US meets UK

or me.  But since I’m sharing Tracy’s words  you can do it for both of us! My former co-worker (Tracy) sent me this email today.  She is a fantastic activist and organizer and I encourage everyone near Baltimore to go to her event (and others around the country!).  Here are her words:

…as an Organizer for Greenpeace and a devout climate activist I’m writing you guys (friends, family and everyone who should feel some sort of obligation to hear me out) because you all have the opportunity to actually make history.

This Saturday, October 24th is an International Day of Climate Action, where rallies and marches, small gatherings and thousand-person events will be held to call for real action on global warming from world leaders everywhere.  This December, the UN will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to create a new global climate treaty, so now is the time to urge them to take action and do what the latest science is telling us we must to avoid catastrophic and irreversible damage to the environment we know and love.

What started as a day for activists to come together has grown into a movement of its own.  This day of action will be the biggest, i kid you not, most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.  More than 4,000 events are planned in 170 countries.

I’m organizing an event in Baltimore, but not to worry, there is one in every state in the country, and almost every country on the globe.  Below are the links to the biggest events in all your cities which are being spearheaded by my fellow Greenpeace Organizers.  Look up the events on facebook as well.  RSVP, forward along etc etc etc.  If you make it out, bring a friend.  Bring 5!  Or just post this awesome recruitment video to your facebook wall or blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCEjg1Ej6QM

I also encourage you to follow this link, and learn more. Why 350? Why now?

Want to find an event near you? Check out the map!
View Actions at 350.org

So I’ll end there and ask you to come out this Saturday.  Do it for me if nothing else.  Or for the children that you already have, or plan to someday, the beaches you spent your summers on, the slopes you ski, the birds you watch, the metropolis you call home, or the farm you pick apples from every fall.  Honestly, it doesn’t matter why, just do it.

Thanks for listening guys, and I hope you take action on the 24th!

I still lived here:

or near here:

and sometimes here:

but when I lived there, I missed where I am now!

How can a girl ever win? I feel like I’m constantly looking forward to the next step, or back in the past to what I miss. How do you stay present?

I mean, not my wedding.  But the one we thought about having, with the original color scheme and the non-lace dress I was searching for. I was in Huntington Beach, CA for work and I saw girls in dark purple bridesmaid dresses, with the bouquets (cymbidium orchids, purple lisanthus, eggplant calla lilies, other structured flowers, etc) floating through the hotel. I went to check out the ballroom while they were setting up and they even had similar centerpieces!

I wanted to take photos of it all, the bouquets, the bouts, the dresses! But I didn’t because I was a little too embarrassed to start taking photos of a couple details. So I tried to slyly snap a photo as I walked by..but it didn’t turn out too well. But, you can still sorta see the gorgeous bride with her bridesmaids and their lovely flowers!

I love the wedding we had, but it was still super fun to see my previous thoughts in action!

Have you ever seen your “other wedding”?

I like to think I’m the type of person, that when I see something I disagree with I say something, I take action.  Which is why, after parking at the mall/movie theatre I was shocked at what I saw.  A car came around the corner in the parking garage and swiped a truck.  By swiped I mean, hit the truck so hard it jumped. The most shocking thing of all however, is that the car kept going.  Thankfully there was another witness who shouted at the car to stop – but it didn’t.

We waited around to see what the car would do after they parked, would they leave a note on the truck? Come over? Call the police? Instead the did nothing and we weren’t entirely sure what to do.  We didn’t want to leave a note with our information – the car could just come over and take it off. Then these people that are willing to hit a car and drive off would have our info.

I had written the license plate down after they hit the truck, so I had the make (but not the model) and the plate number, I took the other witnesses information and I went over to mall security to let them handle the situation.  They called the police and we told them what we saw, they took no notes, and seemed indifferent about the whole thing.  The most interesting thing to me, is that they kept asking “so…it wasn’t your car? your car wasn’t hit?”.  It really bothered me how incredulous they were that we’d do the right thing, they were so indifferent I wonder if they did anything at all after we left.

What would you have done?

A few weekends ago, fresh off a red-eye from LAX (bad idea) I went apple picking with friends. Not wanting to sacrifice my entire weekend to working/flying I chose to take the red eye back after work on Saturday and made plans for Sunday.  However, since my flight was delayed several times I was incredibly exhausted by the time I arrived at BWI.

Despite my lack of sleep I was still excited and ready to go – after a few more hours of sleep.  Plane sleep is very different than bed sleep.

Sadly, early October is sort of the end of apple season. At least, for the baking apples I was after. We were able to snap up tons of pink lady apples, which while not great for baking are delicious for eating. After our apple trip I made 2 apple crisps – tin the same week!

Have I told you guys how much I love Nick? It’s a lot, and it’s good to know he loves me too – considering I asked him to reach all the really high up, hard to reach apples and he indulged my requests.

There was also a super sweet calf – I wanted to steal him.  I know he was only my friend because I had treats for him… but I like to think we had a connection.

Sweet little piglets!

We also picked up a few pumpkins.  Nick wanted a normal orange pumpkin (we already had one at home) and I wanted a little franken-pumpkin and ghost pumpkin.

All photos (except the first photo and the last two) were taken by my lovely and talented friend – Kristen Nyren.

Have you ever gone apple/pumpkin picking?

Back in July (maybe August) my friend Jess called me up with an offer I just couldn’t refuse – a chance to audition for the price is right! So I was all heck yeah let me at that wheel where you have to get up to $1! and PLINKO! Send me over to plinko!

So we got together the night before and created shirts.  I lost my silkscreen squeegee so I had to improvise when it came to creating the hearts  -  I think I did okay.

We arrived early (though Rachel arrived earlier) and we popped into line with her to wait (over an hour) to get our chance at 30 seconds of fame. The audition process is “30 seconds to explain why you should be on the Price is Right”.  I bubbled excitedly about Nick and I living with my parents and how we could totally use a living room set and a honeymoon with Drew Carey. I think I may have shouted “I LOVE PLINKO”, if only because it was on my shirt.

Jess said something about being in love with Drew Carey and wanting to win anything – even a tube of toothpaste! I have no idea what Rachel said, but it’d be pretty cool if we all made it, except for the fact that it doesn’t work like that. Basically we’ll get a call in a year if they want us to come on. Which, is a bit of a let-down.  It’d be way cooler if they said we’d know by January. le sigh.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO PRICE IS RIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!

Have you ever auditioned for a TV show?

It’s true, thanks for sticking with me.  I think my downfall was that I stopped uploading pictures.  It wasn’t that I stopped taking them, I’ve taken plenty I just didn’t upload them. So we’ll be going back and forth through time as I slowly sort them all. Hidden gems on my camera?

When I auditioned for the Price is Right.

A trip to the zoo

A Baltimore Party with Mrs. Taffy!

And so much more!

If you blog, do you have a hard time remembering to upload photos?

That’s it. I’ve decided.  I’m taking in the challenge – the 365 day blog challenge. I’ve been missing the frequency that I used to blog and I’ve been having a difficult time getting jump started. Blogging a wedding has a distinct beginning, middle and wait for pro pics to come off online viewing…I mean recaps/end.  Inspired by my friend Jenna aka Mrs. Avocado aka That Wife I’m going to blog at least once a day, every day for 365 days. Get ready for way too much information about my life.

Have you done a blogging challenge before?

I know I know, you want pictures.  I need to wait for online reviewing to end first, then the recaps shall begin!

A few weeks ago our DJ, Evan, emailed me asking if I’d be willing to write a review for them, because he’d like it to be their 150^th review on WeddingWire.I said sure! Because not only do I love reading reviews, I enjoy writing them too!

It’s important to note however, that Evan didn’t ask me explicitly to write a positive review, because we all know how I feel about that. After checking out Evan’s blog post about WeddingWire/150^th review I learned a bit about the vendor perspective of reviews. The post however, had me start thinking of my own relationship to reviews

It reached an almost neurotic level when it came to crafting our registry.  I would search through hundreds of product reviews on Amazon.  I’d go through the 5 star ones and the 1 star reviews, attempting to get an accurate picture.  I did this for every single item on our registry. Every single one.  I had this entire “you try before I buy” mentality about the whole thing. Anything I wasn’t 100% sure about I put on the BBB registry because of their return policy.

If I’m that way about a blender….imagine how far off the deep end I went with vendor reviews.  I searched Yelp and WeddingWire, I asked individual brides who had used them (found via Weddingbee and the Knot), and just googling the vendor name along with “review” to see what would come up.  This process served me very, very well.I felt that anytime you ask for references vendors will (rightly) give you the names of couples they did a great job for. So I was pretty excited to find unbiased reviews for tons of vendors.  I felt I needed to hear from couples who had experience with the vendors firsthand before I could think of booking them.

The only point in which my review hunt failed us is where I didn’t listen to the reviews, or pick up on red flags.  I’ll write about this more when I’m ready, but I was severely disappointed with our caterer.  In her reviews there are several red flags, which, while in the minority are still there in black and white.  Instead of paying attention to those (as I would with a blender) I ignored them in favor of price.  As you can imagine, that turned out to be a huge mistake.  If only I had stayed the course, I probably would have chosen a caterer without the red flags and hopefully had a better experience.

Are you a review junkie too?