Mmmm

Too bad I already picked out a wedding cake.  Maybe for my birthday . . .

An Affair To Remember

Over labor day weekend I had the great honor and privilege of attending one of the most incredible weddings I have ever experienced.  My dear friend S, married her college sweetheart K.  I made it through the ceremony without shedding a tear so I thought I was golden.  Nope.  For some reason I got choked up during their first dance.  Then the Maid of Honor gave the best toast in the history of wedding toasts, complete with singing, which seriously had me tearing up and laughing all at the same time.  And then I just totally lost it when they played their same day edit video.  I had never seen that done before, but it was the highlight of the whole night for me.  The most incredible feeling is watching two friends be so happy together, second only to holding babies. What most set this wedding apart from any other was that it was all about making the experience wonderful for the guests.        

And if S ever reads this post . . .

jmg311 

how do you like the way i did my hair for the wedding?

Jeanette G

i thought it was so pretty

i was showing it to HP

(HP = Heather)

i'm tired of writing it out

jmg311 

k

Jeanette G

also - she was exclaiming about how pretty Suz is

because she is

she's so pretty 

Celebrity Sighting

My prosopagnosia prevents me from having all the celeb sighting of the average New Yorker.  Tonight I really impressed myself.  While reading outside at a table in the flatiron district during my break I recognized Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black.  She was enjoying some Starbucks with one friend at first and then another showed up and they were all very tall and striking.  She is prettier in person which makes totally makes sense given that her character is incarcerated.  I bet I'm sitting next to actresses and singers all the time and never notice.  Maybe I was just more alert because I recently started watching Orange is the New Black with C and we are really getting into it.  The background stories of the women are the most interesting part for me.  I could do without the crudeness, but hey, it does take place in a prison so I'm just being my sheltered puritanical self as usual.  Don't mind me.  

Recent Reads

I have finally started feeling the stress of wedding planning and feel like I don't have time or energy to write.  Somehow I still make time to read.

Workout Inspiration

I love this song.  It makes me wanna go home and do more Insanity.

You wanna hot body . . .
You better work b**ch . . .
Look hot in a bikini
You better work b**ch

Blue Blazer

J Crew Schoolboy Blazer

I haven't worn it yet, but I finally got this classic piece a few weeks ago. I didn't think I'd be adding anything else from my fashion bucket list this year, but the sale was too good to pass up. If there's one thing my wardrobe is missing it's jackets, so I am excited to have this for fall. I don't have room for new clothes right now, but a black tweed jacket and a tan boucle one would be nice.

The Hardest Work

Everyone seems to be having babies.  Recently I have been thinking more realistically about becoming a parent and my financial plan based on how long I plan to stay at home with my kids.  One thing that I've heard consistently since I was a child is that being a stay at home parent is the "hardest work."  I've been barraged by this idea so much lately.  Honestly, I have zero interest in taking on anything more difficult than much of the work I've done in the past, of which care giving has actually been the simplest.

My first full time experience with care giving was the summer after sixth grade when I accepted a full time babysitting job watching three young kids from church.  At twelve years old I was paid $80/week to care for a boy (age 7), and his two younger sisters (ages 3 and 5).  The parents were very happy with how well I disciplined their children and the girls grew attached to me. I cooked for them, taught them about the Bible, and helped them with their reading all summer long.  One week, I also balanced feeding a litter of baby kittens with an eyedropper (because the family cat had rejected her babies) along with my other responsibilities. My parents responded that it would be easier with my own children whenever I vented complaints to my family over the boy's behavioral issues and one of the girl's serious depression, a trait she shared with her mother.  That summer was a cakewalk compared to previous summers, painting houses and mowing lawns for my dad's rental properties in 100 degree weather.  

Two dollars an hour for taking care of three children may seem paltry, but as with every nanny/babysitting assignment I've taken since, I felt guilty taking the money.  Getting paid to play with kids and help them get changed for bed always felt like a scam.  I seriously disliked children knowing that I was getting paid to hang out with them and care for them.  I babysat a sick baby and his two sisters for the weekend just for fun, no pay.  I didn't sleep more than one consecutive hour but it never once felt like "work".  It was my pleasure.  

For me work is standing on a ladder in the hot Georgia sun painting a house until your little arms feel like they're about to fall off.  Hard work is getting back on that ladder after throwing up in the bushes to paint some more so you can help your family keep you in private Christian school.  Studying for the New York bar exam was some of the hardest work I've ever done and I will absolutely never willingly sign up for anything that mentally and emotionally taxing ever again.

Still, I've never been a parent.  What do I really know?  My dad retired from the military when I was very small and became a stay at home parent.  He cooked me breakfast every morning, braided my hair poorly, and took me on field trips to all his church friends' places of employments.  We lived in Honolulu so we took a trip through a pineapple factory.  I got to see how a printing press works.  We went to the library a lot and although I missed playing with other kids at daycare all day, I look back on this period of my childhood fondly.  I figured my Dad is the best person to tell me the real hard truth about the degree of difficulty of stay at home parenting. I came up with a few jobs I knew he'd done and asked:

Daddy, 

What was your hardest job?  
a. being a stay at home Dad to me 
b. being a psychiatric nurse at mental hospital for minors
c. or picking cotton in the fields of Alabama.

Shockingly, he picked b.  He said working as a psychiatric nurse was the hardest because not only was he was always comparing those less well behaved kids to my sister and I, but he also said he had difficult coworkers.  When I asked him about the second hardest of the three, he selected c.  He said he was only seven and found picking cotton to be difficult. Hmm.  He then offered up unsolicited that staying home with me was "fun because we got to do things together.  We got to go to the grocery store together . . ."  Wait a minute.  My Dad thought it was fun, not challenging, to take me to the grocery store even though all I've been told lately is what a stressful nightmare the grocery store becomes once you have a child? 

Imagine my relief to find that my dad found staying at home with me to be far less arduous than working the fields of rural Alabama.  Maybe what qualifies as hard work for some people is easy for others and vice versa.  Perhaps it's foolish and self-aggrandizing to describe one's work as the "hardest" since no individual has experienced the challenges of every type of work.  If someone takes care of a farm and nine children with no washer/dryer like my Grandmother did, then maybe I'll take them seriously.  Otherwise, I will start ignoring this type of rhetoric and actually look forward to at home parenting.  If it does turn out to be harder than sweat shop labor or Calculus 2, I'll hire a nanny and go back to work asap.