Hunter’s first wedding

On May 28th, friends of ours from church got married.

Back in February they told us that they were going to be married in May and they would like to ask Hunter to be the ring bearer.  My first thought was “what are you guys crazy” asking Hunter to be ring bearer had its share of risks and were they or even us, ready for them.  Hunter’s Aspergers has him look at the world in black or white, no gray area at all.  He is rigid in his ways and definitely resistant to any type of change, so when the day comes, he may perform or he might not, period.  Any type of change during the rehearsal or ceremony could absolutely have Hunter going off the deep end.  So after taking a deep breath I told them to go ahead and ask Hunter.

They did ask him and he was clueless to what a ring bearer was or a wedding for that matter.  They patiently explained everything to him, to which he asked “can I carry Pikachu? He was told he would be carrying a pillow with the rings on top and that he could have Pikachu at the reception.  Then he wanted to know if he could walk down the aisle like a penguin because he always wanted to be a penguin (you know, tuxedo = penguin). They said no he would have to walk normal but could be a penguin at the reception all he wanted.  After taking this all in he said yes he would be ring bearer.  I just kept thinking, they do not know what they are in for.

When the time came near, I brought him to be fitted for his tuxedo.  He did very well at the fitting but I was really leery about Hunter wearing all those clothes plus real shoes.  Boy, I thought, I am in for it.

The rehearsal came and Dave took Hunter as I had to stay home with Hayley because she was receiving therapy.  When Dave got home from the rehearsal, he immediately asked for a glass of wine and collapsed on the swing on the patio outside.  I asked Hunter how it went and he said ok.  Then I asked Dave.  He said it wasn’t horrible but it was as we thought, Hunter was not keen on all the changes that came and went.  The wedding party decided early on that Hunter would not be capable of standing with the wedding party up at the altar for the ceremony.  Hunter would walk down the aisle and sit with me in the front (although I really should be on the bride’s side of the church, I got to sit in the front row  next to the grooms immediate family.)  Anyway, Dave said Hunter accepted this pretty well, but then came the pillow…. Hunter for whatever reason got quickly attached to the pillow.  He was told that when the pastor says it is time for the exchange of rings, he would walk up to the best man and hand him the pillow so he could retrieve the rings.  Hunter flipped out! “I AM NOT GIVING UP THE PILLOW”!  The Pastor told him that he didn’t have to give up the pillow, just make-believe.  Then Hunter thought the rings would actually be on the pillow, when told no, that the best man will have the rings in his pocket and they would be making believe, Hunter yelled “ITS A FAKE!!!”  Dave got Hunter calmed down and said now was the time to practice the processional.  Hunter did extremely well walking down the aisle and sitting next to Dave.  When the Pastor said it was time to exchange the rings, Hunter marched up the steps, got in front of the best man and yelled “YOU ARE A PILLOW SNATCHER!!!”  Once again he sat next to Dave, who by this time was sweating profusely, and Hunter calmed down.  Dave said to me after he got home “tomorrow is anyone’s game.”

The next morning came and we dressed Hunter in his tuxedo.  He looked so adorable.  I was really surprised he didn’t complain too much.  The thing that was most uncomfortable for him were the shoes.  He has never worn dress shoes before.  I will say by the time we got to the reception that day, Hunter was sporting some mean blisters (yet he didn’t really complain), surprise, surprise.  He was a little tough when pictures were taken before the wedding, but he got through it.

The wedding started and the bridesmaids came down the aisle.  It looked as if Hunter was speed walking because he was right on top of the last bridesmaid and she had to keep looking back to be sure Hunter wasn’t going to step on her dress.  He sat down next to me and I praised him.  Hunter sat very quietly during the ceremony and I whispered what he needed to do when the ring exchange was announced.  Now like I said before, Hunter is not used to any type of dress clothes or shoes.  He had on tee-shirt, white shirt, tie, jacket, pants with clips on the side, socks and dress shoes.  Well what I didn’t realize was that little by little Hunter was becoming “Un tucked it”.  So as he walked up the stairs to the best man, his pants started to fall down!  He grabbed the back with one hand and handed the pillow to the best man with the other.  You could hear the chuckles in the crowd.  The lady sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said “there always needs to be a light moment in a wedding”.   Hunter came back to sit with me and said “I saved my pants in the nick of time”.  I was very, very proud of him and how her performed.

Once at the reception, Hunter took off the shoes, jacket and tie and danced the afternoon away………..holding Pikachu and making believe he was a penguin.

Dave helping Hunter get dressed

Hunter in his Tuxedo

Hunter and Daddy

Hunter and Hayley (she did excellent by the way)

Flip-Flops at a Wedding

Last Friday, Dave and I attended a wedding of  a teacher of Hayleys that she had in the past.  The service was beautiful, as was the bride and the groom looked handsome in his Military Dress Uniform.

The reception followed.  It was at a Yacht Club and the room the reception was in was beautifully decorated.  Before the bride, groom and wedding party arrived, the DJ called out that in the front of  his stand were bins of flip-flops for the women once their feet started to hurt from the heels they were wearing.  It was such a surprise, I had never seen this before.  All the girls were ooing and ahhing and running to the front.

The bride and her bridal party had bought flip-flops in various sizes and decorated them all with glitter, sparkles, foam, felt flowers and shapes, as well as ribbon.  Every pair was different.  At the top of the page is two of the girls from our table showing off their flip-flops.  The flip-flops were a delightful surprise.  Most of the women and girls who took a pair were already putting them on ready to dance the night away.

Once the music started, the dance floor was flooded with women and girls wearing their custom flip-flops.  All their feet were sparkling and shining underneath the lights.  I thought the flip-flops were a surprising and welcome addition to the reception.

I picked up a pair to show to two young women in the family to maybe give them ideas?????    😉

Magazines, A Life Long Love Affair

Some of the many I enjoy

I absolutely LOVE magazines! I got this from my mother. She always had magazines all around the house. At night when she settled down in front of the tv, she had a nice big stack of magazines next to her on the table and she read them for hours.  The one weird thing is that my mother read magazines from back to front, yes, back to front. How can you  read like this and know what you are reading?  I would ask her many times over the years why she did this, but I never got an answer.  One day when I was 6 or 7, my mother handed me my very own “Highlights” magazine.  I didn’t know there were magazines for kids.  I immediately read it from front to back.  I decided right then and there I MUST have a subscription to this magazine. My mother did send for a subscription for me.  Back then you had to use one of the subscription cards and send it by snail mail to the magazine.  It felt like it took forever, but finally, they started to arrive.  My favorite part was the Hidden Pictures page, I loved to circle all the items I found.  Then I would go to the Jokes & Riddles page which I always found hysterical (I am NOT a big fan of jokes OR riddles today) and go try them on my father.  He would always laugh and ask for me to tell him more.  Then onto the Drawings & Poems, crafts, stories, etc.  Thus the love affair began.

The teen years came and I would buy Tiger Beat and 16 Magazine. These featured the “hot” celebrities of the day, Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, Donny Osmond just to name a few.  Then Seventeen Magazine came next, lots of tips for girls, probably not the same tips that the girls get from todays Teen Vogue.

This love of magazines has continued all through the years. When the older kids were little and we were homeschooling, we had many subscriptions. At lunch we would all pick a magazine and read it while eating. There was American Girl, ESPN, Yankees, Nickelodeon, Ranger Rick and several others.  I got a subscription to National Geographic because I thought it was the thing to do.  My parents had years and years of National Geographics stacked in their basement, pretty much everyone I knew subscribed to it as well. Over the years we too had stacks in our school room, but the thing is, no one ever read them!  In fact, I never once saw my parents crack one open.  It got me to thinking and I came to the conclusion that NO ONE actually reads them when you get them you just stack them up.  I finally cancelled that subscription vowing I would never subscribe to National Geographic again!  Well, 2 years ago when Hunter was 7 he requested National Geographic, I was against subscribing but Dave said let’s give it a try.  You know what?  Hunter DOES read the magazine!  Just last week he told me he read about the “Underground in Paris” that was the cover story. He told me it was about all the illegal activities that take place in Paris that no one knows about. Because Bill is in Paris, Hunter said he wants to warn Bill not to get involved in any of this.

Then it happened, Katie got addicted to magazines too. Third generation magazine lover.  When we go to the Florida house, she has quite a collection sitting around. Before I get there, Katie goes to Publix and buys ALL the gossip magazines they carry.  She has them stacked on the table waiting for when Katie and I can read trash together.

Now when I get a chance to read magazines, I have my own method of how magazines should be read. I get a nice big assorted pile of them and sit at the kitchen table. I place them to my right. I get out a pair of scissors and set them down. I turn on the tv and put it on mute. I usually put on HGTV or Food Network so I can throw my eye on it if I want, I don’t want to hear it, just glance at it. Then I choose a magazine and proceed to rip out each and every subscription card as well as any stiff card that advertises something.  My magazine cannot have any distractions in it. Then I can start to read.  I always felt the need to read EVERY page.  The editor’s letter always first and so on. I realized one day that I really didn’t like reading the editor’s letter, so why am I doing so.  Also, why was I reading about things that don’t pertain to my life?  I found I was able to let go, gone were articles about fly fishing, how to choose the right bikini (not in this lifetime) or how to be a bee keeper!  I started reading only what I am interested in.  Once finished, I cut off the top right hand corner and the address label if there is one,  the magazine then gets placed to my left where a stack will form to go back to Dave’s office. I know there are still some OCD issues, but not quite as bad.

There came a day though when my love of magazines took a dark turn. I was getting many, many subscriptions at home as well as magazines from Dave’s office that he orders for his waiting room. The women in his office share the ones they get home, so Dave also brings those to me.  I tended to read these first, cut off the top corner so Dave knew I read this already and bring them back to the waiting room (Dave has great magazines in his office, I hate when I go to a professionals office and they have crappy magazines). Anyway, this is not a house of leisure so I started to get way behind in my magazine reading.  Before I knew it, I had 6 months worth of magazines, 2 large stacks sitting on my Great Room floor. One day I spread all the different magazines on the floor. Each different stack had issues from June to what was then January. The newest issue was last in the pile, the oldest issue was first on the pile. I neatly stacked the 2 huge piles against the wall again, but this time, all issues were together for each magazine.  As new issues came in each month they went to the bottom of the pile for that particular magazine.  If I did get a chance to look at a magazine, I always took the oldest issue and looked at that. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself.  I was literally reading about beach safety in February and Valentines day in the summer. When Katie gets a magazine she sits right down and reads the whole thing, so she couldn’t understand what I was doing.  Katie suggested I throw out all the old magazines, keep the new and just start over. What? that’s wasting magazines, I can’t and won’t do it!  She told me the purpose of magazines was to give you information and ideas for the current month it comes out, not to be read at the improper time.  I thought about this for days, and would start to sweat when I lovingly gazed at the stacks I knew I would never get through. How could I throw out those beautiful, smooth, glossy magazines filled with unknown wonders.  I finally realized that this whole magazine thing had become an obsession that I thought about every day. I also looked at my piles often throughout the day, making sure they were lined up properly. The insanity had to stop, I needed drastic action.  Immediately, I ran to the garage and got black garbage bags, called Craig downstairs and went to work. I kept all the current issues of the magazines and I put all the rest in black garbage bags and had Craig put them right away in the garage. I then gathered all the different magazines, went into the Library and called each subscription department and CANCELLED ALL the subscriptions!! I was totally drained after all this yet on a happy note, I was getting back $300.00 total from all the cancelled subscriptions.

Which brings us to today.  I do get subscriptions again, but not as many as I used.  I also still get the magazines from Dave’s office.  Because things have been crazy here for so long, I do get behind in my reading.  The beginning of last month I realized I had magazines from September on and without any hesitation I got rid of them and only kept the current month. Now don’t get me wrong I am up to 1 small pile again, but I am very proud to say they are NOT organized, nor have i done so since the last time. I may even read a magazine on the day it comes in if I have time.

My current pile

My current pile of magazines is much smaller than piles of the past and I plan on keeping it that way.  I will always love magazines and will probably backslide from time to time in my attempt to keep them under control but at least for now I am making progress.