New blog

I’ve never been entirely happy with a few things about this blog, and so in the interest of starting fresh (which I seem to be very inclined towards this year), I’ve started a whole new one.  It’s called If Not Here and can be found, well, here.  I’ll leave this one up for awhile (as well as it’s companion which is a duplicate of the new one before I managed to get a new gmail address / wordpress username that were the same), but I’ll be blogging over there now, although I anticipate I’ll be using some of the material from here in the new space.

Homemade Living giveaway

If anyone else is as interested in the series as I am, Homestead Revival is giving away a set of Ashley English’s books on Homemade Living.  They look great and I’ve been wanting them for awhile, so I’d suggest checking this out.

Technology

Despite my desire to rely less on technology, it’s still incredibly frustrating when the computer dies and I can’t do the things that I normally do (even when I do things like this rather sporadically).  Good to be back, but much to catch up on.

Wedding gifts

While I don’t plan to write a whole lot more on the wedding – I’m not really the gushy type – I was kind of delighted with a few of the gifts that came our way, and wanted to think a bit about why they’re special.

Now, The Boy and I have more than enough stuff for the two of us.  Heck, I alone have more than enough stuff for the two of us and am currently on the purging warpath.  So, rather than get more stuff which we’d have to house or, worse yet, wastefully get rid of yet more stuff to make room for, we asked for money or, if people were not so comfortable with that, a donation to charity or no gift at all.

I imagine some people still find asking for money somewhat distasteful.  I say this, of course, because I did, so there’s at least one of us out there who does.  It was somewhat awkward and uncomfortable, even though no one really seemed to have a problem with it in the end (I guess no shopping, no deciding on a gift, and no wrapping fancier than a card is somewhat appealing).

That said, there were a few lovely gifts of which I’d like to make note here.  They were generous, but even more than that, they were used in the best possible ways and had history attached.

First, this lovely plate came from a friend of my mother’s with a note attached briefly explaining its provenance.

Next, this quilt, made by my adopted great-aunt and given to us by my grandmother.  It was made in 1967 for Canada’s centennial, hence the maple leaves scattered across it.  It’s a bit worn around the edges, but I love it that way, and I’m delighted to have it in my apartment, especially since I just got rid of a quilt made by my great-grandmother that was so old it was rotting.

Finally, while not so much a wedding gift in the traditional sense, I am now wearing two inheirited rings on my left-hand ring fingers.  I still regularly wear my lovely engagement ring from The Boy on the right, but the fair-trade topaz we selected was larger than we anticipated, and my wearing something that looks like a huge diamond makes us a little concerned.  So, between that and being a bit scared off by the price of wedding bands, we combined two older sets of engagement rings and bands, and I now wear my grandmother’s engagement ring with my great-grandmother’s wedding band, which my parents gave to The Boy to give to me, as well as my lovely engagement ring on my right hand.  (Turns out rings are hard to photograph, especially on your own fingers).

We didn’t get china, silverware, bedding, linens, gravy boats, crystal swans (thank goodness!) or any of those other things you’re generally supposed to get from a wedding.  Happily, we didn’t really want any of that stuff.  But I think the gifts that people did choose to give us, with their history and meaning, are even more special because of that.