WEDDING PHOTOS!!

My wonderfully amazing friends David and Amanda took these beautiful photos from our wedding! Here are the highlights for your viewing pleasure.

Marriage and the "F" word

So, I did something this past weekend that many people (myself included) thought I may never do. I got married.

Now, you may be thinking, “But Skye, you are such a wonderful and amazing woman! You are smart and talented and thoughtful and kind and you cook and bake no nobody’s business! Why would you be afraid that you would never get married?”

Here’s the thing: I wasn’t afraid that I would never get married. I never thought “I won’t feel happy/satisfied/complete until I am legally joined to someone else through the bonds of matrimony” (besides, when you say it like that, does it really sound all that great?). It’s more that I just never really planned on it. Just like I never planned on having kids, or living in a certain town/region/country, or having a certain job. I have seen enough other people’s best laid plans get laid to waste by the whims of fate. I’ve seen friends and family members chasing some phantom of happiness and miss all the joy and perfection that exists in the here and now. So I made the choice to spend my time and energy being happy with my life and self as I am instead of banking all my potential future happiness on something that may never actually happen.

And now enters the “F” word: Feminist. I’m not going to go into a huge monologue about the history of the feminist movement. I consider myself a feminist in the same way I consider myself a vegetarian. They are both ideologies that help me make choices and live my live in a way that I believe brings me closer to my true self while at the same time making the world maybe just a little bit better. My lack of desire for wedding bells really hasdvery little to do with my feminist beliefs. I appreciate the fact that, as a woman today, I have a wide range of choices about how I live my life. I also appreciate that more and more of those choices are becoming widely accepted as “normal.” When woman were fighting to gain ground in the working world, a woman who wanted to stay home and raise a family was looked down upon by those pounding on the glass ceiling. Not so much now.

When Brian and I first started dating, I knew that he was a guy I could spend a good chunk of my life with. I know the facts and statistics. I know that having a piece of legal paper doesn’t guarantee happily ever after any more than not having that paper means you won’t make it last. There was a little inkling in the back of my mind that we might some day make it legal (mostly brought on by a whole slew of people asking if we would and the fact that the Army wouldn’t recognize me otherwise), but it wasn’t an urgent thing for me.

So, much to the dismay of my more romantically inclined friends and family, our decision to get legally wed really boiled down to logistics. I want to be with him. He wants to be with me. In order for that to happen in the Army world, we needed that little piece of legal paper. As I stood up in front of friends and family and recited our vows, I didn’t feel any monumental shift in my feelings toward Brian because I had decided months ago that he would be my partner. Now it’s legal.

You may wonder then, what prompted this little diatribe. Well, I had a friend ask me if I was going to change my name. When I replied that, yes, I would take Brian’s last name, she responded with dismay. She said that she saw me as a feminist name-keeper type and expressed that she wasn’t able to let go of her identity by changing her name when she got married. This comment did not sit well with me on several levels (1. I didn’t ask for her opinion. 2. She didn’t ask for my reasoning before devaluing my decision. 3. My name is only tangentially connected to my identity and therefore her choice-struggle is irrelevant to me. 4. Really, I need a fourth reason? I just used “tangentially” in a sentence, doesn’t that should count as a fourth reason by itself?), but did serve to get me thinking about what kind of feminist I really am. Is the feminist party going to revoke my girl card because I took my husband’s name? Can I no longer use gender issues as a basis for deciding which candidate to vote for? Do I have to start dyeing my hair and wearing make-up now that I have joined the legions of deferential damsels anxiously awaiting their husband’s commands?

What it comes down to for me is that I like the feeling of belonging to each other. I like the fact that when we are introduced, there will be questioning that we are together. I grew up in a divided family, with step-parents and step-siblings and all kinds of name relation confusion. Even though I didn’t give birth to his children, we will still be building our own version of a family together. And one of the many things that we will share will be the name “Evans.” It’s like a badge that I can wear and say “These are my people.” I think the most powerful thing that any feminist can do is to throw away the preconceived notions of what a woman should or should not do, and decide for herself what is the right course of action.

“Do not send me away or urge me to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people.” Ruth 1:16

Three Days and Counting...

Well, I have to say I'm rather proud of myself. In the last two and a half weeks I managed to pull together what seems to be a reasonably simple version of a wedding without freaking out! I'm not one for the big hoopla, so simple and easy is definitely the order for the day.

In case you were wondering, here are a few of the basic details:

• We're getting married at a neat little Savannah restaurant downtown, called Skyler's.
• My friend Tom, who happens to be a judge, will be performing the world's shortest ceremony (ok, maybe not the shortest ceremony in the world, but it will be a quick one).
• I did end up making my dress, but kept it fairly simple (do you see a theme developing here?). As a matter of fact, it is so charmingly simple that I will be wearing flip-flops with it! It only took about 4 hours to make and almost took longer to pick out the fabric than to actually sew it.
• Brian found some beautiful wooden wedding rings online, that totally fit my hippy lifestyle. However, I would have had to take it off every time I showered, did dishes, went swimming, etc. So instead we found some awesome, similar-but-not-quite-matching Tungsten rings online at a great price. Always the super-saver!
• I found some yummy wedding favors at the Savannah Bee Company (and I secretly hope that people forget their favors on the table so I can keep them!).
• My wonderful friend David will be taking pictures for us, so stay tuned for his photos. Thanks David!

There may be a surprise or two lurking in the background, so be sure to check back next week for the full details! In the meantime, it's business as usual at work until family and friends start to arrive on Friday.

Big plans...

So, I may be a little busy for a while.

I might find it a bit tough to keep you all updated on a regular basis.

What with planning a wedding (3 weeks from "Let's do it" to "I do"), finding and training a replacement at work and packing up and moving to El Paso, I think I might not have a lot of free time for internet musings.

Oh, and should I mention that I'm still kicking around the idea of buying a house??

What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment!

It's FREEZE time again!

Thankfully, this freeze is not referring to temperatures. February marks my first spending freeze of 2011!

For those of you who may not be familiar with this little practice, let me give you some back ground. A long time ago in a life that feels very far away (translation: when I was living in CT and working at Pfizer) a dear friend of mine gave me the book "Women and Money" by Suze Orman. Say what you will about her personality, or her annoying voice, this lady has some great content in her books. I credit reading this book with putting me on track financially and, in an abstract sense, getting me into the work I'm doing today as a financial educator.

One suggestion that came up in the book was to put yourself on a spending freeze, meaning that you don't spend money on anything but the most essential things: bills, food, transportation and the like. I started small, going just one week at a time (some folks may need to start with just one day, depending on their current spending habits). I'm now at the point where I freeze my spending quarterly, for one whole month.

Yes, you read that right. For four months out of the year, I spend money only on household bills (rent, utilities, insurance), groceries (this does NOT include eating out or buying non-food products at the grocery store: it is just basic food supplies), and transportation (in my life, that means gasoline, my car payment, and insurance). Oh, and I still continue to deposit money into my savings accounts as usual, since I'm not really "spending" that. At the end of the month, all the extra money that I would have pissed away on stuff that I really don't need gets rolled over into my savings.

There are several benefits that I've found from this exercise:
1. It is a GREAT way to save a ton of money!
2. It "resets" my spending behavior. For many of us, our knee-jerk solution to many problems is to throw money at it. By taking money out of the picture, I get more creative about ways to solve problems or spend time.
3. It reminds me that I really do have just about everything that I could possibly need, as well as most of the things that I want.
4. If I realize that there is something that I don't have but need/want to acquire before the spending freeze is over, I refer back to #2: get creative. (For example, last year I was longing to have a toaster oven at work because honestly food is so much tastier when it isn't microwaved to death. Instead of buying one, I trolled around on FreeCycle and found one that someone else was giving away!)

I almost feel like I'm cheating, since February is the shortest month of the year. The only exception I may end up making is if Brian and I find the perfect house. But I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it!

Week 6 of P90X

Well, I've been working on this P90X thing for 6 weeks now, and I'm proud to say that I've only missed a few workouts. This week I did some MAD push ups, including one-armed and clap! Granted, it's not all that pretty, but I did it. I even used Brian's pull up bar a few weeks ago (with a chair for assistance, but still...). I love the way that the schedule mixes things up so the don't get boring or overwork any one area. I also dusted off the punching bag and used it for the Kenpo workout last Friday. It was AWESOME to beat the heck out of something for 60 minutes!!

While the P90X plan is going well, the plan to run the Susan G. Komen 5K in April is not going nearly so well. With P90X taking up anywhere from an hour to 90 minutes 6 days a week, I haven't made the time to stick to my run training. And when this last cold snap hit, my knee went on strike again. So I'm thinking that I need to re-define my goal. Maybe instead of saying "I will run a whole 5K" I need to focus on some broader goals. Like "I will be active every day" or "I will continually challenge myself physically." I know that in order for a goal to be realistic I have to actually believe that I can achieve it. And honestly, at the moment, I don't really believe that I can be a Runner. I can walk for hours like nobody's business, and kickbox like a madwoman. But running... not so much.

Welcome to 2011!

Another new year, and already I'm way behind on my blogging! It is a bit harder to write updates when I no longer have internet at home. The girls upstairs moved out and took their wireless with them! But here is a glimpse of what I've been up to for the last month!

For Christmas I went home to Dad's and offered to re-do the guest bath. Back in 1996-ish, our dog Dakota dug a hole in the flooring (which you can see below) and it was never fixed. For years a slippery throw mat covered over the mess. And at some point after I moved out, Mom got very creative with painting the walls. I've warmed up to pink over the years, but not to the point where these walls would ever be soothing! So our deal was that I would replace the flooring if he let me paint the walls, too.


I guess I didn't really know what I was in for with removing the old floor. It took about 3 hours of non-stop pulling, ripping, scraping, and picking to get all of it up.

Not including time waiting for primer and paint to dry, the whole project only took about 12 hours and cost just under $200! Once I figured out what I was doing, it was actually kinda fun and sorta made me wish I had my own place where I could do these kinds of projects. And I am so very happy with the new finished product.


I can't remember exactly when I took this picture, but I found it on my camera and figured I'd throw it in for good measure. I think it may have been the Harvest Moon, with either Jupiter or Venus glowing brightly below it.

I was super lucky for New Year's Eve and Day, as I had both Brian and Dad with me! They even joined me for my annual "start the year by walking on the beach" adventure. This year was very foggy, but much warmer than last year.

Unfortunately, coming back from Dad's brought me home to an apartment with several stinky issues. First, cats had gotten into the air ducts and used them as a bathroom. I had to get a vent cleaning company to come and vacuum and sanitize them so my house would stop smelling like a litter box.

However, once the litter box smell was cleaned up, another odor took over. At first it seemed like maybe the cats were still going to the bathroom under the house, but the smell quickly turned to that of something dead. Lovely. I took pictures under the house, trying to find the offending source, but to no end.

After much back and forth, the dead rat was found and removed from the upstairs porch siding. That was the good news. The bad news was that all the goo from inside the dead rat had leaked into the wall of my bedroom. Thus I have been sleeping on the futon in the living room for two weeks. The odor is just now getting to the point where I can walk into the bedroom and not gag, but the room is still basically unusable. Good thing I have such a big apartment!

On a separate, but somewhat related note, my musings of having a house to be able to do projects is coming to fruition: Brian and I have started looking at houses! I'll admit, the gypsy in me is still a little wary of the idea of "home ownership." But having run the numbers and realized that we could afford a pretty nice sized place in a good area, I've really warmed up to the idea. We spent one weekend just driving around looking at neighborhoods and types of homes, and last weekend we actually walked through the first house (it was a good bargain, but not exactly what we were hoping for).

I'm a wee bit nervous about making such a big decision, but also really REALLY excited about the thought of having a home. Not just a place to keep my stuff, or a place to have people over. But a real home.

We celebrated the start of the process with some delicious fro-yo from Lovin' Spoons.