Saturday, November 28, 2009

"I need my family!"

That is a direct and shameless quote from my little 3-year-old nephew, Nicolas, who stated this little piece of true wisdom at the Thanksgiving table after they had returned home from the frenzied wedding weekend at our house.

Ahhh! SUCH a glorious time! I have to tell the world (or at least the small followers of this teensy blog) how impressed/proud/humbled I was by the sight of our entire extended family heaving-to and making this wedding not only HAPPEN, but making it a beautiful, personal, creatively touched event. My family....my family. Couldn't have done it without my family and a few of our dearest, generous friends who gave of themselves with their selfless, seemingly tireless, loving and joyful contributions on every front; from floral arranging to fancy sandwich making to sign-design to makeup artistry on what seemed to be an endless stream of cheerful bridesmaids and the utter grunt-work of set up and tear down involved in a backyard reception. It was this beautiful, warm event that none of us will ever, ever forget. The culmination, of course, was sitting on that golf green and hearing Heidi and Scott pledge their lives and love to one another as the ocean breeze ruffled Heidi's dress and hair. I'm fairly certain that the only dry eyes in the house were those of the worms underground, waiting for some peace and quiet.

At any rate, I echo Nicolas' sage remark, "I need my family!" Because, they are the best people on the planet.

Basking in the memory and wishing you all a happy and blessed holiday season,
Candy

Sunday, November 8, 2009

It is a GOOD reason.

Really, this time, I TOTALLY have a good reason for not attending to my writing assignments. As in, Heidi is getting MARRIED in less than 2 weeks and we are working QUITE hard to make it a completely glorious day for her and Scott.

So.

Naturally, in the process of getting things ready, one has to make sure everyone's got proper wedding gear for the special day. I've finally found my dress, Clay is on his way to a full suit, and today, we made it our aim to get Tim all situated. Always an adventure; always.

Erstmahl (which means, "first of all" in German) as you've read in previous posts, you know that Tim only has 2 speeds to his metabolism; "slow" and "reverse". He's just a very laid-back, mellow type of fellow; methodical, if you will. Make no mistake; he gets things done and they get done well; there's just never a sense of *hurry* about him. Which can be good for the rest of us who sometimes tear through life at a pace that keeps our hair streaming out behind us.

So, we fetch a few pairs of pants and a shirt and shuffle off to the dressing room. I don't know what it is about Target's dressing rooms, but both times Tim has had to try things on there, he nearly blows the doors off with one of his hydrogen-bomb sneezes. It certainly marks the time of day for whatever unsuspecting attendant is at the service desk. This time, the startled woman looked up at me and then and yelled, "Bless you!" around the corner. Good. We are already leaving an impression.

I am the hare and Tim is the tortoise. I don't know WHY, I really don't, WHY it takes so frightfully long to climb in and out of a pair of pants and shirt. I feel my life slipping away from me as I leeeeeean all over my cart alternating weight on my feet, praying a little and contemplating the universe. FINALLY he emerges, and now I have a clue as to why it took a long time -- the pants are, well, "snug" is being kind. I shooed him out of the public eye and told him to hurry a little bit with the remaining things, which he did.

We finally settled on THIS:



He looks pretty spiffy, no? Le Vest hides away Le Love for cheesecake and makes him look nice and manly. We were wending our way out of the men's department when he spotted HATS and begged to try on a few fedoras. So we got one to finish off his outfit, but he is verboten from wearing it TO the ceremony. He'll have to wait until the reception to add that little flourish.

Heidi ok'd the outfit, so we've got that down. Yay. Have to hem the pants, but I'd say we did well, even efficiently grabbing 3 linen tablecloths on our way to the men's department so that the food tables are well outfitted also.

It's going to be a great day.
Don't expect to hear from me between now and then or anytime shortly thereafter.....