Wedding!

Soooo... I got a wedding dress!  I will probably post a photo of it soon, as I'm sure Greg will never read this blog.  :o)  To my surprise, I'm finding that Mom adheres to all sorts of wedding traditions and superstitions.  "There will be no face-smashing of cake.  Each couple whom we saw do that at their wedding has been divorced."  Oh my!  She has also expressed the necessity of the "something old, new, borrowed, blue" tradition.  I read in a wedding magazine that the poem ends, "And a tupence in her shoe."  How am I to come across a tupence?  Will an American penny get the job done?  Furthermore, I had been looking up stock photos of wedding gowns online, which I showed Greg to ask his opinion.  Boy, did I get a chastisement for that!  Even the samples!!  However, I will obey the, as we call her, Incident Commander.

Engagement

Greg and I are finally engaged, after having been a'courtin' for the past three years.  Yay!

Family celebrations ensued at the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, with many toasts and much story-telling and support from everyone.  I think the wedding will be a great, fun party with all these excited family members, plus good friends from home, summer camp, church and college.  We are very excited!

Even more exciting is the fact that we have a place booked.  Yes!  In the most difficult month to find an available venue, my parents succeeded in nabbing a catering place with a beautiful hall, great yard with many pine trees and a kind and detail-oriented catering lady.  We're stopping by her open house today to sample cakes.  This will probably be the most fun part of the wedding-preparation process.  Yum.

Besides that, we've got my parents' church reserved for the early afternoon on our special day, which I think will prove just perfect for the size crowd we'll have there.  Next up:  starting pre-marital counseling with our pastor, planning the ceremony with him and our Camp Hill pastor and a church wedding planner, picking out attire and flowers and making invitations and whatnot.  Oh boy!  I'm actually sort of excited to finish our Save-the-Date postcards, and later, make up our lovely printed invites; it's been a long time since I've dedicated myself to a design project of any sort.

What a  busy time!!  I'm glad we still have eight whole months to finish working on all this stuff.

And now, off to brunch and taste cakes!

French Cooking!!

Some conquests for my upcoming personal adventurement:

aioli

Bouillabaisse

branade

cassoulet

confit Byaldi

Cozze gratinate

crudites

escargot

gratin Dauphinois
gratin Languedocien

gougere

hollandaisse

insalata Caprese

lobster Thermidor

piccalilli

pistou
quiche
ratatouille
remoulade

rouille

roux

salade Nicoise

Tapenade

Tourtiere

 
 
And now, to polish my skills in the kitchen, refine & awaken my palette to new flavours, discover wine pairings, and to learn how to properly accent the accents in these French words. Pronounciation as well?  A French language class, perhaps?  Julia Child, please!

A Season of Learning about Parenting, it seems

Each day I run into parents with kids in public, I become more grateful to the parents I know here in Kutztown [as well as to my own!]  who discipline their children.

I spent three-quarters of an hour at a large-scale retailer today, hoping to replenish my supply of argyle socks [with some success!], and whilst perusing the toothpaste department, I heard a sort of squealing and fierce screaming and intense whining/complaining.  The banter came from at least 10 aisles down from where I stood.  The volume of the screaming increased as I made my way toward the registers; it didn't sound as though the small demon even stopped to take a breath.  I expected to see perhaps a 24 to 30-month old toddler, very upset about not getting his or her own way; clutching to some junky item the parent didn't want to buy.

But no!

I saw a child that looked about 4 or 5 years old, lying on the floor, with a grandmotherly-looking woman pulling her by the arm to drag her squeaking sneakers across the linoleum.

Oh, it was awful.  And the screaming did not end.

I've gotten used to small-child-screaming from my landlady's toddler.  She screams when she doesn't get her way, or she'll become upset when she's caught doing something wrong, but usually she's done and over it within five to fifteen minutes.

This kid at the store kept screaming.  Grandma swung the kid up into her arms and had to carry the kicking & screaming beast out the front door.  Everyone in the area stared, but the child felt no shame in assaulting her grandmother to get her own way.

I wished the cashier a good day and went out to see a very, very angry woman [the Mom?] tell off the little banshee for her bad behavior.  This resulted in even louder screaming, to be heard by patrons of every business in the plaza parking lot.

I could see very clearly that the child was used to getting her own way, to wearing down the adults with personal-behavior-terrorism until she received what she wanted from them.  She had no fear of the adults.  She understood the anger, and felt upset by this, but there was no repentance for the awful behavior.  There was no, "Sorry mom, I was a real brat in the store.  Will you forgive me?"

So anyways, I'm real grateful to the parents who give their kids choices, to do as they're told or to face the consequences [be that a timeout, sent to bed without dinner, a spanking, more chores, etc].  They'll grow up to be socially functioning teenagers and adults.  The brats who complain til they get their way will probably become mean girls and dbag frat dudes.

I can see so clearly that a healthy fear of discipline leads to respect & obedience toward the parent. I understand that not all parents punish corporately, but my friends with the best behaved kids happen to do so.  It's no longer the day of, "Boy, bring me a switch!"  But the fear of The Wooden Spoon seems to drive kids toward more gracious behavior and more of love through actions in serving & obeying their parents.

So, mom & dad, thanks for spanking me when I deserved it.

discontent

Dear friend & college apartmentmate Meghan came to town to hang with me last night.  I rather enjoyed our conversation, catching up on life and ambitions and conquests and dreams.  She kept stating how she missed living in Kutztown, how quaint & quiet it is, how pastoral and friendly.

I find I'm becoming disinterested.

Many folk around here are quite happy and do good in marrying and making babies.  But there are others out there living what I dream about; traveling the country, getting a master's degree, homesteading, having decent full-time jobs.

When will I get there?  Living the dream?

Wealth is determined

"Wealth is determined by the ability to choose." RRR

plants

Okay, went to Rodale yesterday to pick up the scraps of what was left of the plant sale.  Parsley, broccoli & some Japanese leafy green that starts with ,M'.  Then poked around in a rack of seed packs & found carrots, turnips, lettuce, leeks, muskmelon & some other stuff.  After that we went to Renningers & the two ladies there had a greater selection of vegetable seedlings [perhaps not usda certified organic, but - ?].  They had at least a dozen breeds of tomatoes for sale, & I'm interested in getting some with a chronological difference in maturity so we'll harvest different sizes & flavours at different times.

AND we've already got a little strawberry plant in a pot [I hope it spreads like a weed & gives us many, many berries] and some thyme & basil growing nicely from seed.  Pesto this summer!