Table Number Holders

The number one frantic tweet I see come up as people are going into the week before the wedding is, "bah, dammit, need table number holders!" 

You could go my route, and borrow them from your older sister (or the route of oh, 10 of our friends and borrow them from my older sister), and you can also go the sane route and ask the venue if they provide them.  Barring these two options, check Ikea first if you are limited in craftyness, and otherwise, turn to this Photojojo tutorial. 

I have a bunch of this florist wire left from trying to make my own flowers, so I'll be testing this out soon.  What do I need table number holders for, you ask?  Well, over the holidays, I was at my sister's house and noticed that on her mantle, she displayed the holiday cards, which we did as well - but instead of propping the flat cards up against the candles and vases and photo frames on the mantle the way we do, my sister was using her table number holders to hold up the flat cards.  It was one of those genius solutions that somebody with no decorative sense (like myself) would never think of, but seemed so obvious once I saw it. 

UU Sunday School

A discussion came up on Twitter about UU churches and UU Sunday School.  And I thought I would talk a little bit more about my experiences with UU Sunday School and why I think it is the Best Thing Ever.  For 12 years, I got up every Sunday, griped, and then went to church with a bunch of people I didn't really like, to talk about subjects I found fascinating.  So I'm going to write about why you should consider sending your kids to UU Sunday School, even if you are not religious.

The first thing about Sunday School is this: I didn't have any friends.  Everyone in my Sunday School class was extremely clique-y - and the boys wouldn't talk to the girls for the first ten years, which made it hard to become friends once we realized that boys and girls could be friends.  It turned out that all of the girls had parents who were friends who decided to send their kids to school together, so they wouldn't talk to me.  So friendship-wise, it wasn't a place that lasting friendships were made.  However, I will be sending my children to a  UU RE program, and if you are not a person of strong faith, or you are an interfaith couple, it is something you should consider as well.

UU Curriculum varies from school to school.  My church had a large Religious Education program, which followed a pretty standard format for UU RE.  Each year focused on a different theme.  My favorite years were the ones that focused on studying various religions, including the third grade year in which we studied "Holidays and Holy Days" and celebrated the holidays of various religions to understand them.  This included Chinese New Year, Sukkot, Guy Fawkes Day, Santa Lucia Day, and many others.  It created a lasting knowledge base for what the Jewish holidays my friends celebrate, or the Catholic holidays my uncle celebrates, that I have found infinitely useful, and it was incredibly, delightfully, FUN.  (Not a common word for Sunday school, I imagine.)

My least favorite year was the incredibly intense bible study year, in which you focus on bible study, have homework, and have to memorize all of the books in the bible, the 23rd psalm, and the Lord's Prayer.  It was also the most useful.  A working knowledge of the bible is incredibly important.  As is knowing the Lord's Prayer.  You say it at weddings, funerals, and regular person's church services, so I think it's important.

I will talk briefly about the Our Whole Lives Curriculum.  This is the Unitarian Universalist Comprehensive Sex Education.  This is fiercely important to me, as Abstinence-Only Sex Education is a Terrible Terrible Thing.  This was a full year of learning everything about health and human sexuality, including learning about same-sex relationships.  But the curriculum actually continues in high school, and that was where it got fantastic - we engaged in long discussions about what makes for a healthy relationship and how that is something we all deserve and should pursue.  We role-played how to have tough conversations about difficult topics with a significant other.

In between all of this was a LOT of studying what religion means.  The great thing about Unitarians is they don't tell you what to believe.  They taught us instead how to critically examine faith, how to ask the questions we needed, how to find what we were looking for from religion, and reminded us that above all, a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning" was valid.

Valentine's Day Traditions

My favorite celebration of Valentine's day is done by my friend C., who celebrates a holiday she and her husband call "ass day" in which you try to get ass from the person you love by buying them half-price chocolate. 

I'm bearing with whatever awkward comment my dad is going to make because I wanted to share that delightful holiday with those of you who dislike Valentine's day. In our household, we not only celebrate Valentine's day, we make a two-day celebration out of it.

We celebrate Valentine's day in part because we never ever remembered our anniversary while dating.  (That's a lie. I made a really big deal out of our 4th anniversary.  Which was weird.  We went to a movie and got Chinese food.  I believe I made it clear that we are not big spenders.)  So Valentine's day was a good excuse to be together and have fun. 

We always do the same thing, which is that we go out to dinner, but we go out either the day before or the day after, and on the day of, we stay in and make a ridiculously elaborate meal that normally we would never undertake on a weeknight.  Tonight is tapas!  We actually do this for Christmas Eve and our anniversary as well, because we enjoy cooking together, pushing ourselves to try or do something new, and generally feel superior for not buying into the commercial holiday, as we do not purchase flowers or chocolates for each other.  Gifts are optional, but always appreciated. 

Do you celebrate Valentine's Day?

Monday Marriage Matters: Relishing Routine

These posts have gotten difficult to write lately, mostly because our marriage has settled past the difficult beginning (oh, I'm supposed to put another person first?) or the sad fact that life is difficult (unemployment, death, and family drama have all taken their toll) and has now settled into what I thought marriage would be when I first decided that I wanted to be married.  It is mostly work, and coming home, and one of us making dinner, and laundry and cleaning and checking the budget to make sure we are spending and saving appropriately. 

If there is one thing I know from both our past and watching friends deal with their tumultuous twenties and thirties is to embrace the routine.  I choose not to complain that our lives are "so boring".  I choose to relish this time, these evenings spent together doing a whole lot of nothing, because when spring starts and my husband is gone all the time, or when I'm taking a more active role in professional associations and planning events and at meetings all the time, we will long for life to be quiet and "so boring".  Eventually the dues we are paying now for our careers will pay off, and routine will be a luxury. 

The nice thing about no longer being unemployed is that even though we have settled into a fairly dull routine, the fact that we do not go out for dinner every night somewhere exciting is because we don't want to.  It is no longer because we can't.  Our single-income status is no longer "holding us back".  It is simply that we choose to stay home and cook, it is that we don't really care for the bar scene, it is that we would rather watch one of the good Star Wars movies on our small TV at home than the terrible one in 3D somewhere else.  It is funny to realize that our life hasn't changed that much from a year ago, except that the illusion of choice gives us a happier perspective. 

Are you also relishing routine, or are you longing for life to settle down, or are you living an interesting and exciting life and loving every minute of it?

Guest Books

I found this when I was browsing Etsy this morning and I think it's really neat:

Your guests sign each balloon and then you frame the whole thing and hang it up.  We were having a discussion on Twitter yesterday about some people loving the idea of a Quaker wedding certificate but not wanting to appropriate it, and I think this could be a lovely way to have all of your guests sign their names in support of your marriage.  If you aren't obsessed with your tandem bike, you can always go with trees instead:

The only downside of these particular designs is that it's a PDF and you have to get it printed, but I think any copy shop can make you a big poster.  

Emotional Roller Coasters

So I've spent this week recovering from the Uwharrie Mountain Run, where my friend and I ran the 20 miler while another friend ran the 40 miler, and my spouse ran the 8 miler.  

The funny thing about running the longest-distance race I've ever run is that it is incredibly emotional, which I wasn't expecting.  I was expecting it to be physically difficult - the longest I had ever run was 14 miles, and our trail runs were beating me up.  Yet we made it through, and we made it through with smiles on our faces and our legs still worked at the end.  So why was I suddenly overwhelmed with this incredible urge to cry?  

It occurred to me, as I tried to process all the emotions of what I had done - achieving a goal that felt insurmountable, finally completing something that I had prepared for for months and dreamed about for years, finishing a race feeling really really good, that this didn't feel that dissimilar to coming down off the high from our wedding and our honeymoon.  I think it's simply a matter of feeling completely and totally emotionally spent.  I think it's also a little bit like what Kristen Bell describes when she is talking about her sloth-related meltdown, which is that your body doesn't know how to compete with all of the emotions that you feel when you do or face something really huge, so the answer is to just curl up in a ball and cry.  

I think the answer to feeling emotionally spent is downtime.  It's creating space to marvel at what you have done, what you have accomplished, it is allowing yourself space to rethink and overthink how you might have preferred to do things differently, and you search for more opportunities to feel the same way again.  (Seriously. The morning after the race I was researching trail marathons and 50ks, all the while wishing I had my heating pad for my aching back and wondering what the heck was wrong with me.)

Caramel Corn

Ever since meeting the CEO of Crunch Daddy Popcorn, I've been on a quest to make my own caramel corn (although if you are looking for delicious perfection in a bowl, just order some.  The sesame ginger crunch is fantastic.)

I wanted to make some for superbowl Sunday, because we have to make whatever we are bringing in advance this year, so I prepped some this morning.  I used this recipe from AllRecipes and even though baking isn't necessary, I'm trying it now.  I'm not sure how coated the pieces are supposed to be, but I often find caramel corn to be too sweet, so I went for half coverage.  Everything is more in clumps and stuck together - I think going in several batches for stirring might have been a better idea.

I also halved the recipe - and it made a GIANT pyrex bowl (thanks Paul!) full of popcorn.  So if all you have is a normal mixing bowl, just halve the recipe and you'll have plenty of caramel.