Oh hey there!

Been a while, huh? Well, unlike every other blog I've ever had, my absence isn't due to me forgetting I had a blog. This time, it was due to the wedding and that we've been house-hunting for over a year now and we finally got a counter-offer (our first one in all this time) and SO FAR its looking like we'll actually get this house... Which means I've been packing like crazy!

So, the wedding wasn't exactly what I wanted. To be completely honest, I wanted a small- I mean 15ish people small- laid back pizza-and-soda handfasting. But, as planning went on, I was told by many many people that, for lack of a better term, I was wrong. So little-by-little I changed things to make people happy. I know, you're not supposed to do that, you're supposed to have "your wedding your way". But I felt that "my way" meant that I would be fine with anything so long as I am married at the end of the day. I chose three things that I would not change for anything and let everything else go. Small guest list, a Celtic Handfasting in place of 'traditional vows', and no alcohol. Arguing about guest list and alcohol came up a lot. Though many people see me as a "social butterfly", I don't do well in large crowds. So keeping the guest list small was really important to me... I didn't want to be uncomfortable at my own wedding, which is one reason I didn't want the fancy princess-for-a-day crap. I also didn't want to invite people just to get something out of them, in fact I had requested no gifts period. There were many people I could have invited that probably would have given a sizable amount of money. In the end, I only invited people that it made sense to invite: really close family members and a couple of my mother-in-laws closest friends who are like family which came to 40 people... Almost triple my original list. But I was fine with it, because it wasn't too bad.

So one of my three went out the window but I still had the handfasting and no alcohol. Even up until the day before I was told that, just like I wanted, there'd be no alcohol. Well, I couldn't help but notice all the red solo cups around the reception, especially since I had spent SO much on renting fancy glasses to go with the fancy tables, to go with the fancy food I'd ordered. At the end of the night, someone asked me if I was having fun, and if I "saw any alcohol". I ended up saying no because I never did see any of the bottles of wine. They tried to hide it from me because they assumed that me not seeing it, means it magically wasn't there. Even if they'd brought the alcohol and didn't even open one bottle it still would have been there. I had even offered to buy non-alcoholic wine, because they'd made SUCH a big deal about there not being wine with dinner... Silly me, when they asked for wine, I thought it was because they wanted wine... they wanted alcohol.

So, all I got that I wanted from the whole thing was the Celtic Handfasting. It was beautiful, and perfect, and everyone agreed. Since the wedding I've tried to convince myself that my wedding was beautiful and perfect, just like it was supposed to be because the Celtic Handfasting was technically the wedding and the only thing that got screwed up was the reception... But its kind of hard to convince yourself that your wedding was perfect when every time you hear "Bride" or "Wedding" you literally almost cry. My wedding was not mine... it was someone else's and there are no "do-overs". Sure, we can do a vow-renewal sometime down the line... But this was my first wedding, it was supposed to be perfect, it was supposed to be exactly what I wanted... You know what? If I were to continue writing about my wedding, we all know what it would say, so to save myself the tears and keep myself from writing things I may regret, I'm going to stop here.

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Anyway, in the time its taken me to come back to the blog, I found another blog that I've kind of been following called Play At Home Mom. On top of all the fun ideas they have over there, they also have a post called "A Year of Yes". Which basically means you say "yes" to your child every single time there's no REALLY GOOD reason not to... To be honest, I've already been the type of mom to say "yes" when there's no reason to say no... Like letting my toddler (at the time) explore the world of a swivel chair, worst that would have happened was she would have fallen off and bumped her head. BUT there are times when I'm a little too over-protective and say "no" when I don't have to. So, in order to really let the kids be kids, I've decided that I am going to attempt the "Year of Yes" with the kids. I'll be starting it little-by-little before we move, but once we DO move, that's it! I will not allow myself to say no to them when I don't absolutely have to.

In any case, these next couple of weeks should be hectic. I'll try to get pictures of our "Year of Yes" and post them here.... Please know that this means I may not post again until after we're moved into the new house (closing date is Mid September).

Til next time!