MRS. FRUITCAKE

So...

I'm now officially Caitlin Walters, as of May 9, 2009.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every person who made our day exactly what we hoped it would be.  The day was perfect, the weather was perfect, and everything played out better than we could have hoped.  We were married surrounded by our families and friends in a ceremony that absolutely reflected us and our personalities, and an evening of laughs and good times.

I'll be uploading pictures shortly (my time got cut in half--I started back to school last week!), but please ake a minute to upload your picture to our shared photo site if you were at the wedding!  I can't WAIT to see the pics from our photographers, either.  The sneaky peeky that we've gotten so far makes both us us happy, happy, happy!

for the many, many people who have asked for a copy of the script of our wedding, it's also up on the same site.  We wrote the ceremony with love, and we share it the same way.  All I ask is that you let me know if you're going to use part of it (or all of it!). 

Much love!

www.thewalterswedding.shutterfly.com

Password: walters

to the teachers

I didn't quite realize how many friends I had that are teachers.

And I didn't realize how much love, care, and patience they put into what they do. 

Even the worst of my teachers growing up ("y'all are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready for the streets, go partay late at night and sleep through my class...."  sorry.  I digress.) spent hours preparing lesson plans and having the background knowledge to get through the class,

And the best teachers---they're the ones that made going to school worth it. Mrs. Ritchie, Mrs. Moore, Sra. Skidmore, Mrs. Brown, Mr. Threadgill, and even Father Williams for senior seminar (oh, Irish Lit and Drama, how I loathed thee...but listening to your really old records was pretty awesome. And having class at an Irish pub even awesome--er.) ...it was so obvious that these teachers absolutely loved what they did, loved the subject they taught, and they put their heart and soul into what they did. 

So here's to you, my awesomely awesome teacher friends.  I hope that the kids you teach enjoy your classes as much as I enjoyed some of my favorites.  I hope that the kids you teach one day look back on you as I do some of my favorites, and that, in later years, those kids come back to visit you at school.

Thanks.

it was fun when WE did it

Ooooh, being a child.  Everything is exciting, and different, and new, and fun.

Or a disastrous mess!!

 

If my mom has ever sat down with you for more than 15 minutes, you know that the highlight of my childhood "disasters" occurred when I was about 2.  Mom noticed that the house had gotten too quiet, as is often the case when a child is doing something that THEY think is great fun, but obviously something they shouldn't be doing. 

In my case, I had discovered eggs.  More specifically, I had figured out how to open the refrigerator and was systematically pulling out a single egg, holding it above my head, and laughing with hysterical glee as soon as it inevitably "splatted" on the ground.  I had repeated this process about 6 times before my mom found me,  the eggs, and the slippery, icky mess on her floor.

Well, history has a way of repeating itself.

Today, the house got quiet, as happens when Miss Makayla gets involved in something she shouldn't be.  When I found her, she was painting the floors, the dogs, herself, the fridge and the oven with butter.  The big, giant, got-it-on-sale-at-Winn Dixie tub o' butter.  She was steadily eating butter with one hand and swirling it around with the other.  It was in her hair, her eyelashes, her ears.  It was a giant greasy mess on the floor.  It was all OVER BOTH dogs. 

oooooooh, childhood.  Payback's a bitch.

disaster in the making

I am unexpectedly turning into my worst nightmare.

When we first started talking, it was a simple thing--a short and sweet ceremony followed by dinner, drinking and dancing the night away with our closest friends and family. 

Then...oh, then...I actually started the planning.  And I realized that even the simple things are far more complicated than I imagined.  Just the ceremony, dinner, drinking and dancing with our closest friends and family is turning into a way bigger project than I imagined--caterers, photographers, djs, table arrangements, flowers...it's just a crapload of stuff that i want to quit thinking about.  I was all about a short engagement, mostly because we already live together and just want to be married already, and even if we had planned for 3 years from now, I still would have put everything off until 4 months out......which is exactly where we are now.  But I'm finding myself drowning in giant white dresses with butt bows and a mile of tulle and organza and styles that i didn't even know existed.  (Mermaid?  That's a fishy woman-thing that fits in with unicorns and a yetti, not a dress.  Apparently, I was wrong about that.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly looking forward to May 9th, but I'm slowly losing my sanity in the process.  I want to wave a magic wand (one with a big blinking star on the top) and everything magically fall into place and not have to spend eleventy thousand hours on the phone calling everyone from here to Taiwan. I want everyone whom I love and who loves me and everyone that JW loves and who loves him to magically show up without having to address and send invitations that cost more than a small country that people (except for those crafty scrapbooky people who actually have an artistic bone) are just going to throw away.  I want centerpieces to magically create themselves and food to just show up.  I want to not have to call Meg and Emily 4000000000 times with everything from a crisis to shoelaces. 

And most importantly, I want to survive this without JW taking a blunt object to the back of my head.

I know that once the vendors are set, I'll be in a better position that doesn't involve this much stress, but I'm ready to be there already :-)

Oh, and those big white dresses?  Found it :-)

BIG NEWS!

I'm GETTING MARRIED!!!

May 9, 2009 :-)

traitor?

I have a near and dear friend--we'll call her Mandy for the sake of her privacy--who is up in arms about a comment a "feminist" made to her yesterday.....she was called a "traitor."

Mandy is a single mom of three children.  She's not a single mom by most standards, in that she's a single mom via the death of her spouse in an automobile accident.  But three small children (her oldest is 9) means a lot of food on the table, and her job in real estate wasn't paying the bills.

Last summer, Mandy landed a job as an "adult" entertainer. She's not a stripper, she's at home every night with her children, and she doesn't even drink, much less use any illegal substance.  Mandy is a porn starlet for "indie" films and direct-to-video productions.  Oh, she also brings home nearly a half a million dollars a year. 

Mandy has always been one to defend her choices, and though she's quiet about what she does to those who may not know her well (those hailing from the Deep South understand why...), she is open and honest about what she does, usually telling people that she's an actress and leaving it at that (which in itself is true--she's had a few minor roles in commercials and such.)

So it completely caught her off guard to be called a "traitor."  Mandy is a woman who put herself through college and a master's program in business, so this is no "last resort" bunny we're talking about.  Mandy is a smart woman, a woman who has made business decisions for herself that have made a home for her and her children and will provide for them long into the future.  She still drives the same Passat she drove before she started making more money, she and her children live in a sensible home, and her children attend public schools.  Is she a traitor to the "feminist movement" by providing for her and her family rather than trying to find another man to pay the bills? Is she a traitor for quickly making more than many of us make in a lifetime?  Is she a traitor because she was able to secure a job where SHE makes nearly twice as much as her male counterpart, in a society where women are still trying to break even with men?

I'm damn proud of her and what she's accomplished, regardless of whether or not the films that she makes are off the beaten track.  She was able to do what so many women in America haven't gotten around to doing, and that's providing for her family without the assistance of the government  or someone else's tax dollars.