Popular New Year's ResolutionsAccording to usa.gov, these are some popular New Year's Resolutions for Americans. My comments inline.
Lose Weight Meh. If I do, I do. With any luck I'll be pregnant most of this year, so my goal will read more like "don't gain too much weight"
Manage Debt No debt to manage.
Save Money No problems.
Get a Better Job The only way I could love my job more is if it moved to San Francisco. No job searching for me.
Get Fit I would like to get in better shape, actually. In 2006 when I completed a triathlon I was probably in the best shape of my life. Getting back to that would be fun. Not sure if I care enough to make it a goal, though.
Eat Right I eat better than some, worse than others. Well enough for me.
Get a Better Education Other than reading interesting books to learn new skills and improve the ones I have, no on this resolution. No desire to go back to school, for example.
Drink Less Alcohol I don't drink much as it is, a glass or two here and there.
Quit Smoking Now Never smoked, check.
Reduce Stress Overall Hm, this wouldn't hurt. Getting more sleep would probably do the trick.
Reduce Stress at Work This wouldn't hurt either, but it's mostly self imposed I think.
Take a Trip We have a few trips planned to visit friends, but a big foreign vacation is not in the cards for this year. That's fine, I feel like nesting anyway.
Volunteer to Help Others I have actually been thinking about doing this. So far I've done a lot of looking and thinking but no actual helping. TodayIf today had happened a few weeks ago:
Sleep through my alarm for thirty minutes. Become annoyed because I just missed the 6:20am bus to the 6:44am train, and this early in the morning the buses come too infrequently to catch the 6:59am train by bus either. Kill lots of time until the 7:20am bus, take to the 7:44am train, wait for the shuttle to work (that only runs once an hour), arrive at work at 8:50am, an hour later than I meant to. Compete with dozens of people for the last of breakfast before it's taken away at 9am.
What actually happened:
Sleep through my alarm for thirty minutes. Don't fret because unlike the previous dozen or so months, I did not buy a bus pass for August. I've done this in hopes that I'll bike more. Take a shower and pack my bag at a leisurely pace. Top off bike tires, bike the 2.5 miles to the train station and catch the 7:19am train. This one doesn't stop at the station closest to work, but it gets pretty close. Bike 5 miles to work (instead of the 3.5 miles I would have biked had I caught the 6:44am or 6:59am trains.) Arrive at work at 8:30am and eat a leisurely breakfast.
Extras:
* What's with sleeping through my alarm? I never do that.
* On my ride to the train station, another cyclist asked me where I got my ($10) bike basket.
* In the train bike car, another cyclist asked me where I got my ($10) bungee net that holds things in my bike basket.
* The ride from the San Carlos Caltrain (aka "close enough") station to the Redwood City Caltrain (aka "my usual") station couldn't possibly be easier. 1.5 miles of slightly downhill, straight, wide lane, embankment on the right so no roads connecting from that direction, pavement in good condition paved road bliss. Wedding Rings
Seller's picture
Our wedding rings arrived in the mail last night. They rock.
Community GardenI'm signing up for a community garden plot! I meet with the coordinator on Sunday. This specific community garden is two blocks from my apartment, and on my bus route home; all I'll have to do is get off the bus two stops early, tend the garden for 15 mintues, and head home, possibly with fresh veggies for dinner. I've been obsessively reading all about urban and container gardening. I think I'm going to start with California Poppies, lettuces, and berries (probably strawberries). Any suggestions or wisdom to pass on?
I don't have any pictures yet, but here's a really awesome picture of the outside of the playground/park that the community garden is in the rear of. Sorry, you can't actually see the garden area at all. But, the blue ground in the playground area is super awesome squishy non-hurty, and the mural is stunning. Oh, and that picture link? That's mapjack.com, a new competitor of Google Maps Streetview, and it ROCKS (at least for SF and Oakland, anyway). Kung Fu Panda: shameless plugThe first trail for Kung Fu Panda is now up and watchable at KungFuPanda.com. Watch it! The Wedding Dress I went to Bella Bridesmaid today to buy the green strapless dress, which was going to be my wedding dress.
I decided to try it on again, just for fun, and to remind myself of how awesome it is. I was pretty happy with it still, and was about ready to sign all of the paperwork to buy it, when in a fit of indecision I decided to browse the dress rack again. The saleswomen in the shop seemed pretty used to this kind of behavior, thankfully.
I tried on, loved, and ultimately bought this dress, in the same green color as the strapless dress. It's from the same designer (Jenny Yoo), has the same neat back detail, the same A-line skirt, but with straps. I felt more comfortable and confident in it, like I could do jumping jacks if I wanted to. In comparison, the strapless dress felt more like I might be checking and adjusting it the whole time I was wearing it, something I didn't notice until I tried on something that didn't make me feel that way.
Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me, so there are no pictures of me trying the dress on. Be content with this picture from the dress designer's website. :)
Looks like someone needs a kitten-pile
So many of my friends need a kitten pile right now, it's definitely not funny. So here you go. Snuggle in its warm fuzziness, and know you are loved.
Knit PresentsAmong the gifts I gave family and friends this year were two hand knit items. They were both made from free knitty patterns, using the specified yarns and needles. Both look much more complicated to make than they actually are.
 Sheldon, a very cute knit turtle, was a gift for Mc. He fits in well with the rest of our plush turtle family. I now appreciate that the stuffing of plush animals is a skill into itself.
The pattern.
 Quant, a cool headband, is a gift for H. It was a very fast knit, and a nice change from the tight knitting required for Sheldon. Here's an alternate view. I regret that I didn't have time to make a practice Quant before I made this one, since I learned so much along the way.
The pattern.
Thrift Store FindsA trip to the local thrift store over the weekend yielded:
-1 bag of odds and ends from home, donated.
1 Oster bread machine ($12.50)
1 Oxo Salad Spinner ($3.50)
Awesome! I've wanted a salad spinner for a while, but couldn't justify the $30 retail cost. And who can pass up a $12.50 bread machine? The risk is so low, and the potential benefits are so high!
The bread machine even came with an unopened box of bread mix (cinnamon raisin). So I got home, cleaned the bread maker and salad spinner, dumped the bread mix and some water into the bread machine, and hit "Start." Three hours later I had a hot loaf of tasty bread. Awesome!
Last night I made another loaf of bread, this time from the manufacturer's recipe book. It was an Express Bake recipe, so I had a finished loaf in just one hour. That's the good part. The bad part was that I basically made a loaf of Wonder Bread. This stuff has negative flavor and is WAY fluffier than I like my bread to be.
But I've now proved that the machine can make bread reliably (and wasn't donated to the thrift store because it was broken, for example). Time to start experimenting with honey wheat bread recipes! Machu Picchu here we come
Last night, after months of research and talking, M and I took the plunge and bought our honeymoon plane tickets to Peru. Starting just a few days after the wedding and ending 18 days later, we'll be breathing the thin air of Cusco, taking in the beautiful vistas of The Sacred Valley, tromping up the Inca Trail to reach Machu Picchu, and (luckily) attending the annual Inti Raymi ("Festival of the Sun").
Can't wait can't wait can't wait can't wait.
Making Ends Meet: How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Family in CaliforniaThe California Budget Project just released a new report which estimates how much it costs to basically "get by" in California, then breaks it down by region. Not surprisingly, the Greater Bay Area[1] is near the top, though there isn't as much variation by region as I would have expected. A single person must early close to $30,000 a year just to have food, clothing, shelter, and health insurance. That's almost three times the federal poverty guideline.
Here is the actual report, and two area newspaper articles about the report:
California Budget Project: Making Ends Meet: How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Family in California
San Francisco Chronicle: A Bay Area couple with two kids can't make it on $50,000 a year
San Jose Mercury News: Middle-class incomes dwarfed by Bay Area's high housing costs
I'm still putting together my spreadsheet that compares my numbers to the report's. Thankfully, and not surprisingly, I'm doing more than just "getting by." But I'm also not splurging much (compared to the report's baseline) on basics like housing and transportation.
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[1] Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma Unread Books memevia chad and seppo and dre. I'm not sure where this list orginated, or what criteria were used. Certain works are "classics" thst should be read to more fully understand the influences of, for example, modern cinema. (I say this although I haven't read most of them myself). Others I suppose are modern classics that will surely stand the test of time and influence authors and readers for evermore. But some are just books that are popular these days, for example The Time Traveller's Wife, and I really don't see why it should be sharing list space with a novel like Crime and Punishment.
Bold = I've read it
Italics = I've read part of it
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, And Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx And Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers Meme
20 Years Ago, I...
1) was just starting the 6th grade.
2) had one of my best friends die.
3) was a total brat and was beginning to seriously rebel.
15 Years Ago, I...
1) suddenly loved my body for what it is, not what it will never be.
2) was desperate to escape upstate New York.
3) was very mediocre at sports, but played a lot of them anyway.
10 Years Ago, I...
1) was reveling in the joy of living in a large city.
2) wasn't sure I wanted to be a Mechanical Engineer anymore, but knew I had to finish my degree anyway.
3) wasn't drinking at all because my SO at the time was straight edge.
5 Years Ago, I...
1) moved from Boston to Los Angeles.
2) dated or almost dated more people in a short span of time than at any other time in my life.
3) forgot how to ignore being cold.
2 Years Ago, I...
1) moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco, after almost moving to NYC instead.
2) had a serious scooter accident in Mexico while vacationing alone.
3) welcomed my first niece into the world.
1 Year Ago, I...
1) met Mc.
2) completed a triathlon on my 30th birthday.
3) sold my truck and re-entered the vehicle-free life.
Yesterday, I...
1) woke up earlier than usual and it was still dark so I realized it really was fall.
2) started writing my annual review at work.
3) woke up at 11pm when Mc got home from work and hung out sleepily for an hour before falling back to sleep.
Today, I...
1) investigated a yoga studio that's opening a block from my apartment.
2) talked about parenting with my sister while riding the train to work.
3) ate a donut at breakfast despite my better judgment.
Tomorrow, I'll...
1) wish my sister a happy birthday.
2) spend the evening hanging out with Mc, since we only get two a week.
3) finish the final book of the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Philip Pullman, hopefully.
In 5 years I want to...
1) be a home owner.
2) be married to Mc with a kid or two.
3) feel the same joy and contentment with every day that I feel now.
Bank Closed by FDICWhat a lovely shock for a Friday afternoon: my bank was closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision. I'm reading through the provided literature now, and I'm in luck. The "assuming institution" is ING Direct, where I already have a savings account.
Has this happened to anyone else before? Any advice? And: does anyone really love their bank and want to recommend it? :) Tall Rich GhettosI picked up the San Francisco Bay Guardian free weekly newspaper on my way to the train this morning because of the cover story: a picture of one of the many new condo high rises being built in the SOMA district, and the headline "SF's housing psychosis."
I haven't had a chance to read more than the lead-in editorials, and the main article is quite long, but I like what I'm reading so far. These articles are solidifying some thoughts that have been playing at the edge of my mind lately. Namely, "why can't two gainfully employed people such as Mc and myself afford to buy a condo/TIC/house large enough to raise a few kids in?" Seriously, it's crazy. Our household income is far above the San Francisco median, and we aren't looking to live in luxury here. It's not just us, either. Wikipedia says that San Francisco has the third-highest median family income of any large city in the country ($67,809 in 2005), yet also has "a lower proportion of children, 14.5 percent, than any other large city in the U.S." It's easy to see why families are moving away, when the average house prices are so high as to be laughably out of reach for the average family.
The editorial asserts that "Demand for high-end condos in San Francisco is, for all practical purposes, unlimited and insatiable", so all the new market rate units that have come up for sale in the last few years, and all the others that are being built now, will never bring the supply and demand into a balance where a two bedroom condo becomes affordable to us. They'll stay expensive and we'll stay renters (not that that's the end of the world). But worse, "There are virtually zero affordable apartments in this city for the people who make up the heart of San Francisco. We're doing ecological damage by driving them out of town (and forcing them to drive back, in cars). We're doing social damage by shattering communities (through evictions and displacement). And all we're offering is modest tidbits of real planning (a few slightly more affordable units here and there for every 100 we give to the rich)."
Here, I'll just let you read them for yourself:
Editor's Notes: Time to turn our housing policy upside down
Our three-point plan to save San Francisco
A Prop. M for housing
Forget the neighbors: build away!
There may be more related articles in this issue, I haven't done an exhaustive search yet.
Oh, and this sentence stung a bit. The editorial said that San Francisco has to "start treating housing as a necessity (as we're doing with health care) and not ... an amenity for Silicon Valley commuters who would rather have a playground here than live closer to work." Ouch. I work in Silicon Valley, and now so does Mc. But we love the city, and would work there in a heartbeat if our jobs were there. We want to raise our children here. I take the train and buses, don't own a car, and can't afford to buy one of those "playgrounds" even on my Silicon Valley salary. We're not even drawn to most of this new construction, because it's so anti-family and neighborhood; just big glass pillars full of anonymous faces. So am I part of the problem? Or part of what San Francisco should be trying to keep?
See, a funny thing happens when you move out of a one bedroom apartment suitable for a single person or a couple, and start looking for two bedroom apartments large enough to accommodate children. Your ability to save money goes right out the window. In our current $1400/month one bedroom apartment, Mc and I are able to live comfortably and save for the future. But listings for two bedroom rentals on craigslist, in non-sketch neighborhoods, hover between $2200 and $3000 a month. Depending on what other lifestyle changes we made, our savings rate could drop to zero. That's mortgage down payment money, not to mention child raising money, that isn't getting saved. That's a mortgage payment in other Bay Area communities. The economics of the situation are pretty easy to see. Is renting in SF but not saving at all worth it? Or would we rather move away to a lower cost of living? Nearly all SF families choose the latter, for all the obvious reasons.
But Mc and I don't want to be one of those families. We want to stick it out and make it work in SF. But maybe the city should be helping us, and all the other families, instead of (as the Guardian asserts) letting the city become a series of "tall rich ghettos."The Onion: Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8
Too funny not to link. Graffiti ArchaeologyA few weeks ago M randomly found a fantastic website called Infosthetics, a site devoted to aesthetically pleasing information displays and interfaces. The indie son of Tufte would love it.
So tonight I'm checking my rss feeds, and check on Infosthetics, and I read this post about Graffiti Archaeology. I was marveling at it for a good ten minutes before I noticed that a big bit of text in the corner of each page proclaimed that every picture was taken by... a coworker of mine. Awesome. :) Happy Birthday R!Hope you have a great one. Turtles Turtles EverywhereOur ever-growing plush turtle collection so far consists of:
(edited!)
KORALL. Bought on a whim from Ikea by M. If you pull his head the neck extends and winds up a lullaby music box inside. As it plays down the neck retracts.
Twilight Turtle. Bought by me for M as a celebratory gift when he got a job. I wanted to get him a Turtle Mount for WOW, but he said it wasn't worth the money ($50 for the special card off of ebay). We originally saw this toy at a friend's place in Boston and loved it. It projects stars on the ceiling!
Shecky. Bought by M as a gift to me. Biggest eyes and floppiest neck ever.
These are share the bedside tables with a toy fish that looks a bit like Nemo that M bought from Community Thrift for $1, and a tiny cute plush sea otter I bought from Monterey Bay Aquarium and M calls "Ugly." And three ugly dolls of various sizes. And some older small Totoro dolls of mine.
When did we become the couple with more stuffed animals than pillows?
ETA: Wow. Either M read this entry, or read my mind. Look at what greeted me when I got home tonight... Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resignedBest news I've heard since the Dems won the House. Lean Lasagna RecipeA few weeks ago I made a spinach and beef lasagna that went over really well with all who tried it. On Tuesday night I made another one, using turkey (as the recipe calls for). M likes the beef better, but since I'm in the "evils of saturated fat" section of the wonderful "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy" book that E is loaning to me, I couldn't stand the idea of making a big dish of beef and cheese for a loved one.
Here's a link to the recipe. I also copied it below, with notes on how I did it differently.
LEAN LASAGNA
Homemade, at least the way Self does it, fills you up without filling you out, but it takes an hour to make (for me at least, it took an hour not including cooking time). Freeze the leftovers for quick meals that are more healthful than most of the ones you find in the freezer section of the supermarket.
Vegetable-oil cooking spray
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 lb ground turkey breast (used 1.25 lbs, because that's how the grocery sold it.)
3 cups tomato sauce (used one jar of spaghetti sauce. Probably could have used a bit more.)
3 tsp Italian seasoning (or 1 tsp each dried basil, parsley, and oregano)
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder (used jarred diced garlic.)
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms (used a full pint of pre-cut mushrooms.)
6 cups chopped fresh spinach (or chard) (accidentally used a bit more than this. 6 cups is plenty.)
2 cups fat-free ricotta (used a bit less, as that's how it was sold. could have used more.)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 package whole-wheat lasagna noodles(about 8 oz, or 9 noodles) (used normal white noodles.)
2 cups (8 oz) shredded part-skim mozzarella
Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a medium-sized nonstick skillet with cooking spray. Sauté onion for 2 minutes, then add turkey and cook an additional 5 to 7 minutes. Add tomato sauce, all seasonings and mushrooms and simmer 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat. In a bowl, combine spinach, ricotta, and nutmeg. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente (they mean it, don't under-cook the noodles, they don't cook much in the oven with this recipe). Drain and rinse with cool water. Coat a 9" x 13" baking pan with cooking spray (did not use spray). Arrange 1/3 lasagna noodles (3 noodles) on the bottom of the pan. Spread a layer of ricotta mixture, then turkey mixture, then 1/3 mozzarella. Repeat layers, ending with mozzarella. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until cheese bubbles. Cool at least 5 minutes before cutting (more like 15 minutes). Nutritional analysis per serving: 310 calories, 6 g fat (3.5 g saturated fat), 31 g carbohydrates, 33 g protein, 4 g fiber
Makes 8 servings. (very generously sized servings!)
SELF
September 2003
The DressSuccess! I found the dress I will get married in.
 On Saturday I went to a little boutique with E and M view a specific dress I had seen pictures of online. I was hoping and hoping that it would look just as good on me as it did on the catalog model. It ended up being everything I could have hoped for. They even had it in the color I want. Elegant without being stiff, simple without being boring, flattering on me, a fantastic color in fantastic fabric, and those fantastic ties and key-hole opening are so awesome. Best of all I couldn't stop smiling while I was wearing it.
(Note, the dress was a size too small for me, so please try to imagine the right size instead of the very very tight sizing you see here.)
 It costs more than I had budgeted for, but only by $75. M and I had decided that a dress I was so happy with was worth going over budget for, so it's basically all settled. Then, while I was on the phone with my mother this evening telling her about the dress, she tells me that she wants to buy it for me as part of her wedding present to me. How awesome and sweet of her. So I'll be celebrating in style thanks to my Mom. :)
Thanks so much to E and M for watching me try on half a dozen dresses, helping me be critical and objective about them, and sharing my relief at having found something so perfect. E, you combine knowledge of fashion with a scientific mind in the most amazing way!
Also thanks to H who helped me view dresses last week, and everyone who commented on the last entry, and in flickr, and has been supportive through this whole process. Horray! It's over! :D
"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro I bought "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro about a month ago because Dre told me to, but I didn't actually start reading it until Monday of this week. I finished it yesterday morning; it's a very fast, very easy read because it's written in a conversational, first person, dialog-driven style.
Dre said that it was "Kinda anti-climatic", which I have to agree with, and not only because you could tell how the book was going to play out almost from the beginning, but because the characters hardly develop at all. Really, given what was happening to them, I'd have thought that realistic characters would have reacted pretty differently. It was entertaining, and I was always eager to read it (even brought it to the gym to read on the stationary bike, which I never do), so I'm not willing to say that it's not worth reading at all. And yet it was disappointing, because it felt like a missed opportunity to better explore the reality and characters.
Another small complaint that didn't fit in up there: the universe itself wasn't self-consistent. I'm not sure how to explain that comment without giving away ploy, so I won't.
Two stars out of five. :/
DressesesseesssSo I've been looking for a dress to get married in. If you don't care about dress talk, I'd leave now. :)
(Oh, and if get permission errors from that link or any of the ones below, it's because you aren't my flickr friend. So get on that, will ya?)
I started out this process by doing a lot of web searching for dresses in general. I don't pay a lot of attention to fashion, and I'm not a big wearer of skirts and dresses, so I needed to get my bearings a bit. That's where I found these:
Love the color and detailing, not the $1038 price tag
Awesome and striking
Oh my lord in heaven, I love this dress beyond words. Almost $2000 worth of Wai Ching silk goodness.
Same designer (Wai Ching) as the last dress, at a far more attainable price tag. Still, $565 is almost twice my dress budget. :(
Then I did a lot of fruitless real world shopping. I tromped all over the Mission, Hayes Valley, the Haight, and Union Square. I tried on lots of dresses and got fairly despondent. Most of them weren't interesting to me, and the rest didn't look good on me.
Hides any trace of figure I have. Empire waist formless skirt = bad.
So when I tried on a dress that I liked better than anything else so far (at Nordstrom's, $170) I bought it. But, after having it at home and thinking it over and consulting M a bit, I returned it.
The catalog photo
Wow, I look HUGE next to a picture of a model in the same dress.
There were a few problems with it. First, it didn't really have the right "feel" to it, in that it was a bit too informal and simultaneously too conservative. Second, I finally figured out why countless dresses in stores these days don't look good on me. That mid-torso sash accentuates my wide, straight torso. My hips are barely wider than my waist, and although I've never measured it I bet my shoulders are the widest part of my body. To top it off, I have small breasts (B) and carry my excess weight at my waist. So these flirty dresses with their big sashes weren't going to work for me.
I then starting really looking at a dress that I already own and really like. It's a linen dress, the one I wear to almost every wedding I attend. It's simple, has a flattering-to-me cut, but is a bit too plain to be married in. But I think I can learn from it, all the same.
Horray for open bar weddings!
So I started web searching again, this time focusing on dresses that had some of the same elements as my linen dress: no sashes or seams in the waist area (I tested this theory with a few other dresses and it's definitely a rule for me to follow), somewhat fitted through the torso, and with a preference for floor length dresses and the color green. This led me to... bridesmaid dresses. Huh.
The satin ended up looking cheap and ugly in person.
I found this number online, and really fell in love with the pictures. I searched for a place to buy it online with no luck. So instead I found a local bridal shop that carries that designer's dresses. I also found another dress by that designer being sold on ebay for something like $33. The seller was a bridal shop that was going out of business and liquidating their stock. That's how I found this dress, another item from the same seller. (Click on it to go to the larger version so you can see the neat button detail on the back).
Pink? Hm, maybe.
So I went to that bridal shop on Monday (with my friend H. it's so much more fun to dress shop with someone). They didn't have that dress there, but seeing others by the same designer in the same color made me realize that satin looks pretty different in person than in photos, and not for the better. All of the satin bridesmaids gowns I saw there looked cheap and high school-y. So satin is officially vetoed. Ick. On the other hand, the non-satin materials seemed fine. Weird.
So back to that ebay dress. I had it in the back of my mind while I was at the shop, so I tried on this dress by a different maker, and in satin (ew) instead of the taffeta the ebay dress is, but a similar cut and color and style.
Ignore the satin, ignore the satin, ignore, ignore
And it didn't look too bad. The color looked good on me, and certainly looked better than any of the greens I was seeing (at least at this store), which all were too primary green for me. Plus the ebay dress was $43 with shipping, and actually is two dresses (size 10 and 6 in the same style) so I could potentially resell the size 6 and recoup all the money spent. And if I don't like it I can sell both. So I talked it over with M a bit and decided to go ahead and buy it. It should be on its way now...
But rewind a bit, and I had already made an appointment at one of those appointment only boutiques in Union Square. This shop sells only "modern bridesmaid dresses," and I'm going there specifically to see this one:
Look at that, I tell ya!
I've asked, and they have it there. Whew. If this one looks good on me, it could be the best of all worlds. Not too expensive (just $75 over budget, well, before tax), makes me look tall (crosses fingers), a lovely woodsy green color, silk shangtung (not satin), and kind of playful with that neat tie in the back. Oh, and potentially wearable to things after the wedding (unlike the two Wai Ching dresses that I still fantasize about).
E is going with me on Saturday to the shop. Wish us luck! Wedding date: June 7th 2008It recently came to my attention that far too few of my friends know when my wedding date is. See, I forget who I've told and who I haven't, and I don't want to bother people. The save the date cards are in the works, but:
Saturday June 7th, 2008 (6-7-8, get it, get it?!)
San Francisco, CA (but of course)
Specifically, at Stern Grove, a lovely oasis of eucalyptus trees, grass, and Victorian House (just the one).
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