88 Miles Per Hour

When I think about our wedding, it was very much a nerd country hybrid. I wanted the everything to feel handmade, homey, family, and very much a representation of me. You know when you go into your grandma's house and there are layers of things, patterns, objects, pictures, textures, that blend into a beautiful tapestry of life and the lives that have touched throughout the years? Yeah that's me only I'm 23 years old, far from grandmothering. So what you got was lace, mason jars, Cheerwine, candy, and a Tardis wedding cake.

Me and Kasey planned that wedding in two and a half months. We had next to nothing to pay for it all. Which was no problem because I have been thrifting things for the wedding for quite a long time. I hand crocheted all the flowers. Collected all the mason jars from family members. Collected coffee cups for the last year for the favors. Handmade of the wedding invites. Family friend made hand-spun cotton candy. I DIYed pretty much every detail. I was out in grandma Maxine's garage digging out old metal wash tubs to hold the glass bottle Cheerwines. I used my own home decor to fill in the look with owls, Pyrex, glass bottles, clothes pins...and it was beautiful. It was beyond my dream wedding. So there is a tease for the upcoming fully detailed wedding post!

The point is when deciding on the cake, we knew we wanted a Tardis on the top, but I also wanted the DeLorean on it. I knew hotwheels had come out with one earlier in the year, but were proving impossible to find. In the end we had our amazing three layered, vanilla bean iced, lemon, Doctor Who cake. But I still wanted to find that DeLorean! Back to the Future is my favorite film, and trilogy, of all time. Of all time! They have been my favorite films since I can remember. But I don't own any kind of memorabilia. I tend to find things in trendy little vintage shops that are always so expensive that I wish at times to be a rich nerd.

Like this beauty. Found it in NoDa last week at a place called The Rat's Nest. It was a neat little place, but of course full of thrift finds turned over for nice profits. In others words: I can look, not buy. This was stuck up in the rafters and I began jumping up and down like a little girl. Of course it was $200. I kindly asked the man if I could take pictures and be on my way.

Fast forward to me and Kasey grocery shopping this weekend and at checkout was a small display of Hotwheels. I walk over to glance when lo and behold there it was, THE DELOREAN! For a cool $0.99!

Currently the DeLorean is residing in my purse. A constant reminder that if you put your mind to it, anything is possible! Great Scott! It's time to cook breakfast!

Don't Care

I recently came across a pair of white tights with little peach flowers on them. They reminded me of the ones my mother forced me to wear when I was a child. I wore them today with my sheer pale peach dress with the poofy sleeves. This dress is actually a vintage nightie I snagged at Goodwill. Throw a thin brown leather belt on it and *poof* it's a dress! Anyways, it was freezing today and it was the perfect semi-summer-only opportunity I will have to wear them before Autumn. I didn't have much to do today before work, but I couldn't bare to be alone. I overslept, drank a lot of coffee, forced a shower, overlooked the hair-falling-out situation, then told myself to dress up so I would feel better.

I drove down to my favorite thrift store where my favorite thrift store lady told me I hadn't been there in a month...A month? A MONTH!?!? Well...actually that sounds correct. Work, eat, sleep, repeat has been my life for the past month. I went in for some personal shopping time not really thinking about finding anything. I just wanted to lose myself in the discovery, in the racks, in the stories of the beautiful objects, in the conversations around me, in my comforting world of collected things. My favorite thrift store had doubled in volume of stuff in the last month. It was wonderful. There was a late 1960's wedding dress in the window. Before I had the chance to play dress up in it some old lady who runs a rental business snagged it up. I felt really angry about this. That dress would never belong to someone who it was meant for because she would now only rent it to some rich girl who has a taste for vintage clothing.

I went on to discover all clothes were 50% off (too much volume of stuff I suppose) and to my delight I found three dresses on the $1 rack. All different, all late 60's/early 70's, all mine. And then a vintage Samsonite blue stewardess bag, a red leather belt, a pair of 70's lace up boots, and an 80's poofy purple snow coat that perfectly matches my 80's snow pants. All for $9.70.

I left with my little treasures and headed to work to eat before I passed out. I sat down with my mini tuna sandwich when Josh began sweeping the lobby. I heard him laugh and connected it to the fact I was scarfing the sandwich down without breathing.

"I'm starving!" I said through bread, lettuce, and pickles.

"Yeah, I see that, but that's not what I'm laughing at."

"....what?"

"Your tights, you just don't care do you?"

"They have flowers on them!" I exclaimed in defense.

"Yeah...Only you can wear that kind of stuff and just wear it and not care. It's nice. You just don't care." then he walked off.

Josh is different. He is kind of slow, grew up in special classes, regarded as never going to make it high in life, but I love him. He doesn't always do well in social situation or in expressing himself, but when he said that to today I just felt so...me. He didn't me that I don't care in the sense of what people think or anything along those lines. He meant that I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid to be myself.

I express myself through clothing. I love that peach nightie dress because when I wear it I feel the exact way I felt when I would dress up in my grandmas' silking nighties and prance around her house all day long. I wear those tights with the little peach flowers on them because I can remember sitting in church on Sundays, after my mom had forced them on me, and counting the flowers until service was over. I wore those things to be comforted, because I just needed some sense of comfort today. And those kinds of emotions drive the way I dress.

It's how I express things that I don't...that I can't talk about in spoken words.

That is how I "don't care." That is how I am me.