Thursday, April 26, 2012

Wedding Dress Love

I went in for my final wedding dress fitting yesterday and much to my relief it fit well and looked great! I was so happy with it, I didn't want to take it off. It fits great and makes me look relatively skinny and its not uncomfortable, which is a good thing considering I am going to be wearing it for 8+ hours. I was talking to a friend though about it and she had such a fun idea, bake cookies in it. Not before the wedding of course but after the wedding when you have this big white dress that no one wants to buy and you will never wear again. Why not? It could even be a pretty fun little photo shoot, nothing formal of course but get a friend to take some pics of you baking in your wedding dress. I mean really what else are you going to do with it?

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Really People?

I am sometimes baffled by the things that people freak out about. Today the "big" news in Provo is a girl being asked to leave Prom over the weekend because her dress was too revealing. She was wear a one-shoulder, knee length dress but because her shoulders weren't covered the chaperones said she had to cover up or leave because she was not dressed modestly. Really Provo? This is just one of the many ridiculous things I have heard like this since working in Utah County. Just because a girl isn't completely covered from head to toe doesn't mean she isn't being modest! So her should was uncovered, who cares? Some of the uber-tight pants and tops girls wear these days are way more immodest than a dress with only one shoulder but because they are completely covered its fine. I just don't get it. Is it really that big of deal if a girl wears a one-shoulder dress? Is it really worth causing a big stir and ruining a girl and her dates night over it? I just think it is so silly.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Are we there yet?

I have been engaged for 406 days and still have 58 left until I will finally be married. I have always been a fan of the idea of long engagements. It gives you plenty of time to plan the wedding, get to know your fiance more (if you don't already) and have relatively little stress when it comes to the actual planning part but it also means a lot of waiting. I have an app on my phone that tells me how many days there are until the wedding and have been checking it roughly every day since last July, so needless to say it has been a long countdown. With a little less than 2 months until the wedding I am starting to get the feeling every little kid does when they have been in the car too long, anxious, restless and ready to get to the final destination. We have planned out the colors, the reception and ceremony place, the food, the decorations, the bridal party and their outfits, picked out invitations, even sent out some invitations, picked out and received wedding bands, decided on an officiant, made a wedding website, helped out of town guests with accommodations, decided first dance songs, picked cake flavors and style and gathered a million addresses! I am sure there are more things but that seemed like enough after all of that I am just ready for the actual day to be here! To see all the hard work pay off into a sweet celebration with our friends and family and then head off on a tropical vacation! There are still a few things left to do and the days are flying by so I am sure in another week or two I will be wishing I had more time but for now I just want to be there!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Did I miss something?

I apparently missed the day of kindergarten when you learn what different colors are called. The whole time I have been planning the wedding I have been telling people my colors are turquoise, silver and black but apparently what I think is turquoise is not what the rest of the world thinks is turquoise. I always thought turquoise was a combination of green and blue, but in reality most people think turquoise is a little mermaid blue color. Needless to say this has caused some confusion! The color I really wanted for my wedding is what most people refer to as Jade or teal! I still wonder how I came to the conclusion that this color I love so much is called turquoise because according to most of the world it is not!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

So my vote doesn't really count?

Growing up I always heard my parents and grandparents say things like, "If you didn't vote, then you can't complain." And I admit I have never been much into politics and never really understood the whole process but now working at the Daily Herald and talking with the political reporter I am learning that the system isn't as straight forward as it could be. There are caucuses and delegates and electoral colleges and conventions and all sort of other things that take away how much my actual vote counts.
I don't understand the specfics of the way voting and delegates and all that works on the local level but I am getting a clearer picture of how things work when it comes to the presidential election.
If you live in a state, like Utah, where one party is the clear majority, yet you vote for the presidential candidate from the other party your vote DOESN'T count!!
For example Utah is a republican state, the majority of voters will go to the polls in November and vote for whoever the republican presidential candidate is and there fore all of Utah's electoral college votes will go to that candidate BUT if I went and voted for President Obama my vote essentially means nothing. This is the same in most of the states if you are in the minority in your state the less likely it is your vote will mean anything. If you happen to live in a state where the parties are equally divided, then lucky you that means your single vote could sway the electoral colleges the other way.
What I don't understand is why bother with all of the nonsense? Why don't we do away with conventions, caucuses, delegates and the electoral college and just count the votes?! That way every single vote counts, even the few democrats living in Utah would have a voice! Not to mention it would be far less complicated, time consuming and expensive. In Utah tax dollars pay for the Republican convention. Tax dollars of people who are not Republican are paying for Republicans to sit around and decide who's votes will count when it comes election time (again I don't really understand the whole thing but this is what I think) and that just doesn't seem right to me. On every level of government it makes more sense to just count the people's votes, let the people's voices be heard, maybe then their wouldn't be such a disagreeance between what congress and the President are doing and what the people really want. Until this happens (which may be never) next time someone says if you didn't vote you can't complain I am going to argue otherwise because it simply isn't always the case.