Wedding Tradition Rants

edit: It was brought to my attention, that the tone in this post with regards to my dad is very easy to misunderstand. I had only negative feelings towards the tradition. I felt nothing bad towards my dad. At all. What I meant as a loving joke in the middle (i.e., he's borrowing my spotlight) was in no way serious or criticism. One of the things I love about my dad is that he loves getting dressed up. It helps that he's such a handsome man. For an old guy. And for my dad. This rant was just how I felt about the tradition itself. Of course, I very much want my dad to be involved in my wedding. I've now added some marks to show where I'm not being serious to hopefully communicate more clearly what I actually meant.

So my mother and I got into our first (hopefully not of many) heated exchange with regards to the wedding. It was due mainly to me being overtired and Mom forgetting that she forgot to tell me some important info, but in the end it was decided that my father would be walking me down the aisle or at least something to a similar effect.  

Personally I had (I've gotten over it) really mixed feelings about this. I didn't have to think about it before, because it was assumed that my dad, as the cameraman, wouldn't want to partake in this tradition. But he had other thoughts on the issue and expects to be given that honor. 

The thing that I don't like about the tradition is what it symbolizes. It basically is the father giving his daughter to her husband/new owner. It's the passing of property. And it's pretty messed up, if you ask me. So the emotional part of me is like "Um, no. Ain't nobody givin' me away! I'm gonna walk myself over to my new partner."

Of course then the logical I-want-to-keep-the-peace-and-everyone-happy part realizes that even though that's what the tradition symbolizes, my dad doesn't mean it that way. He just wants to get dressed up and show me off. <teasing sarcasm> Or so he says. I'm sure he actually wants to get dressed up and for everyone to see him dressed up. He's gonna borrow my spotlight for a minute.</teasing sarcasm> And that's 100% okay. So when I stop to think about it, I don't have any problem with him walking me down the aisle to my husband. 

But it took a couple days before my emotional side and my logical side worked their issues out. I thought that if I'm going to be this annoyed, stressed, and conflicted now, I'm giving up the whole wedding thing. But it's okay and planning is back on track. 

But I'm sure there will be another dispute when I tell my dad he can't wear a tuxedo. I'm going to wait to tell him. Shhh! <winky face>

CY365: Week 3

I finished Week 3! I finished these so out of order.....

CY365: Week 2

I finally finished the set for week 2!

CY365: Week 1

Here's the first set of pictures from the CY365 project!

So that's how it works.

I mentioned before that I was going through some old photos from when I first came to Japan. While doing that, I came across pictures from a bit of a fiasco that my friend Marthe and I had. She and I had bought some egg molds and tried using them. Unfortunately we had no idea how to use them. At all. And my Japanese at that time was really bad, so we just guessed.  

We thought we needed to crack the egg open into the mold and then boil it. It seemed strange, but we couldn't come up with an other idea. There was no picture of the actual result, but Marthe's face said it all....

 Some years later, I came across molds again and with my developed Japanese reading skills, I decided to try again. (Let's be clear, my Japanese skills aren't amazing, but they were nearly non-existent when I first got here.)

 This time I boiled the egg, and after peeling the shell, I stuck it in the mold. Then I closed the mold and stuck it in the fridge. A little bit later, I went back, opened the mold, and...

 Success! 

Marthe, you should come back and try again now!

CY365 Photo Challenge: Intro

Every year I think about trying a photo challenge, and every year I end up failing at the start and then giving up. This year, I'm taking a completely different approach. Hopefully in the end, I'll stick with it more because of that.

Here's basically what's going on - I'll be using the daily prompts from Capture Your 365. I'll try to complete all the prompts but the timing is not in anyway strict. I'll try to accomplish each prompt within a month of it's day, but that's about it. I'll be loading the pictures on instagram, and then when I finish 6 or 7 consecutive prompts, I'll post them here.

I'm aware that most pictures won't be good - consider this a warning. I'm not really doing this in order to improve my photography skills. It's mainly for working on creativity. I tend to think very literally and logically, so I want to use this challenge to hopefully change that even just a little. So I hope that you'll keep checking back, but please don't expect brilliant works of art.

Anywho...

What did I get myself into?

This is something I've found myself saying more and more these days.What did I get myself into? It's alternates with "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Since deciding to tie the knot with my now fiance, things have been moving incredibly fast and slow at the same time. Not to sound cliche, but there really is a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. 

It's not that there's not a lot of time. It's that there's not a lot of available and usable time. I'm off work, but he's not. Or we're free, but everything is closed. There's also a lot of waiting time - times where we can't make decisions about B until A is finished. Those sorts of things. 

I'm stressed just thinking about this year. That's my style. I tend to be a bit shorter focused than my partner. He thinks about the near future, but he tends to compound the stress by thinking about the more long-term as well. I don't know if that's wise or foolish. Maybe it's both. And since I tend to be so short-sighted, it's probably a really good thing for us. 

There's so much to think about right now: moving me and my stuff, getting things ready for the legal part of marriage, finding and moving into a new place, planning a wedding, planning for a honeymoon, getting ready for the whole "family" thing, and chasing (and catching!) career dreams. 

I can't even describe the stress I felt just typing that last paragraph. I suppose as soon as we get things more settled and determined, I'll be okay. Once we decided what to do about our current living situation, I felt much more relaxed. Granted, the execution of our plan is a far cry from a walk down easy street. But it's a plan. And it's in progress. 

There will probably be posts about updates or rants for the next few months to a year. It's a quick way for me to alleviate some amount of the tension I'm sure to be feeling from here on out. 

And just to put any worrying minds to rest - I regret nothing and I'm very excited for my future.

(Btw, Happy Belated Birthday to a very special man!)