Wednesday, June 9, 2010

A post-wedding "what's up"



Ahhh. its over. Months - nay - YEARS of planning has finally come to an end. And our final product was a wedding day so perfect we can hardly believe our luck. To have so much love and support thrown in your direction at one time is blissfully overwhelming - and the perfect kick off to a marriage.

'Cause lemme tell you...I had fun planning and being engaged and all, but being married is waaaay more awesome then anyone lets on. I feel like spencer and I shall this little secret with eachother that makes everything cooler- and more fun.

The picture above is of me at one of my most bridal moments. Spencer is working his way towards the cake table and Im antsy to get to the cuttin' of cake and get back to the cuttin' a rug. But the dress looks fab, doesn't it? and the cake...yum...

So now i get my life back. Actually I am sort of getting a new and improved life. I transition from my current job to my new job this week and with that comes the shiny 9-5 scheduled i dreamt about all through college and this past year. With a settle routine in place I'm hoping to carve time for all the fun projects I've put on hold.

Once i catch up on my sleep....

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A life led through magazines

I am a magazine junkie. Something about those glossy, fluffy throw away booklets conjures up joy and relaxation in my soul. So, naturally every time I visit the grocery store I allow myself a few minutes to browse thru the racks and make the perfect selection. The mags I gravitate to seem to reflect where I am in my life (hour, day, year, whatever) Today I was torn between Real Simple (organizational techniques for every personality!) and Sophisticated Hairstyles (looking for a new wifey/i got a 9-5 now coif). While I eventually caved and got a copy of OK!-there is no shame in that-I returned to a thought I've had many times over. A reflection on my life lived through magazines.

It all started with Highlights. Bright and cheery pictures, light stories in BIG print and a fabulous picture search game in every issue. I was growing and learning and Highlights was my perfect match, I can remember dreaming I would be a Highlights contributor one day. Ah, the simple life...

Next came a brief - but passionate - relationship with Teen Bop. If there were articles in that magazine I surely don't remember. I was all about glossy pull-out posters of Joey MacIntyre. My first crush. I put my Highlights editor-in-chief dreams aside to quietly pursue a relationship with a boy who wore topless top hats.

High School days came and I remember feeling very adult. Very grown up and craving womanly knowledge. I read Glamour and Cosmo by the pool everyday that summer. Also know as: The Tan Summer. My mags were well worn and stained with tanning oil. My best friend and I would read the horror stories aloud to one another and pass the magazines back and forth - vowing to apply the sex tips we had just learned...once we had a sex life. Looking back it was probably the only time a magazine became a social tool, a necessary accessory. Hmm...maybe THAT was the simple life...

After high school, i took myself much more seriously. I decided that Cosmo and other similar mags made women look like silly, boy crazy airheads more concerned with mastering the art of fellatio than become the first female president. I was at a loss..where would I go from here? I played around with newspapers for a while, but their complicated folds and smudgy print took all the fun out of it. An old roommate had a copy of a magazine I had long scoffed for being 98% advertisement. It was love at first read. My new accessory, new obsession. I had found VOGUE.

Now, VOGUE deserves to be in all caps. It's an institution, a planet, and state of mind. I kept every months magazine (and still have them) for 2 years straight because I was convinced they were historical property. And I imagined a great granddaughter of mine one day uncovering them and thanking me through the ages that I'd had enough sense to save them. The articles discusses art, culture and politics in a sophisticated way. Holding a copy was like holding a ticket into a flashy and elite world I longed to live in. While we aren't as close as we use to be...I will always keep a place in my heart for VOGUE magazine.

< enter college life here > this means I was primarily reading textbooks and could only occasionally sneak in a gossip magazine now and again.

When I became engaged- you guessed it - for about a year straight I read every wedding magazine put on the shelf. It was great at first. I was finally allowed to read them now that I was one of the engaged people. the blessed. ha! But after the honeymoon period (with the magazines-not my husband) ended I found I was ready to move on. They really all say the same things over and over. Plus, once I decided to forgo a "traditional" wedding, reading them just made me second guess myself and drove me a little craz(ier)y.

Thankfully we bought a new house around that time so I immersed myself in home design mags. Eh. It was more frustrating than anything. Can't somebody publish a glossy HD mag that doesn't require me to have unlimited funds?!

So now I a married woman. I still love VOGUE and OK! and People and yada yada but today I was looking at A LIFESTYLE magazine for the organization article. So as a part-time magazine anthropologist I'd have to declare - Im a little bit of a grown up. Whats next for me? TIME? Travel? The New Yorker? Fit Pregnancy?

I'll see you in the aisles....