Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 70

{bits & pieces}

The regular “little of this, little of that” feature from Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Home again, hippity-hop!

Sad to leave those darlings, but now I need to be here, where some sunlight has made it through at last! Suddenly I thought about planting peas, so I will do that later today I hope! (March 19th, St. Joseph’s Day, the traditional day for planting peas around here, found us with permafrost-topped-with-two-feet-of-snow, so then I just forgot about it and went away.)

 

 

Two Medieval monks invent Bestiaries. These always get me, so funny.


Peter Lawler (no relation) talks about what constitutes true education — whether technology imposes a challenge — whether managing screens makes a difference. He says, “… the content of education should mainly be found in books. It really makes all the difference—when it comes to both economic success and the choice of worthy leisure—when a particular child is raised in a home animated by love of reading. We should prize no skill more than being able to attentively read a “real book,” a book that’s more than a source of self-indulgent entertainment or technical self-help. That skill is all about effective access to content. It’s for building a huge and precise vocabulary that opens the particular person to the daylight of meaning—to living in the truth—that comes with connecting words to the way things really are.”


That awkward moment when earthworms — or other fauna — rain from the sky.


If I can’t be reading my favorite books (over and over) — such as anything by Jane Austen or C. S. Lewis, I guess I think the next best thing is to read about them —  if the quality is at the level of, say, Planet Narnia and The Narnia Code, both by Michael Ward. Maybe the next next best thing is to read a good article about what C. S. Lewis’s vision was, and what Michael Ward had to say about it, by another good thinker, the late Stratford Caldecott.


I wouldn’t go too far identifying Sherlock Holmes with Christ, but there is a mystery in his return from the dead. (By the way, Sherlock Holmes is great reading for children who have moved towards more mature reading matter but aren’t quite ready to tackle the 100 great books.) And we’ve enjoyed the BBC Sherlock! series — have you? After becoming very familiar with the books, of course. In particular, I loved the wedding episode, although many hate it. But Mary’s dress! She looks lovely.


Emily Stimpson, whose work we’ve linked to here in the past, has a lovely blog that recently featured her smallish kitchen. I love this redo — it’s one after my own heart, because she kept the unique things about it, made it pretty, and didn’t spend a ton of money. The Hoosier cabinet is beyond adorable, and I can attest to its utility. In my little galley kitchen in DC long ago, I had half a Hoosier (someone along the way had removed the top part) — and that enamel surface was invaluable real estate, let me tell you!


Did you catch this article in the Wall Street Journal about parenting a premature baby? NICUs have their procedures and protocols. They necessarily take into account every sort of situation and level of experience, sometimes erecting an impenetrable wall between baby and mother. The shocked parents might not know how to express what they would like to do or even know how to do it, so I think information like this is invaluable.


There’s still time this Eastertide for your Garage Schola to spring this lovely Easter hymn on your congregation! It will be easy to learn, actually. (Try it in your family.) I recommend everyone singing the verses in unison unless you have one person with a pure sound to carry it, and then break into the polyphony. Don’t strain. Sing it simply. Let each phrase have its own rise and fall, tapering off softly but with energy at the end of the line, which may be a bit different from how you are used to singing hymns. (I’m channeling choirmaster Paul Jernberg‘s instructions here — I always hear his voice in my head!)

From the archives: Now is a good time to revamp your approach to that ever-present necessity, feeding your family! I have a whole series that takes you, step-by-step, through the process from figuring out what to eat to producing it efficiently. 

The St. Greg’s Pockets are getting a great boost from the spring weather. How about meeting at the playground with your friends? You can send out a post from the blog beforehand and see where the discussion leads you! How about this post: Getting Used to Being Thrifty. It’s good to encourage each other and exchange tips for living on one income.

Enjoy the Third Sunday of Easter tomorrow!

~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~

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Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
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{pretty, happy, funny, real}

 ~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

{pretty}

Thank you for all your sweet comments about Eleanor’s baptism!

A few things that came up in the comments or that I otherwise wanted to mention:

Our priest is very fatherly, and remarkably comfortable with children, including little babies. I know and love many wonderful priests, but I can’t think of many who’d be so at ease handling a slippery, wet, tiny baby. Nor, for that matter, would I be as comfortable handing off my newborn to them for a dunking!

He is also bi-ritual, which means he has faculties to celebrate both Roman rite liturgies (like in our parish) and Eastern rite (I am sheepishly realizing I don’t remember which Eastern rite he belongs to). Hence the dunking. (And many other beautiful traditions that we’ve adopted in our parish.)

Also, one thing that helps me get my babies baptized so quickly is that I don’t worry about throwing any sort of party afterwards. Part of me would really love to — even if it were just cake and iced tea afterwards! I love parties, and it’s certainly a special enough occasion. If we lived closer to family, I could definitely see having someone else host it at their house. But at least for me, just getting out the door on time and looking special-occasion presentable with a newborn (plus, now, other small children) is hard enough when I’ve just given birth, that with my mom’s help we can just get it done. But my house was not party-ready when we got home, that’s for sure!

We were able to have Nora’s baptism during Mass, which meant that many of our friends were there to welcome her into the Church. And my mom did make us a cake, so we dug into that when we got home. We always celebrate! But we’ll wait for another excuse for a party.

(I also didn’t get a pretty picture of just her that day, so before my mom left with the gowns — which will be needed soon on both sides of the family — I popped Nora back into her baptismal gown for a few more photos during a well-fed and content moment. No one ever needs to be the wiser! Unless I tell the whole Internet…)

{happy}

We gave Nora a bath before the baptism, which is why Molly’s still in her pajamas but Pippo is wearing a tie…

{funny}

I don’t know that I’ve ever revealed this particular secret of my (always very impressive) housekeeping — do you see that stack of National Geographics?

It’s totally holding up the sofa.

You see, right before Molly was born, my brother-in-law came by for a visit. At one point, he sat down on the sofa (which we bought from the as-is section at Ikea, and has been through several cross-country moves since then) and the frame broke right underneath him.

(I should take this moment to point out that my brother-in-law is very slim.)

(Also, he’s a seminarian, so while you’re picturing this scene, you should imagine him in a cassock.)

I told him that the sofa was clearly structurally unsound, and that truly, he had saved me: I don’t know that my pride could’ve survived the sofa breaking under my 39.5-weeks-pregnant self.

Anyway, we stuck a pile of magazines under it to hold it up, and figured we’d deal with it when I wasn’t quite so pregnant. Nineteen months later, guess what’s become a permanent fixture in our living room?

No longer! My dad made it his mission to fix the sofa before he left, and indeed it only took him and Captain P a short time to get it all patched up and back in business. So, one baby’s birth to break it, another baby’s birth to fix it. Don’t ever say we don’t move fast around here.

(No “after” picture. You’ll have to use your imagination to conjure up an image of a sofa held up solely by its own four legs. Aka, a very fancy sofa.)

 

{real}

After two weeks of taking care of us, my mom has finally abandoned us to our fate headed back to Massachusetts. What does that mean for me? Probably no more fresh strawberry shortcake for breakfast, that’s what it means.

Wish me luck!

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Baptism efficiency.

Posting is a little tricky for me right now. I don’t have access to my computer with its picture-processing capabilities (that is, any capability at all), and of course Rosie is a wee bit busy with the new baby. But we’re checking in with some baptism pictures, because how awesome is a baptism?

Not only is it good to baptize the baby as soon as ever you can, but for Rosie, it’s helpful if I’m there (as I was with Molly as well). I can give a needed assist in getting out the door, and I can stand in for godparents who aren’t getting to Oklahoma any time soon (in this case, Sukie and the Quack!).

This time Fr. Phil did his thing, which combines his high comfort level with infants and a robust interpretation of the ritual, filtered through his Eastern Rite tendencies.

 

We’re pretty sure that Nora caught some air here during her triple dunking. Yikes! And Amen!

All is well. Our new little Christian in her beautiful baptismal garment, comprised of pieces from both of the families.

Nora was a trouper — she had a look of real consternation at the moment(s) of peak elevation/descent, but kept it together; and Pippo and Molly were truly as good as gold.

I honestly don’t know if we are really cut out to be bloggers or how the other people do it, though. We are trying to get photos with some reasonable inclusion of the necessary characters (and also manage early-morning curly hair) and then get out and get food and naps. A couple of friends of Rosie’s stepped in to take pictures of things as they happened, for which we are grateful!

If for some reason we are making this look easy to you, you are not paying attention!

Still — for us, this such efficiency! Baby: Born, baptized, boom!

{bits & pieces} with a little Easter recap from the Chesternest

The regular “little of this, little of that” feature from Like Mother, Like Daughter!

I’ve mentioned before that I want to get a virtual tour of the Chesternest up here someday. As of right now, I just wanted to give you a glimpse of my little kitchen (as I’ve mentioned, we have two rooms we call “kitchen;” this one has the sink, cupboards, and counter but not the stove or fridge) — mainly just so you can see how I am currently fitting in it.

Which is to say — at 39ish weeks pregnant (38 at the time of this photo) — snugly.

 

We were fortunate to get Habou and Uncle Joe and Uncle Will (that is: my brothers, Finnabee’s uncles) here for Easter weekend. We enjoyed plenty of good food and drinks and chocolate and games of Dominion. And they were very helpful when I needed help. But when I need to be working in my kitchen, it pretty much just needs to be me and my belly. It’s about all I can do to fit myself and Peabodee in there, let alone another adult. Sometimes, when The Artist needs to squeeze by me when I’m working, I literally turn and lift my belly over/onto the counter so that he can get by behind me…

Honestly, I am very happy to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I mean, I like making food, and I prefer bare feet to shoes most of the time. So yes, for a given nine months, I am likely to fit the bill.

I managed to fit in the time to do one (count ‘em: one) pysanka this Holy Week (the nearest one, below). I sat down during a few spare moments on Holy Saturday, my food prep done and family members out on a walk, for a little blissful project time. Hopefully I’ll squeeze a little more in during the Easter season. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, the earlier part of Holy Week was taken up with recovering from the stomach bug (our little family succumbed, one by one) and then purging the apartment in anticipation of company we didn’t want to infect.

Uncle Joe did his best to get an Easter shot of us with tricky lighting due to a somewhat gloomy, very windy day. (Uncle Will played a supporting role standing behind Uncle Joe, acting goofy and keeping us happy.) I wish we could have just posed outside! But no, it wasn’t to be. I keep telling myself that I believe in spring. And also that I refuse to have my spring baby in winter. So, Baby, you are not allowed to come out until we are solidly into the 60s with sunshine!!

You may note that Finnabee is wearing the same dress in which Molly was spotted in this week’s {p,h,f,r}. Pretty, fancy, matching cousin dresses courtesy of Aunt Natasha.

Not a lot of links this week, so I’ve expanded the ‘from the archives’ section, in case you want to catch up on some older material and/or get to know us a bit more than you might already!

An amazing invention that combines the latest medical technology with traditional crafting to solve heart problems, especially in children! Check out this story from Bolivia about how women are knitting parts to fix hearts.


An interesting piece on why it’s not prudent to push STEM education at the expense of the Liberal Arts. This author’s perspective isn’t a hard sell on the latter; he’s just making a straight-forward case about why there are limitations to the former. Why America’s Obsession with STEM education is dangerous. (I’d like to add, as a very superfluous sidenote, that I appreciate that the article isn’t entitled “why STEM is ruining America.” Moderation in headlines is so hard to find these days.)


What I learned the hard way: how I protect my family on Instagram. I think this goes for all social media. It’s a good idea to have some precautions about what you’re sharing, especially when you can’t always control who will see it!

From the archives (mostly spring-y-themed):

Frugal for Beginners (a vintage piece back from 2009! We’ve been around for a while!)

A Christening gown for Julia

Ask Auntie Leila: How to talk to children about scary news

An old {pretty, happy, funny, real} from Eastertime a few years ago

Whining whiners and how to cure them: a checklist

Ask Auntie Leila: I feel guilty not working! 

The next part of the {pretty, happy, real weddings} series should be coming your way soon! Thanks for all the interesting input in the comments so far!

Liturgical year: keep enjoying the Easter octave! Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday!

~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~

Follow us on Twitter.
Like us on Facebook.

Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ Easter Baby Edition!

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

{pretty}

Little Eleanor and I are both doing great. She’s as cuddly as can be, eating like a champ (at one week old, she’s already back up to her birth weight), and is even toying with the idea of occasionally sleeping during the night as well as during the day.

(Make no mistake: I’m not talking about sleeping through the night. I’m talking about sleeping at night, at all. The bar is low; my expectations modest. I am hopeful for success.)

I’m recovering well, though I’m very glad for these days with my mother here and my husband on leave. I sit on the sofa nursing the baby and watching them take care of everything, and occasionally wonder how it all will keep going once they’re gone.

Not thinking about that right now! Let’s look at some baby pictures!

{happy}

I heard these kids coming when they were still halfway down the hallway — Pippo’s sneakers slapping against the tile floor as he ran, and Molly’s constant stream of “Baby? Baby? Baby! Baby?” that hasn’t actually quite stopped yet even now. They are So. Excited. about their little sister.

{funny}

I love how quickly the family photo turned into a baby hat/hospital bed button investigation.

{real}

A Holy Thursday baby makes for a very different sort of Triduum, that’s for sure. I wasn’t able to go to any of the liturgies, which was not easy for me to give up. But the rest of the family did, of course, make it to Mass on Easter.

I may be the kind of mom who doesn’t go to Mass on Easter Sunday (with a 3 day old baby), but I am certainly not the kind of mom who doesn’t take pictures of my kids looking cute in their Easter best!

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Our Easter Bundle

Guess who decided to arrive a few days in advance of her Liturgical Due Date (which you may recall, was today), just a few hours after my mom walked through the door? (Good timing, little one!)

Introducing Eleanor Rose, born 3:34 am on Holy Thursday morning. 8lbs, 1oz; 18 inches long.

We’re home and doing great; Pippo is acting like an old pro at this whole “big brother” business, and Molly is beside herself with excitement at the new baby (baby! Baby! BABY!) in our family.

Happy Easter — Christ is risen! Alleluia!

PS — we’re going to try to check in on Thursday with a little post for {pretty, happy, funny, real}. Hope to see you and pictures from your Easter there!

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

I’m on the go here because Rosie is getting close! (thanks for prayers!) but thought I’d check in with some pictures from this past weekend, when we finally — FINALLY! — boiled the sap. It’s just been too cold and too snowy. The sap was frozen in buckets in the garage, even if we had been able to get a fire started with the wet wood buried under the snow!

But Sunday was glorious and we worked like crazy people, rushing home after Palm Sunday Mass (at which the Chief, Bridget, and I sang in the choir so no going to an early one, and anyway, such a beautiful liturgy, wouldn’t want to shorten it) and getting things going.

{pretty}

Such a pretty day! The dogs were in heaven.

{happy}

We’re Ma and Pa Kettle out here, literally! With the kettles! I think this set-up could be my {funny}, but hey, it works.

Everything is better when friends can join in the fun and keep you company. What a day! We got it all boiled, though! Almost a gallon. Could have done more, but mother nature just didn’t cooperate with our schedule this year.

{funny}

On Saturday Bridget, having come home for break the day before, had her friends come to hang out in the snowy gloom and make a delicious cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, a book Rosie got me a few years ago. As soon as the sun went down, we enjoyed!

They made the delicious Almost Fudge Gateau, and since Greenspan recounts how her French friend (am I remembering this right?) got her new oven and sat in front of it singing as the cake rose, naturally the girls had to do likewise.

Love them.

{real}

It really would have been a gallon if I hadn’t, yes, burned some (luckily a smaller pot) on the stove. Ugh. Just so tired and achy and getting sick and I thought the Chief had turned the pots off and he thought I was minding them… but I wasn’t… until I heard and smelled… ugh ugh ugh.

 

I paid though, for my carelessness. Due penance. The bottom was black. This picture is AFTER boiling with baking soda plus vinegar, vinegar by itself, baking soda by itself… those black bits are BONDED. It’s after hacking with spatula, knife, and steel wool.

Read carefully before you comment telling me what to do. I did it all.

Eventually I got it off. I ended up using mostly the knife and a smaller zester (you can see it here) that has a sharp straight edge and a short enough handle to get the center of the pot.

And probably another 3 cups of syrup. Gone. SOB.

Ah well, there’s always next year!

I’ll leave the linkup up for an extra day — you’ll have Monday as well to join us. Please do!

And we are praying, as always, for all of you, our readers. Have a blessed Paschal Triduum. Don’t worry. Lately I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that is being bandied about out there. It seems like people get a hold of something and wring every drop of knowledge there is to be gotten out of it. Sometimes I feel like either people are ignoring important things or making them seem so complicated that there is no way to figure out how we are going to live them.

But… just live the important things, in your own way. They are important — these days are cosmically important — because they are important — not because we make them so by our efforts.

Remember, it’s experiencing something that matters, not how intensely you feel about experiencing it. You (and the children) can only know what that means later. Some years will seem more full; others less so. In hindsight. That’s how it must be. There’s harm in forcing things, in a lot of noise and activity. Just… live your Paschal Triduum, along with the church, the best way you can. And have a blessed Easter Sunday and Eastertide!

And we’ll see you next week, God willing!

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A Fun, Useful How-To!

I thought I’d do a special post on something I get a lot of mail about:

Making Toast!

Seems like these days gals just don’t know how to do important kitchen tasks like making toast, but fortunately, the collective memory won’t let you down! Fear not my pets!

Auntie Leila to the rescue! Step by step, you will learn. Don’t worry. If I can do it, so can you!

First, cut a piece of bread. If your bread comes already cut, that’s fine, no need to cut it, just take a slice. But if it’s in a whole loaf like mine, you will need to cut it with a bread knife.

 

I hope you have a toaster. This will be hard if you don’t. I’m a little ashamed of the state of mine, but you know that we aren’t movie stars here, we’re just little old us with a somewhat grody but useable toaster.

Keeping it real!!!

Put your slice in one of the slots. (If you are doing two slices, use both slots, although you can fit two into one side here — this toaster will take four slices! I know, right??)

Push down the lever. Set the toast level you want.

I like my bread really toasty, so I chose “4” but you have to choose the number you like. It might take time and practice but that’s okay.

Not everything is learned all at once, like slamming your head into a wall and realizing that that’s no good.

 

While the toast is toasting, you’ll have a minute or two to make some decisions and get things prepped or “mise en place” as we say in the commercial professional food industry.

Get your butter ready.

Are you going to want jam?

Or honey? Or cinnamon sugar?

 

You also will need a plate. Try to choose one that is just a little larger than the toast you are making. If you are having, say, eggs with the toast, then you will need to anticipate a little extra room. Again, be patient. These kinds of decisions take practice!

By now your toast is ready.

You will know because it will pop up automatically, which is great and actually makes a distinctive sound, recognizable even from another room, should you have been extra quick with your topping decisions and plate choices and wandered off.

However, the toaster manufacturers have made knowing that the toast is done virtually foolproof by adding to this characteristic sproinging toast-popping-up noise another noise — in fact, a loud beep! In fact, THREE LOUD BEEPS!

Just in case you are a toast-making moron who can’t be trusted to get your &%$@( %%&* toast without some sort of anxiety attack built in. Literally, anxiety with a side of buttered toast.

(If your bread pops up and isn’t sufficiently browned, don’t despair! There’s still hope. Just pop it down again, perhaps at a lower setting than before, and see if you can’t reach that perfect golden toastiness. Just know that you are in for three more beeps. Choose wisely.)

We use tongs to get our toast out because we have a Habou who provides us with such useful implements.

Butter your toast. Use a good knife suited to the purpose and butter it really well.

(You will note that I did not actually choose the right sized plate for this particular toast application. Apparently 50 years or so of making toast isn’t enough practice… )

Go right to the edges with that butter.

Now apply your topping. I chose honey. Go right to the edges.

You will regret it later if you have left toast areas with no coverage. These are not the kinds of issues you need to be dealing with in your life.

Cut the toast. If this had started life as a square piece of bread, you would have some more choices ahead of you. Rectangles? Triangles? Sailboats?

Now what to have with your toast, beverage-wise? (There are so many other foods to go with toast that I think we’d need a whole series to cover that! Maybe later kay?)

You could go with orange juice or milk… (or… hard cider)?

Tea of course. Coffee (not pictured). Cocoa (not pictured).

I opted for a cold glass of water, the better to show off the yumminess of this awesome toast! I wish you could taaaaasssstttte ittt!!!

Of course, once you get the hang of basic toast, you can always branch out with other variations: whole wheat, raisin bread… even English muffins make delicious toast!

I can’t say I’ve tried any gluten-free toast recipes — maybe one of our readers could chime in on the appropriate substitutions?

Please share your secrets of toast in the comments! MWAH!

Google Docs Bride: The Virtual Guest List

This post is for those of you who are interested in some of the nitty-gritty of wedding planning organization.

Google Docs/Google Drive was so insanely helpful for me that it would seem withholding not to share a bit about how I made use of it.

Here’s a glimpse at my Google Drive Folder: “Deirdre & John Wedding” — just to give you a sense (click to enlarge):

Now, I don’t think you necessarily need get into all the iterations of all the documents and spreadsheets that I did. I am a very visual person, so I like to see things laid out in front of me (researching photographer options? make a spreadsheet. Thinking about where folks will sit at the rehearsal dinner? make a spreadsheet. This was my M.O.).

I was also planning my MA wedding from DC, and needed to keep several people (like my mom and my groom and various other key planning players) in the loop, so the option to share documents with them was huge. Whether a similar system would work for you depends on your situation, and perhaps you have your own system that’s far superior to what mine was.

However, there is one document that I am going to strongly suggest you adopt, at least in some form:

The Master Guest List.

The Master Guest List was my comprehensive spot for recording information about my guests. Below you can see the general layout, and I’ve broken it down further as your read on (names and addresses have been removed for fairly self-evident reasons).

Of course you have to have a list of who is invited, what their names are, and their postal addresses. Handy to have their email addresses on record, in case you need to be in touch for whatever reason. You might already know your own family and friends’ full names and contact info, but when you get into recording such details of friends of your groom (not to mention your groom’s friends’ significant others), you might need to do some tracking down. And if you are tracking something down, you ought to record it.

And I love record-keeping.

(The following images are close-ups of the above spreadsheet, moving from left to right along the columns):

 

Now, of course you have a list of the people you invited. You need not only names, but numbers – how many people. And then you need to have the further information of who has accepted — that is, the smaller list of guests who are actually coming.

[On her master guest list document, Suki had an ‘Unlikely to Attend’ column, just to add in one more tally that would help her estimate numbers in advance. This was important to her for the time before invitations went out, since for a while she didn’t know where her reception would be, and then she knew that her reception space would be limited.]

 

 

If you it will affect your meal plans, it’s good to have a tally of adults and a separate tally of kids…

For Suki, the ‘Belongs To’ category was especially helpful when she needed to go to someone to ask a question about an invitee/guest. A few months after you put together the guest list, you might actually forget who Mr. Bob is, and you need to know who in your posse will have the info for Mr. Bob. She broke her ‘Belongs To’ further into ‘bride, groom, bride’s family, groom’s parents…’

So, for example, if she needed to find out whether Mr. Bob was bringing a date, she could know to ask her groom’s parents, since she had already marked down that Mr. Bob belongs to groom’s parents.

 

Here’s where my guest list got really handy, even long after the wedding. I used this same place to record the gifts received from each guest, both for showers (if they attended a shower for me) and the wedding gift itself. Then I had another column to indicate whether I’d yet written a thank-you note for the shower gift and a separate column for whether I’d written a thank-you note for the wedding gift.

I recorded the date on which I wrote my thank-you notes. I would say that it’s not essential to know when you wrote your note, but you do need to know that you wrote your notes. Maybe some people with very strong memory capacities and short guest lists can keep track mentally of who still needs a note, but for most of us we need a written record of whether or not someone has been thanked. (The ‘w’ is shorthand for me to know what stationary I used. [A superfluous detail? Most likely. But some part of me found it helpful at the time.])

I also received gifts from a few people who were not invitees — they were just those very kind sort of people who send gifts to folks on the occasion on their weddings — and I was able to add their names into this Master Guest List for the purposes of recording their gifts and whether I’d thanked them. Technically, they weren’t guests. But that’s just an example of how this document can be the Motherboard of Information on Anyone Wedding-Related.

 

 

With a sheet like this, you can effortlessly alphabetize all your guests by last name, which will come in handy when it’s time to address the envelopes. You can always have a running tally of numbers for your reception, since you can enter in responses as each RSVP card comes in. Rosie had her RSVPs sent to our parents’ house, but really wanted to know when people had written little notes on their responses — her doc had a place for Mom to enter that information so she could look at it from afar.

You have a central place to record any pertinent info (e.g., food allergies, questions you want to get back to, note that guest will attend wedding but not reception, etc.) and keep track of gifts.

The possibilities go on.

So if you are planning a wedding and don’t already have a tool like this lined up, I strongly encourage that you put one together! You can organize yours in whatever way makes the most sense to you. But for what it’s worth, here are the categories I used:

(In columns, going from left to right along the top):

Salutation; First Name (s); Last Name (s); Postal Address; Email address; Childrens’ Names; No. of Children; Total potential; Total invited; No. Confirmed adults; No. Confirmed kids; No. Small kids; No. Definitely declined; Belongs to (bride or groom); Notes; Shower gift; Shower Thank-you note; Wedding gift; Wedding Thank-you note

I hope that helps!

Next in {pretty, happy, real weddings}:

Your Marriage is your Gift to Others: a Guide to Registering

Previously in this series:

The Wholesome, Good-Times Reception

How to get the Wedding Reception you Really Want

How To: Cut Back on the 5 Big Costs of Weddings

10 Practical Tips for a Calm Wedding Morning

 

{bits & pieces}

The regular “little of this, little of that” feature from Like Mother, Like Daughter!

This is a little bit of work I did a few months ago, for the birthday of a dear friend. In general, I have not been on top of birthday cards so far this year (despite the resolve I had just around this time a few years ago to be steadfast and committed about sending out homemade birthday greetings!). But I did muster a bit of organization and forethought for this particular lady who’s the type of friend to always be on top of such things for me.

This week’s links!

I absolutely love this piece about relationships and social media from Public Discourse (a site which I always find worth a visit). I have actually been talking recently with my friend to whom I sent the above card about how texting adds a layer (at least one) of difficulty to current-day dating habits. But, although this article is largely about how texting and social media are problematic in the context of dating, it also sheds light on how they are also problematic for relationships at any stage and between people of any age. Beyond the Screen: Love in the time of Social Media. [I will add that I have said since texting arose and will continue to say it: never develop the beginning of a relationship via text message!]


Beautiful photos and a powerful idea: Empowering Photo Project ‘One Day Young’ Reassures Women that Childbirth is Nothing to Fear. I can agree with this photographer that reading Ina May Gaskin had a major impact on my life (it sounds a bit hyperbolic to say it that way, but I think it’s accurate). I enjoyed these reflections as well as the images.


I haven’t seen the new version of Cinderella, and have been wavering, based on reviews that I’ve read, as to whether or not I particularly want to see it. This review from Fr. Robert Barron is fairly compelling and I’m now leaning back towards wanting to see it. (Considering how many new movies I’ve seen in the past three years, however, I won’t be holding my breath!). Kenneth Branagh’s Very Christian Cinderella. Oh, and no matter what I think of this latest take, I remain one of Ever After‘s biggest fans.


Speaking of Cinderella, and since I’m back in wedding mode (I trust that you are keeping up with the {pretty, happy, real weddings} series?? More coming soon!), let’s take a moment to admire this dress, shall we? Whatever Disney did right or wrong in Branagh’s movie, I say two thumbs up on a thoroughly satisfying fairy tale wedding gown.


And, apparently, this actress has been lucky in costume opportunities! Because we have another entry for awesome on-screen wedding garb, with the same model! This one from Downton Abbey (we LMLD ladies are by no means committed to the series — but we’re happy to hear about great dresses coming out of it).


Just a reminder not to worry about kids schlepping through some household work (don’t know about your home, but Saturdays were always chore days at the LMLD homestead!): Why Children Need Chores from the Wall Street Journal.


I honestly was shocked at some of the phrases on this list of 20 common misspellings of idioms. Why the tendency to get idioms wrong? Is it because we don’t read the classics enough and see these things written down? Anyway, it’s a worthwhile list to read to avoid embarrassment in the future. (Thanks, Annie!)


And, if you’re up for something a little more weighty, I recommend (again, from Public Discourse) this piece addressing the D&G controversy. I think that you will be hard-pressed to find a more thoughtful response that so clearly addresses the relevant issues.

Liturgical year: Are you getting prepared for Holy Week (this is a helpful link)? Suddenly it’s upon us!

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