Secret Compartments

Holy Moly! Take a look at this new, literary take on a ring pillow. A book! With a secret compartment! Instructions over on Once Wed.

Simply amazing.

MOH

This is how I feel about Super Tall Girl, my MOH:

Oh, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away. -- George Eliot

Magical Machines

Oh. My. Gosh. I loooove Super Tall Girl’s Magical Xyron Machine.

The Mister and I recently received the raw materials for our invitations from the letterpresser. (You remember, the page on which I had put all our invitation design elements, including the front and back of the RSVP postcard, decorative elements for our thank you notes, and the invitation itself.) I had them cut at Kinko’s. And then I started putting them together. With the magic of Xyron.

You put paper into the machine, turn the crank, and voila! Out it comes on the other side, with the back side completely coated with ubersticky stuff.

It reminds me of the Dr. Seussical machine that Sylvester McMonkey McBean uses to put stars on the bellies of the starless Sneeches:
Fortunately, I’m using my magical machine for good, not for evil.

And if you have not read the story of the Sneeches, you really, really must. It’s amazing how children’s stories can make things like nondiscrimination and self-acceptance seem so . . . elegant. Now if only we can apply the moral of that story to combating the commercialism of weddings. I’m workin’ on it.

A Long and Beautiful Wedding (The Journey)

Meg over at apracticalwedding.com wrote this bit of genius today:

Do you know that in Judaism, your wedding starts the moment that you get engaged, and only ends a year after your wedding? I love this, because for me the process has been so enlightening, and the journey is perhaps as important as the destination.

What a beautiful concept!

Our wedding has already begun, with the gathering of family and friends to celebrate our engagement and to plan pre-ceremony showers and post-ceremony reception festivities.

And our wedding will continue long after the rice is swept away, as we open gifts, nest in our home, and enjoy each other’s company.

I feel like I can finally take a deep breath, for the first time in a very long time. Thank you, Meg, for reminding us what it’s all about.

Too Many Toasters!

The Mister and I already have a toaster. And, to be honest, we don’t toast all that much. So in the interest of saving the limited number of toasters in the world for people who really, really love toast, we decided to register.

We knew we wanted Crate & Barrel. Just walking in that store makes shoppers want to get married, so they can get all that really cool stuff without having to pay for it all at once. But I was worried about taking the Mister to a place with so many fragile things. He’s . . . hard on stuff. In the past year, he has broken five (yes, five!) shower heads. I gave away my lovely crystal wine glasses to a friend, because I didn’t think they’d survive a week in the hands of my incredible hulk.

He acknowledges that he is rough on things. In fact, he calls himself “a bull in a china cabinet.” I think the proper turn of phrase is “a bull in a china shop,” but the image of a bull trapped inside a china cabinet always makes me chuckle, so I’ve adopted this new epithet for him.

He’d have snapped me like a twig already, except that I’m relatively strong and not easily broken. My baby book says that I am “a sturdy little Dutchman.” Ouch.

So, I had a plan. I’d take the Mister to C&B, sit him down in the corner of the store, and bring him plates and glassware to examine. This plan worked. Until I realized that I had placed him within reach of a precarious tower of wineglasses at least four glasses high. Like this:




He saw what I didn’t -- that the layers of wineglasses were separated by clear plexiglass, and that one glass on the edge wasn’t actually supporting the gravity-defying spire. He waited until I was across the store, selecting another platter for him to consider, and he gave me his evil grin. Slowly, he pulled out that single wineglass.

My. Heart. Stopped. I had visions of an avalanche of glass shards and the accompanying bills we’d have to pay. For the injuries to other shoppers. For every broken glass. For the attorney’s fees to cover my defense for the intentional (but justified) murder of the Mister.

When I realized that disaster had been averted and I started breathing again, I said to the Mister, “I hope that was worth the year of my life you just stole from me.” I think he winked at me. Cheeky bugger.

After that experience, I knew I couldn’t handle another in-store registry experience, so we started looking online. But we didn’t want to register at a whole bunch of stores to get all the diverse things we hoped to receive, which included bed sheets, movie tickets, a cherry pitter, and artwork. Fortunately, I stumbled upon a great registry site, wishpot.com. It creates a wish list of everything you want from every store on the web. It even allowed us to add donations to several charities, like Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Nature Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity, and local charities too!

Wishpot’s not just for registries, it can be used to send next year’s wish list to Santa, or to keep a list of the things you want to buy when the economy isn’t in the tank. Check it out. And for readers who know the Mister and me in real life, feel free to check out our registry by clicking on “Looking for People” near the top of with wishpot homepage, then entering my last name.

(P.S. Thank you for not buying us another toaster.)