Category: Family

Wedding

Kellbot’s Guide to Wedding Planning

Kelly

There’s a point in everyone’s life where all of a sudden, everyone you know is getting married. It happens at different ages depending on who you hang out with, but for me it was this year. Not only did I get married, but nearly every weekend since March someone I know has gotten married. I’m told that this marriage flood lasts a few years until it gives way to a flood of babies.

 

Having survived the wedding process, I have some tips to pass along to my recently engaged friends:

Avoid [most] wedding websites at all costs

I’m not even going to mention them by name, because you might be tempted to visit them. Wedding websites are these monstrosities of consumerism created by the wedding industry. They exist soely to get you to buy more stuff for your wedding. Also, the people on them tend to be just awful.

“But wait!” you say, “I need them for a checklist. How else will I know when to mail my save the dates? How will I make sure I’ve done everything I need to?”

Bridal magazines. Every bridal magazine I have ever seen contains a checklist/schedule with guidelines for when to do the big stuff (mailing invitations, dress fittings). Buy one, or better yet take one from a recently married friend. I saw a look of genuine joy on my father-in-law’s face when he handed over the stack of bridal magazines they’d accumulated during his daughter’s engagement.

There is one notable exception, I really like offbeat bride. It’s basically a wedding porn site, full of fun photos of weddings that range from unusual to downright silly.

The only thing you have to do is get married.

The wedding industry has amassed an amazing list of things you’re supposed to do at or before a wedding/reception. Engagement photos, bridal showers, special bridesmaid’s dresses,veils, bouquets, receiving lines, first dances, drunken toasts, the list goes on. It turns out, all of these things are entirely optional. Skip any of the parts you aren’t into, though you should keep in any of your family’s wacky traditions in the interest of keeping the peace.

Guest lists are hard. When in doubt, invite.

At first I wanted our wedding to be on the smaller side, because I tend to have anxiety in big groups, but by the time we added our close friends to our Irish Catholic families we were already a medium-sized wedding.  There were a handful of friends  who weren’t quite “close” friends, but still people we talk to regularly, who we ended up not inviting largely because I was still holding onto this idea that we were having a “small” wedding. This was despite the guest list being twice as long as originally planned. In retrospect, an extra table of friends wouldn’t have been any more stressful, and I wish I’d invited them.

Also, making a wedding guest list is stressful no matter what. Even if your wedding is huge, at some point you have to draw lines across your group of friends and it sucks.

Spend your wedding budget on the things you actually care about

For most couples, the wedding itself is pretty inexpensive. The reception on the other hand can get expensive fast, even if you’re doing things DIY. You can absolutely get away with spending less on the stuff you don’t care about to free up cash for the things you do.

We addressed the invitations ourselves, despite warnings from wedding websites that this would be a horrible process (it wasn’t), I bought my dress online for $100, and I wore a felt flower in my hair instead of a veil.

Not dropping thousands of dollars on a dress I don’t care about freed up cash for an awesome venue, and the money we saved on the calligrapher went straight into an all-you-can-eat ice cream bar. Because if there’s one thing a wedding needs, it’s ice cream.

I’m sure it’s fine.

I did a lot of stressing about little details. Whether the caterer would get everyone’s meal order right. What if it rains. What if it snows. What if I trip and fall during the ceremony. About a week before the wedding I was crying to my friend about how the seams of my dress wouldn’t lay flat and it was too late to fix. All of these things turned out fine.

Things did go wrong: I forgot how to do the sign of the cross (despite coming from a Catholic family I was raised Episcopalian), and thus just flailed my hands in front of me during the ceremony. Chris and I forgot to kiss at the end. One of our groomsmen was missing entirely (due to illness), leaving one lucky guy to lead two ladies down the aisle. None of these things bothered our friends/family, because they were there to celebrate with us, not critique us.

During the reception, one thing did go very wrong: the projector for Rock Band broke. There was a loud pop, and then the distinct smell of burning plastic, and that was that. And just as my Bridal Panic set in, some of our friends hopped in their car, drove to Staples, and picked up a new projector. Everything worked out fine.

So try to enjoy the wedding planning process; it’s actually pretty fun if you can manage not to freak out (I couldn’t). At the end of the day, you’re celebrating your marriage with people who care about you, and you’ll probably have a good time no matter what.

Wedding

Kellbot’s Guide to Wedding Planning

Kelly

There’s a point in everyone’s life where all of a sudden, everyone you know is getting married. It happens at different ages depending on who you hang out with, but for me it was this year. Not only did I get married, but nearly every weekend since March someone I know has gotten married. I’m told that this marriage flood lasts a few years until it gives way to a flood of babies.

Having survived the wedding process, I have some tips to pass along to my recently engaged friends:

Avoid [most] wedding websites at all costs

I’m not even going to mention them by name, because you might be tempted to visit them. Wedding websites are these monstrosities of consumerism created by the wedding industry. They exist soely to get you to buy more stuff for your wedding. Also, the people on them tend to be just awful.

“But wait!” you say, “I need them for a checklist. How else will I know when to mail my save the dates? How will I make sure I’ve done everything I need to?”

Bridal magazines. Every bridal magazine I have ever seen contains a checklist/schedule with guidelines for when to do the big stuff (mailing invitations, dress fittings). Buy one, or better yet take one from a recently married friend. I saw a look of genuine joy on my father-in-law’s face when he handed over the stack of bridal magazines they’d accumulated during his daughter’s engagement.

There is one notable exception, I really like offbeat bride. It’s basically a wedding porn site, full of fun photos of weddings that range from unusual to downright silly.

The only thing you have to do is get married.

The wedding industry has amassed an amazing list of things you’re supposed to do at or before a wedding/reception. Engagement photos, bridal showers, special bridesmaid’s dresses,veils, bouquets, receiving lines, first dances, drunken toasts, the list goes on. It turns out, all of these things are entirely optional. Skip any of the parts you aren’t into, though you should keep in any of your family’s wacky traditions in the interest of keeping the peace.

Guest lists are hard. When in doubt, invite.

At first I wanted our wedding to be on the smaller side, because I tend to have anxiety in big groups, but by the time we added our close friends to our Irish Catholic families we were already a medium-sized wedding. There were a handful of friends who weren’t quite “close” friends, but still people we talk to regularly, who we ended up not inviting largely because I was still holding onto this idea that we were having a “small” wedding. This was despite the guest list being twice as long as originally planned. In retrospect, an extra table of friends wouldn’t have been any more stressful, and I wish I’d invited them.

Also, making a wedding guest list is stressful no matter what. Even if your wedding is huge, at some point you have to draw lines across your group of friends and it sucks.

Spend your wedding budget on the things you actually care about

For most couples, the wedding itself is pretty inexpensive. The reception on the other hand can get expensive fast, even if you’re doing things DIY. You can absolutely get away with spending less on the stuff you don’t care about to free up cash for the things you do.

We addressed the invitations ourselves, despite warnings from wedding websites that this would be a horrible process (it wasn’t), I bought my dress online for $100, and I wore a felt flower in my hair instead of a veil.

Not dropping thousands of dollars on a dress I don’t care about freed up cash for an awesome venue, and the money we saved on the calligrapher went straight into an all-you-can-eat ice cream bar. Because if there’s one thing a wedding needs, it’s ice cream.

I’m sure it’s fine.

I did a lot of stressing about little details. Whether the caterer would get everyone’s meal order right. What if it rains. What if it snows. What if I trip and fall during the ceremony. About a week before the wedding I was crying to my friend about how the seams of my dress wouldn’t lay flat and it was too late to fix. All of these things turned out fine.

Things did go wrong: I forgot how to do the sign of the cross (despite coming from a Catholic family I was raised Episcopalian), and thus just flailed my hands in front of me during the ceremony. Chris and I forgot to kiss at the end. One of our groomsmen was missing entirely (due to illness), leaving one lucky guy to lead two ladies down the aisle. None of these things bothered our friends/family, because they were there to celebrate with us, not critique us.

During the reception, one thing did go very wrong: the projector for Rock Band broke. There was a loud pop, and then the distinct smell of burning plastic, and that was that. And just as my Bridal Panic set in, some of our friends hopped in their car, drove to Staples, and picked up a new projector. Everything worked out fine.

So try to enjoy the wedding planning process; it’s actually pretty fun if you can manage not to freak out (I couldn’t). At the end of the day, you’re celebrating your marriage with people who care about you, and you’ll probably have a good time no matter what.

Personal

Once Again a Crazy Cat Lady

Kelly

Naptime

I am a part-time cat lady. Most of the year, I am too busy to be willing to deal with a pet. But during kitten season the local shelter posts photos of homeless kittens on their Facebook page, and I am powerless to resist.

This time, I went in to pick up what I thought was a family of a mom and 3 kittens who were about six weeks old. I left with a box with a mother and 5 kittens, whose eyes were still closed. At this size, they’re almost too little to be cute. Almost.

As many of you know, I have terrible luck with foster cats. There is always some sort of medical emergency. I am assured that this is because all stray kittens are horribly broken, and at least at home they can get better care, but still. Why I thought this litter would be different is beyond me.

But before I tell the story of Yet Another Cat Emergency, here’s a video of the kittens this morning. They are looking cuter and fuzzier today, and their ears are starting to look like ears.

Ok, so cat drama. After eating some and drinking some, I noticed Mother Goose, the mom cat, sitting off to the side of the crate, away from her babies. Then when one kitten started crying, she stood up… and I could see she was sitting in a pool of blood. COMMENCE FREAKOUT.

After a panicked call to the vet, I learned two things: the kittens were less than 48 hours old, and it’s “not uncommon” for queens to bleed for a few days after giving birth. I was given a checklist of a few signs to look for that would indicate problems (Mother Goose had none), where to buy levitra and then proceeded to clean up the omg eww cat blood.

Chris then informed me that a similar thing happens to humans after giving birth! Oh, great! So much to look forward to!

Cats

Personal

Camping!

Kelly

This past weekend we went camping in upstate New York. We stayed at North-South Lake Campground in the Catskills. Originally we’d planned to have a group of 10, but with a 30% chance of storms many of our indoor-cat friends bailed. Their loss, because the weather was absolutely beautiful.

creek

Since there was rain in the forecast, we put tarps up above the tents (and I put one under ours for extra protection). Unfortunately none of us knew any fancy knots (please don’t tell my scout leader) so tying them in the trees was a bit of an adventure. But we figured it out.

campsite_bcampsite_a

Then, in a display of manliness, two of our friends decided they should swim to a nearby island. The air temperature was in the 60s, and the water was much, much colder.

swim_there_nick

It wasn’t quite as doomy as this photo makes it look, but it was indeed overcast.

swim_island

The plan was to then pick them up in a canoe. However, when we got over the canoe rental we discovered we needed a drivers license to rent one, which we did not have. So we told the guys they would have to swim back. They were, as you might imagine, a bit disappointed by this.

swim_back_nick

There were only a few very light showers during the day, I don’t think any of them lasted more than 5 minutes. The showers did however give us a DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY. Oh, is that meme over?

rainbow_girls

We grilled lots of meats, and it was delicious. We also made banana boats, where you take a banana and slit it down one side, then fill it with marshmallows and chocolate. Wrap it in tinfoil and set it on the coals for a while. You then eat the resulting banana goo with a spoon.

It did rain all night, but thanks to the tarps only the front two corners of our tent got any rain on them at all. We stayed nice and dry inside.

In the morning, we took oranges, sliced them in half, ate the orange, and then put cinnamon roll dough (the kind that comes in a can) inside. As with the bananas, wrap in tinfoil and put on the fire. You end up with a slightly orangy cinnamon roll. It is amazing.

Cinnamon bun cooked in an orange

We finished the trip with a half mile hike to a huge waterfall, and then a trip to Cracker Barrel.

Much bigger waterfall

Personal

Just Say No to "No"

Kelly

I’m a member of NYC Resistor, and while I think we’re a pretty awesome group of people, we’re not without our bikeshed arguments. These kinds of arguments, in any group, can range from mild time-killers to arguments so intense people end up feeling personally hurt.

One of the biggest problems I’ve noticed is when people start shooting other people ideas down. It starts a negative feedback loop, and everything goes downhill from there. But lets face it, some ideas really are terrible, and maybe we think it’s worth a bruise to the person’s ego to save us all from a huge mistake. How do you skirt a bad idea without killing a friendship?

Personally, I’m going to work on shifting away from saying “no” to people. Which is not the same as saying yes. I’m banning “no” from my discussion vocabulary, and replacing it with the phrases “what if, instead/additionally…” and “I’d be OK with that if…, ” followed by an explanation of what would make me more comfortable with the project.

For [an absurd] example, let’s say someone in the group wants to buy an iguana and keep it at the space. I think this is a terrible idea, the space is for people, not animals. Instead of saying, “no, an iguana at the space is a disaster waiting to happen, it will totally die,” I could say “before diving into herpetology, let’s get a few plants for the space and see how that goes.” Or maybe, “I’m worried it will be forgotten and die, what could we do to make sure Iggy is cared for?” This gives people a way out of the stalemate and on to continue the discussion.

It takes less than a second to say no. Yet we spend too much time reciting our many and varied reasons to say no, rather than listening and considering what we could do to find a compromise.

So just like giving up “you should,” cialis cheap I’m giving up “no.”  I invite you to call me out on it when I backslide, and hope you’ll consider ditching “no” too.

Personal

State of the Kellbot

Things have been very, very busy around here. Here's some of how I'm spending my time:

Wedding

I am getting married in early April. We went a very DIY route, hand making everything from the invitations to the centerpieces (which are made from approximately 25,000 individual lego bricks). I've been dutifully documenting the processes, but haven't had time to write up blog posts about everything we're doing.

A New Startup!

Technically, it's my old startup. But we're doing it for real this time. For those of you who are following along at home, you'll remember that about this time last year I was starting a startup. And then a few things happened and my personal finances looked a little scary, and long story short: I bailed. 

But I'm back at it! The company is called BitBot Media, and is the new home for all my professional startup projects. The project under the most active development is a health game, which I'll get to in just a second.

I'm working out of General Assembly, a new coworking space in midtown Manhattan. It's a beautiful space with a great collection of people. The space opened in mid December, so there are still a few kinks to work out (I frequently complain about people taking phone calls in the library) but overall it's pretty great.

So about that game…

The working title of the game is ExeRPG, and it's a browser-based RPG meant cheap cialis to encourage consistent workout habits. It might not be the next Grand Theft Auto, but finding the drive to exercise seems to be a comon problem among our friends.

We're in a private email-based alpha right now while we work out some of the major gameplay mechanics. It's a slow process, but has already provided us a lot of valuable feedback. We expect to have a full beta up by May. We're also planning on running a Kickstarter campaign to fund our initial development. If you're interested in the project you can sign up for our mailing list at http://www.exerpg.com

Developing a long-form game has been a huge learning process. I hope to blog as much of it as I can over on the game development blog.

Overall it's a busy time for me, hopefully post-wedding I can sit down and finish up some of the draft blog posts I've got lying around.

Family

On Death and Grief

Kelly

In college I took a class called “Death: Myth and Reality.” The course examined death from all angles, from the science of what physically happens after death to how we as humans handle the idea. The variety of ways people cope with death is enormous, even within a single culture or religion. I was raised with the understanding that it was a natural part of life, albeit a very sad one, and never really had difficulty coping with the loss of my grandparents over the years. I consider myself fairly OK with the idea of death. Our foster kittens don’t always make it, which is hard on us, but at least we’re able to provide them warm and loving homes for their abbreviated lives.

A family member, my fiancee’s cousin, passed away unexpectedly this week. He and Chris were very close growing up, and about the same age. We saw him regularly, though not always frequently since he lived a few hours away. It’s been very, very hard for Chris, his family, and myself. And I’m quickly learning that the grief of losing a peer is completely unlike that of losing a grandparent.

When you don’t see someone every day, it takes longer to process what it really means when they’re gone. It’s too abstract to simply know that somewhere, elsewhere, they’ve ceased to be. The first wave of grief was mostly for the other family members, the sadness of knowing people you care about are upset and the grim realization that there’s nothing you can do. I cried because Chris was crying. Chris traveled south to be with his family, and I stayed in New York until we had a better idea of what was happening.

It took a few days to process what was going on. To understand where all the holes were going to be. An empty seat at the “kids” table (who are mostly in their 20s) at family gatherings. A missing guitarist in the ska band we insisted we would form “soon.” An XBox Live ID sitting dormant on our friends list. Each of these revelations came like a fog settling around me. And if this is how I feel about someone I’ve only known since I got together with Chris, the pain his immediate family is in must be unbearable.

I’m grateful for the friends who have buy generic cialis offered support. I’ve learned that the hardest question to answer is “how are you doing?” My reflex is to answer “fine,” because that’s the universally accepted response for the question. But I’m not fine, and it feels incredibly hard to condense how I feel into something that answers what seems like a simple question. I’ve taken to responding with “it’s going.” I’ve also learned that attempting to “be strong” by doing things like going to work instead of going to be with family is unnecessary and unhelpful. There is nothing I do that is so critical it can’t wait until Monday, and simply being around family going through the same thing has made things infinitely more bearable.

When I met up with Chris yesterday he reminded me of a conversation we had with his cousin, whose name is Mike, when we were at the beach this summer. We were watching Pawn Stars, a TV show about a pawn shop. Mike mused that working at a pawn shop would be “a fun job, except for all the ghosts.” We giggled a bit at the idea of haunted pawn shops, and then we realized he was quite serious. This made us laugh a little harder. But Mike seemed pretty certain that people live on after death in the things they own. While I’m not sure that “Ghost Hunter Pawn Stars” will be the next hit reality TV show, I do think people’s possessions can help us keep them alive in memory. And who knows, perhaps if Mike has some free time in the afterlife he will take to haunting a pawn shop.