Commander Merrill Plans Her Wedding

For those who don’t yet know, I got engaged on August 12 this year to the love of my life, Ronald. You can go to our wedding website HERE  for any details about the upcoming wedding, but this post is a little more philosophical and less business, so I’m putting it here.

So far, I am feeding off of wedding planning. Since my attempts to start a webzine continue to fail (not giving up, but it will be awhile), I really need a project like this. Wedding planning is the least intimidating project in my life to tackle at the moment, so I’m  throwing myself into it until another area loosens up.

Below: First page of my possible venues excel sheet (almost 100 locations)

I was chatting with a college friend last week and when I was in the middle of wedding plan talk, she said admiringly, “Wow, you’ve changed!”

See, in college, I gained a reputation for being a bit of a ruthless perfectionist. I pulled off some pretty impressive events, if I do say so myself, but I definitely stepped on some toes in the process and usually stressed myself silly as well. So naturally my friend was pleasantly surprised when I tell her that I don’t need my bridesmaids in matching dresses.

While I do think I’ve grown a lot since college, I also think I see a wedding’s purpose as separate than others event I’ve directed. The product was my main focus before. This time, I’m on a diplomatic mission.

Tahlia is a peaceful planet!

Everyone loves to tell brides: “It’s your wedding, do what you want” whenever the girl has a potentially controversial idea. This seems like an overly simplistic answer to me. Of course, you shouldn’t be a pushover, but this is no time to bushwhack through feelings to reach some glorious vision. There is a time when you have to be “true to yourself” and there is a time to invest in future relationships.

This is a critical time for my future family’s perception of me, not to mention my fiance’s evaluation of my sanity. They’ve never seen me plan an event before and this is my time to show them what I’m made of. A wedding is sort of like an alliance between two separate nations and I’m my own ambassador. I can throw an epic party that fits my grand vision perfectly, but if I alienate the other nation (or worse, my own allies/parents), then I don’t consider it a success.

Be yourself? Even if it’s a balloon dress? :-O

It helps that I don’t have a clear vision in the first place. The rest of my future I’ve had dreamed up for ages, but somehow, I never bothered fantasizing about my ideal wedding. I guess it didn’t make sense until I knew the type of guy I’d be marrying since I’ve always felt the wedding should represent both the bride and groom as a unit. So I have no clue whether I want paper lanterns or mason jars at the reception. That makes me nervous, but it does help me be more flexible if I find out my mother-in-law has a mason jar phobia. This is NOT normal for me. Usually, I am the queen of grand visions, but so far it’s working out.

NOTE: I’m lucky enough to have future in-laws who have welcomed me into the family with open arms. It didn’t take long for me to come to love them all dearly and their support of our wedding plans is a relief and comfort. Now, many brides don’t have such an easy time, so they might not be able to follow my philosophy. I totally understand that sometimes, it’s impossible to do anything that will please your in-laws. So this blog post is certainly slanted towards brides that have a chance at forming long-term relationships with  their in-laws. I would like to point out that it still applies to the people in the wedding that you DO care about, like your bridesmaids. Consideration of others will usually save you a lot of drama.

Goal: A happy family like this for years to come!

My Top 10 Brand Loyalties

For some reason I was thinking yesterday about companies I feel emotionally attached to. And while this is off the beaten trail of my usual posts, I was really curious: What brands have you bonded with?

What companies do you trust so much that when they release a new product, you automatically prime yourself to try it out? Which companies would you be most likely to believe if they made an unlikely claim in an advertisement? What companies are you following on facebook–or better yet–you like getting their e-newsletters?  Where will you go out of your way to shop?

Just remember: Brand loyalty transcends simply liking their products and prices.

Here’s my list:

1. Wegmans: The first company I think I ever consciously realized I had bonded with. After a semester at college away from this beloved grocery store, it was the first place I wanted to visit when I went home. Gelsons, Nugget, and Fresh and Easy are my California substitutes, but for me, Wegmans IS home.

Gloomy sky = Typical upstate New York day.

2. Audible.com: Sometimes brand loyalty surpasses reason. My Audible subscription is expensive and I only get a book a month, but darn them, they gave me some really nice customer service a couple of years ago and I’ve never been able to break off the relationship since.

One of my Modcloth dresses

3. Modcloth: There’s something about taking a survey on a site and actually seeing your suggestions implemented on a site. And the company’s vintage image happens to really resonate with me, so that helps too.

4. ThinkGeek: I always feel bad when I find products on ThinkGeek and then buy them on Amazon for cheaper. Something in me really wants to pay my money to the geek cause and I can guarantee that as time goes on, I’ll be much more likely to start buying from them directly.

How can you say “no” to a company that uses monkey breath in their packaging material?

5. Disney: Not the movies so much, but the parks. As a kid, I watched the Disney World travel promotional videos over and over again, pining for my chance to go and even today I buy into the magical ideal. As an adult, I am fascinated by the intense psychology and funds that go into making the parks magical. If you told me Disney was opening a laundry mat, I would probably scramble to sign up for it because I know it would be gorgeous, fun, and amazing customer service. Here’s an article that illustrates what I mean.

I guess this is a Lychee…

6. Yogurtland: Not only my favorite frozen yogurt (I will drive quite a distance when I have a craving), but it’s the only store where I get creative in my food choices. I’m a picky eater, usually terrified of trying a new food, so it’s impressive that I feel safe enough at Yogurtland to buy “lychee tart” when I have no idea what a lychee is.

7. Google:  If Google ran for President, I would vote for it, if Google decided to just take over the world and run it as a dictatorship…I’d probably be okay with that. About once a week I discover a new feature Google has to offer. Words can’t express how much I love Google. This helpful warning has saved me SO often!

I am the proud owner of an Easy button

8. Staples: Always had a fondness for office supplies, but Staples won me over when I became a secretary. I took a random plastic folder (my new boss’s favorite) to the store and spent 2o minutes trying to find more of them. A Staples assistant was able to find me the exact folders in about 5 minutes just by eyeballing it.

9. Days of Wonder: A board game company that has made so many games that my friend group has cherished (all with gorgeous artwork) that I pretty much would buy any game they released without knowing anything about it.

One of my favorite Days of Wonder games: Shadows Over Camelot.

10. Lucasarts: Similar to #9, I’ve had such good experiences with old and new Lucasarts games that I feel a sort of kinship with the brand. I always know that their humor will be spot on and I’ll try anything with their name stamped on it. Also, so much childhood nostalgia!

I like my computer games old school.

Changed Expectations

I don’t usually get this into “the classics”, but I’m on Book 7 of The Mary Russell  series, which I’ve already written a fanatical love post about, and I’m trying to finish Scott Westerfeld’s Behemoth, which is lots of fun, but hasn’t yet yielded anything worthy of a blog post.

So we’re back to Dickens and the recent BBC Great Expectations, because I have a TON to say about it. It was quite different from the original and yet I felt like it was remarkably plausible. If you can see Dickens like Shakespeare–something to keep fresh through experimentation–I highly recommend watching it.

Expectations is one of those books that I hated reading in high school because honestly, it’s depressing. If you don’t like the book, I totally feel your pain. But then I hit college and had my first break up in college, and suddenly the story became relevant!

Warning: Major spoilers of Great Expections (book and miniseries) AND David Copperfield below

Let’s get the most important thing out of the way: The miniseries gave Expectations a happy ending! 

Of course, Dickens originally wrote two endings, but does anyone really buy his awkward attempt at a happy ending? Can you even call it happy when two toxic characters end up together?

Guess what? The BBC actually pulled it off better than Dickens did.

To some extent, I don’t see the point in making Expectations happy because that’s why David Copperfield exists, right? I’ve always seen the two books as flip sides of the same coin. In both, we watch the main character from childhood to adulthood and see him  make his fortune, fall in love with the wrong woman, and lose that woman. The only difference is that David Copperfield learns from his mistakes and is rewarded with a new love, whereas Pip never gets the girl because he fails to overcome his flaws. Copperfield asks whether David is the hero of his own story, whereas I’ve always felt that readers should ask themselves whether Pip is the villain of his own story.

(I didn’t intend this post to be so much about Copperfield, but it’s just impossible for me to talk about one book without mentioning the other). Here’s some Copperfield love:

Someday I want to write a retelling of Expectations from Estella’s point of view. I find her the true victim of the novel because of how Pip objectifies her. I think he refuses to look at her honestly and his self-deception results in him destroying her. He creates the monster that she becomes as much as Miss Havisham and Estella herself did.

I actually believe that Estella cares for Pip, which is the only reason she warns him to stay away, because she loves him enough to not want to hurt him. Not enough to change completely, but compared to her other flirtations it’s a big step in the right direction. Pip’s love for her is not true and they really should not end up together.

BUT BUT BUT in the miniseries, they DO and it works!

That’s because the miniseries allowed Pip a second chance and emphasized Miss Havisham’s tyranny over Estella. In the novel, it’s left unknown how much of Estella’s cruelty is nature vs. nurture. The miniseries decides that Miss Havisham is basically forcing Estella into being a heart breaker and once Miss H. is gone, Estella is free to choose her own destiny. And she chooses Pip because by the time Estella is free, Pip has matured.

The miniseries has Pip see how haughty and obsessed he had become with impressing Estella. He returns home to Joe, having forgiven Miss Havisham and learning humility. And then he meets a changed Estella at Satis House and both characters have reached a point where they won’t hurt each other by being together. The redemption angle works well on screen because you feel more sympathy with Pip during the whole plot because you can see his struggles on his face instead of reading his pathetic thoughts on the page.

Comparing Dickens and The Hunger Games

Wow, it’s been a short 5 months, but I’m finally getting back to blogging again. I’ll write a separate post about what I’ve been up to, but today I’m talking about two things I’ve been rather saturated in this year: Charles Dickens and The Hunger Games.

Part 1: Dickens

This year's Dickens-themed Google doodle.

Because 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, the wonderful people at Masterpiece Theater on PBS have been releasing new (and re-releasing old) versions of his works. There have been a whole bunch, many free online, so I decided to go on a Dickens kick, with the following results:

1. Before this year, I’d read Great Expectations twice (more on this later), David Copperfield (yay!), Martin Chuzzlewit (boo!),  A Tale of Two Cities (yawn), and, of course, A Christmas Carol.

2. I read Oliver Twist this year, but haven’t seen a movie version yet (please leave suggestions for versions in the comments).

3. A few weeks ago I watched the Little Dorrit mini-series on PBS, which was excellent, although I still need to read the book.

4. I’m currently in the middle of reading The Old Curiosity Shop, but I couldn’t quite wait until the end to watch the PBS movie. It was decent, but not as good as Dorrit.

5. I have also watched the new PBS Great Expectations movie (not to be confused with the Helena Bonham Carter version coming out later this year). LOTS to say about this later.

6. I really really want to watch Bleak House at some point, but episode 1 is the

only free one offered on itunes, soooooo I might wait.

7. The Mystery of Edwin Drood is coming out on Masterpiece and I hadn’t even heard of the novel until I saw the trailer, so very curious to see if it’s any good.

Part 2: The Hunger Games

I was cautiously optimistic about The Hunger Games movie that came out a few weeks ago. If you want to read my thoughts on the book series, here’s a link to my previous post on the subject.

I was worried that if the movie stayed true to the book, it would mean portraying levels of violence that I wouldn’t be comfortable watching. Fortunately, the film was shot in a way that made the violence implied rather than graphic. I believe this is how it should be. After all, the point of the story is to stand against people who find violence entertaining to watch, so it would have been hypocritical for the camera to linger over the bloody deaths in the arena. On the other hand, it is important to capture the horror of the situation, and I personally found the director’s choice to leave most of the violence implied actually heightened the psychological impact on me. The one time I actually cringed was during the tracker jacker scene because, to me, seeing a swarm of bees attack a person is somehow more unnerving than seeing someone get shot with an arrow.

And can I just say that this movie stands as proof that filmmakers of books-into-movies can produce absolute gold when they work closely with the author?  The best part about The Hunger Games movie is that it works wonderfully as a companion to the book. It doesn’t try to get inside Katniss’ head like the book did. Instead, it adds to the story by showing viewers scenes from outside the arena that the first-person narrative was unable to do.

My main complaint: Why was Haymitch so clean cut and sober most of the time? His hair looked like it came out of a Pantene commercial and I think he wore a suit the entire movie! He was gruff, but hardly the hopeless, slovenly drunkard I’d pictured. Seriously, where is Hugh Laurie when you need him? Every other character seemed perfectly acted.

Part 3: The Similarities

Believe it or not, I’ve been seeing a lot of similarities between these two authors. Particularly in how they make you fall in love with their minor characters. Sometimes I like Dickens’ protagonists, though often they’re a bit bland, and in the case of Pip from Great Expectations, I actually avidly dislike. But there are always absolute gems of secondary characters in his novels. the effusive Edmund Sparkler from Little Dorrit, the lovable Peggotty from David Copperfield, and the chilling Daniel Quilp from The Old Curiosity Shop. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they are memorable (Mr. Wemmick with the post office mouth and Aged Parent–from Expectations–are pictured on the left).

Likewise, my favorite thing about Suzanne Collins is how she brings humanity to her minor characters. To anyone who hasn’t read the books yet, I would urge them to not get too emotionally invested in Katniss, but really pay attention to people like Effie, Haymitch, and Finnick. They all appear at first glance to be flat characters, but once their complexities surface, they make the entire series shine.

The Cost of Getting What You Want

Hello! I squeezed in time for letter writing!

This is probably the last post on this site you’ll see for a long time. I’m cutting back on my projects, starting with the ones I’m already not updating, like this one. I can’t stand blogs that just stop posting and leave their readers hanging, so I’m respectfully telling you that shouldn’t bother checking this page for a while. I’m not shutting down, but it’s very unlikely you’ll hear from me for a long time, probably months.

If you want to be sure you get my next post, whenever that is, sign up for the email subscription on the right.  —->

OR better yet, I’ll still be posting on Diamondandtoads.com, so just sign up for those updates.

I had hoped that once I got settled into my job, I would be able to resume my usual blogging activities. I naively believed it would be only a matter of savvy time management.

Oh, how very wrong I was!

Let’s take stock, shall we? Right now, I have this blog, my Diamonds and Toads blog, which requires me to keep up with both Once Upon a Time and Grimm, I’m trying to start Timeless Tales, and I’m part of a writing critique group. Those are the biggest things. And what do I have time for? Ummmm, cleaning my room, but only sometimes–wait, that isn’t on the list?

I have to cut back. I’m struggling at the job–I keep making mistakes and things keep falling through the cracks, and it’s happening at a rate that I find unacceptable. My memory has been failing me, which is partially due to short-term stress and information overload, but it’s also because I’m not getting enough sleep. I can’t control the former, but I can do something about the latter. Thanks to the fast pace of the job, I rarely feel tired, but even though I’m feeling fine, it’s causing me to forget things. This isn’t a job I can cruise through on auto-pilot.

So I’ve committed myself to a laptop-shutdown time of 10 pm in hopes that it will result in an earlier bedtime. This will carry throughout the weekend because I don’t want to negate the benefits of sleeping in on those days. I am NOT happy about this. I have so little free time already, I hate robbing myself of even more of it. But we will give it a month and see how it goes.
Here’s some good news, though. My good friend David has just started a blog of his own and it’s about board games! And not plain old Scrabble and Risk, either. David has introduced me to so many fantastic games since I’ve known him. You should totally check it out: http://bitsofboardgames.blogspot.com/

Well, it’s 9:50 pm, so you know what that means! I’ll see you sometime in the future!

ARCs and My New Groove

Half of you are probably dying to hear about my new job and the other half are dying for me to talk about writing/reading stuff again, so I’m going to try and please both sides today. The job stuff will come last since my last three posts were “about my life” type things.

Part 1: …

I’ve been sitting on some news for a few weeks, but I think I’m ready to share it now. Look at what I have, guys!

That’s right! It’s an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of a book called Cinder by debut author Marissa Meyer. And it’s mine! All mine!

The book officially comes out in January, but I get to read it now.

Marissa is a longtime follower of Diamonds and Toads and when she sent me an email asking if I’d like to review her book for the blog, I couldn’t say “YesYesYes!” fast enough! I won’t give you too much detail here because I’ll be interviewing Marissa about her book on Diamonds and Toads sometime in December. I’ll just say that Cinder is a sci-fi retelling of Cinderella where the main character is a cyborg. And yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds. I’m currently about 75% through reading it and it’s really good! Best part is that it’s going to become a trilogy. Definitely keep an eye out for it when it comes out.

Part 2: My New Groove

Alright, so I’ll be honest, the first two weeks of my new job were overwhelming. My boss is a very popular guy and very in demand for interviews and meetings, so I really had to hit the ground running, which was difficult when I wasn’t familiar with Mac, which is what our office uses. I’m a pretty confident person, but I honestly had a day or two when I wasn’t sure if I could learn it all fast enough. Thank goodness, I’m finally getting the hang of it now–I’m still making more mistakes than I’d like, but at least I think managing it all is possible.

Working full time hours has been a huge shock to me. I’ve done it before, of course, but I definitely got a bad case of whiplash coming off of a summer of empty days to a job that goes 8:45 am – 6:00 pm. And a few times, I’ve stayed later than necessary because I was woefully behind on my task list and didn’t want to leave until I felt like I’d done something useful that day.

So…yeah, it’s a challenge, but it’s worth it. It’s great having a job that is never boring and I always feel needed, that’s for sure! And I’m sure most of my complaints will die down once the first paycheck comes in this week.

There’s a lot that’s fun about the job too. For example, 80% of our mail is screener copies or dvds of movies, which are always exciting to open. My boss is friends with a ton of Hollywood people, so I’ve heard some great stories. Heck, I’ve probably talked to someone who’s worked on a famous movie without even knowing it!

I won’t be posting stories about the office on my blog, by the way. Discretion is very important in this business and I wouldn’t want to get in trouble for saying something I shouldn’t.

Alright, I’m just going to leave you with this clip from Despicable Me to give you a glimpse into how I feel living in a house with so many little kids. I am SUCH a Gru–kids really aren’t my thing, but these kids are really smart and cool, so they’ve won me over. I *really* wanted the scene where Gru reads the Unicorn book to the kids, but I couldn’t find it

This Week’s Theme Song

 

What will this day be like? I wonder.
What will my future be? I wonder.
It could be so exciting to be out in the world, to be free
My heart should be wildly rejoicing
Oh, what’s the matter with me?

I’ve always longed for adventure
To do the things I’ve never dared
And here I’m facing adventure
Then why am I so scared?

A captain with seven children
What’s so fearsome about that?

Oh, I must stop these doubts, all these worries
If I don’t I just know I’ll turn back.
I must dream of the things I am seeking
I am seeking the courage I lack.

The courage to serve them with reliance
Face my mistakes without defiance.
Show them I’m worthy
And while I show them 
I’ll show me

So, let them bring on all their problems
I’ll do better than my best
I have confidence they’ll put me to the test
But I’ll make them see I have confidence in me

Somehow I will impress them
I will be firm but kind
And all those children (Heaven bless them!)
They will look up to me

And mind me with each step I am more certain
Everything will turn out fine
I have confidence the world can all be mine
They’ll have to agree I have confidence in me

I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
Besides which you see I have confidence in me

Strength doesn’t lie in numbers
Strength doesn’t lie in wealth
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumbers
When you wake up — Wake Up!

It tells me all I trust I lead my heart to
All I trust becomes my own
I have confidence in confidence alone
(Oh help!)

I have confidence in confidence alone
Besides which you see I have confidence in me!