Charlottesville Blogs

How amazing is technology that we can not keep in touch with family, friends and attendants through personalized websites leading up to your wedding day?  I am one for the personalized note – but in this case, with endless details, a wedding website can more than get the information to your guests (all while keeping you a little more sane leading up to the big day).

OneWed, WedShare, eWedding… the list is endless with a google search on free & semi-free wedding websites.  When you make the decision on which to choose, the big question is – what to put out there!?

1.) Keep it simple While you have an entire binder to pour over each evening with your attentive groom (small chuckle for most) your guests might not hold the same attention span.  Keep the details simple and concise.  If you give too much info, they are just going to skim the details and still call you.  In this case, bullet points can be your friend.

2.) What will they need Transportation, hotel blocks, directions, and agenda of events are the crucial details for the big weekend.  List out the who to contact, what the cost is and what the expectations are.  Throwing in a page on where you are registered is also a huge help to your guests, especially when they can just click and ship off to you rather than hauling a food processor in their luggage.

3.) Specifics for the bridal party What a great place to list out exactly what the colors are, where to find that bridesmaids dress and when the groomsmen are to pick up their tuxes.  It is also helpful to have the important agenda details for these attendants and immediate family so that they know what is expected of them before arrival.

3.) All about you The biggest part of the wedding site is YOU!  This is the one time in your life that you can blast everyone with your adorable photos, stories on how you met, what your favorite colors are, how you met your bridesmaids, how the groom is allergic to peanuts (ok-there is a point it becomes a little TMI!).  One of my favorite engaged couple site’s that I have read is by my soon to wedders Nick and Sarah (on the countdown to May 1).  On the site, Nick wrote the beautiful story on how he proposed to Sarah on a mountain top in Hawaii.   Sweet and touching, it really begins the journey for their guests as they look forward to your wedding and sharing in your memories.

Enviro Girl has long raged against materialism and consumerism, pointing out the debt that grows from it and how owning things doesn’t really make a person happier, it just adds to the weight of their responsibilities.  She has  strict rules at her house, rules that include sending catalogs straight to the recycling bin and avoiding malls and shopping trips,  and shedding items if she’s planning to add more or replace things.  These rules apply to her children as well.  No one’s closet or toy box is immune to regular purging.  Enviro Girl’s dedication to buying only consumable things at Target really keeps the household budget in the black.   In her quest for downsizing, she has found contentment fueled by gratitude for what she has and the blessings she can count.  While her household has never been in debt, she likes the healthy cushion that allows generosity to others and freedom to indulge on vacations and good cheese.

(What follows is not an attempt at Christian conversion.  Enviro Girl just wants to share how the environmental value of downsizing and reducing “Stuff,” materialism and consumerism is also a value that jives with Bible teachings.)

Imagine, then, her delight when her pastor preached on her worldview last Sunday, providing a Biblical foundation to further add to Enviro Girl’s self-righteousness beliefs about “Stuff.”  He pointed out that 16 of Jesus’s 30 parables dealt with how people manage their “Stuff,” specifically money and wealth.  He gave 3 examples to illustrate the Bible’s teaching on “Stuff.”   The first came from Matthew 19, the rich young ruler wanted to follow Jesus and asked what he should do.  “Unload your possessions and follow me,” Jesus answered.  He didn’t ask the rich young ruler for the money, He told him to go give his money to the poor.  Lesson:  God doesn’t want anything from you, He wants you unburdened so He can give things to you.

The second was an example from Ecclesiastes–the book written by King Solomon who observes that after a life of enjoying obscene wealth and pleasure, it all adds up to temporary happiness.  Lesson:  Consumption doesn’t equal contentment.  This Biblical view is backed up by happiness research that indicates happiness is a direct result of feeling gratitude and contentment.  Happiness is not a commodity bought or sold, and the pleasure felt from buying something wears off quite quickly.  Better to get your “happiness fix” someplace other than through buying things.

The third example showed King David in I Chronicles.  He wanted to build God a temple, but was instructed to let his son build it.  King David emptied his personal wealth into preparations for the future temple.  Lesson:  Everything you own is from God and for God.

This is not to say that some people aren’t blessed with material wealth and that God doesn’t want people happy and enjoying “Stuff.”  But Enviro Girl believes that Jesus would tag along with you to the mall and only buy a soft pretzel or an Orange Julius.  She bets he’d be more about enjoying the experience of hanging out with people than getting a good deal on a new pair of Birkenstocks.

You can download or listen to a podcast of all of Pastor Mark Harris’s sermon “Confessions of a Stuff-aholic Part I” here.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: "Stuff" and consumerism and the Bible, materialism and the Bible

The Bridal Ring is getting ready for the Kluge Bridal Showcase, coming up this Sunday. For all of you local ladies planning your weddings, this show should not be missed – we hope to see you there!

2nd Annual Bridal Showcase at
Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard
Sunday, March 14th, 1-5pm

Open to all, tickets $10
Advance purchase tickets $8
Please call 434-977-3895 x119
for tickets and for booth inquiries

Preview over 30 of the region’s top vendors for food, music, beauty, stationery, photography, flowers, supplies and event planners. This is an excellent way for brides and those looking to check out the region’s best offerings to experience services and samples first-hand. Sponsors include Blue Ridge Light Forms, FDS Tents, Sam Hill Entertainment, Festive Fare and Globe Travel and popular exhibitors include Bristles Hair Design and Day Spa, Carpe Donuts, Elisa B. Photography, 20 South Catering and Makeup Artistry by LC, to name a few.

The event is public: In addition to aiming to serve area brides, the Bridal Showcase is a great resource for vendors, corporate services, epicureans and wine lovers, as well as something fun to do for those seeking a Sunday afternoon activity. Enjoy Kluge Estate wines, hors d’oeuvres by Elite Catering, music from Adrian Duke and DJ Derek Tobler and door prizes.

The grand prizes are a free wedding at Kluge Estate and a customized honeymoon package courtesy of Glove Travel!

I think that a sign of True Love is not if one’s spouse comes bearing gifts of roses or jewelry or chocolate, but if instead said spouse makes a special trip to the hardware store to buy his Beloved a small sledgehammer.

So now I have a new toy to play with.  One that I am in the process of using to pound the shit out of the posts that are part of the deer fence I am installing.  Because I am hell-bent on keeping the fucking deer out of my yard this year.

I did my first planting of the spring yesterday and I have no intention of sharing this year’s bounty with Odocoileus virginianus.

I have another new toy too, only this one I bought for myself:

I think I just felt a frisson, a passing sensation of excitement, roll through the blogosphere.  I can tell that y’all are just as excited about this as I am.

You’re probably wondering why I am just now buying this beauty, this Lexus (not quite as nice as a Beamer, but better than a Toyota) of a wheelbarrow.  I mean, by now, having owned three houses over the past 15 years, surely I must already have a wheelbarrow.

I did, however, it wasn’t as reliable as I’d like it to be.  Certainly, it was functional and got the job done, but only if the job didn’t involve any sort of hills or minor inclines or even dips in the landscape.  And only if the job wasn’t too heavy or too bulky.  And definitely not if I didn’t mind said wheelbarrow tipping over with far too much frequency.

I’ve been cursing — and I do mean loudly, thoroughly, passionately CUSSING — the old wheelbarrow for years.  We bought it shortly after we bought our first house — a time when we had very little money at our disposal and even fewer skills.  At the time, I was interested in piddling around in the flower beds, but I didn’t actually know jack diddly squat about anything.  So I got what was basically a dilettante’s yard cart.

I suffered with that godawful wheelbarrow for years, including last year when Pete and I (okay, mostly me) moved four cubic yards of mulch uphill from the pile in the front of our yard to the various places that I wanted mulched.  Our entire property tilts upwards from the front to the back on a pretty steady slope.  It’s not a major hill, but enough of an angle that made hauling anything in the old wheelbarrow a Sisyphean endeavor.  I can’t tell you how many times the wheelbarrow tipped over a full load of mulch.

What finally did it for me was my first post-Snowpocalypse gardening adventure last weekend.  I bought two packages of peat moss, which I then had to transport from the momvan to the backyard.

Normally I just jauntily hoist a bag of mulch over my shoulder like a pirate carrying off his plunder, but peat moss is simply too heavy for me to carry.  I couldn’t even get it into the old wheelbarrow without Pete’s help, whereupon the wheelbarrow waited all of six seconds before flipping over.  Pete helped me again and then I began shiteous task of pushing the wheelbarrow up to the backyard … while groaning like a person who is severely constipated.  Remember, it’s all uphill.  Oh, and there was still a fair amount of snow on the ground.  I ended up pretty much dragging the wheelbarrow across the snow like a sled, because the wheels didn’t work in that mess.

Finally, in a huge fit of pissiness, I picked up the infernal contraption and heaved it across the yard.

For the second package of peat moss, I waved the white flag and just flipped it end-over-end around the garage, up to the garden gate, and then through the snow to far end of the backyard.

I bought the new badass wheelbarrow yesterday and it is a delight, an absolute dream, I tell you.  That bad boy rolled uphill carrying three bags of mulch AND a variety of tools and never once even shuddered on me.

I lurve it.

Almost as much as I lurve my husband for getting me the new sledgehammer.  Now I finally understand the Peter Gabriel song.

The ever-fabulous Ian O’Neill hosts this week’s Carnival of Space #144. There are lots of great astronomical highlights from this week, but I’m particularly in love with this gorgeous multi-wavelength image of NGC 1068:

via Chandra, Hubble, and the Very Large Array

Check it all out at Discovery News this week!

Filed under: house stuff

Question: Do you know what time the trash truck comes blasting down your street with its twelve-cylinder engine and squealing brakes?  Answer: Ten minutes into your baby’s naptime.  When is your neighbor going to rev up his smoke-spewing, spastic-throttled leaf blower? Why, as you’re transferring your sleeping infant from his car seat to the crib, of course. How about that guest bedroom phone at your inlaws’ that you forgot to turn off? When is it most likely to blare its electronic Beethoven’s-Fifth-Symphony-ring? Yep. Just after you settle down your colicky newborn from her two-hour crying bender.

The sleep experts Richard Ferber and Marc Weissbluth write about the critical importance of sleep to infants and young children. “Babies shouldn’t be awake for more than two hours at a time for the first few months of life!” they harp. “Get your infant in his crib by the second yawn or he’ll get overtired!”, they command. We read, we obey. Anything to up the sleep quotient in the house. For everyone.

So why won’t the rest of the world get with the program?

When my husband and I had newborns, we put a sign on the door: “Quiet please, sleeping family.” What we were really saying was, ‘hey, nice but CLUELESS FedEx driver, ring this doorbell and incur the hell-fire of a sleep-deprived mother.” Our neighbors, the ones who moved away recently, taped a note across their doorbell to the same effect when their first son was born five years ago. It stayed up until a few months ago when they moved, just before their third child’s birth.

Some say that babies need to learn to sleep amidst loud noises and bright light. This is the real world, they say, so bang pans, open the blinds, and use the power-drill to your heart’s content.

I say, it can be a thin line between making it and almost-not-making-it when you’re a new mom. So tape those newspapers to the windows to block out the light in the hotel room. Swan-dive onto the ringing phone if it will buy you a few more minutes of peace. It’s like the oxygen mask demonstration flight attendants give before the plane takes off. You’ve got to put on your own mask before you can adequately help your child with hers.

There are many things I want to remember about being the mother of young children. Like tender moments shared with my daughter and son. But also general truths about parenthood that are universal, timeless. Like how it feels to have a low-flying helicopter cruise over the house moments after getting both of your vomiting children calmed down at 2 a.m. So that just in case I become a sixty-something chopper pilot, I’ll know to avoid neighborhoods where sleep-strapped parents are putting their little ones to bed. Getting a child to drift into slumber can be like building a house of cards. I won’t be the one blowing it down with my 4-blade rotor.

If only the teabaggers would channel their anger into punk, the world might be a better place.



Be sure to wait for the chainsaw! I do feel sorry for the guitar, though.

I was delighted to attend Sunday's launch at Random Row Books of a great new local business in town: Cville Foodscapes!

Built on the idea that there is too much lawn, not enough fresh garden food, six passionate individuals came together to help residents design, install and maintain home veggie gardens. Inspired by a love of gardening and a desire to see more food, not lawns (I love that book!), Wendy, Angel, Cassia, Sky, Sam, and Patrick have spent the past year creating a worker-owned cooperative business that helps Cville with their foodscaping! Besides offering a range of great services around gardening, they also will help you with your water harvesting and composting.

Wendy and I talked at length about the winding business path that lead them to this exciting day. And to our meeting - her friend Betsy has been raving about BWB and Betty's website and her husband actually attended January's Green Drinks and helped celebrate Betty's birthday! So we finally meet. Yeah! And what a light Wendy is! Well-spoken and enthusiastic about spreading their business. I was also happy to be reunited with smiley and completely huggable Angel Shockley. She and I communed in the dirt together while I was doing a work share at Roundabout Farm a couple years ago -- she was part of their on-site farm crew. I also met Patrick, who has an ultracool handout on how to make a flowerpot holder for your bike. I made one onsite (pictured here). Ruby (my bike) is so excited to have her very own marigold (from the seed exchange) blooming this spring if my thumb is as green as I want it to be!!

In talking with them both, I was impressed that they are not only creating a great business - helping people who don't know how or don't have the time or for other reasons just haven't taken the leap to having a home garden - but also the cooperative business model is forward-thinking and innovative enough to hopefully inspire other businesses to grow. They also have an already built in way to give back to the community and serve people who may not be able to afford their services: a "garden grant" program with QCC as their sponsor. A portion of their monthly revenue will go to support garden grants, which helps low-income families take advantage of fresh local food as well. Love it!

So if you've been thinking about taking the plunge into gardening, but are not quite sure how to start or what it entails, call the folks at Cville Foodscapes for a free consultation (their info should be in Betty's directory under Landscaping and Food shortly) (434) 806-6255 or email info@cvillefoodscapes.com or go to their website: www.cvillefoodscapes.com

Here's too edible lawns everywhere!
BWB