DIY Wedding #1

My wedding is over! And what a crazy event it was! I'll be posting about that later. Right now, here are pictures of the centerpieces.

The flowers I folded out of pages from an old art textbook. My husband (I am still not used to that...) and I met in an art history class so it meant something--even if nobody else knew it! I was very to see after the wedding that no one had taken a good pictures of the entire centerpiece! Oh well, maybe a relative has one that I can get later. You can see them in this picture.

The centerpieces were simply branches put into non-matching glass vases with rocks in the bottom. For a little sparkle, I put a couple silver color stones in the bottom of the vases as well. I then put the paper flowers on the ends of the branches. They turned out simple, yet elegant. :)

DIY Cake Stands

I knew from the time I started planning my wedding that I wanted to make some DIY projects to use for the wedding. My first project was the origami flowers that I posted a picture of before. Those flowers will be used as centerpieces (pics to come later!). The projects I completed a few days ago were cake stands.

Ta Dah! Aren't they beautiful? All the stands are made of are glasses turned upside down, and plates. The shorter one actually has a candle holder as a base instead of a glass.

I epoxied the base of the glass/candle holder to the bottom of the plate, then spray painted, and voila! Simple, right? And they were cheap, too! The glasses I bought at an antique store for $6. The candle holders were about $2 at a consignment store, and the plates, also from the consignment store, were $1 each. With the cost of the epoxy and spray paint, I'd say the cost of the cake stands (I made 4 even though there are only 3 pictured) were about $5 each!

The plan is for the stands to hold cheesecakes at the wedding. :) This one will hold the "wedding cheesecake" (no wedding cake here!).

Elegant and beautiful, but also simple and cheap. Love it.

A Different Take on History

Shakespeare wrote about a Richard III who was deformed and evil.

The playwright took his information from Tudor historians - the victors. The men writing about Richard III after his death were trying to put him down in order to make Tudor look better.

Richard III, in short, was treated unfairly. In her book, The Sunne in Splendor, Sharon Kay Penman presents a much more sympathetic picture of Richard. Gone are the physical deformities. Gone are the evil actions of child murder and poisoning. Instead, Penman's Richard is a man with a conscious, and who loves only one women.

The reader follows Richard from the time of the battle of Wakefield, where his father and brother Edmund were killed, to Bosworth where Richard himself was killed. Penman skillfully crafts her characters. By the Battle of Bosworth, the reader has come to know Richard, crying with him as he loses the people he loves.

Penman's depictions of battles are as vivid as her characters. She also remains as close as possible to historical fact. When Richard's nephews vanish from the tower, Penman puts the blame on the suspect with both motive and opportunity. What actually happened to the boys is lost to history, and Penman does not try to say what happened. She only logically places blame and does not try to invent historical fact.

The Sunne in Splendor was a gripping read until the very last page. It's filled with vivid characters, battles, and scenery. It's also informative because of Penman's careful adherence to fact. She ends her narrative with two characters talking about their fears that Richard would be remember by the Tudor propaganda that had begun to be written at that time. Not only was that a fitting way to end the book, but it also leaves a careful reader wondering - how will history change the leaders of today? Will heroes be turned into monsters by vicious propaganda? Only time can tell.

Shades of Gray on Shades of Grey

Even if this book wasn't brilliant, I was predisposed to think that it was. Jasper Fforde's books are off the wall, hilarious, and original. Shades of Grey easily lives up to the work that came before it.

The novel is set in a post-apocylyptic world, but is not filled with bleak and desolate landscapes or cannibals as many novels in the same setting contain. Instead, whatever ended the previous world is no longer of any (perceived) importance. In the world of Chromatica, social structure is determined by a person's color perception. The Greys are at the lowest end of this order and Purple is at the top.

The narrator of the story is Eddie Russet, a Red who finds himself on the fringes of the known world. He is a reluctant hero with whom the reader shares the discovery of secretes. As Eddie's views of his world are challenged, Fforde pokes fun at today's society. Then, just when the book seems like it is going to hold love up above the expectations of society, duty to a greater cause triumphs.

Many questions still remain to be answered, and I look forward to reading more in this series.

Eating Cheap in College

I'm a poor college student.

I have a cup of coffee and something small (like a bagel or yogurt) for breakfast. Then I take a sliced apple to school for lunch.

When I get home in the evening, I have limited options since I try to save money at the grocery store. Noodles, peanut butter and jelly, frozen pizza, you get the idea.

However, I'm also trying to eat healthy. It's hard. I feel like I have little variety. So, today for dinner I decided to do something different with my pasta. I made a delicious pasta dinner with only three ingredients:

Tomato sauce

Cream cheese

Noodles (I used penne)

I put about a cup of the sauce in a pan, then added about two spoonfuls(teaspoons) of cream cheese. Over low heat, I stirred the sauce while the cream cheese melted, and thickened the sauce.

When the cream cheese was all melted, I simply poured it over the cooked penne noodles.

Simple, but delicious, a change from the mundane, and (most importantly) not expensive. I figure the box of pasta cost me about a $1, the sauce about a $1.50 and the cream cheese $1.20. I can get more than one meal out of these ingredients, so I have a few meals right there for about $1 each. :)

Next time, I think I may try adding some ground beef... or chicken.

Job Hunting

I am about five weeks away from graduating from college and entering the real world dun dun duuun. Dramatic music aside, it is scary! I am searching for a job in the field I have come to love-book publishing-while hoping that I can find one where I can telecommute so I can stay here with my fiancé. What if I don't find a job? A good job that is. I also have to find time to work on my writing. I still hold the dream of publishing my story close to my heart. I will do it. No matter what.

What happens to a dream deferred?

..does it explode?

Ok, being dramatic again. But really, I know I'm probably graduating with a sparkle of idealism, a head full of dreams, and the idea that the world is mine. At least I realize this, even if I'm not willing to let it go. Ask me again in a year.

Psycho exercise

For my creative writing homework, we were supposed to write a frightening scene. Not sure I'm happy with this result.

--

Rich shouldn’t be home yet. I massaged the shampoo into my hair, waiting for him to come tell me he was back. Nothing happened, though I could swear I heard something scrape against the wall. I turned the water off, standing a moment to listen. The house was silent. I stepped out onto the bathmat and wrapped a towel around me. Opening the door, I peered down the hall.

“Hey, Rich.”

Nothing. I couldn’t see into the kitchen from here. As I stepped out into the hall, I called out again.

“Hey, Rich, is that you?”

A thin bent shadow darted across the wall. That wasn’t Rich. Something was in the kitchen.

I froze paralyzed. I took a step backwards, never moving my eyes from where I had seen the shadow.

It appeared around the corner. The figure was black as if clothed in a robe. It leaned against the wall, fingers scraping as it moved. Its wide staring eyes filled my vision. The scream would not escape my throat. I threw myself into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I tried three times before I could get my trembling fingers to lock the door. I pressed my body up against the wall. I could feel sobs welling in my throat, and behind my eyes.

The scraping came closer, and closer, and closer. Then silence. I tried to hold my breath.

The doorknob rattled.

Erasers

They may technically be toys, but I think these things are amazing.

IWAKO

The erasers are just too cute. There is something I find irresistible about little, cute, brightly colored animals. I bought my self a blue elephant... and now I want a white one. :)

Oh, and a hedgehog!

A Teacher Makes all the Difference

Everyone has teachers they remember, for good or bad reasons. Being home schooled until my junior year of high school, I didn't really have any interaction with teachers beyond my mother. In about Eighth Grade, I started watching taped lessons, but I still could not interact with these teachers. So, it wasn't until my junior year of high school, when I started dual enrollment in the local community college, that I really experienced being in a class and interacting with a teacher.

I'm not complaining about my earlier education. In fact, I believe I benefited greatly from home schooling, and I would not go back and change it. Now that I’m in college, I found some professors that think highly of me, and have high expectations of me. One professor in particular has high expectations for me. I'm amazed at how much more I am willing to work when I care, not just about my grade, but about what the teacher thinks. Since high school, with a few exceptions, I’ve been able to get good grades by not putting forth too much effort. Just by having a professor that believes in me, I’m pushing myself 3x as hard when I don’t have to. I've raised my stress level 10x, but at the same time, I'm happy to work harder. I'm afraid of failing, and in this case, failing would be not living up to the high expectations that are placed on me.

I'm pushing myself. I’m growing. I'm working at least 3x harder than I am for my other classes, and though I'm stressed, I'm learning 3x more. Everyone should have a professor that inspires her to work this hard at some point during the college, or high school, career. I almost don’t want to graduate in May.

Origami

I'm not sure this is the best idea I've ever had. I want something different for my wedding centerpieces, but I still like flowers. I think I've decided to fold, what will probably end up being several dozen, origami flowers. Vintage looking sheet music would make romantic flowers...

The plan is to make these flowers, then, somehow, attach them to branches. Then I'll arrange them in pretty vases with rocks. It will be beautiful. And cheap! Now, I need to find out how many pairs of hands I can get to help.

Too bad I didn't see these flowers before I put a down payment of my fabric flowers. I could have made my own bouquet! I could have used red, white and black paper, and then painted the edges of some of the flowers with silver paint.... That would have made me a DIY diva!

For Laughs

This made my day.