’t wait ‘till I’m dead,” he said. I sent him the biggest bouquet I could find the very next day.

There are lots of chances to say the really important things in life. I like the few moments just before I drop off to sleep, because the good thoughts swim to the surface of consciousness like little silver bubbles. But there are regular every day moments too – in the car at a stoplight. When you’re cooking dinner. Sometimes I think nice things when I’m brushing my teeth, but no one can understand what I’m saying through the globs of toothpaste. (Mrph toodee, schlobbr!)

Don’t forget the big moments too, especially at a wedding. Saying your vows. Whispering to your spouse just after you recess back down the aisle. Toasting your parents.

The next time you hear or think something nice about someone, just go on and say it. Out loud.

And now, to end this post on a less sentimental note, here’s my favorite photo from the engagement party. Pop. Being . . . Pop. Love it.

Link Between Earth and Sky

After my twin brother died, I had a dream. It was about designing and making jewelry in memory of him. I started a jewelry business and began selling my jewelry locally. This creative outlet helped me make something lovely out of my grief. Holidays, which were especially painful times without my twin, became times of anticipation and happiness. Just knowing that people were opening gifts of my jewelry from their loved ones made those days seem lighter and better.

I paired each piece of jewelry with a card bearing the meaning of the primary gemstone and a quotation that relates to the meaning. I hoped that the recipients of the jewelry would find meaning in their gems, but also in the world around them.

While I will never be fully healed from the loss of my twin, I have had a different sense of wholeness since I met the Mister. Instead of continuing to expand my jewelry business, I began to focus on building a life with him, which included planning our wedding. The wedding planning became a new creative outlet, and I focused less on my jewelry. Part of me even wondered whether the work of my jewelry was nearing completion.

This week, however, I received an email that reminded me why I design my jewelry and sell it in places where it can reach people I don’t even know.

Here is the email:

My Fiance (Charlie) purchased one of your necklaces for my birthday which was September 11, 2008. Our wedding was to be on November 15, 2008 and we are both Scottish so we were using the Celtic theme for the wedding. This necklace follows on that theme you could say. One of the things on the enclosed reading material really hits home more than ever, "The Tree collection contains wood, which symbolizes life. In the Celtic tradition, trees represent the bridge between earth and sky, between mankind and God." My Fiance died on September 20th in a hit and run accident, he was on his way to his second job to help with our wedding. This necklace means the world to me and I wear it everyday. I would like to get a similar necklace for Charlie’s sister.

This incredible woman is only a month from the loss of her fiancé (and less than a month until the day she was to marry him). Her pain must be acute and unfathomable. That the necklace represents her continued link with her beloved is amazingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. I am humbled to play a tiny part in a love that lasts beyond death.

That she wants to share that link with his sister awes me further. I know that God will bless her giving spirit and mend her heart.

I responded that I would be honored to create a similar necklace for his sister. And I told her that, while she will never forget Charlie, in time it will become easier to remember him.

As the Mister and I continue to plan our wedding with Scottish traditions, we are reminded that each day is a gift. We will remember our lost loved ones on our wedding day. Although we never met him, Charlie will undoubtedly be among them.

Pencils

Speaking of pencils . . . the Mister and I are trying to come up with a cute phrase to put on the pencils for our pinwheels.

Here are some options, most of which were suggested by Ellie over at the lucky nest. Which do you like?

love makes the world go 'round

life without love is like a pencil without lead -- pointless

love is the signature of our lives

write your own love story