Damn the (wedding industrial complex) Man.

We Should Probably Stop Buying Ourselves Stuff Off Our Wedding Registry 

When we started planning a wedding, about a year ago, Truman and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Should we do a wedding registry?
Him: I don't know, we already have a colander.
Me: Truth.

Then we went to a couple weddings where the couples didn't have registries and it was just annoying. Clearly we weren't going to attend their wedding without bringing a gift. And if we're going to bring a gift it might as well be something they actually want.

So we registered on Amazon. Because, serious, I don't need a $40 butter knife (I see you crate and barrel!). And as we built a registry we realized there was actually a decent amount of stuff we did actually want for our new house. So we registered from mostly practical things like a decent set of pots and pans (screw you set from college) and a salt and pepper shaker (note: the $4 ones from Ross really aren't worth the money, go get yourself a grown up salt and pepper mill). And some bigger things, like a chandelier.

Once we realized there were some things we actually really wanted we did what any modern couple in 2013 would do...we began trolling craig's list. Last week Truman found a perfect chandelier for less than half the price pottery barn was asking. We installed it last night and I think it looks awesome. I'm so pleased. Why buy new when you can be green (one less chandelier in a landfill right?) and save some money?

 Before: lovely brass and oak ceiling fan. 

After: awesome new-to-us chandelier.

He's a Keeper 

I spent most of last week at a leadership training for my work. The training was good. There were some good people and some practical lessons. Plus, I took this awesome picture of a cow (bull? I'm a Los Angelino at heart, I know nothing about livestock): 

This mountain retreat center getaway was a little ill timed. Heading off to the land of limited cell phone reception was pretty anxiety producing when one's wedding is less than 3 weeks away. Generally, phone contact is helpful when trying to work out logistics with a caterer. Anyhow, while I was away Truman was not only finding an awesome chandelier online, but also negotiating a great deal and traipsing all over the greater Denver area to pick the thing up. The kind of guy who is willing to deal hunt for the pottery barn chandelier you've been ogling is definitely a keeper (because, lets be honest, I'm not super sure he really cares about the style of our dining room lighting. This one was for my benefit). I'm very much looking forward to May 26th. 

Speaking of Wedding Registries 

I've tried my darnedest not to totally fall prey to the wedding industrial complex...while also admitting that American weddings merged with consumerism long long ago and so I can't be too hard on myself for wanting...you know... a photo booth. The facet of the wedding industrial complex I'm finding the most interesting at this moment is what I'm calling wedding registry creep. 

What started out as "people will bring gifts, we should at least tell them what we want" and "we've not 19, we have most the things we need, we should register for some fun camping gear and upgrade some of the kitchen tools" somehow became "I really hope we get that $300 blender." Obviously, 12 months ago a $300 would have sounded insane to either of us. And here I sit with a hella hopeful registry. Damn the man. 

Did anyone else freak out when Google announced they were shutting down Reader?

I, for one, totally freaked out when Google announced that they'd be retiring reader in July. And then I realized how totally at the mercy of free Google products I am. Which is a pretty freaky thought actually.

But back to reader.

If you don't know what reader is...well it probably doesn't matter because it's going away in July. But, as a loyal reader of Tails & Typos, the concept of an RSS reader is something you might be interested. An RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is a family of web feed formats that allows you to subscribe to your favorite frequently updated site, like blogs. Once you subscribe to a site it's updates then magically appear in your reader. Basically a reader is to a blog post as an inbox is to an email. When a blog post goes up on one of the 250 blogs I follow it just shows up in my handy dandy Google reader and then I can use the interwebs or the app on my phone to read blogs instead of reading books before I got to bed. That is until July when Google will no longer provide me with my reader (aka my blog inbox). You see why this was so upsetting?

Anyhow, I was in denial for a few weeks and then over the weekend I decided to hunt down a new reader service. After reading an embarrassing number of reviews I decided to try The Old Reader and Feedly.

Here are my thoughts so far.

The Old Reader: When Google Reader started changing their layout a while back some genius created "The Old Reader" which was made to retain some of the features that Google was fazing out of their reader.

• Pros: If you've been using Reader, this will look very familiar. And we all like familiar. It organized all my blogs the same way and even saved the posts I had favorited (under the "save for later" tab). 
• Cons: I had to figure out how to download my subscription list and then upload it to "The Old Reader" to make all my blogs appear. Not the end of the world but still a little cumbersome  Also, no mobile app, which was kind of a deal breaker for me. 

Feedly: A fun reader that integrates seamlessly with Google reader but looks a little more Mac OS than it does Google.

• Pros: Log in with Google and like magical all my blogs appeared. Whoo!Hoo! I'm back in action. Also, there's a mobile app. Word on the street is that it works with smart phones as well as dumb phones. App-ing like it's 1999!
• Cons: It looks all mac-y which I kind of hate. While the set up was super simple I had to read the help section to figure out how to add a subscription. Finally, it's an app in chrome which I don't love yet.

So, in case you were freaking out about change the way I was. There are my humble suggestions. Hope I saved you some researching time.

Hopefully Ke$ha will stop me from getting pregnant.

So I bought Kesha  Ke$ha tickets. Yep. Straight up Janelle from Teen Mom style (seriously if you haven't watched this video you simply must). 

On the way home from the gym last night, at midnight when Truman was fast asleep and therefor unable to talk any sense into me, buying Ke$ha tickets off groupon from my phone sounded like the most awesomest idea ever. 

In the light of morning I'm beginning to think I might be going through some sort of third-of-life crisis.

Let me explain. 

You see, I'm getting married. And the minute you get married during your late twenties or early thirties most of your friends, family, and acquaintances totally skip over the wedding talk and go straight to the baby talk. Will you have babies? Do you want babies? When will you have them? How will you acquire them?

And, honestly, the idea of babies (and children in general) totally freaks me out. They freak me out for all the normal reasons of course...finances, sleep time, etc...but they mostly freak me out because I'm not ready to hand over my identity. I feel like there's a unique "transformation" that happens for women (but not for men) by which we become moms and cease to be women (as if, in modern culture, the two are mutually exclusive). Now before you invade my inbox with emails with lots of capital letters let me explain. 

I understand that it's not true that women cannot maintain their own identities independent from their children and that they can't continue to be smart and sexy once they have children. I just think it becomes really really hard. And I'm just not ready to be defined, almost entirely, by my role as care taker to another human. When I was younger the term "wife" illisited a similar reaction in me...I think I'm ok with it now because my future husband is my equal and not someone that I am a care taker to. 

Social media is one of the key indicator for me. So many of my friends who are mothers have changed their facebook profile picture...the picture that people use as an indicator of their identity...to a picture of their baby (they aren't even in it!). Twitter profiles say things like "I'm Jane, mommy to Sam and Skylar." Seriously!? No mention of your job or your grad degree or your interest in cooking or writing!? I know that motherhood doesn't inherently mean you have to abandon all of your former identities and be defined only by your children. But if the number of smart, intelligent women I know who have become defined that way...it must be really really hard to maintain your interdependence. And that's not even beginning to talk about how the outside world defines you.  

So I'm a little panicked about the whole idea. And (apparently) my way of coping is to put a death grip on youth culture. So anyway.., I'm really hoping James Van Der Beek is there. 

Disclaimer #1: Before you freak out, this blog post probably isn't about you (or at least you should tell yourself that) I know a lot of awesome moms who haven't totally changed since having kids. 

Disclaimer #2: I know that motherhood is totally consuming and really really hard...that's part of the panic. 

Disclaimer #3: It's actually Kesha and Pit Bull and I'm really excited about Pit Bull (way more than Kesha). 

Wedding Invitations

I geek out over stationary. I'm the only person I know who scrapbooks and doesn't have kids. I adore return address stamps (we have two) and I can spend hours designing a business card. So you can imagine what I'm like with wedding stationary. I found a few designs on wedding paper divas and etsy that I really liked...but I just wasn't willing to go over budget for them. Enter some target stationary, fancy paper from paper source, a little photoshop, some DIY and some free labor from Truman and we ended up with invitations I totally adore. 

I'll try to lay off the wedding stuff and posts something non-wedding related soon (front runner: that terrible New York Magazine article about the so called feminist housewife). 

Engagement Pictures

We recently lucked into an amazing wedding photographer, Ashton Howard, and when he told us that engagement shots were included in our package we were even more excited. So even though save the dates had long been sent out we thought, "Well, we're vain, more pictures of us sound great!" 

We just got the disc of pictures in the mail and I have to say, we are now even more excited that he'll be photographing our wedding. Despite two location changes (the forecast kept looking worse and we kept moving the location closer to Denver) and a snow storm, I think these turned out awesome. He's such a nice guy that he even got some legitimate smiles out of Truman (as opposed to awkward staged smiles that are inevitable when someone is taking pictures of you for pictures sake). 

And speaking of awkward....I love that these aren't! Now maybe I just have bride brain (you know, the cousin of mom brain, the phenomenon that happens when all the smoopy love hormones make new moms think even an Elmer Fudd lookin' baby is the cutest thing they've ever seen) but I think these look really nice. I feel like I'm safely out of might-end-up-on-a-huffington-post-slideshow territory. But I suppose you can be the judge of that. Here are a few of my favorites that Ashton hadn't already posted. You can check out the rest on the Ashton Howard Photography Blog. 

Your Weekly Olivia

Just because. 

How I Ended Up Listening to Christian Pop

Generally speaking, I drive my car, a 2003 VW, and Truman drives the civic. When practicality dictates, we switch (my car  handles better in the snow...his has a legitimate back seat...). On one of the days when Truman was driving the volkswagon he changed some of my presets (these things should really have password protections). And suddenly my car was programmed to receive sports talk radio as well as Christian rock.

Truman doesn't listen to lyrics and sometimes gets confused between Christian and secular music.

The thing about Christian rock radio is that there are virtually no commercials. Which means that when I'm toggling through and forget that #2 is the interloper I find myself sort of bopping along to a catchy acoustic guitar rift...until something about the "light of love" comes over the speakers and I realize I've been foiled again.

So as I drove along listening to some song about how I am not the mistakes I've made and trying to think of some other radio station to program in, I realized I'm a bit of a hypocrite. I listen to all sorts of terrible country and hip hop that I don't condone the lyrics to.

Initially I said the Christianity had to go because of the culture of homophobia and anti-woman that the born again version of Christianity spews.

But then I thought about the racist and anti-woman stuff that comes through my airwaves on the regular. Examples of the offensive crap that comes over my non-preachy radio:

"The U.S. of A., 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, It's the American way."
Um, as fun as normalizing a war culture is.  

"You don't know you're beautiful, oh oh, That's what makes you beautiful."
Because nothing is sexier than a girl with no self confidence. 

So if I'm going to listen to Toby Keith preach war and One Direction continue to tell girls that confidence is for nerds then what kind weird logic am I using to ditch "empowering and affirming radio"? My car it's a complicated philosophical place I tell you.

You would know that by it's very serious Hawaiian print seat covers.