Thought I forgot??

Even though I AM on vacation (and having a FAB time!!!!) there was no way on the entire GREEN earth I was going to forget.
Now, I MAY be a lil late - but can we HEAR it for less than 365 days to goooo???

*grins*

The friends and family met C. and he was a hit all around. :) He left this morning, and made it backto CIncy okay - sans luggage, but okay. SO far I have heard nothing but sunshie and light about him, and they are all underfirm instructions to be truthful. :) He was his usually charming self - and really I don't think it could have gone any better. :)

Well...I'm in Brooklyn right now, and it's my turn to play...so I will write more when I get back to PA.

jasmyn

A weighty matter

Dear Miss Manners,
I have been married to the girl next door for 22 years and when we married we were both in very good shape. We have three wonderful children and a marriage that lacks for romance.

I have maintained my size and shape after all these years because of my workout habits. My wife, even after the three births, was able to maintain a very sexy figure for years because of her workout habits.

Over the last six years, she has lost most of the joy and a majority of her discipline to work out and has gained weight. She went from a slim 120 pounds to 145 pounds and grew from a size small (6) to a large (10). Over the last year I have mentioned her weight many times. Too many times, to the point that I have hurt her feelings with several of these comments.

This is my question. How can I tell her the truth of how I feel toward her without hurting her? I still love her and would never divorce her but I have lived for the last six years with a women that I did not marry and would not have dated 22 years ago at her current size. She is only 40 years old!


Gentle Reader,
Honesty in marriage is vastly over-rated, Miss Manners has always thought. She can hardly think of a worse topic to be truthful about to your wife than that you feel aggrieved that her looks have changed after 22 years, and now consider her someone you would not date, let alone marry.

Even if you succeeded in upsetting her to the point where she wasted away -- although you would be taking the risk of driving her in the other direction, toward the refrigerator -- what good would it do you? She would only feel aggrieved that she married someone whose feelings had shrunken so unattractively.

The only acceptable way to go about encouraging her to lose weight is with flattery, not criticism. Tell her you are worried about her health because you love her so dearly. Tell her that the greatest present she could give you would be to let you see her once again in her wedding dress. Tell her that you hope she still finds you attractive. Just don¹t tell her that your having maintained your weight makes you entitled to a more attractive wife than you consider her to be.



Ya know - this is the kind of attitude that sends women into anoreixa. FOUR sizes over 22 YEARS and THREE children??? FOUR sizes. And he wouldn't have dated her at a 10? Oh god lord man! Did her marry her for her waistline or for love and compassion and trust and all that other good stuff?

Worried about her health!? *sighs* Since when does a size TEN put in the the 'unhelathily fat' stage? Even if she WAS say - 4'9....145 isn't super fat. Gee Whiz.

And the wife would be wrong if she complained that he couldn't get it up like the 18 y/o she married did.

Ugh.

jasmyn

Puzzlement

Not quite a wedding related entry - more of a marriage related entry.

I have this 'friend'. One of the few I have in Indy, and she is a kinda odd girl. But I don't have her oddity weigning on my mind today. She got married in November (the first wedding I went to) and seemed like the very epitome of a happy, loving, bride.

Move forward about - ohhhh - a little under a year.  She's cheating on her husband. With more than one man. Doesn't seem to have the LEAST bit of shame about it either. I'm pretty srue she's been doing it for about 3 or  months. She's pursuing something with the pionist at her CHURCH, and has done 'stuff' already with the father of her oldest child.

And I'm honestly puzzled. I truly don't understand. I was a bit of a wild child (yes, I DEFINITELY had my moments) but I grew out of them - and heaven knows I wouldn't even CONSIDER getting married if I knew I was still in my wild child stage. So I'm wondering - what makes people stray? Especially married people...and even MORE especially recently married people. Does the vows that they took mean jackSQUAT to them? Do they not see it as a serious thing? Or is it just a matter of plain old triflinginess?

I actually don't have as big of an issue with dating people who cheat...maybe because it's a lesser commitment. Maybe because that commitment hasn't been pledged for life. But when married folx stray...it's so much worse in my eyes - and I'm sure it's because <b> I'm </b> about to get married - and I can't imagine even opening myself to the POTENTIAL of hurting C. that much. Or opening myself to even the VAGUEST chance that something that I do (to 'scratch a itch' nonetheless) would destroy our relationship.

Eh. Just had to get that out.

As far as how I feel about her...I've lost just about all respect I had  for her. I don't trust her. I mean really - if she is willing to cheat on her husband of  TEN MONTHS with TWO men - I'm sure she would have absolutely NO problem lying to lil ole me. Yet my lack of friends who live here is making me very slow to really drop her.  *sigh* Eh.

jasmyn 

Vapors

Is it really sad that I will sit and just stare at the countdown clock for minutes at a time?






Yes...I thought so too.


*silly grin*



jasmyn

stumbling into something....

That might just be wonderful. Okay - this actualy has a kinda long lead in, but you gotta get the whole picture.

Where I work is in a kinda industrial area - not too far from downtown, but not the nicest part of town either. Occasionally, we would drive somewhere for lunch, and we drove past this huge rickety looking building.
Shortly after I got engaged, I noticed seeing what looked like wedding dresses in one of the windows - but they looked - odd. Almost like it was a consignement shop, or a thrift shop or something. I could tell they were NOT the run-of-the-mill dresses - but couldn't figure out why.
Okay - fast forward to today...well yesterday really. I went out last night for a lucious steak dinner, and I had about 5 or 6 oz of sreak left - that I knew I wanted for lunch. However, by the time I got home the LAST thing I wanted to do was put together lunch. Since I only live 8 minutes (I timed it today) from work - I figured I'd go home for lunch. So - on my way home for lunch today I notcied the shop again - and slowing down -yes, those were DEFINITELY wedding dresses. I went home, ate lunch, watched half an old episode of SNL, and then headed back to work. Naturally - I stopped in front of the shop to look better. Yup - wedding dresses - but they looked NEW. So I went in the graveled parking lot, and inside waht turned out to be a rather nice little office building. Wander the halls for a second - and VOILA! A Custom Bridal Desginer. Yup. As in she MAKES and DESIGNS wedding gowns. :) I was almost giggling the entire time I was in her shop. It's a small shop - but the dresses that she had on display actually looked rather nice (from the light inspection I did).
I'm excited. Of course - she said the gowns range from 300 to 5,000 (depending on fabric, intricacy, and decorations) but STILL!

So. An odd little encounter today. :) My next step is to take some time and go to a GOOD fabric store and get a general idea of how much the kind of fabric I want will cost. Oh yeah - and try something like that dress on. Heh.

jasmyn

*does a lil dance*

Okay. I'm excited - ys I am.

I know, I know, I said I was going to leave the dress thing alone right? But then! I was on the Knot (it's like a car wreck most days - sad & scary and utterly enthralling all at once) and was looking at this one girls stuff and she had a picture. What picture, you ask?? This picture:


which looks A LOT like this:

and then, I also found this one:

which also look alot like the one above it. The first one is a Simplicity Pattern, the second is a Mc'Calls pattern. I'm excited. I'm thrilled. I think that even if my mom can't/won't make it.... I could make it myself.

PS: After seeing them all together...I like the Mc'Calls one (with the blue dress) best. It's closet to the B.Moore dress.

*dancedancedance* The only thing is now - I need to be sure that I actually LIKE the dress on me. Wouldn't that just be SAD? After all this - if I don't like the dress. *sigh*

jasmyn

Hachet Job

I just took an axe to my guest list...and there are still too many people on there (for me).

I was talking to another bride, on another board - and she was talking about how she wants to elope. And that sent me back to thinking about how I pictured the wedding in the first place - very few people, very little hoohah - just me & the boy getting hitched. And I know that I'm slowly getting sucked into making it a big hoohah - and I'm not sure why.

My inital dream? No more than 20 people...but I know that's not going to happen because Corey's family alone is more than 20 people. However, I axed the ' & guests' off of everyone (unless they were married or had been together for over two years). And I'm still hoping that the 'friends' of the family all say no. I really wouldn't mind them NOT coming. Really. I wouldn't. The only people that I TRULY want/need there are Mitchell, Nee, Leon, JJ, my mother and my grandmother. That's it. From Corey's family - the only people that he REALLY wants there are his two brothers and his mother. Of course - since his family lives less than 2 hours away - the whole kit & kaboodle is coming (which adds up quickly). *sigh*

So. Don't know where that came from - it's not that I'm tired of planning (most is done and it still feels fun :)) it's more that I'm concerned that what we end up with will be something more than what we really wanted..

---

Okay - on to more cheerful things. We were thinking of having bookmarks for favors - something sweet that speaks to how we met. Instead though - I'm thinking we should have paper parasols - painted on one side with the symbol and on the other side with the date and our names. A nice stencil for both and a can of gold and burgandy spray paint and it will be all set. And - they will be useful as it will provide shade for the guests as they sit and the ceremony procedes. Besides - they are a hell of a lot cheaper. :) This is them:

and they open up to be about 32 inches. :) 24.95 a dozen...

What else? I'm still pondering the whole dress issue. GAH! I don't know. I think I'm just going to push it out of my head for right now - I've got a while to go before I can really start to seriously think about it. If I can't find anything - I WILL wear the cream and gold prom dress that I have - it can double as a causal wedding dress with ease. I need to get it cleaned...dear god.

jasmyn

Danggit.

Well. It would be just my luck that the dress I really like (the Bridgette Moore) is only sold in THREE states (MI, TX, MA) the closet salon is five hours away and the designer - she's Irish. Doesn't even have a website. :(
Hm. We have a project going live in Kinsale next year - maybe I can make it to Dublin on the compnay. *LOL*

Blimey.

Danggit.

Well. It would be just my luck that the dress I really like (the Bridgette Moore) is only sold in THREE states (MI, TX, MA) the closet salon is five hours away and the designer - she's Irish. Doesn't even have a website. :(
Hm. We have a project going live in Kinsale next year - maybe I can make it to Dublin on the compnay. *LOL*

Blimey.

Dresses

Okay. So last night, while I was at LB (being bored) I was thinking about dresses. I have only worn two or three really 'formal' gowns - but I know jsut from clothing what does and does not look good on me. However, I was having the HARDEST time actually visualizing what my gown would look like. At a lull - I went to one of the big mirrors and pulled my hair up ( i rarely wear it up cuz it iwsn't really long enough to look right just yet) just to see what it would looke like. I looked REALLY cute (suddenly more bridal) and I had a vision of what my dress MIGHT look like. I'm pretty stuck on the 'no white, no ivory' but almost everything else shifted.




To start with - I would like this kind of sleeve/neckline (off the sholder - NOT strapless - I couldn't think of what it was called) and the bodice. See how it has all the pretty embroidery on it?





Then - the skirt I like would most likely be an A-line. Not a super full one (a medium to small crinoline) with a nice sized train. The train bit suprised me as I just didn't see myself in one - but hey - I do like the whole princess bit. I like this skirt:



but, I think that I like this one better (and it shows the train - I think I would want it a TINY bit longer unless it's all bunched up bhind her).




Now this dress I actually like overall - The shoulders, the little sleeve thingys, the skirt, the train - but it's by Brigdette Moore and it had a $$ next to it (Affordable- $601-$1500) in the Knot - so ouch. It cracks me up that a 1,500 gown is still considered afforadable. *sigh*




as for color - I think I want gold. Not like gold Lame gold, or even the common satiny colored gold. I think something like one of these colors would be really nice. I put them in order of the shades that I like best.








Of course - this would be SO much easier if I just took my tail to the store and tried some dressed on - but I honestly don't WANNA! Besides the fact that I'm a 20-22(18-20 on a GOOD day) and thus anything I put on is going to look oddly warped - I've noticed that the only dresses most boutiques even seem to HAVE in a 14/16/18 are the not-so-attractive-to-me 'plus size' gowns. Gah. So. I'm gonna wait for a little while...keep working out and watching what I eat and drinking my water - and try dresses on around January. If I manage to find my dress by Feb. that still gives me 8 months to get it, get fitted (rolls eyes) and be set for the wedding...

PS.

Just found this dress. THIS is the color. Right here. *sigh* It's called Antique Gold.






jasmyn