Hard to believe its only one month to the big day. Plans are well in order and I am so excited about what we have organised to celebrate our love. It’s been so much fun receiving RSVPs from our guests and putting final touches on the day.
It can be easy when you are so crazy busy with work and wedding to forget to appreciate each other. The love doesn’t change but when reality sets in you end up snapping about silly things. Surely we aren’t the only couple in this boat? Even if you have someone else doing all the work you don’t have nothing to do. Our suppliers are really more for on the day than in the lead up, which may be because we* have some strong ideas of how the day should look/run.
The next month will fly by in a flash. I hope when we are 80 we will look back on this time and smile. Before we start though, Richard I want you to guess how much I love you
*ok me, I am one with the strong ideas about how it should look. Richard has been incredibly supportive and has provided some wise counsel when what I want just can’t be made to fit into our budget.
Thinking about: all of the things that need doing before the wedding. The amount of work to do both at home for the wedding/honeymoon and at work is mind numbing. Sometimes, when it all gets too much, I just have to sit with my head in my hands and stop. My parents used to say to me “how do you eat an elephant?” the answer “One bite at a time”. While I know this logic works sometimes it can be hard to not chew on that elephant and think Ï will never finish eating all this before it goes off”. A lot of people (including Richard who has been unbelievable) have been so helpful to us in getting us organised and I am so grateful to them. To be completely honest with you though I wouldn’t have it any other way and I would genuinely regret it later in life if I hadn’t been a driving force in pulling the day together, it will be a proper celebration of us because we did it. I would never give that up.
Motivation: that at the end of all of this work I will be Mrs Alys Holz! It is really important to remember that, because it is the MOST IMPORTANT THING! Everything else that seems so important right now really isn’t, what matters is that by the end of August we will be married.
Watching:it tends to be in the background but we are still working our way through House MD (8 seasons takes a long time to get through). There are also new episodes of Once Upon a Time, Big Bang Theory, Colbert Report, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Conan for our viewing pleasure. Not really focusing on any one thing at the moment but and I look forward to a marathon of something once the wedding is over and we get our weekends back.
Obsessing over: the little details for the wedding. We’ve done all the big things so now everything is about the little details. With two months to go now is the time to order any supplies we need online and to start making the rest of them ourselves. I am so glad that we have a venue with a planner and decided to invest in a decorator. Not only does it mean that we have professionals looking after us but it also means at the end we aren’t going to have a room full of wax lanterns.
A good cause: I adore our Rorschach, he really is our first child, and I cannot imagine ever hurting him. I know though that he is lucky. Not every animal is treated with love the way he is. There are a few charities out there working hard to protect animals but I personally support the RSPCA. I am attracted to the fact that they run both on the ground, practicial programmes to care for and protect animals. As well as the national campaigns around public and government awareness of animal cruelty and protection. I am not a vegetarian though I do believe in trying, where I can, to buy from suppliers who care about animals too. The RSPCA’s Shop Humane campaign around humane foods is a great one, find out more on their website.
Praying for: good weather for the wedding. It doesn’t have to be dry as our venue is indoors (but not) and I think rain in wedding photos can look good. But I really don’t want to walk along George St in my dress with the risk of it getting wet. I am already having to line up my entire family to carry my dress so it doesn’t touch the ground – it cannot be dirty before I even arrive – adding rain to the mix just makes me nervous. So here is to a gorgeous day with plenty of sunshine and that lovely nearly spring weather you so often get at the end of August.
Wishing: scientists had figured out how to clone people, I could really use 3 of me rught now. They need to be clones of me rather than assistants for the simple fact that I don’t have time to supervise more people, I just need bodies to get the work done. At least if they were all me I would know that they would think/react/purchase the same way as I would. As long as there was a clear plan of who was looking after what for work/wedding/honeymoon/life we would get it done and be a great team.
Listening to/Reading: Enders Game by Orson Scott Card but as an audio book. The book itself is fantastic. I barely believe that it was originally written in the 80s, it really could be set now the story is so relevant to now. Audio books are something to get used to, and I am still working on it.
Did you see The Hunger Games over the weekend? Even though in reality this ball goes against some key plot points (for example that the male and female tributes are drawn separately) its a cool idea, especially as you can add your own name in.
This book appealed to me out a lifelong fascination with graveyards. I love wandering through and reading the headstones. You can catch a glimpse of the history of a place by those buried in its soil. My grandparent home, that has been in the family since I was tiny, is just across the road from the local cemetery. In the Muswellbrook cemetery there is a grave of a woman named Alice Ellen that I discovered one day exploring with my sister Ellen. We wouldn’t have been much older than Bod and it scared the bee willies out of us both.
I wish my younger self could have had the opportunity to read and reread this wonderful book, and my older self wishes that i had written it”
Garth Nix (dust cover quote)
I too wish that this book had been written when I was young. The tale of Bod, the boy who lived in a graveyard, would have kept me awake at night worrying about the man under the hill.
If I had one criticism it is that I would loved to hear more of the tales of all those buried in the cemetery. There were people who had lived during different periods of history. The little hints throughout the book about what they were teaching Bod and how different that was from reality is fascinating to me. Like the man buried with both his wives jealous for eternity or the Roman who was one of the first buried there.
Richard recommended Gaiman to be years ago as he had read his comics. But I first properly discovered Neil Gaiman through Stardust (the movie) and then my heart skipped a beat to watch his episode for Doctor Who in 2011. Gaiman writes with charm and an effortless childish appreciation for those things that adult eyes miss. A joy to read and I look forward to sharing it with my own children one day.
Wow! Wow! Wow! Classic Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield and so much fun!
The world (and I) first met Schofield in Ice Station where I best remember him fending off a killer whale! My dad introduced me to the author Matthew Reilly as a teenager and I have been a fan ever since.
This time a damaged Schofield, who is in the Artic as the Marines couldn’t really put him anywhere else (the French had a price on his head for a few things he’s done along the way, like blowing up a submarine). The Army of Thieves, after a string of pretty impressive military heists, have taken over an old Russian base with some of the technology that in our worst nightmares they created. Of course he has to save the world again and spoiler he is successful but the journey is what actually matters.
Spoiler I’d read a comment on Reilly’s Facebook page that the book wasn’t for the squeamish (which I totally am). Yes, there were bits that made me feel off but I think having read that meant that it wasn’t as bad as my imagination.
Last Friday I was reading the book in a coffee shop in Newcastle waiting for my Dad and a stranger asked what I thought. I told him the truth, if you like Reilly’s books you will just love it! just when you think the baddies had been stopped there is another ticking clock. I struggled to put the book down (seriously, I actually took lunch breaks so I could read it) and was sad when it was over. Read it!!!
Image copyright Peter Morris. Richard had made this cool image for me but we discovered too late that my hard drive is a b#$%h and even though it said it’d saved the file it had not. Even though we lost the file I wanted to say thank you baby!
