61 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-19-18”

  7. That is a funny picture.

    Six, I want the dress photo too, please. By the way, you also need to send it to the mother of the groom, since you are supposed to choose your dress first, and then she buys one.

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  12. It sure is a beautiful day here. I was just out strolling around, enjoyng my chores. Had a handful of honeyberries off the shrub while out. That should help my brain. It was pleasant talking with my Creator and admiring His work. The rain dripping off the ends of the pine needles, the fragrance from different flowers filling the air, the gentle breeze. It all came together to show His Glory in a tiny way.

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  13. Thank you, Mumsee. :Blushing: I’m glad the saleslady helped me, because the other outfit — a matching skirt and top — I actually liked better, but, thinking about it today, I believe it would have been better for someone at least 15 years younger than I. I didn’t have children of marriageable age at that time. 😉

    Cheryl, I know nothing about wedding etiquette, so I’m glad you told me about sending a pic to the mother of the groom. She must not have known that, either, if she was already hunting for her dress before seeing what I (had[n’t]) bought.

    I will send to those of you whose comment I saw today about wanting to see the pics — Kare, DJ, Cheryl, RKessler, Kizzie. But first I should ask the people I emailed last night if you received multiple emails from me? (Probably not you, NancyJill, as yours was the last one I sent.)

    I had a raging migraine and wasn’t thinking clearly at all when I sent the pics last night, and I have this horrible feeling that Kim’s, Mumsee’s, and Jo’s inboxes got inundated with email after email when I sent the later emails.

    Did any of you ladies get more than one of the same email from me? Please tell me so you don’t get more today! I’ll try harder to figure a new way to send today’s batch without yesterday’s people getting yet another onslaught. 😛

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  18. Oh, well that’s good to know, Mumsee. That means Jo probably only got one email, also. And NancyJill for sure only one.

    So now I’m wondering if you, Kim, got one or three or a bazillion when I kept trying to send the one to you and Mumsee where Mumsee’s address said “at” instead of @? Apologies if your answer is a plural number. 😉

    Michelle, got you added to my list.

    Time to get going with some home things. I’ll check back here in a few hours and email pics then to anyone who wants them who hasn’t received them yet.

    Blessings on your day.

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  19. Morning! I have now seen a bird leaving a contrail!! That is an amazing shot AJ!!
    6 I did receive your email…only 1…just before heading off to bed. Tis a beautiful mother of the bride dress…and the shoes are lovely upon your feet!! 😊 The necklace is lovely, but…if it were my choosing, I would go with something more dainty. You are petite and something more dainty would be my choice. However, I am not a jewelry person….I go for simple pieces if any at all. I once borrowed some jewelry from my more fashion conscious friend for a wedding I was to attend. I came home with it on and my husband declared “you look like Shelia, not Nancy”….I returned the jewelry to her and wore my simple chain with the one charm. 😊

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  21. Thank you to all you ladies who offered me your firm but loving words of advice about dealing with X. Nightingale is right – I am too naive where he is concerned, even with all that he has done to her and us in the past. I guess I am just so hopeful that he will eventually truly be saved and change that I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he is changing. He knows just what to say to touch (manipulate) my heart.

    But your advice and reminders have brought me back from the brink of doing that. Again, thank you.

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  25. How many gallons of paint should it take to paint a 1,200 sure foot house? About? 10? 20? More?

    Dog park painter isn’t getting back to me about any of this now, so I’m just going to go to the store today, show them the measurements he’d given me earlier, and ask them to figure it all out for me. I’m told the cans should say how many square feet they cover.

    Other people I ask all tell me they didn’t buy their paint, the painters did (with homeowners’ money).

    Personally, I think Chas and Elvera had the right idea about a wedding (although a few photos might have been nice!). And look how well that all worked out. 🙂

    My own parents were married one evening in a Presbyterian manse in Minnesota with just a few friends. My mom wore a suit. My grandparents (my mom’s parents, my grandfather was a nurseryman) were married in a simple ceremony in the family’s old, rambling, Iowa house where they were to live out their lives together raising two girls.

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  26. But now my roommate, she really went all out — 250 guests, formal Catholic wedding with all the bells and whistles and etiquette you could want. 🙂 That was pretty much my own introduction (as her maid of honor) to a *real* wedding. It was pretty much all exhausting, but my friend, the bride, had a great time, she was glowing, and that’s what counts.

    Me? I just couldn’t wait to get those shoes and that dress off at the end of what was a very, very long day.

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  27. She was married around the same time as Princess Diana was so big, proper weddings had really come back into vogue.

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  28. DJ, I think it also depends on how dry your surface is, how much it will soak in the paint so you need more. They are the ones to figure it out.

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  30. Yep…go to the paint store because that’s what they do 😊
    My wedding…back in 75…we ran off telling no one with the exception of my friend and her boyfriend…they were our witnesses…..stormy rainy night in August. No photos just memories. 43 years later, marching on…….

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  31. Donna @ 11:21. The only thing I regret about our wedding is that I didn’t hire a photographer. I was saving money (because I didn’t have any.) But I should have hired a professional. My sister’s husband took some pictures. Definitely amateur. I should have borrowed, or done something. We have no good pictures.

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  32. NancyJill – How did your parents feel about that?

    Years ago, my mom’s friend was devastated when her son eloped. She was felt left out.

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  33. NancyJill, my parents also mark 43 years this year. They didn’t run off, but the church was already booked, so they got married in my grandfather’s yard. My maternal grandfather was a factory worker, but his real passion was gardening, so his yard was lovely – I remember it when he was getting up in years and not able to keep up with everything, and even then it was lovely. The reception was held there also, with my grandmother as unofficial head caterer. All of my mother’s family, including her siblings in law (my mother was the last of her siblings to marry) chipped in to help – one sister in law made my mother’s dress and another sister in law lent her wedding veil. They do have photographs, thanks to family members with ability in that area. There even exists a film of the ceremony, but it was taken on a type of film which requires a special projector that has long been out of use, so they have never been able to show it to us.

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  34. Chas, pictures are just pictures. My sis in law took ours, they are fine. Nobody mentioned to husband that his bow tie was crooked so there it is.

    Our daughter could be said to have eloped. She went to a lot of time and effort and money to prepare for the wedding last winter, but our son, her intended, did not show up so she lost lots of money. I suspect that is part of why the new guy and she just went ahead and did it. That and his stepmom was angry they were not getting married in the Catholic church. I am fine with how they did it, just concerned that it was something like her third boyfriend since the failed wedding. God works. Even in our failings.

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  35. My parents were married somewhere, from the film it looks like it was in somebody’s house, Nobody ever told me where. I thought they did that because they were not Christians so we were married in the church. Had I known better, we would have been married at my house and saved my dad a couple hundred dollars, and me a lot of anxiety. Husband would have been fine with any of it.

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  36. Some of the pictures we have of my maternal grandparent’s wedding do appear to have been done by amateurs, as the people in the picture are never correctly centred in the picture, but I think they had an official portrait photographer for the wedding photo that all their children have, as it has the look of a formal portrait of that era (early 1940s). My paternal grandparents did not have a professional photographer, and the only picture we have of their wedding, actually of them leaving for their honeymoon, is slightly grainy, so that their faces are not quite clear.

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  37. My mom had her first wedding in Africa, with a lovely photo (color, but subtle color) in front of a grass-thatched African church. Mom owned a white suit, so she wore it and she was holding flowers. The preacher and the witnesses were white and spoke English, but the guests weren’t and didn’t. To get wedding music, they played a record (Helen Barth, for anyone old enough to know that name–years later they met her and told her she sang at their wedding, then explained the circumstances, which delighted her).

    When Mom was getting ready to marry my stepfather, my sister told me that while we thought that grass-thatched-roof photo quite romantic, Mom always wished she had had a “real” wedding. So for her second one, she did. Complete with one son as the preacher, my sister and me as bridesmaids, his son as a groomsman. She was in her seventies, and part of my maid of honor duties included giving the bride my arm so she could lean on me coming down the steps from the platform. And she chose to wear the same flowered dress she wore as mother of the bride in my sister’s wedding three years before. But we had a sit-down reception with a meal (catered by church folks) and a wedding cake, and we surprised the wedding couple by filling helium balloons that guests could release.

    Me, I like the idea that a wedding is a celebration–but I think it is nuts that it costs a year’s income for the typical young couple (and/or their parents). We chose to go simple and focus on the elements we really wanted. I had a lovely lace white dress and we had a formal wedding cake. Real flowers including lots of roses. A violin and a viola. But a sit-down meal was an extravagance we couldn’t really afford, and we didn’t want a late wedding anyway, so we chose a time of 2:00, figured people would have lunch before they came, and served cake and nuts and mints (the mints decorated by hand by the same people who made the cake) and punch. The photographer was new, the photos weren’t as sharp as they could be, and she missed some shots I’d wanted her to take (like photos of the girls at the guest book), but she was also cheap, and I suspect in decades to come the girls will be more interested in wedding photos of their own parents (though their kids might be more interested in ours, since they will know me and not their biological grandmother and since their moms will show up in some of our photos).

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  38. OK, I just sent the pics to Kare, DJ, Cheryl, RKessler, Kizzie, Michelle, and Roscuro. Let me know if you ladies (or Kim or Jo) don’t receive them. Mumsee and NancyJill, thanks for your comments. 🙂

    I have to chuckle at the pictures a little. They sort of make me look like I’m in a fun house, with a distorted mirror. I look about six inches shorter (even with 3-inch wedge heels on) and around a foot wider, LOL. Those 20 or so pounds I want to gain are right there in those pics. 😀

    Even my hair looks thicker!

    NancyJill, I think you’re right about going with daintier jewelry. That’s mainly what I wear, if I wear any jewelry at all (and lots of time I don’t). Today that necklace I bought looks too heavy for the lacy dress, and seems to distract from the intricate designs in the dress. The necklace looked better with the other outfit, actually, but I bought it, anyway, because it would match my husband’s suit and my shoes pretty well.

    I think I’m going to go with more understated jewelry, though, the more I think about it. I’m only out $5.00, having bought that necklace, and it should work with other outfits I already have.

    For those who enjoy shoe shopping — I know nothing about what brands are good, and so on — the saleslady mentioned that the brand I got is a good one. Have you heard of Nine West? I never had, but to get a pretty sandal wedge with ankle straps and gold buckles for $12.00 is my kind of deal!

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  39. Cheryl’s comment about the mother of the bride notifying the mother of the groom of what kind of dress she bought made me realize I should look into MotB etiquette more. This is the first article I found when I googled mother of the bride wedding etiquette:

    https://www.brides.com/story/mother-of-the-bride-duties

    Epic fail from me, so far, that I can see. 😛

    My own mom wasn’t all that active in helping me plan my wedding, or on the day itself, though she did arrange for a good friend of hers to make our cake. My dad hired the photographer and caterer because my parents were paying for the wedding, and wanted the lowest-cost service-people they could find.

    With my own daughter living hours away, and she and her fiance not wanting us to pay for the wedding, and them wanting to deal with caterers and clothiers and so on close to the area they’re living, and with the wedding venue also near them and far from us, it’s been a little hard for me to know how much input they want or need.

    The article did at least help me realize that I could simply ask what role she’d like me to play in the lead-up and on the wedding day (and day before, with the rehearsal) itself. The wedding seemed so far off at first (they’ve already been engaged a year and a half), and our (my husband’s and my) conversations with them early on about possibly getting married earlier and saving a reception or celebration of some sort for a later time, when finances would allow, fell on deaf ears. They wanted to do it their way in their timing.

    So here we are, with the wedding three months away now, and I’ve mostly been wrapped up in life as usual with the kids at home, and music business, and sameol, as Chas says.

    Steep learning curve for me in this endeavor. 😉

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  40. Six, I didn’t know anyone remembered what I said.
    And you didn’t know that I would read a post about a wedding to the end.
    😉

    All of my granddaughters had extravagant weddings. Chuck and they could afford it, but I wouldn’t have gone to that extent. I just wouldn’t.
    But, as I’ve always said, the wedding is for the woman; the man doesn’t care.
    NO, you just think so, he doesn’t care. He just wants to get his woman.

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  41. Oh, I was also going to say about dainty jewelry that when my hubby and I went shopping for our rings (he didn’t “pop the question” and present a ring at the same time — he wanted me to be along to help pick out the rings), we found two engagement rings for me that we both liked.

    In the final analysis, though, it came down to the one we chose because it was daintier. There is a fairly small central diamond, and then four tiny diamonds, two on either side of the main diamond, in the setting.

    The other ring had a single diamond that was quite a bit bigger than the biggest diamond of the ring I just described. The big-diamond ring just looked like too much on my bony fingers. Not to mention it would have probably been a nuisance to play piano with that thing on. (Sometimes my ring rolls to the side, and the main diamond can rub against my pinkie, depending on the time of day and if there’s any finger swelling or not, when I’m playing piano — or typing, like I see it doing right now.) I don’t like to take my ring off, so it would be something of a pain to deal with a heavy “rock” on my finger while playing. 😉

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  42. Chas, I enjoy everything you say. It all is memorable and important. We all love and appreciate your wisdom and perspective on life.

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  43. Kizzie my parents were not upset…(hey they didn’t have to pay for a wedding!!) now I must remind you that we married in Indiana…spent the weekend in Connorsville then I went home and he went to his home. We told no one until October…we then found an apt to move into. I have no explanation….other than it was an adventure!! 😊 (his Dad was great…his Mom however was livid…and I thought she would never speak to me again….I was very close to her and I do believe out of the 6 DIL’s she had, I ended up being her favorite 🙃

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  44. oh, weddings. When you are divorced they can be so hard. Last got married in the forest with no one but an officiant and a photographer.
    Second born is frugal and so is her husband. They had an absolutely lovely wedding and the church was full. Grandma made her dress and grew all of the flowers. The receptions was potluck and a friend’s mom paid for a small wedding cake. The other cakes were homemade. They even decided to go barefoot. The gal doing her hair was told not to use any hairspray so it would not be sticky when she took it out.
    Anyway, they spent almost nothing, I got the lemonade and paper products for the reception. She worked at that church so I don’t think there were any fees.

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  45. My parents got married at Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church on a Friday night. There are no pictures. I was told my mother wore a winter white suit and my father wore a suit and tie. I wasn’t there.
    I got married at Fairhope United Methodist with all the bells and whistles and a horse drawn carriage. I wasn’t going to get an engagement ring but all the lovely people asked where my ring was when we announced we were getting married. “Well Betty got a 1 carat diamond surrounded by bagettes.” I laughed and said that Betty got the ring; I got the groom. Then I laughed and said Betty got the ring; I got the groom. I’m thinking of calling her and asking for a trade. A friend-girl of the groom dragged him off and told him to buy me a ring.
    Same song Second Verse, I wear the rings that belonged to Mr. P’s mother. They are of excellent quality and even dirty I can blind someone with their sparkle. I wore a dress I already had because they matched the flowers he had ordered. We got married on the bluff overlooking the Bay on a Sunday afternoon. The minister’s wife took the photos.
    It all works out.

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  46. Six, the thing that surprised me when I looked at a similar list two years ago is that the bride’s mother is supposed to be the one greeting the guests. That was one place where I figured that since my husband is a bit more of an extrovert than me, and I didn’t join the family till the bride was 19, that wasn’t really my responsibility. I greeted the people I knew, of course, and said hi to people, but I definitely didn’t do any official “welcoming.”

    The one thing that disappointed me on my daughter’s wedding day is that I have not one single photo of her and me, either casual or posed. (I also have no copies of family photos–I have only the photos I took myself or someone else took with my camera.) I’m guessing that her photographer saw me as just the “stepmom,” so, rather maddeningly, she took no photos of me and the bride. (And the bride didn’t want my help getting dressed.) I handed the photographer my camera to get a photo of me and the bride, but when I looked at my photos later, there was no such photo. So I think she must have just taken the photo on her own camera, and it didn’t turn out, so she didn’t include it in the photos. I learned from that not to give my camera to the official photographer–give it to someone else. But “learning” that doesn’t give me any photos of me and the bride, or any copies of the family photos. I did get a lot of good photos that day, but I would have liked to have those two special shots. (Actually not just “two” shots. I would like a photo of our family unit, plus one of the extended family, including my husband’s father, who died just a few months later. But I took most of the photos I have, and the only one that includes me is a photo of the two mothers. And in the photos by the photographer, I show up only in the photos of me walking down the aisle and in family group photos.

    But honestly, the sweetest memories from that day are of the bride spending some time with her father after she got dressed, my husband saying loud and clear “Her mother and I do,” and the young couple dancing together before heading off together.

    What I realized on my own wedding day is that a young woman looking ahead sees the wedding day as the most beautiful day of her life, and she really looks forward to it. But looking back, the important thing is not the special touches of the day, but the marriage itself. The wedding fades in significance as you look back on it. People spend way too much money on it because it is single people who plan weddings. A year before the wedding, it might seem worthwhile to spend $30,000 on such a special day (though it never did, to me), but a year afterward, I doubt many brides would say, “Sure, I’m glad I spent that much, and I’d rather have memories of a wedding that fancy than have the money toward a down payment or that much more paid off on my student loans.”

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  47. 6, thanks for the photos. Good find on the dress, congratulations.

    My roommate was one who always dreamed of her wedding day (not sure all or even most women do, however). But she really had it all planned out so when she married at age 29 she pulled out all the stops, and then some. 🙂

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  49. My siblings all got married on slender budgets, and used their imagination, creativity, and support systems to make up for the lack of money. They each paid for most of their weddings, with parents of the bride and groom each paying for one part of the event – I think all the grooms’ parents payed for the rehearsal dinner. My siblings’ grooms all payed for the officiant, and for the wedding rings, and rent for the groomsmen’s suits, and the honeymoon, of course.

    They all got married in a church, though none of them in the family church, which is too small to fit just the relatives on my mother’s side of the family, never mind anyone else they wanted to invite. Having relatives and dear friends present for the ceremony was very important to all my siblings. Eldest and Second both rented a facility for the reception and hired caterers, while Youngest had, similar to Cheryl, just refreshments after the ceremony. Alcohol was not present at any of the events, as none of my siblings drink, although neither they nor their spouses are teetotalers. The family and any available friends set up and took down the reception areas.

    Eldest made her own dress, and the bridesmaids, and our mother’s dress. Youngest used Eldest’s dress, with a different veil; and Second and I made her wedding dress. I broke a sewing record with that dress, as we realized, when she tried it on just days before the wedding that the material needed a lining; in one day, I went to the fabric store, bought the lining material, washed the material, cut out the pattern, and sewed it together. An uncle who is a professional did the photos & film for Eldest’s and Youngest’s wedding, while a friend of Second’s spouse did theirs.

    Eldest baked her own wedding cake, using the traditional recipe. Youngest had a friend who decorated cakes do hers. Second’s spouse got an acquaintance to bake cupcakes instead. We had so much fun with those cupcakes. To decorate the cake table, Youngest sibling & spouse made a castle out of a cardboard box and provided Youngest’s collection of knight figures to defend the castle. My father painted the box and added details like brickwork. I made flag and shields to decorate the castle walls. Then, when the cupcakes were delivered, we besieged the castle with the sugary army, and had the knights making a gallant defense against the iced invaders. The reception guests loved it, and, of course, helped out the knights by eating the cupcakes.

    Dear friend and relative provided the music for Eldest’s wedding, with a little input on the violin from yours truly (I was also a bridesmaid). I opted out of being bridesmaid for Youngest’s and Second’s weddings, and provided the music instead, on both piano & violin. Second was the only one to hold a dance. She and her future spouse made their own playlist, in consultation with the family musicians, and we had a relative who was technically savvy and owned the equipment to be the DJ. Incidentally, the dance was wildly successful, and everyone complimented the DJ on his dance choices.

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  50. My parents hired a live band for my wedding. The man who conducted it was quite old, and had been doing this sort of thing for many years. You could tell he absolutely loved music. They played and sang songs from the 1940s to more then-current songs. They also played the McDonald’s “You deserve a break today” jingle, because at that time, I was working as a customer service rep for Martin-Brower, a company that provided McDonald’s with most of their needs (from the food to the cleaning supplies).

    If Nightingale ever gets married, I think she would want me to walk her down the aisle in her father’s stead. It would be neat, though, to have The Boy do those honors, if he is up to it and/or if she would like that.

    Speaking of Nightingale, she is now in Day Six of her eight days of working, having completed the second double-shift in this string of days last night. She was so tired, she slept through the alarm for an hour, waking up at the time when they should be going out the door to the bus stop. The Boy was already awake, and said he could get ready fast. He did so within five minutes, and was in time to catch the school-bus.

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  51. For flowers, Eldest had a bouquet of roses and bought flowers in bulk for the bridesmaids, and we made our own bouquets, while the boutonnieres were lily of the valley from the gardens. Youngest and Second not only had very lovely flowers, but also at bargain prices, as Youngest was an assistant florist at the time – her wedding gift from her employer was her bouquet, which was spectacular.

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  52. Kizzie, I sincerely sympathize with Nightingale. Technically, she should not be working so many shifts together, and no double shifts on top of that, but we all know there is a difference between what should be done and what is done. I’m impressed with Boy. One of my nephews of those who are school age, might be able to get ready that quickly, but the other three would be hopeless. Of course, they are all homeschooled, so it is never an issue. Second nephew is up at the crack of dawn and at his books, as the sooner he is done, the more time he has to play outside with his friends, for he is a social animal. Eldest nephew is a dreamer and loner, and he takes his own sweet time at anything. Third nephew isn’t deliberately slow, but so much is going on in his young mind as he hops or twists around, that he has to be routinely encouraged to finish whatever task he has in front of him, including his meals – he actually forgets to eat because he is so preoccupied, which partly explains why his younger brother, Fourth nephew, who is not yet in school, weighs more than him.

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  53. DJ, 6:37, thanks. 🙂 I was glad to find it, too. (I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but told the girls before I went shopping that I was hoping that if the right dress was there, that I would recognize it!)

    I’d also prayed beforehand that I wouldn’t have to spend all kinds of time finding a suitable dress. Wow, did the Lord ever answer that prayer in the affirmative — first day, first store, first dress I saw! Never did I think I’d only need to go to one place one time and be able to walk away with a new (to me) dress for the wedding.

    A great blessing.

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Well, new paint store clerk told me I only need 5 gallons. What?!

    So we have estimates from 5-24 gallons now.

    But since they’ll honor the sale price for my whole order, whatever it turns out to be and whenever I come back for more, I bought just the 5 gallons plus 5 gallons of the primer, and some trim and accent paint, thinking we’ll start with that and just go from there, adding only as needed.

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  55. Cheryl, that article I linked had a lot of points where I thought, boy, that’s not me.

    I had to laugh at the “Wrangling the bridesmaids” though. Being a former school teacher who had to deal with some nonsense in groups of unruly kids will make it likely that I could similarly handle a wrangling of the bridesmaids if they need it.

    I hope they don’t, though! Sheesh. (Two of the six bridesmaids are my middle daughters. They had better not need wrangling!) 😛

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  56. Ah, ‘dutues’ of wedding participants, yes. Who knew. Been there being wrangled by friends, which is why I’ve been something of a secret fan of elopement (or near elopement as my mom chose to do, kind of a hybrid solution to avoid the fuss and limelight, though she did have her announcement in the local hometown paper with a beautiful picture of her).

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