At North Farm

Domesticity

In the May of 2009 I read Isabel Gillies Happens Every Day and was blown away by a section of At North Farm she quoted:

Somwhere someone is traveling furiously toward you.
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will je know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

It made my toes tingly. I don't really know what it means but that first line, the line about someone traveling furiously toward you, that really rocked my world. I loved it. I sort of believed it. That someone was traveling furiously toward me. And then in June I met David, then he went to Europe for the summer. And in August we talked on his porch all night long and a week after that we basically new we were going to marry each other (but we didn't talk about it to each other yet) and then in December we were talking about it. And in January we were engaged already and then in July we were married. After 11 months of being together. And now, January of 2011, we live in Durham with our two dogs and a cat. Wow.

And it's working really well.

I don't normally tell people that we knew each other for 11 months before we were married and five months before we got engaged because, ya know, it's nuts. Completely nuts. But ya know.

New Photos!

Six months after our wedding, our photographer updated his website and there are some wedding photos I haven't seen. I'm esspecially digging the one of my littlest 14 year old sister drunker than drunk swaying to some awesome tunes while older and wiser adults condone her behavior. Dear Dad, At least she has a water bottle?

The "complete" wedding, to quote Shaun, is here.

Kilty Cake Topper

I made Tilly and Ben's cake topper of pegs. Very much like mine, this one in a kilt though, this one on a cake of cheese. I took pictures but they are on my sister's friend's camera so the facebook ones will suffice. Want one? I'll make you one!

Six Months

We've been married for six months. To celebrate we walked to Whole Foods to get chicken for curry and I've had three pots of tea. Lots of quiet. Looking at the photos everything just looks like sunshine. I did my own flowers, all my own stationary, set my own tables but I'm so glad we shelled out for a photographer. The photos are so evocative in a way nothing else is.

It's been a good six months.

Waltzing Matilda

Ardtornish House in the daylight

The Holospeced congregation, that blond befeathered head in the middle front is me.

So my photos of Tilly and Ben's gorgeous wedding are a bit of a blur fest (low lighting and crap camera be damned). There were holospex that made each point of light a heart and all the guests wore them and sang Love Me Tender, there was a five tier wedding cake made not of cake but of cheese with loads of oak cakes and chutney made by my aunt (okay, the mother of the bride) and the caleigh band got too drunk to come play all except the accordion who did a bang up job all on his own despite his apparent intoxication. We danced and sang and drank and drank and ate loads of cheese and chutney and when the night went on a bit long a few of the bridesmaids changed into our boots and the night ended with us sitting on the couch posing for an Italian photographer named Simone. Glams all round. Gorgeous.

Tilly let me decorate her cake which felt a big reckless, Ben and she cut the cake with a sword of her dad's

The aforementioned dad swirling our cousin's wife around

David and I pretending to be in Brideshead Revisited for the sake of an Italian photog.

I think we were on different pages as to what that means.

Resolutions

I am going to blog more. And learn the guitar. And wear slippers everyday so I don't complain about how cold my feet are. And knit. And wear moisturizer. Mostly continue to eat cake and sleep a lot. Ya know. New years.

Scottish Wedding

Things have been very quiet here while I was off on the West Coast of Scotland for Tilly's wedding. I decorated a cake, I drank to excess and wore feathers and hugged the bride and groom a lot. I listened to Waltzing Matilda about 90 times (Scottish cousin Matilda marries Australian Ben so WM seemed the thing) and spent loads of time in front of fires in layers of warmth with cousins and second cousins and first cousins once removed. It was glorious. I'm still at my parents until Friday so posting will not resume in full force until then. Photos will follow. In the mean time here are some photos of Ardtornish (taken by my gorgeous second cousin Julia). If anyone is wondering where in the frozen highlands they might like to get married in January Ardtornish is the place.