Life is hard, take it easy

Dear ash cloud,

I know you’re happy up there messing with the lives of SO MANY people down here. That’s ok. I’m having quite a blast seeing how dependent we’ve become on certain things. The world has stopped. I have a few friends stuck in airports in different parts of Europe and America. They’re probably quite mad at you, but in a few years they’ll laugh at this and will have a cool story to tell.

But you know what? In four months and 3 days I’m flying to New York. That’s what us, the tiny people down here who can’t live because of a silly dusty cloud, call honeymoon. And you know what? You better be gone by then. Those things about the last time there was something like this it lasted over a year? Not going to happen.

PS: I’ll admit that the name of the glacier is just too great. I love hearing how the news reporters try to pronounce it: Eyjafjallajokull.

I’ve been thinking recently about the last 2 years. In those years I’ve felt sad, unworthy, depressed, useless and stupid because of some people. Why did I allow them make me feel that way? Well, they have a VERY important role in my life. I wanted them to love me. I wanted them to let me show who I really am. I wanted them to give me a chance. But they didn’t want anything but never seeing me again. However, recently things have changed. For whatever reason, they are pretending nothing ever happened and acting like they like love me. And you know what? I’ll take it. I won’t ever forget what they did. But I can forgive. And it’s up to me to be resentful and angry or take the love as it comes. And one can never have too much of that, right?

And to keep up with the positive tone, here are the newest additions to my family. My cousin gave birth to this gorgeous baby girl on March 30th, Júlia:

And my aunt, five days later, gave birth to my youngest cousin, almost 26 years younger than me! Chloé was born at 33 weeks weighing 4lbs and lost a little weight over the next few days, but is now thriving and happy and healthy:

The sad thing is that the first one lives in Ibiza and the second one in Paris, so I’ll have to wait until my wedding to meet them!

So, here’s the deal: Getting married is not easy.
First, apparently you have to explain the why to everybody. Then, the why in a church. And then, plan it.
Trust me, we don’t want anything special. We don’t want to rent a car and drown it in ribbon. We won’t serve food with names longer than our own. We won’t spend 33453465,6534987€ on a photographer, or a DJ, or anything. We won’t have white invitations with golden rings and a heart embossed. And that’s why it’s SO DIFFICULT to plan the wedding.

Example of a conversation with someone’s family member (not giving names here!)

SOMEONE: So, I know about a florist who makes these beautiful arrangements with candles and roses and they’re only about 30€ each.
ME: Don’t we put food on the table? I didn’t think of the centerpieces, but maybe you’re right… we should put something there. We’ll think about it.
SOMEONE: Ok, think about it.

2 days later…

SOMEONE: Have you decided on the flowers?
ME: What flowers?
SOMEONE: The centerpieces.
ME: Oh! Yes! We’re so excited! We’ve had the best idea ever! We’re going to collect old wine bottles and cut them and turn them into vases and then the day before we’ll get some pretty flowers off the forest and put them there! Don’t you love it?
SOMEONE: Go get your brain checked.

See? It’s really hard. We’re making our own invitations, and they’ll be hand-stamped and they’ll include jokes. If I had a cent for each time I’ve heard “But they won’t look nice, they’ll look like a kid made them, it’s not formal enough!”.

The cake toppers. “We want R2D2 and C3P0 there”. “You should put something romantic, like two little birds”. “But we’re dressing them with a veil and a bow tie!”

The food. “You should serve at least 5 courses”. “We’re having a rice buffet with different kinds of paella so all the people coming from abroad can taste some typical food”. “All that people coming from abroad will think you’re cheap and ungrateful”.

The registry. “You need a registry. People won’t want to give you money, they’ll prefer to buy you something”. “I live in a 60 sq meter apartment and have everything I need or want. Unless I put CDs or DVDs or books in the registry, I won’t do it.” “But you have to”. “Wait. How about people buy me food for a couple of years? That’d be neat!”

Up until there, it was quite easy to just ignore the comments because Eric and I were on the same boat. But then came the time to choose music. We’re planning on having our iPod be the DJ (he gave us a good quote and is willing to work extra hours for free, what could we do). We decided to start making playlists now because we knew it would be tricky to choose music for so many hours. And we both instantly knew there was no way we could pull off playing the music we tend to listen to every day at the wedding. See, Eric is quite the perfect guy in most ways, but he listens to Metal music. That’s his biggest flaw. In the recent years my taste has changed quite a bit and right now most of what I listen to has the label “indie” somewhere in it. Is not that we can’t play metal at the wedding (well, actually, we can’t. The bride would die) or indie (it would be goooood!) but that we hate each other’s taste in music. So we had to come up with a plan. And the plan resulted in us choosing music that we would like to listen to AND that the guests would like to listen to. After all, the party is for everybody, otherwise we wouldn’t have invited anyone. So, right now the playlist is chockfull of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Beach Boys. Oh, and Queen. But this is a lot harder than we thought! At least our parents will know each and every song, though.

And it tasted like cheese.

We had a great time, I came back with a rash caused by the freezing temperatures and we saw hot firemen going down the Eiffel Tower. What else could I ask for?

Oh! And The Pioneer Woman picked one of my photos again! What else could I ask for, I repeat?
You can check it here. There are lots of amazing photos featured there!

I’ll try to upload a few more photos soon.

Oh, and by the way, now that I’ve purchased a VERY EXPENSIVE dressing gown, I’m officially a bride-to-be (already a bride?) I have no idea.

PS.: Eric got to do his “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH CHAMPS ELYSEESSSS” dance

If this works, you’re going to be tired of reading me in no time!

Look! The Pioneer Woman chose my sunset to be on her site! I feel important!

So, people. Thanks for emailing me about the blog disappearance. It looks like bluehost deleted all databases that looked corrupted without even checking first or at least notifying their owners before or after they did it, so the whole blog is gone. Thankfully, Google, the Big Brother who is scarily watching us, had most of it in cache. Not the comments, but the content, so it’s not all lost. Actually, I’m only missing the first two posts or so.

Now Eric and I are going to Paris for a week, so won’t be able to put all those posts back up, but will do it after we’re back.

On the engagement front, I’ve already been dress hunting. I must say, I felt a bit silly inside a 3,000€ dress, what can I say. My car isn’t worth that much.