Flower Power

On Monday, I was shopping at Trader Joe's during a lunch break. The flowers at the front of their store caught my attention, particularly the cheerful yellow petaled sunflowers. I bought a bunch of five, and put them in a glass vase right next to my computer. I was dealing with a major work deadline this week (the reason why I haven't posted a blog entry since Tuesday!), and whenever I needed a minute break from the article I was researching, I would stop and just put my nose to the flowers, taking a big sniff. (No, this post is not going to be about taking time to smell flowers, just wait!). It got me thinking about one of my next, more minor wedding chores: flower planning. Now that some of the big things are out of the way, I can turn my attention to the more detailed things. Details stress me, as my few other posts have discussed. The devil is in the details, people say. I think they stress me because while you can see a venue, taste the food, wear a dress, but you can't really imagine what one different decor detail will change about the overall ambiance of a wedding. But, inspired my sunflower purchase, I jumped online to look at a flower vendor a friend had used. Immediately, flowers got fun. Different bouquets, different colors, and the environmentally friend, female-owned shop even offered classes on how to design flower centerpieces. Sign me up! But not quite yet...I'm still enjoying my office sunflowers.

A Time to Learn and Grow

As I sat on the deck of a New Hampshire lake house this weekend, listening to the lapping waters and feeling the warm sun beat down on me, I came across a unique challenge in the Ode magazine issue I was reading: write a six-word memoir. (See here for other people's short phrases. They are really amazing).I was intrigued. As a self-claimed rambler, a chance to explain my live in a mere six words seemed impossible, but I decided to try. And on the plane home, I was thinking of ways to chronicle my experiences in these strict parameters. My own winner is A Time to Learn and Grow, as indicated up above, but my drafts ranged from the geographic--From Prague to Japan to Home--to the yogic--Downward Dog, Sun Salutations, Triangle, Resting. And then there were variations on my winner--A Learning Experience, More than Anything. And of course, the wedding related: Finding a love, planning a life. It's a fun exercise, and gets you thinking about what's really important...and then how to condense these thoughts into six words.

Some of My Favorite Things

Inspired by my coffee date entry, I have been thinking some more of my favorite small pleasures. Here they go, in no particular rational order: browsing through bookstores; soy lattes; The Sound of Music and other familar old movies that you can recite all the words; marathon phone conversations with out-of-town friends; sunflowers; the smell of freshly cut grass; vanilla fudge; nutella; old photo albums; summertime pedicures with cute sandals; Ugg boots in the winter; Tivo-ed Jeopardy; stir-fry tofu dinners; finishing a good book; a glass of water after a long run; yoga class; wearing a new shirt or pair of shoes to work; three-day weekends; a funny joke; a Redskins win; flossing my teeth before bedtime; libraries; sudoku; crossword puzzles; the Sunday paper; back rubs; Greek yogurt; sushi; wandering through Whole Foods; visiting family and friends; laughing until it hurts; leaves changing; flowers blooming; cloudless skies and 75 degree heat, with no humidity...These are some of mine. Agree, disagree? Add your own!!!

Missing Meditation

So I didn't go to my standing meditation class last night. I had no reason, other than a general mixture of laziness and grumpiness. Call it the Monday blues. Sunday night I found myself in bed too late (11:45 PM). My alarm sounded not too long after that--6:20 AM--so I could get up for my early physical therapy before work. By the end of the day (which included a frustrating experience of leaving my wallet at home. I only realized this fact while trying to buy groceries at Trader Joe's for dinner last night) I was a bit tired and grumpy and not up for a meditation class. The prospect of silent sitting seemed more daunting than usual. But now I'm not sure why. Maybe I wanted to distract myself from my feelings of frustration, rather than acknowledging them and try to move on. Maybe I felt I would be more productive at home, playing with my blog, balancing my checkbook, and going to Whole Foods (this time with my wallet.) to buy ravioli for dinner. Whatever the reason, I didn't go....And today, I miss it. I miss that time to myself, to try to relax my wandering, meandering mind. To focus on nothing but my breathing. Recognizing my thoughts and slowly letting them go. So, I am going to try to meditate on my own this week...something I've never done before...

A Visual Aid

So, today, after much online searching and dress appointments, I picked out my nuptial attire. I won't go into the details of the dress so that it is a surprise come wedding day but I am thrilled about the outfit! Absolutely thrilled! And a part of me thought I'd be sad to no longer go to the stores and consider all sorts of dresses, I'm really mostly excited that I found one that I love (Plus, a little relieved. It does tire after a while). It feels now that I can visualize the wedding coming into some focus. In Rebecca Mead's book, brides often pick out their dresses first, and I can understand why. It's fun, of course, and unlike a guest list or dinner menu, you can choose it all on your own (Even though weddings, and marriage really, are about planning together, occasionally autonomy is nice). But when you try it on, you can REALLY see yourself as you will look on your wedding day. (Of course, today I rolled out of bed, hopped in the shower, sipped coffee at Java House next door, then headed out with my mother to the dress store. On my wedding I imagine the getting ready steps may be a bit more elaborate. But you get the point). I looked in the three-sided mirror, and a bride looked back at me.

A Coffee Date

This weekend, on Saturday morning, Dan and I ventured to a new coffee shop by the name of Big Bear. We sat there for nearly two hours; I read my Rebecca Mead wedding book and he pored over Time magazine and the newspaper. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and cloudness but not humid, to enjoy a soy latte and bagel and cream cheese. That's one thing Dan and I love to do: find a coffee shop on the weekends (since our apartment doesn't have much in the way of outdoor seating), sit, relax, people watch, read the paper, glancing up to tell one another some interesting tidbit from the news or our own observations. From this Saturday in particular, we caught a glimpse of a DC celebrity as Mayor Fenty came in after us to order breakfast. Maybe not the most glamorous activity (the coffee date, that is, not Mayor Fenty. Seeing him was pretty cool), but as much as life is about the big moments--the weddings and whatnot--it is also about the lazy Saturday mornings, the soy lattes and newspaper reads.

Forget Perfect

According to Rebecca Mead, many brides aspire for the absolute perfect wedding day. Perfection is a stress-inducing word. What is perfection anyway? To amend an old adage, perfection is the eyes of the beholder. Every guest might have different expectations about what the ideal wedding could be. For some, a more classic approach is how to go. Others would have it no other way than a beachside wedding with 20 attendees. Learning to let go of everyone else's thoughts is one part of forgetting perfection. But my wedding may also not completely reflect my own idealized version of it. The appetizers may not be as plentiful or varied as I had envisioned, or the flowers may not be the exact shade I had in mind. The list could go on. Some of these are completely out of my control: my cross-country friend may not be able to catch a pricey flight, or my next-door neighbor could have a work emergency...and so they both can't make it. Other things--like the appetizers and flowers I mentioned--could be in my control, but as wedding day approaches, I realize I don't have the time, money, and energy to devote to each individual task and have to prioritize the more important ones. And maybe some main dish or dessert or whatever is perfect to me, but Dan wants a different option. So we compromise, meaning that neither of us has perfection, but we both have things we like a lot. Another abridged saying may be: Nothing's perfect, so why should your wedding be any different?