Secrets From Our Bedroom

Ew, no not that kind! My poor dad just had a heart attack.

Moving in with Mr. Knitting 2.5 years ago was kind of the best thing ever. We had so much fun finding an apartment and setting it up together (with lots of help). Our lives had been intertwined for years before we moved in together so finally having all our stuff in the same place was amazing.

However, we did have a big problem.

I hated having to share a bed. I really didn't like it. I had so much trouble falling asleep and then staying asleep. I also began to do weird things in my sleep like flip myself around in bed and wake up with my head at the foot of the bed with no recollection of doing this.

While I completely loved living with him, it felt like the biggest treat ever when he was away for a night because it meant I got our comfy bed all to myself.

Comfy bed I didn't want to share:



Now, I'm much better. It took me two years, but now I'm finally comfortable sharing a bed. I can fall asleep and stay asleep and this feels like a huge accomplishment. Even better, I actually like sharing a bed now and find it difficult to believe that I once had so many problems with this. That being said, whenever we stay in a hotel room with two beds you can bet we each take our own bed. We still like our space.

Just before checking out of a hotel. You'll notice we definitely used both beds:



Where do you fall on the bed sharing issue? Instantly easy, or did it take some time?

Then and Now: Knitting Edition

High school wasn't too long ago for me, but in some ways it feels like it was because my life is so different now than it was then. From the ages of 10 - 17 I was a student at the National Ballet School training for a career as a professional ballet dancer.

Me at 14:



My days were basically divided between commuting to Toronto from Brampton, taking academic classes, and doing a lot of ballet.

Here a typical day for me:

5:30 Wake up
6:45 Get driven to school by my poor father who commuted 4 hours a day for me
8:30 - 10 Academic classes
10:15 - 12:15 Ballet class
12:15 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 4:00 Academic classes
4:15 - 6:00 Rehearsal/Pointe class/Variation class/Body Conditioning...
6:00 - 7:45 Drive home (my poor father)
7:45 - 10:30 Eat dinner, read, attempt to do homework
10:30 Sleep!

In ballet class with one of my favourite teachers:



Eventually the commuting became too much for me and in grade 10 I moved into residence. While that was a lot better since I didn't have to spend hours of my day travelling, living in residence had it's own stresses like having no privacy and living in an extremely small room.

Hanging out with one of my best friends in my residence room. I'm the one on the left:



I loved my school so much. My friends were wonderful (and not at all like the usual bitchy stereotypes of ballet dancers), my teachers were wonderful, I was receiving a fantastic arts education complete with visits to the symphony, art galleries, and of course the ballet, and I got to focus on the thing I loved more than anything: ballet. I can not tell you how much I loved ballet and how much I loved performing. I also received some wonderful opportunities like being chosen as part of a delegation from our school that went on a (free!) tour of Japan to perform.

Here's a few photos from my high school years.

Preparing for a performance:



As a Russian Courtier in The Nutcracker:



With all the other Family Scene girls from Nutcracker. I'm second from the right:



As a unicorn in Nutcracker. I'm the one crouched down on the left:



After a performance of Paquita. I'm on the left:



Enjoying the culinary delights of Japan (I wasn't very adventurous in high school when it came to food):



In our dressing room in Japan:



Warming up in the Green Room:



However, by the time I was in the middle of grade eleven I began to feel really burnt out and was dealing with a foot injury that still hasn't healed. The stresses of living away from home in an environment with no privacy and not much freedom were really starting to wear on me and I made the choice to take a break from the school at least for the rest of the year, with the understanding that I was more than welcome to come back for my final year.

Transfering to a new school in the middle of the school year wasn't the most fun, but I found that I really liked attending a normal school. I began to realize that ballet didn't have to be my whole world and that I wasn't worthless if I wasn't a ballet dancer. While I loved my school so much, this is my one criticism of the place. Being in such a specialized environment where every single person you know has the exact same goal as you can lead you to the warped belief that you are a failure at life if you do not achieve that goal. This was in no way literally communicated by the staff (who were wonderful and supportive people), but rather something I subconsciously picked up on and believed. It was only after I left that I realized how untrue this was.

I also came to realize that I could have happy moments in my life without ballet. While ballet certainly gave me a lot of pain both physically and mentally on occasion, it also gave me so many moments of complete and utter joy, and I was terrified that I would never be able to find that kind of happiness again.

At the end of the year I decided that staying at my new school and then eventually going to university was the best choice for me. An unexpected bonus was that I met this guy at my new school:



Us at our ever so classy "Moonlight in Venice" prom (we opted not to pose in the fake gondola they had available):



My Thoughts on Guys
I didn't have a lot of time for boys in high school. There weren't too many around at ballet school and frankly I didn't really have time to see anyone who wasn't a student at NBS. I did have a crush on Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings, which I now think is the funniest thing ever, especially since we had pretty similar hair.

Him:


Source

Me:



I think I figured I'd probably get married eventually, but it seemed like such a distant abstract possibility. I was much more concerned with things like turn out, increasing my ab strength, and getting roles in our Spring Showcase.

Once I left ballet school there were definitely a lot more guys around, but I think mutual shyness prevented me from meeting very many of them and I stayed single until I began dating Mr. Knitting a year after starting at his school. Even when we began dating I had no idea that I would eventually marry him because I thought it was only in movies that people married their first boyfriends. I was more used to how things worked on tv shows like Friends and Sex in the City (which I now realize is insane, but didn't when I was 17).


How I've Changed

In many ways I haven't changed a lot since high school, simply because it wasn't that long ago, but in other ways I have. I used to be much more concerned with my appearance. I think this was influenced both by teenage insecurity and by the fact that I went to a school where the point was to be as beautiful as possible. I loved makeup and wore a lot of it and would never consider going anywhere without make up on. Now I'm much more relaxed about the way I look and am pretty low maintenance when it comes to doing my hair and makeup. I'm just not nearly as concerned about the way I look anymore.

My attitude towards relationships definitely has changed. In high school I was so sheltered and inexperienced that I had a very unrealistic fairy tale idea of what relationships were like. I was interested in a grand romance and thought that a regular day to day relationship seemed like the most depressing thing ever. However, now that I'm in a relationship where we do things like buy toilet paper and argue over the dishes I realize how wrong I was. My relationship with Mr. Knitting is the greatest thing ever and I get to feel so loved every day of my life. It's so much better than any fairy tale 16 year old me could have dreamed up.

Our Approach to Gifts

This was something we struggled with a lot and have only recently figured out something we're okay with. Before getting into details I want to make it clear up front that Mr. Knitting and I are ridiculously grateful for any wedding presents we might receive. I do want to talk about our somewhat complicated approach to wedding gifts, but I don't want that basic sentiment to get lost.

That being said, we knew since we got engaged that our ideal wedding gift is a financial contribution to our down payment fund (i.e. money). GASP! How rude of us. The back story is that no one in either of our (extended) families has ever registered for wedding gifts since the Polish and Ukrainian tradition is to give money. In addition, both my cousin and sister (the only two family members of our generation to get married) did not register and no one seemed offended or stumped for gift ideas.

Our big issue with registering is that we don't really want stuff. We, like many couples, have lived together for a long time and have almost all the kitchen and home items we need for now. Neither of us come from a family with fine china or silverware, so the idea of registering for 12 place settings is pretty foreign to us. It's also not very practical as we're probably going to have to move a lot for Mr. Knitting's job, so if we did get any nice china it would probably sit in my parent's basement for the next 10 years and by the time we'd look at it again, we'll have completely different taste.

All that being said, we've been getting a lot of questions about gifts recently, and felt really awkward saying, "Cold hard cash please." Okay, we'd never say it like that, but still...As a result we decided to come up with a bunch of options to give people if they ask. Be warned, these aren't your grandmother's options!

1) We put together a registry at Crate and Barrel. It has, um, 9 items. That's right, 9. We could not bring ourselves to register for anything that we didn't need. For example, while I would be thrilled to receive a gift of a cake stand, I don't actually need one, so I couldn't bring myself to put it on our registry. On the other hand, I've been dying for a new good quality food processor because I use our crappy one on a daily basis and am convinced every time I use it will be the last time, so that made it on. We realize that 9 items is ridiculously small and might go back to add a few more things, but really we're not going to be able to get it past 15.

2) Gift cards to our yoga studio or Lululemon. Not a traditional wedding present, but yoga is something both Mr. Knitting and I love and is one of our favourite ways to spend time together so this seemed fitting.

3) Vegan cookbooks. I love vegan cooking and baking, and Mr. Knitting loves eating the results so this seemed like a good idea. I also get all warm and fuzzy at the idea of me making meals for our future babies using our wedding present cookbooks.

Mmm carrot cake:



4) A financial contribution to our down payment fund. Yes, this is money, but it's money with a goal. I actually think of symbolism of our friends and family coming together to help us buy our first home is lovely.

So that's what we've come up with. A bit off beat, but very reflective of us.

Did you have any challenges when it came to registering for gifts?

How I Ended Up With Two Pairs of Wedding Shoes

Remember how I told you that I don't care about shoes? It's true. I still don't. However, my boss does and, as a result, I am now in possession of two pairs of wedding shoes.

Some back story: I'm very close to my boss and she is basically the pushy opinionated mom I never had (in a good way). I have a mom and she's awesome and the best mom ever, she's just not pushy or opinionated (For the most part. She does get really pushy if she wants me or one of my sisters to go to yoga with her and we don't feel like it).

My boss is pretty involved in my wedding and has been extremely generous with me. She's treating me to a facial, manicure, and pedicure before the wedding and is throwing Mr. Knitting and I a pre-wedding cocktail party. She's also the person who helped me get my vintage wedding dress altered.

Anyway, I brought my shoes to a dress fitting and my (very fashionable) boss took one look at them and decided they would not work. In case you need a reminder of the shoes I already bought here they are:



I still like them.

She then insisted on taking me shopping and treating me to a better pair. I initially resisted, since I am perfectly happy with the pair I already chose and would prefer to not have two of everything at my wedding. Eventually I realized this wasn't really about me, but was rather about her wanting to do another nice thing for me and agreed.

Last Friday we went shopping (after she treated me to lunch and my favourite drink, a kir royale), and we found another pair of shoes that met with her approval.

Here they are:



Side View:



While I still can't get all that excited about shoes, I definitely like them and they do actually go slightly better with my dress than the original pair (my boss is usually right about these kinds of things). So, while I'm not a two dress bride, I am now officially a two pairs of shoes bride.

I think I would have found this whole episode upsetting if I did care a lot about shoes, but since I don't it was easy to let her have control of my footwear. It was much more important to her than it was to me so I was happy to let her have her way since she definitely has my best interests at heart. I know this story sounds really odd since most people's bosses do not veto their wedding footwear choices, but again she's almost more like my pushy, opinionated, and extremely generous second mom than a boss. Ultimately, I'm just grateful to have someone in my life that cares so much about me and my wedding and ensuring I have the right footwear.

Out of curiosity which do you prefer? My new shoes or my first pair?

Jewellery Overload

I really love jewellery and own quite a few pieces I love quite a bit. This normally isn't a problem. It's normally a very good thing. The problem is that I feel like I need to wear my absolute favourite pieces on my wedding day and I'm having trouble determining what these are. It's really hard to narrow it down.

The 3 pieces that I will definitely be wearing are my ring, my wedding charm bracelet, and my back necklace. Everything else is up for discussion.

I wrote about my locket here and I'm 99% sure I'm still going to wear it. I love this locket and it absolutely can not be beat in terms of sentiment, but I am also ridiculously in love with this necklace:



I love cameos and am slowly collecting a number of them. This necklace is definitely my favourite of all the ones I own, although I do have a soft spot for the cameo ring I bought in Rome from some adorable old ladies having a fundraiser for their church.

Funny story about this necklace: I almost didn't buy it. I walked into this vintage store on Queen West in Toronto not planning to buy anything and was greated by this man sitting on a throne. That's right, a throne. He was very jovial and friendly, but was the pushiest salesperson I've ever met and basically bullied me into buying the necklace. Luckily, I absolutely love it and wear it often, so I'm very glad he was so pushy, as otherwise I definitely would have left the store empty handed.

My next problem has to do with bracelets. On one hand I'll be wearing my wedding charm bracelet and I'm torn as to what to wear on the other. I definitely don't need to wear anything else, but since I'm currently trying to think up a way to wear 3 bracelets on one hand, I think it might be a bit unrealistic to say I won't even wear one.

Here are the contenders:

This is the one I'm most leaning towards at the moment:



It was made by my mom's friend Amanda of Beadiful Designs, and I absolutely love it. I love wearing pearls, but I like to wear them in a slightly less traditional way. I also happen to love floaty bracelets and necklaces so you can see why I like this piece so much.

I'm normally not much of a cuff person because I think I'm more suited to delicate pieces, but I love this cuff and think it has a great Art Deco feel:





Here's the final bracelet contender:



It looks very yellow in this picture (I don't understand how as I'm such an amazing photographer!), but it's a lot more silvery/white in person. This piece is from the 1920s and I love it quite a bit. Too many decisions...

Finally we come to brooches. I originally had no plans to wear a brooch as clearly I already have way too many other things going on. Then I began reading Mrs. Avocado's recaps and loved the way she wore her grandmother's brooch.

In case you need a reminder:


Source

I love this look so much.

This reminded me of how much I love brooches and now I'm also trying to figure out if I can include a brooch in my wedding day outfit. Probably not, but here are two of my favourites:





A great solution for my brooch problem would be to put one on my bouquet, but it's looking like I'm probably going to be going with a non-floral alternative (more on that later) so that doesn't help.

So as you can see I have quite a problem and definitely need to make some cuts. The funny thing is I'm still on the hunt for a something borrowed and I'm pretty sure a piece of jewellery would be a great something borrowed...

Did you have a jewellery overload?

Do I Have to Wear it All Day?

I love my wedding dress. LOVE it (yes, I'm mean and haven't shown it to you). However, I'm a bit concerned about wearing it for a whole day. I like comfortable clothes. I almost never wear heels, I don't like things that are restrictive or corset like, and pretty much the second I come home I change into something pajama like. I may have even once hosted a brunch in my pjs. Okay, they were cute cupcake pjs that I'd never slept in and the brunch was for 3 of my closest friends, but still, they were pjs.

The pjs in question:



Don't get me wrong, I'm not a slob and do have the ability to dress myself appropriately, but I am concerned about my ability to stay in formal clothing for a whole day. While our wedding isn't until 5pm, we're starting to take pictures at 1:30 so I'm in for about 12 hours of dress time. Blarg. My dress is pretty simple and comfy, but it's not sweatpants comfy. Would it be totally weird to schedule time where I don't have to wear my dress? Okay, yeah, that's pretty weird. Maybe I'll just have to suck it up. I'm hoping in the excitment of the day that I won't even notice.

So am I a complete weirdo? Has anyone else had this problem? How did you deal with it?

I Already Have One, But...

I'm at a point now when whenever I'm in a store or out shopping somewhere I'm always unconsciously on the lookout for things for the wedding. This is not always a good thing, because a few times I've come across something that would be perfect for the wedding and I then have to remind myself I already own something else that will perform the exact same function at the wedding. For example, we bought our card box almost a year ago during a Boxing Week sale at Pier 1 Imports.

Here it is:




I spent about 6 months second guessing my choice because of the fact that it's made of wire and not solid, but then realized that birdcages aren't solid either and they make fantastic card boxes, so who cares?

Anyway, yesterday I was shopping at Winners and found this gorgeous Christmas box that would be perfect for cards (no pictures, sorry!). I liked that box more than I like the one I already own and I spent about 15 minutes staring at it. It was $8.99 so it was affordable, and I told myself it wouldn't be the end of the world to have purchased two card boxes. They were both cheap, so I wouldn't really be wasting to much money.

Then, I came to my senses. No one, other than maybe me, is going to care about the card box. Most people probably won't notice what it looks like. Even if it is inexpensive, that's money I could spend another way (like on sushi dinners!). What am I going to do with 2 card boxes after the wedding? For that matter, what am I going to do with 1 card box after the wedding?

Situations like this have happened a few times. Sometimes I manage to avoid buying the new item and sometimes I don't. For example, I now have 2 ring bearer dishes.

First one that I wrote about here:



New one:



See my problem? Yes, these came to a grand total of $13 altogether, but there's no need to have 2 ring dishes. Clearly, I need to start avoiding stores until my wedding...

Are you having problems with buying too many things for your wedding?