Portland

Portland is a combination of Berkeley, forest and rain. Portland is Awesome. Portland is very close to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, which makes delicious cheese and ice cream. Portland has no sales tax. Portland is where our friends Ian and Rachelle live. Portland has pumpkin patches, interesting museums, excellent universities and a zoo. I bought a Monkey-Sock hat in Portland. Portland is so freaking cool my love and I would consider living there.

I would like to give a special thanks to Ian and Rachelle for hosting us during the long, action-packed weekend we spent in Portland. I had so much fun and they were such great hosts. It was very hard to leave.

My Eyes Are Burning

Between Facebook, Blogs, CNN online, Flickr, Video Games, TV, Reading and Work, my eyes are done. Just plain done. I need an Eye-Vacation. In fact, I need an All-Body-Mind and Soul Vacation. It has been well over a year since Alan and I took even a week off from work.

Somewhere between the evolution from Cave Men to Britney Spears life got way too complicated.

MM's Philosophical Thought of the Day

If you need help, ask for it. Seriously. Who do you think you are fooling?

Flowers

Alan spent almost two years tending to a little, kind of pathetic looking orchid plant. It finally bloomed!

Wui Yeen's Birthday Party

The Decadence:

I love cake

Presidential Election 2008
Summary

Barack Obama (A Black Man! For the first time in history...) is the Democratic presidential nominee. He has chosen Joe Biden as his VP running mate. John McCain is the Republican presidential nominee. He has chosen Sarah Palin (A Woman! Note that there has never been a woman nominee for the VP position on a Republican ticket before...) to be his running mate. Current president, George W. Bush, is Republican and widely unpopular due to the war in Iraq and the country's economic problems.

McCains choice of Palin has caused a media sensation, since she was widely unknown in Washington or the rest of the country until her nomination. She is currently serving, for the first time, as the Alaskan governor and she also has the experience of being mayor of a small (pop. 8000) Alaskan town. Palin also happens to be very young and good looking. Many speculate that she was chosen despite of her lack of experience as a gimmick, as Hillary Clinton left a lot of disappointed voters when she did not win the democratic presidential nomination. On the other hand, Biden is a lawyer. He has been working in the US Senate since 1973 as a representative for Delaware. He has extensive foreign relations experience and is very well versed in Washington politics. Joe Biden had been working in the senate for 11 years before Sarah Palin won her first beauty contest in 1984. In terms of knowledge and experience, who would you chose as a VP?

I would like to point out the following article about McCains VP pick: Click HERE. Palin is curently under investigation in Alaska for allegations of innapropriatly terminating the employment of a government employee. In addition, I can't help but mention that Palin has a very conservative stance and is a very strong advocate of abstinence until marriage, yet at this time her 17 year old daughter is unmarried and 5 months pregnant. Think about it. Just like I would not vote for a politician who preaches against domestic violence and then goes home to abuse his wife, I would not vote for a politician who would like to influence education in our schools with indoctrinations that did not even work in her own home. I know that the personal lives of nominees should remain private and normally I would not take the actions of an independent minded teenager as a reflection of the inefficacy of the teenager's parents, but in this case I will make an exception. The future of our country is too valuable and too vulnerable to overlook such obvious inconsistencies in the lives of the people who might be running it.

The Race is ON! The elections are in November and there are only 9 more weeks for the nominees to campaign. Make sure to VOTE!

As if Cats Were Not Horrible Enough!

I just tread an article about how cats can grow wings. Yes, wings people! Pretty soon they will be flying all over the place spreading their disdain, their parasites, and shedding their hair from the sky above. Full article here.

Because Your Toilet is not Functional Enough...

Make you toilet into a fishtank!

Should I Move to Ireland?

It has what I want: Miniature Cows ...and for this week at least, Ireland also has Alan.

The Stress of the Dress

Wedding Madness

When Alan and I decided to get married we wanted to keep it simple and sweet. I wanted to have a small wedding and I did not want to spend a lot of money. I recently found out that the price of our wedding package at the mexican resort we chose went up... and today I paid substancially more for my wedding dress then what I had hoped for. (Bye Bye Budget!) I kept receiving so much pressure to buy a dress bigger and better and fancier than what I had in mind. Picking out a SIMPLE wedding dress is hard enough. You have to keep in mind things like the venue (which I have never seen before) the formality of the event, color schemes, and -of course- you want to find something that is comfortable, looks good on you, expresses your individuality AND fits into your budget.

These are the Mistakes that I made that ended up freaking me out:

- I did not have a clear vision of what I wanted before I started asking for everybody's opinion. 

- I did not have a clear budget.

- I started overanalyzing everything once I realized that finding a dress was actually an important task, which only ended up making me upset.

These are Circumstances that did not help my stress level:

- Most wedding dress boutiques only carry sample dresses in large sizes. I could swim in the mounds of extra tulle of some of the dresses I tried on. In order to give you an idea of what the dress would look like on you, attendants will use clips to pin/tuck the excess dress parts away. The result is that you have a dress molded to your body by pins and clips, which ususally makes the dress look extra good on you. If you were to buy said dress in your actual size it probably would not mold itself to your body in the same way. This scared me into buying a dress at the only location where I could find interesting dresses my size: David's Bridal. David's Bridal is AWESOME. They were super nice and patient with me as I tried on a grand portion of their dresses over the course of many hours. However, this severely limited my options of dresses to choose from. 

- Wedding dresses, as with all other things wedding related, are extremely expensive. For those of you who know what a cheap-skate I am and how little I truly care about dresses, you can imagine how much of a physiological barrier I have about spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars on something I would wear only once for a few hours. I simply could not understand how people can accept wedding dress prices so nonchalantly. Thanksfully, David's Bridal is somewhat reasonably priced. But still, this new acceptance was hard for me. I work hard for my money. 

These are the Key Phrases that made me enter panic mode:

- Your wedding dress is the most important part of the wedding because everything is centered around it, from bridesmaid's attire to wedding cake.

- If you do not find a dress you love then you will end up hating it! Can you imagine looking the pictures 10 years from now and still regretting that you did not buy the dress that you really wanted?... pictures are all you will have left. 

- You only get married ONCE in your life, hopefully anyway, so you need to acknowledge it and make the best of it. If you don't buy a big, beautiful dress now then you will sqander this once in a lifetime opportunity. 

I do not think people realize how damaging those types of phrases can be. I know people only say them with good intentions, but geez, can you give a bride a break? 

I was reduced to tears I was so conflicted and confused about everything. This made me even more upset because I realized how ridiculous my problem was. My problem was about choosing a dress! How had I, the independent minded, educated, liberal woman who wanted a simple and sweet wedding, get so caught up in this dress madness? MADNESS!!!??!?!?!

Well, I have a dress now. It is a lovely dress and I will enjoy wearing it, but I feel defeated by the wedding madness. 

Wedding Dresses

There are so many styles, shapes and forms. In most stores and boutiques they are horribly overpriced. I have seen and tried on so many now that the newness of trying them on has worn off and they all pretty much look the same to me. I have distinguished two main categories of wedding dresses: Long and Poofy. the Long ones are not necessarily Poofy, but they can be.

Here are examples of the Long and Poofy dresses:

Allow me to Toot

I am the economic QUEEN! That's right. I got As in both my Macroeconomic and my Microeconomic summer classes, while working full time and hosting my mother as a guest in my tiny apartment. 

I've been very stressed lately, but at least I'm still getting As!

The key is organization. I'm so organized I scare myself. 

TOOOOT

TOOOOOOOOT.

The Mother has Landed

My mom is visiting for the month. She arrived almost two weeks ago. Since she has arrived we have been shopping, shopping and shopping... and eating, eating and eating. I swear I have gained at least 2 pounds thus far. There is simply nothing like mom's guisados.