Is it Post-Wedding Letdown?

Check all that apply.

__ 1. I continue to agonize over choosing images for our wedding album, sorting and re-sorting the photos. I'm wondering whether we should spend another $xxxx so we can get ALL the photos in the album.

__ 2. I haven't cleaned my dress yet. In fact, I haven't even put it away. It's right where I left it: hanging from a door/ draped over a couch/ right in the front of my closet - who know when I might have an occasion to wear it?

__ 3. That dress - the one that I wasn't really attached to, and was planning to donate or sell after the wedding - that one? I think I'll keep it.

__ 4. I'm considering getting a huge framed canvas of us. Like 8'x10'. Feet. To hang over the bed.

__ 5. Work seems boring and blah. Even my favorite projects are hard to get excited about.

__ 6. I read wedding blogs obsessively. Even when I should be working.

__ 7. My work may have suffered because of my addiction to wedding blogs.

__ 8. I still stalk my photographer's website for cool images.

__ 9. I have a hard time getting up in the morning - I'm bleary from reading wedding blogs.

__ 10. I get super-involved when even the most tangential friend mentions that she's planning a wedding. I send my list of favorite and could-have-been vendors, and a constant stream of ideas.

__ 11. I'm starting to see why people have babies right away. Decorating a nursery: now there's a project I could get into!

__ 12. In fact, I'm actively working on it. The sooner, the better.

__ 13. I don't hang outwith my single friends so much anymore. Their lives all seem over-dramatic and unfocused. I'm not so interested in the date-of-the-week.

__ 14. I hang out with my single friends all the time: I love their stories about the thrill of the chase.

__ 15. I've taken on a new huge project: remodeling the house, starting a new job, launching a business, training for a marathon. Honestly, I don't know what to do with all my new-found free time. I'm considering training for a triathalon, joining a volunteer board, and studying for (another) degree.

Agreeing with 5 or more statements suggests Severe Post-Wedding Letdown. Quietly back away from the wedding blogs, give away your wedding mags, get your dress cleaned and stored, pronto!, and find a new hobby for your free time.

Agreeing with 2-4 statements suggests a Mild case of Post-Wedding Letdown. Turn all that creativity and energy toward family, friends and work. Surely, there's another project that could benefit from your skill and energy - perhaps a first anniversary blowout?

Agreeing with 1 or fewer statements shows that you've moved on... but what are you doing on this blog?!???!

Evolutionary love

The perfect Valentine's card to go with yesterday's biodiversity enhancement suits:

from Ironic Sans, via Fashion for Nerds

Biodiversity for your neighborhood

Too many bland, boring pigeons in your neighborhood? Would you like to see more colorful birds? Or maybe even release rainbow-hued birds instead of doves at your wedding?

Artist Laurel Roth, who uses "art as a medium to examine biological ramifications of human behavior," has you covered - literally.



She's crocheted these vibrant "Biodiversity Reclamation Suits for Urban Pigeons," which come complete with a "hand carved pigeon mannequin [and] walnut stand."

She'll even help you bring back the long-extinct Dodo


Like Artemis, who sent the link, I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

Godspeed, Team Matrimonial

Part of what made my journey toward the wedding extra special fun was that it was shared with four other couple friends: Data Monkey and Mountain Man Mike had the lead off last May. (We'll soon be going to a baby shower for those precocious kids!).

The wedding season really got rolling later in the summer, when the weddings of BootCamp, Dr. Cowgirl, and Doc Water and Doc Bee occurred in three consecutive months... leading up to the grand finale, Barefoot on the Beach Day, in late October.

The final three weddings were deeply intertwined. Doc Water and Dr. Cowgirl had been housemates in grad school and remain close friends. Doc Bee and Mr. Barefoot were grad school friends on the east coast, and both ended up in the Bay Area, where they collaborated on research projects. Dr. Cowgirl and I bonded during our first days of grad school when I admired her intricate ring, and I got to know Doc Water when they were housemates.

We were all at a dinner party, when Dr. Cowgirl's husband, the soon-to-be Dr. J, observed that he had never been at a party where everyone in attendance was married. All being newly married, none of the rest of us had either. Wow. Go, Team Matrimonial!

Sharing the ups and downs of the journey - as well as paper lanterns, twinkling lights, vases, invitation beta, decor tricks, registry advice, dress shopping expeditions, minor freakouts and hair styling tips - with these lovely folks made it ever so much more sweet and memorable.*

It was bittersweet, then, to bid Doc Water and Doc Bee farewell last night, as they gave away their house plants and cleaning products, and urged us to down what remained of their liquor cabinet, as they prepared to point their car east and begin new jobs in a distant southern metropolis.

Too soon, too soon! We just finished celebrating! Sometimes being a grownup kinda sucks.

*especially, perhaps, because I don't have sisters -- these ladies filled in on the pre-wedding girl-talk.

A perfect beach day

This says it all!

And, yet, there's so much more to say.

Everything came together: the officiant, the weather, the families, the guests, the beach flags, the Quaker moment, the Ladies in Waiting and their dresses, the flowers, the flower children, the blessing, the music, the food, the wine, the cake, the sun, the sand, the hike (in the wedding dress!), the barefeet.

Yee-haw!!!

The Doctor is In

source

After nine long years of grad school (five in my current program; three on the east coast; one doing fieldwork), I am Phinally Done, having the requirements for a doctorate in my field by submitting my dissertation (all 429 pages of it, chock full o' fifty-cent words like soteriological, neoliberal, and epistemology!) last Friday.

So, after years of work at this august institution, what do you get?
(Besides a diploma, I mean, which won't be available until next spring...)

Just like going to the dentist, you get a lollipop!







I was dancing on air when I left the graduate degrees office, clutching the most expensive and coveted lollipop in history last Friday!

Mr. Barefoot and I spent the rest of the day enjoying our sunny back deck with friends I hadn't seen in months, since I'd been buried up to my neck in books.

We had cake from the spectacular La Farine...

and bubbly,
and plenty of G&Ts...

and a surprise viewing of the ringbearer outfit
for a nephew in Doc Water and Doc Bee's wedding...

How cute is that???

But, wait, it gets better...

Yes, it definitely needed a chapeau!

I believe that adorable yumminess is from here.

And that, dear and patient readers (thanks to those of you who stuck around!), is why this blog has been short on wedding planning goodness in recent weeks.

But fear not!

With Doc Water and Doc Bee's wedding just around the corner, Dr. Cowgirl's wedding to recap, a post about handmade wedding rings, and news about the dress, the invites, the flowers, and the DJ conundrum, and more to share, I'll get back in touch with my Inner Bride, and have my Wed Head back in no time.

Plus, Shoegate continues... I didn't fall for the sexy Chie Miharas, but neither did I find that ideal hip, funky, professional shoe.

And tomorrow is New Faculty Orientation.

Will I be Barefoot?

Fun wedding cake!

From the New York Times

What a fun, fun idea! A while back, I said that I wanted a piñata, but this is the first one that's really tickled my fancy. It would be a fun way to open the dance floor... we could take a couple whacks, and then turn it over to the kids.

I also love the idea of the bride being given flowers for her bouquet by the assembled guests. That really gives everyone a part in the ceremony, and makes it so inclusive.

From the New York Times

I've been thinking of a similar idea, in which everyone could bring a rock, pebble, marble, or some other small bit of nature's ephemera, and place them all in a glass jar, so we'd always have a little bit of our community with us.

Example found here
(though the ones on the right are eggs - I don't think we want to carry around a jar of eggs!

1:00 PM, Sunday

via FFFFOUND!

Goodness! How did I get through the morning without you???

Wedding announcement tutorial

Suppose you're preparing your wedding announcement for the New York Times (Stop rolling your eyes, and stick with me for a moment. It will be worth it, I promise...).

And suppose that, even after studying the Weddings & Celebrations section for years (nothing better with that Sunday coffee!), you're still a bit stuck on the phrasing.

A new book, Weddings of the Times, will gallantly dash to your rescue, showing you how to list the honors, professions, and pre-occupations of your nearest and dearest.


Read on for a sample from the new guide. It comes out on June 9 - be the first on your block to order it!

Catherine Doyle, Alfred Park

Elizabeth Snow

Catherine Doyle married Alfred Park on Sunday evening at the Woodfield Country Club in Boca Raton.

The bride, 26, graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown. The groom, 34, graduated summa cum laude from Brown. The bride's father, Eugene Doyle, graduated egregia cum laude from the University of Washington and his mother, Kate Doyle, graduated double platinum cum laude from Wayne State.

Her grandfather graduated the harder they cum laude from Texas A&M. Her uncle graduated cumma cumma cumma cumma cumma chameleon laude from the University of Colorado.

The bride's brother, Lewis Doyle, graduated pre-cum laude from the University of Stockholm.

The groom's father, Bruce, graduated cumfortably numb laude from Cal State Fullerton. The best man graduated cumpire strikes back laude from the College of Outer Space. The best man's grandfather graduated viagra cum laude from Hofstra.

And for the Californians in the crowd:

Jane Resnick, Paul Merrill

Jason Delbourne

Jane Resnick and Paul Merrill were married yesterday at the Los Palos Community Center. A friend of the couple's, Universal Life Church Minister Tim Hoddle, performed the civil ceremony.

Ms. Resnick, 28, is the founder and proprietor of The Bead 'n' Seed store in Ukiah, CA. The store operates using a unique model of "community commerce," whereby shoppers can milk goats or provide child care in exchange for beads or seeds.

The bride's parents are Dr. and Mrs. John Resnick of Long Island. Dr. Resnick is chief of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The bridegroom, 39, is also a "doctor": "Dr. Stoopid," a noted medical marijuana advocate who passes out joints from a unicycle.

(Many thanks to Dr. Fish for this great tip!)

Party practice

Mr. Barefoot figured out that part of the reason throwing the Big Party in October is stressful is that we don't have much practice in doing so. In some glorious (imagined?) past, elegant orchestrated parties might have been common. Surely it was easier with stay-at-home spouses or even household help to do the cooking and cleaning. Lacking either of those, most of our events tend to be simple wine & cheese or cocktail parties, with a few yummies hastily grabbed from Trader Joe's.

This weekend, we're taking it up a notch - with catered food and decorated cakes (yes, plural!) and bubbly - for our celebration of my almost-graduation. (I'll be finishing up this summer - the end is definitely in sight.) The whirl of parties starts tonight, my folks arrive tomorrow, and I get to wear my lovely blue flowing gown on Sunday!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Six minutes of enlightenment

I dare you to keep a straight face. I don't think it's possible.

via Adventures of a Barefoot Princess.

Even more than coffee...

Mr. Barefoot is uneasy about his position in my life vis a vis coffee. He's worried that in the clutch, I'd choose those two crucial cups of life-giving java that I blindly grope for every morning. (The crazy lark wakes up with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step, ready to head out and conquer the world! I love it... from the depths of my groggy haze.)

Maybe this will ease his concerns.




From Storey Shop, via Esty Wedding.

My year of careening crazily

Have you ever had a year when everything changes completely?

A year ago, I was a wandering graduate student in the Himalayas, wearing the same three pairs of hiking pants over and over. I had a lovely boyfriend back in the States, with whom I talked regularly, but my life felt pretty footloose and fancy-free (on a good day; and nauseatingly unmoored, on a bad one.)

Now, everything is changing utterly. I moved back to the States, stopped wandering through villages and subsisting on rice. We bought and moved into a house - our first time living together.

After spending all of this century (!) as a graduate student (yeah, since fall 2000), I am about to move to the other side of the desk, to resume getting a paycheck, to start paying back my student loans.

In the next six months, I will become a professor and a wife. After so long as a student and a singleton, it makes my head spin.

Symbolizing these transitions, I have purchased the two most expensive items of clothing I've ever owned in the past six months.

One, as you would suspect, is a gorgeously flowing white gown, about which I will say nothing else, as Mr. Barefoot turns out to be secretly following my blog.
(Hi ya!)

The other is also flowing and gorgeous, but in navy twill. I looks something like this:

I'll wear it on May 17, exactly 5 months and 1 week, before I wear my other insanely expensive piece of clothing.

How's this for a bridesmaid's look? A number of my friends have, or have worn such gowns, so I'm thinking it could work.

Yum!

That looks like a wedding cake to me!


From aptly named Love at First Bite, from which I brought Mr. Barefoot cupcakes for his birthday after we'd been dating a few months.

However, I think Mr. Barefoot would like something a little more traditional.... maybe we'll get this for the "groom's cake."



he, he! And then we'll have this chocolate confection as the 'bride's cake.'


Super spectacular, from Edith Meyer, organic baker.

But what I'd really like is a luscious tiramisu



or amaretti cake, from organic Crixa Cakes.
Must get over there to taste right away!

Hop to it!

from here, via FFFFOUND!

Hoping your day is full of snuggly bunnies, butterflies, organic fruits, and other spring goodness!

Barefoot Life List

Inspired by Mighty Girl, I decided to write down a current life list. I'm a big fan of lists, and I usually have several mental ones running.

Mr. Barefoot and I have tandem lists for the summer that include conferences, weddings (not ours), hiking, climbing, backpacking, and maybe a trip overseas (ya gotta love the academic schedule! However, my list also includes prepping to teach to new classes next fall, and completing my dissertation, so it's not all bubbles and campfires.)

Prior to this summer's list, I had a list called the Big Five. The goals were so monumental that I didn't need anything more on my Life List until I got them done. To wit:

1. Finish my PhD
2. Get a job
3. Get a house
4. Get a spouse
5. Have a baby (or get a dog)*

#2 & 3 have been accomplished. #1 & 4 are well under way. That leaves #5... we're saving that project until the rest are complete.

Thinking more expansively, some other things I'd like to do in this life are:

• Hike the John Muir Trail
• Summit Mt. Shasta (missed by a few hundred feet last summer)
• Live overseas again
• Finish reading A Suitable Boy
• Grow tomatoes in the backyard
• Laugh often
• Lose my fear of public speaking
  
• Teach my nephew to rock climb
• Publish a couple books
• Soak in Iceland's Blue Lagoon
• Float the backwaters of Kerala
  
• Run the Dipsea Race
• Ski a blue trail
• Practice yoga in Mysore
  
• Host dinner parties for awesome women
• Walk with the Shikoku pilgrims
• Climb Mt. Fuji
  
• Cook Thai food
• Speak Tibetan at the Potala
• Sit for ten-days in a meditation retreat
• Hike the Cinque Terre
• Follow the Camino de Santiago
  

and so many more... This will have to be a work in progress.

What's on your Life List? How does getting married change it?

*Not that I'm equating the two!

In praise of WILB

Leave it to a social scientist to give you a fancy acronym for internet surfing.

Researchers at Australian University have identified Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing, or WILB, as a source of - get this! - increased productivity when confined to 20% or less of the workday.

Seventy percent of the office employees studies used the internet for personal business during the workday. Of those, 9% were more productive than workers who didn't surf.

The researchers defined WILB as "browsing the web for information and reviews of products, reading online news sites, playing online games, keeping up-to-date with friends activities on social networking sites." Though they singled out Facebook and Twitter as possible sources of improved productivity, I'm pretty sure that reading wedding blogs and websites falls under "browsing the web for information."

They noted that workers need micro-breaks to re-set their concentration. This restoration of concentration could lead to improved productivity.

There you have it: your free pass for reading blogs! Happy Monday!

Sunday brunch?

Brunch is my absolute favorite meal: waffles, strawberries, mimosas, omlettes, lox, home fries and salsa:
such great combinations of savory and sweet that you don't get at any other meal. Plus endless cups of coffee, and (usually) endless hours to while away with conversation and the newspaper.


So why anyone would question whether brunch is appropriate for a wedding is a bit unfathomable to me -- maybe people are less likely to drink and dance in the noonday sun.

But the idea of hanging out with friends the day after the wedding is pretty irresistible to me. My model is my friend Tina's wedding last Nov. The day after the wedding, diehard partiers lounged in the deep shade of sprawling trees at her father's farm.

We're still working out our Sunday morning plans, but they'll definitely involve plenty of french-pressed coffee and sunglasses.

Whatever we decide to do, I know what I'd like to wear...


so sweet. from Sunday Brunch, via The Sassy Kathy

Date Night to Save the Planet: Candlelight Earth Hour

You know you need time with your sweetie to put aside the wedding planning mania and reconnect.

You know everyone looks better by candlelight.

You know that it's sometimes overwhelming to plan another event while you're busy planning your wedding.

So here's what you do:

• Tell your sweetie you need at least an hour together on Sat. night.
• Gather up some candles, some matches or a lighter, a couple glasses, maybe some chocolates.
• Open a bottle of wine.
• At 8:30 pm, light the candles, and switch off the lights and TV.
• Gaze longingly into each other's eyes...

Congratulations, you're doing something nice for the Earth, by participating in Earth Hour!

Wasn't it easy Being Green?

Transport to Save the Planet: A Wedding Parade

yes, yes, YES!!! This exactly captures the fun, playful, outdoorsy feeling I want!

We'll all parade from the beach to the reception!

via Snippet and Ink