"Just" a housewife

Pay It Forward!

Many people may mock her, but I TiVo the Oprah show and occassionally I watch an episode. Today I watched an episode about 'paying it forward'. She gave her audience members $1000 to go away and spend it on a complete stranger.

Sure, some people went off and did just that. Others used their initiative and used the $1000 to spur themselves to generate more cash and donations. One lady used the money, donated it to a women's shelter and in turn made phone calls to get further donations. She raised $200,000!

Some people just simply stopped strangers in the street and handed over a couple of hundred bucks at a time.

It reminded me of the brilliant Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt movie. 'Pay It Forward.' It's an amazing thing and really does make you think.

Sure I like recieving the occasional gift, but I really enjoy giving others gifts more than recieving them.

As I sit here doing some research for the wedding, I'm actually thinking more about how others will enjoy the day...I want to enjoy the wedding, but I also want our 70 guests to have the most fun!

Thank you for my love of music, my love!

When David and I met with our officiant the other week, she had asked us to fill in this questionnaire. Why were we getting married? What did we like about each other? Etc. Etc.

I mentioned that David and I love doing the same things, we have so much in common; including going to concerts/gigs. I'd only been to one concert before I started dating David. 'Brother Beyond' circa 1989. Poddy - feel free to ridicule me FOREVER...

Anyway, I love it. I love going to gigs. And during this wedding planning process I came across this amazing music web site. www.pandora.com

You enter in a bunch of music your like; Coldplay, James Blunt, The Fray, Keane, The Killers, Snow Patrol, etc. and then it suggests other music you'll like based on those suggestions. It's awesome. You can tailor it; tell it you like the suggestions or you don't and it refines to your taste.

I just heard a song by Howie Day called 'Brace Yourself' and it's pretty darn cool. Never heard of him before, but now I like him. I think it's officially my favorite web site.

To go back to my original point, I am so greatful to David for that. I'm so thankful that he's taken me to many concerts and shared his love of music with me. That's why I love him (and my new favorite website.)

You may be skinny but cover up!

As you may know I go to the gym early in the morning at least 3 times in the week. I'm certainly not perfect. There are many women that have wonderful figures. There are many women that are in their 30s, 40s and 50s and they have quite slim, fit figures. However, I do not wish to see them in various states of undress for more than is absolutely necessary.

I feel that a lot of women are obviously proud of their figures and they want to show them off. They parade around sometimes in a towel covering only below their waist and sometimes in no towel at all. What possesses a woman to dry her hair with nothing on? I don't want to stand next to her while she's doing it.

Who thinks its okay to lather themselves in body lotion while looking in the mirror, one leg resting on a stool?

Please cover up!

And then don't get me started on the women that at 5:30/6 a.m. in the morning check themselves out several times, from several different angles BEFORE heading up to work out.

The gym locker room is not the place to show off more than your gynecologist sees and the gym is not a place to attract men before 6 a.m.!

Lots of Music, a bit of wine, a nice walk and lots of planning!

That sums up my weekend. Can't comment much - off to bed...

David's blog says it all, but Friday night was Beautiful South at the Fillmore, Saturday night was James Blunt at the Paramount in Oakland (with a terrible hangover recovery in between) and today was a nice walk with my friend Brittany on Chrissy Fields.

This afternoon was lots of managing my finances, emails back and forth with vendors for the wedding and a bit of tidying.

Surprisingly nice, relaxing weekend not doing too much. David's off to Europe tomorrow for 8 days, so now I'll go and sulk.

Two in One Day!

I don't post for days/weeks and then I post two in one night! It must be because David is away. I always post more when David's away...

...anyway, I wasn't going to post again but Dushka commented on my last post about gift registries...now there's a topic that I could write an essay on.

David has strong feelings about wedding gift registries. He hates them. He thinks that we have what we need and it's very materialistic. I agree to a certain extent, but if people want to buy something why not get something you want/need. I agree we don't need loads - it's not like we don't have our own place and it's like yester year when you needed to set up home and the gifts helped the newlyweds in their new house.

David believes that we should ask people to give to charity.

Therefore, we've decided to do both. We'll have a small registry of things that we need/want and then the rest we'll ask for charity donations to two charities that are dear to our hearts. Mine will be breast cancer...

I had a very dear work colleague that suffered from breast cancer about 6 years ago. We worked in the marketing department - just 10 people - and we bonded. She was late 30's, early 40's; had two children aged 17 and 12 years old.

Unfortunately after a long and courageous battle she died. That really affected me. I was a mess at her funeral. Her daughters were more composed than I was - they were amazing. 6 years on, I still cannot bare to delete her details from my palm pilot address book. I don't want to ever forget her. I sometimes wish that I could get in touch with her daughters to let them know how much I still think about her.

My grandma had breast cancer. My friend Tanya's sister-in-law is currently fighting breast cancer. At work the other day I worked with a photographer who confided in me that she too was in remission.

So while a Williams-Sonoma or Pottery Barn gift is welcome, a donation to one of our favorite charities will mean so much more...

Voting! US style

Tomorrow is voting day in the US and I get to vote for the very first time. Not just the very first time in the US, but the very first time ever. You see when I was old enough to vote in England I was at college and I didn't get around to doing the absentee voting thingy, so I just didn't vote. Shocking I know!

As I got my US citizenship in February, I didn't really think about this advantage too much, but now as the day has got closer, I feel compelled to vote. I'm not 'big' on politics, but I feel it's my duty.

[Wait for the barrage of comments from Poddy saying how bad I am for not caring more...;-)]

I have read the full booklet - not just relying on the terrible advertisements on TV - and I've made my decisions. I'm ready! I'm just sad that David won't be here to go with me, he's in NYC and I'm sure he'd love the spectical of it all.

I'm sure I'll update you further on the results...