Flower frame of mind

I was looking through our wedding photos this morning and feeling a pang of nostalgia for wedding planning (and no, I never thought those words would come out of my mouth). One of the things I was most nervous for, because it had to be left to the day before the wedding, was the centerpieces.

I ordered a LOT of roses from Costco, in addition to one bunch of baby's breath and one bunch of red freesia, just because I was on the phone and couldn't think of what else they would stock. The woman I dealt with didn't speak great English and it was at times hard to get hold of her. Driving to Costco with my mom and grandmother the day before the wedding, my heart was in my throat. But everything was there! And we wound up exchanging 24 golden roses for 24 peach ones, which I think was a great decision to break up all the yellow.

Meanwhile, my Nanny, an avid gardener, drove up a car packed to the gills with flowers from her garden. It makes me so happy that all the wildflowers you see, most prominently the splenderous zinnias, came from her garden, as did the filler greenery.

Not everything was left till the last minute. In the year leading up to the wedding I collected vintage floral tins from eBay, as well as vintage milk glass and assorted glass- and crystalware. My sister and I made the table numbers using the font from the invitations, and Shelby created the wire table number holders by hand. We tied them on with the same ribbon we used for the favors (Virginia peanuts in cellophane baggies).

Candles and votive holders were from Michael's and Ikea. I also bought up a bunch of cheapo picture clip frames from Ikea because our trial run with the tins indicated they would leak and leave rust stains on the rental cloths. Wedding magazines never show that stuff, but I'm so relieved that I found glass panes for an insanely cheap price.

La la la. Someone else needs to get married now so I can "help."

I finally figured out my dream job

I've been really good about not buying things lately, but the Liberty of London for Target collection is coming up in March and I am painfully excited. I LOVE Liberty of London. I wrote on my other blog about how I couldn't resist snagging a Liberty of London for Pottery Barn Kids duvet cover (even though it's for a twin bed. Hey, it'll come in handy SOMEDAY). On March 14 I do not know how I will restrain myself from buying every single thing. I definitely want the teapot...and maybe some of the clothes...and it looks like they have lampshades....how about if I don't get any pillows? Chris will kill me if I bring another throw pillow into our apartment. It's like Anne of the Island's boarding house in there. And how about if I don't get any dishes that are made of plastic? (But they'd be so cute for a little girl's tea table. What if I got them for Taylor? Is that a good excuse?) My floral print obsession is going to be the end of me.

How can I get hired by Liberty?? Aside from not living in England nor being trained in textile design, clearly I am meant for it.

Get your fingers out of your ears

All the snow in the Washington area is not proof that global warming is a myth, okay? In fact, it is further evidence that climate change is happening, as is the rain in Vancouver and the drought in Australia. Thomas Friedman calls it "global weirding," and I recommend reading his column--especially the last paragraph, conservatives.

Find it here.

The facts are these

What a fun weekend! Arcade games at a bar with my sister, Valentine's dinner out with my sweetie, a (finally) clean apartment and Pushing Daisies in my Valentine's box. Hope you all had similarly nice President's Day weekends.

Update:

Adorable.

We'll make it through this winter yet

The news headlines continue to alarm me, but so far my 2010 has been pretty nice. We've been having people over / over to people's places for dinner several times, I went to a baby shower and also to a super-fun and funny Twilight-themed birthday party, and last night the Saints won the Super Bowl, which was a good thing or you might have seen a room full of grown men cry. Oh, and I finally got a haircut and a mint-green manicure.

And now Valentine's Day is almost upon us! Which, I don't care, I love. How can you not love a holiday that's all about pink, red, flowers, and chocolate?

What is my obsession with English florals?

Must be all those Victoria magazines my mom had lying around when I was a kid.

Vintage bowls from here.

Spoilers ahead

Oh, on another note. We Netflixed 500 Days of Summer. Loved the outfits. And Summer's wallpaper. Here's my review:

This is a movie about a total bitch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Summer was upfront with Tom about not wanting a boyfriend. Summer didn't know she would meet someone else she did want to commit to. Tom just wasn't the one for Summer and that wasn't Summer's fault. Etc. Etc.

That's all very well and true, but when Summer ran into Tom at the wedding, she should never have led him on like that--especially if she was dating someone who was going to propose in just a few days. She should not have led him on at that wedding, and she should not have invited him to her party on Friday. And once he showed up at her party she should have taken him aside and told him she had gotten engaged. She knew how he felt about her. It was bad enough that she led him on for the whole movie, hiding behind "I told you I didn't want a boyfriend." (I'm not saying she wasn't honest. But wasn't it obvious to her that he wasn't being honest about not wanting to be serious?) I felt like it was just MEAN the way she kept giving him hope. If anyone other than Zooey Deschanel played Summer, the whole world would agree with me.

Despite all that, I was pretty neutral about the whole thing--didn't love it, didn't hate it--until the end when Tom meets a new girl (thank goodness. MOVE ON, TOM). But her name? Good grief. Say it with me, folks:

Autumn.

500 Days of Summer, could you POSSIBLY get any more twee?

Queen takes knight?

The latest battle on the publishing warfront. Over the weekend Amazon stopped selling all books published by Macmillan due to the ongoing e-book pricing disagreements. They capitulated later****, but the damage had been done to some books' Amazon rankings. Amazon is taking the stance that they think $12.99 and $14.99--the prices publishers want to set for e-books--is "needlessly high." I really recommend clicking those links; the articles aren't long and they present a clear overview of the situation that's more and more going to affect how the books you read are published:

Last Thursday, Mr. Sargent flew to Seattle to explain the pricing and new sales model to Amazon. He said Amazon could continue to buy e-books on the same terms it does now — allowing the retailer to set consumer prices — but that the publisher would delay the release of all digital editions by several months after the hardcover publication.


Amazon buys and resells e-books in the same way it handles printed books, by paying publishers a wholesale price that is generally equivalent to half the list price of a print edition. Because Amazon has discounted the price of most new and popular e-books on its Kindle e-reader to $9.99, it loses money on most of those sales.

Amazon’s goal has been strategic: it aims to establish a low price for e-books that will have the ancillary benefit of helping it sell more Kindle devices.

Amazon’s decision is also a victory for Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, who first pitched the idea of selling e-books under the agency model to book publishers earlier this year. Now Apple, whose iPad tablet is due in March, can compete on fairly equal footing with Amazon.


(bold emphasis mine)

What do you guys think? If you had a Kindle, would you resist paying $12.99 or $14.99 for an e-book? Keep in mind that this content is exactly the same as a $26.99 hardcover. Same text, same editing, same copyediting, same page design.

****Update: Note that Amazon announced they would cede, but the "buy" buttons on Macmillan book pages have still not been activated.