Frock Fridays: Dress Yourself

One cold morning last week, as I was messing around on my laptop at the kitchen island while Jon read the paper and Charlie twitched with dreams at our feet, I pulled up this blog.  "Jon," said I, "remember that Frock Fridays I posted the other week - the one for our date night while you're here?"

"Um."  Jon replied.  "Yes.  There was a dress?"

(God, I love this boy.)

Long story short, I asked Jon what he'd want me to wear for our date if he could choose my outfit.  This could be dangerous, sure, but after reading Jenni's post on dressing for your man and its 125 comments - as well as the caustic inspiration from Raven - I thought I was in safe enough territory.  After all, guys love it when girls play up their most womanly assets, and how much more feminine can you get than a curvy red frock and pumps with smokey eyes?

Well.  It turns out that Jon, although ever diplomatic, would prefer to see me in something a bit more casual and classic.  "How about jeans?" he asked.  "Like the ones you're wearing now.  And a white shirt.  Kind of ruffly, maybe?"  By this point I was clicking through Polyvore.  "No, not like that," he said, rejecting a top.  "Less... frumpy."  (Ah, Jenni was right!)  Apparently he thinks it's sexy when girls tuck their jeans into boots, so we added a pair from Nine West and I chose a purse - the only direction he gave was "brown and practical. Why do women always carry such big bags?"  After picking out some simple silver jewelry, he sat back, satisfied.  "Yes," he mused.  "You could wear that."

[ jeans / top / boots (sold out) / blazer / necklace / earrings / bag ]

In the end, I wore a charcoal dress from H&M with black tights and gold flats - we met up with a friend for drinks before having a delicious dinner at Circa and then heading to my high school's annual young alum reunion at a bar, which all seemed to call for just a little more glitz - but I've got an outfit for next time!  Jeans and a white top... who knew that boys like the basics?

linking up with {long distance loving} today

Pumpkin Cheesecake - A Family Affair

Dear readers, I have a special treat for you today: my great aunt Louise has offered to guest post!  She's an incredible cook and her pumpkin cheesecake has been a star of our family Thanksgivings for the past few years, so I had to ask her to share it with you.  I know the holiday is over, but this dessert is amazing no matter what the occasion - let me know if you make it!

I’m so glad that Betsy invited me to be a guest blogger here.  This is a new thing for me, so be kind!  Betsy asked me to tell you about the pumpkin cheesecake I’ve been making for family Thanksgivings for the past several years, and I will.  However, I’d also like to tell you how Betsy inspired our family to start getting together more often and how much that means to me.

I’m married to Betsy’s great-uncle Seth.  So I’m her great-aunt-in-law.  Lots of hyphens there, for sure.  Over the years I knew Betsy as one of a pair of darling little girls at family weddings.  Aside here—one of my happiest memories is of her Pappy playing the piano with both of them at an after wedding party .  He was so patient, and they were having so much fun!

Anyway, years went on as they do, and there weren’t many family weddings.   Little girls grow up.  Betsy graduated college and had a summer job here in Charlottesville before she was going to head off to London to graduate school.  We invited her to dinner.  In walked this tall, beautiful, intelligent, and charming young lady.  Seth and I really enjoyed getting to know the all-grown-up version of little Betsy.  Conversation turned to music.  Betsy and I went into the library to look for a version of Pur ti Miro on YouTube.   And also, both being Anglophiles, we searched for various versions of the song  Jerusalem.   What a sight we must have been—a nice Jewish girl and your basic Methodist, both as American as, shall we say, pumpkin cheesecake (I will get to that, truly), singing a hymn that is just about as British as you can get.  We had a ball! 

We had so much fun that Betsy thought we should share it with the rest of the family.  She looked around the house and decided where everyone could stay if we had a family Thanksgiving at our house.  AND WE DID!!!  The next Thanksgiving Betsy and Sarah and their parents, Nana and Pappy, and Betsy’s Uncle Mark and his wife Joanna all came to our house, and it was wonderful.  So now we all get together somewhere for Thanksgivings.  Jon has been added to the mix and adds a delightful British flavor to the gatherings.  This year Seth’s son David and his lovely Hungarian doctor partner Kryztina were with us also.  I am so thankful that we have started this tradition of being together for Thanksgiving.  It has made us closer, and we tend to get together more during the year also.  So thank you, Betsy!

Now, on to the cheesecake - here's the recipe for the version that inspired mine.  I simplified the one we serve quite a bit.  The marshmallow topping had to go since, as a vegetarian, I don’t want the gelatin in it.  Then I nixed a formal crust.  I like to focus on the actual cheesecake, so I just oil the pan and then dust it with crumbs.  This year I had special crumbs made from ginger cookies brought to us from Sweden by David and Krystina!  Seth took a photo of almost everything I used in the recipe.  The only thing missing are the blueberries and roasted apple-pear sauce that I decided to add at the last minute.

My one special thing is to actually roast a pumpkin and puree it instead of using canned pumpkin.  I imagine the canned tastes just as good, but my youngest grandson just loves me to make pies and pumpkins out of actual pumpkins.  So for Quincy that’s just what I do even when he’s not here to eat them.  I just put all the ingredients in a food processor and puree like crazy.  That’s my standard way to make all cheesecakes except for the ones with beaten egg whites.  Works great!  Then I bake according to the recipe.  The cake always looks so great just coming out of the oven, nice and puffy.  (See photo!)  But it always falls.  Time for topping.

I like fruit toppings for cheesecakes, and what could be more suitable for Thanksgiving than cranberry topping?  I started off to make a topping pretty much like regular cranberry sauce.  Then I remembered that I had a few frozen blueberries that needed to be used.  In they went with the 12 oz of fresh cranberries and the cup of sugar.  Then there was supposed to be a cup of water, but that sounded too boring.  I had some roasted apple and pear sauce, so I did about a half cup of that and a half cup plus of water.  Then I just boiled it all down to a wonderful thick and jammy consistency and spread it out on top of the cheesecake.  My husband took a photo of it as well as all the other photos.  I hope you all enjoyed your thanksgiving as much as we did, and that you also have someone in your family like Betsy who inspires you all to get together.

Wedding Wednesday: Guest List

Since we're now well into the holiday season with all of its parties and entertaining and friends and family, I thought we could talk about the guest list for today's post.  Every wedding professional agrees that creating (and especially cutting) the guest list is one of the most stressful parts of the planning process - you can find a few articles about it here, here, here, and here.  There are so many opportunities for politics and drama to rear their ugly heads; even if you get along famously with each other's friends, there's a lot to navigate.  From family dynamics to dating histories to childhood cliques and beyond, the guest list conversation is studded with relationship landmines.

When Jon and I started discussing the feel of our wedding, we knew we wanted to invite a manageable number of guests.  It's all relative, of course, so the size of our list may seem huge or tiny to some of you, but we decided that we'd like to have 120-140 friends and family members with us for our celebration, which we thought was a reasonable window in which to include everyone we wanted without making us feel like we'd be spending the whole night on five-minute hellos.  After we had the budget talk with my parents, secured the venue (which can fit up to 140), and signed on with our caterer, we had a better idea of how many people we could afford to host.

via

Jon and I started off by compiling our dream guest list - we included everyone we wanted to invite, price and practicality be damned.  Neither one of us has a huge periphery of acquaintances we felt obliged to add, so we actually came up with a pretty reasonable 156 in total.  Based on my calculations, though, we had to get that number down to 120.  It wasn't unbearably painful to whittle it to 138 together, but then we got stuck.  So, after a day of sitting on the list, I opened it up on my own and cut another ten.  Then I sent it to Jon, asking him to pick eight more to remove.

Now, Jon and I have had our disagreements as we've embarked on wedding planning, and I will absolutely admit that, when I lose, I often do so with very bad grace.  (Sorry, Jon.  You may possibly be a saint!)  But Jon's argument in this instance was perfectly simple and true, and I quickly accepted his point: I had gotten so caught up in the planning that I had become too rigid and was forgetting why we were having a wedding in the first place.  With his permission, I'm pasting some of his email here...

But just as important for me is that this wedding represents us, our lives, and the people who have shaped us. I don't see that in the heavily edited version of the invite list that we're working with now - we only get one shot at this, and I want to share it with as many people who are important to us as we can. Of course the most important thing about our wedding for me is you, and I want our vision for us to come true. All the elements are there for something beautiful to happen. For me though, the thing that will make our wedding magical is the people we share it with, and I want ours to be a wedding of inclusion. I know you want that too and I know we have to make tough decisions, but I think in a rush to plan we've been to quick to chop down the numbers.

Yeah, he's great - and, more often than I give him credit for in this process, he's right.  Jon accepted my apology very gallantly, and we agreed to keep the 138 guests.  After all, what's a wedding without our loved ones to share it with?

via

Obviously, there are tons of considerations that go into your final guest list: budgets, priorities, family sizes, location, and timing, among others.  Here are the top three guidelines that we decided to use to keep us straight:

→ immediate family only (though we did make one exception to this for a very good friend who happens to be more distantly related)
→ we must have seen/spoken to the guest in the past six months

→ guests get a plus one if they're married, engaged, or have been dating their significant other since December 2011 (even if we've never met the partner)

We also felt strongly that we didn't want a B list, which most wedding professionals recommend couples have.  Our attitude was that if someone wasn't important enough to us to be on the A list, we didn't want to include them just to fill space.  This is a crude way of looking at things, but you're spending a certain amount of money per person at your wedding - would you want to spend that much on them otherwise?  For the 138 people we sent our Save the Dates to, the answer was a resounding yes!

linking up with something charming for #weddingwednesday today!

Running Vlog

Okay, dear readers. Here it is: the long-awaited running vlog.  As I've said before, I can't seem to write about running without sounding blindingly obnoxious.  But I do want to share my experiences with you, so perhaps a video will soften what I'm trying to say.  Well... we can hope, right?

MVB once tweeted about how unrealistic it is that everyone only talks about their good runs - we all have bad runs, and we should just admit it.  She's totally right.  It's impossible for every run to feel amazing physically and mentally; if it were, more people would be runners.  But this video is positive for the most part because, even though I have absolutely had miserable runs, my overall experience with running has been transformative.  The past 11 months of exploring what I can do has been an incredible learning curve for me, mentally as well as physically, and I feel so much more connected to both mind and body because I run.

And on that hippy-dippy note...

(Remember how I said that, in my unemployment, I'm going to work on blogging techniques and, as part of that, my video editing skills?  I clearly haven't gotten around to that yet.  Sorry!)  I'd love to hear from you if you run, too, or are thinking about starting to run - like in blogging, the running community helps keep me on track while inspiring me to push myself!

Week in Numbers and Pictures

What a week!  Jon arrived last Saturday, and we had an amazing time together.  The best parts of the visit were the normal things - remembering how much milk Jon takes in his coffee, walking Charlie and keeping both of them from chasing squirrels, talking about current events (tabloid gossip for me, weird news stories for him) while curled under blankets on the couch - and often I'd forget that we were in a long-distance slog instead of living a wonderfully mundane life together.  But then it would hit me that these amazing moments are incredibly special and I'd get sappy and... well, you know where things go after that.  But let's get back to the fun stuff, shall we?

Here's a rundown of our week in numbers plus some photos!  I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, dear readers - we certainly did.

On Thursday, we ran 10 kilometers in my first ever Turkey Trot.  Jon, Sarah, and Uncle Markie signed up with me and my mother completed the 2 mile race at the same time.  It was so much fun, even though it's apparently one of the hilliest courses in the area!  We definitely earned our food that day.

Jon made fun of 9 “historic” buildings in Charlottesville as being younger than the modern bits of London.  (But just because we’re newer, mister, doesn’t mean we’re weaker!  Remember that time we threw off the tyrannical yoke of the monarchy?  I thought so.)

Before Jon left yesterday, we went to Target so he could stock up on American junk food to bring back for his flatmates.  He was very impressed by the 8 varieties of Goldfish we saw, and has resolved to try them all.

We cheered as the Redskins beat the Cowboys by 7 points on Thursday’s game – Sarah explained the nuances of American football, and I pretended I already knew all the rules.  Jon's catching on!

Charlie slept on his bed at night, but jumped up to join Jon me around 6am every day.  Jon took a while to get used to Charlie’s enthusiastic morning greeting – it’s not the most gentle way to wake up, that’s for sure!  But I loved snuggling with my boys.

My mother totally understood when Jon politely refused leftovers for dinner on Saturday night before leaving.  He wanted to grab a burger from Five Guys at the airport!

To celebrate the season, we tasted an assortment of 4 different autumnal beers.  Sarah was desperate for pumpkin ale, but Jon’s favorite was the Sam Adams Oktoberfest.

Over the course of the week, Jon and I sounded the “save me” distress call 3 times – once in the midst of family drama on Wednesday evening, once while Christmas shopping at the mall on Black Friday, and once at my annual young alum high school reunion on Friday night.

Jon caved to my peer pressure and ordered 2 drinks from Starbucks over the course of the week even though he’s protesting their failure to pay tax in the UK.  (Apparently this is a big thing in the news at the moment; Amazon seems to be guilty of it, too.)

It’s only 1 month until we see each other again!  I fly to Heathrow on the evening of December 23rd and will be with Jon and his family on Christmas Eve day.  Can't wait!

Frock Fridays: Black Friday

Oof, dear readers.  After yesterday's 10k - more on that next week! - and then a full Thanksgiving meal, my body wants to divorce me on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.  I completely understand where it's coming from.

But now we're officially onwards and upwards to Christmas!  {av} suggested that we use today to celebrate Black Friday, a classic American holiday.  For those of you abroad who aren't familiar with this festival, let me explain: Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, officially kicks off the Christmas season with the shopping day to end all shopping days in this country.  Stores open their doors at the crack of dawn to accomodate all the consumers chasing the crazy sales - people have died in the crush.

Jon and I will be heading to the mall today, though we'll go later to avoid the insanity of the first wave.  (He can't resist the sales, especially on top of the favorable exchange rate!)  Nothing of the below outfit will be on my shopping list, though, because I already own every piece: this is exactly what I wore last Friday for my final day at the office!  Okay, truth: the dress I wore was Calvin Klein (not Oasis) but was an identical shape, and the necklace - similar but not the same - came off after only a few hours because my hair kept getting caught in the clasp.  But this is me and it's black, and so it seemed appropriate for the theme.

Not so appropriate, now that I have a black dog, is the white coat.  But that's a conversation for another  time...

[ coat / dress / earrings / necklace / scarf / gloves / lip / bag / boots ]

The Fourth Thursday In November

Wedding Wednesday: Save The Date!

Remember how I said that Caroline from Pink Orchid Invites was great?  It's been confirmed - look at the lovely note she sent me with our Save the Dates!  But you're not here for notes, I know; you want to see the goods.  So, without further ado, I give you our Save the Date postcards. Drumroll, please...

We're so pleased with them!  They're classic and crisp but still warm and pretty, I think.  We first decided to use postcards for our Save the Dates because they're a bit cheaper, both in terms of product and postage, but I also love the simplicity of the look.  Our monogram is on the front - we wanted to be a bit traditional here rather than using a photo or any other graphic.  And we decided to include our wedding website on the back with the rest of the information because, for a destination wedding, it's crucial for guests to have as many details as possible as soon as possible so that appropriate plans can be made.  (Sorry, dear readers; you don't get to see the address.  Some things must be kept sacred!)

I love the idea of using wedding-specific stamps for all of the stationery we'll be sending out, but I wasn't crazy about what USPS has on offer at the moment- and Jon vetoed the ones I did sort of like as being too cliché.  However, our relationship came to the rescue!  Did you know that our milestones fall on the dates of major events in US/UK history?  It's true - we started dating on October 19, the anniversary of the day that Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781, leading to the end of the Revolutionary War.  (Jon wants you to know that, loss or no loss, he was Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis, thank you very much.)  And our wedding is on the same date that the British burned Washington, DC and torched the White House in 1814.  So it seemed appropriate to use stamps that celebrated our shared history, which is why we picked the stamp commemorating the War of 1812:

Jon's also a sailor, so it's about his hobby just as much as it is about my country kicking his country all over the Atlantic seaboard.  (Of course, Jon totally disputes the veracity of this last statement, but he likes the stamp, too.)

However, our next money-saving idea after using postcards for the Save the Dates was to post the ones going to England domestically from England.  Sending them through USPS would cost $1.05 each; sending them through Royal Mail alone will cost £0.60 or $0.95.  (Yes, that's only a $0.10 difference, but the total savings of $10 means that I can... well, actually, I don't know what I'll do with that money.  But it will be great, I promise!)  Plus, I'd rather not put two stamps on the postcard because there's not much space in that corner anyway and it looks a little messy.  Royal Mail doesn't do wedding stamps, though, which I know because we tweeted about it.  (See, Nana?  Twitter does have a purpose!)

In the end, we're just going to go with the classic Machin stamps with the Queen's profile on them.  Hey, it's traditional! The English love tradition, right?  Right.  And on that note, I'm going to go save my date from my other date - sorry, I couldn't help myself!  But really, Charlie has taken a real shine to Jon, who can't quite match the physicality of puppy enthusiasm, and I think I need to moderate.  Wish me luck!

linking up with something charming for #WeddingWednesday

The Man Behind The Blog

I loved your responses yesterday, dear readers!  You've reminded me how much more I have to appreciate, and for that I thank you.  But we could just go in circles here, so shall we move on to The Man Behind The Blog?

Last week, I promised you a crack at Jon and many of you wrote in with questions for him about our relationship and our plans for the future.  They were fantastic - you brought up a lot of topics that we've been discussing together for quite some time now.  And I feel like a bit of a fraud, because Betsy Transatlantically is supposed to be a real snapshot of my life (and his, for this post) but unfortunately most of your questions can't be answered in this forum.  They brought up such relevant issues that we can't address them in a public way here.  I'll try to touch on a few of them just briefly so you don't think I'm being totally evasive, but I do hope you understand that a lot of them deal with questions that are sensitive for one reason or another.

We don't know for sure where we'll be living after we get married.  We don't even know how long it will take for us to be together after the wedding.  Some of this has to do with work commitments and some with family commitments, but most of it is tied up in the bureaucracy of a transatlantic relationship.  I've got some guest posts lined up for the new year that will talk about the different visa options available to engaged/married couples in our position, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to tell you where we ourselves are in the process until much farther down the road.

Similarly, some of you asked about suggestions to make a long distance relationship work.  I've blogged a little bit about how we're navigating ours, but Jon and I both agree that we won't be in a productive place to give advice until we've come out on the other end.  Having successfully made it through months of a transatlantic engagement (and, possibly, months of a transatlantic marriage) will give us perspective that we simply don't have right now.

The one question that Jon can answer for you - well, sort of - is this: he doesn't have a favorite football team.  (He says to tell your British husband that he was born in Ipswich, which is apparently an explanation in and of itself.)

This is kind of humbling for me, actually, because I should have known that you'd ask the most insightful questions and I'm really sorry that I was totally unprepared.  But I promise that you'll be the first to know when we are able to share all of these answers publicly!

photos taken by me in Charlottesville, VA; November 19, 2012
thanks to Victoria for letting me borrow her title for this post!

Thankful

chalkboard/frame via

This past year has held huge change for me.  Since last Thanksgiving, I quit my job in London, got engaged, moved back to the States, accepted a job in DC, adopted Charlie, and resigned from the job in DC.  All of the ups and downs have really highlighted the amazing people who have been here for me along the way, and I want to take a minute today to thank a few of them - and you.

There’s so much to acknowledge here, but right now I want to say thank you for giving me the freedom to be transatlantic.  We first visited England together when I was 11, and you encouraged me to go abroad as often as I could through high school and college.  When I told you I’d been accepted to a graduate program in London, you barely blinked – though Mom and I both cried saying goodbye at the airport.  You supported me when I decided to move back to England to be with Jon, and you graciously understood when I told you that we wanted to get married in Suffolk.  I wouldn't be embarking on this next chapter of my life if you hadn't championed my adventures and lent me your trust and strength. I love you.

Before my four-year anniversary with Jon, I posted him a parcel of his favorite American junk food.  I told you that he had requested Combos, and you texted back, "That's my brother-in-law! What flavor will you be sending?"  Your text made me cry because I'd never heard you call Jon that and it was so sweet.  And then it made me a little nauseous because Combos are disgusting and the last thing I wanted to think about was whether to get jalapeño cheddar or pepperoni pizza.  And then it made me laugh because that's a totally valid question, and it means that you're practical and romantic at the same time and that you want me to be happy and that's what I want for you too and so it's probably a good thing that we're sisters.

I know that the amount of personal information I share on this blog makes you uncomfortable, so I'll keep this short and sweet: thank you for always having my best interests at heart. Thank you for pushing when I need a push and understanding that, when I push back, it's because I know you'll steer me in the right direction through sheer force of love and momentum.

You've been here for a few days now, so you've heard all of this already - but I'm going to say it again. Thank you for your limitless patience and unending love, thank you for seeing beyond our struggles with the geographical distance and for focusing on the joy of connecting in any way we can whenever we can; thank you for reminding me that natural is glamorous and simple is sexy, thank you for taking me in both good and bad states and somehow averaging them out to see the best woman possible.  I love you with all of my soul.

You've only been in my life for three months, but you've already taught me so much.  Because you of, I see the delight rather than the duty in running, the contentment rather than the guilt of a mid-morning nap, and the pleasure rather than the discomfort of being squished by someone who loves you.  You are my babyfaced sweetie pie, Charlemagne, and you have stolen my heart.

It's amazing, you know, to come to my blog and find messages of love and support and encouragement from all over the globe - my mother couldn't quite believe that your comments on Thursday were flying in from South Africa, Norway, England, France, and every corner of the United States.  I'm beyond touched by the relationships I've built through blogging, and I'm grateful to each and every one of you for your unfailing company as I've navigated this year.  And I'm thankful, too, for my friends in real life, who are too often neglected on this blog.  Whether from school, college, or graduate school, Washington, New York, or London - you have been unwavering in your love and enthusiasm for every adventure I have embarked upon, and I couldn't have been as brave (if I have been brave) without your constant friendship.  Thank you.

The Results Are In - We Have A Winner!

Well, dear readers, the results are in!  Thank you to everyone who took my survey - there were some really enlightening answers and some very surprising responses in the final analysis, and I'm so grateful for all your feedback.  (To the seven of you who said you loved getting to know Charlie: you have excellent taste in dogs.  To the six of you who said you weren't crazy about those posts: we'll wear you down eventually!)  Here are some of the results:

 

So that's who you are and why you keep coming back!  I'm delighted that you shared your thoughts with me.  Thank you especially to everyone who filled out the comment boxes!  I do know many of you, but look forward to reading a few new-to-me blogs.  I'll definitely take your suggestions into account when planning and writing my posts, and I hope that this isn't the end of your feedback - please feel free to email me if you want to pass along other comments.

And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for: the winner of my 200 follower giveaway is Christine B.!  Christine, I'll email you and we'll sort out details.

Thank you again to everyone for everything - I'm so pleased to have you all here and I very much look forward to continuing this journey with you.  And now, onward into this holiday week!

Frock Fridays: Caped Crusaders

A few weekends ago, I told my sister that Mom is making me a cape.  Here's her response:

But, actually, capes are supercool.  Mom made herself one last winter, and I got tons o' compliments when I borrowed it the other day.  And tell me that I'm not jumping on an awesome bandwagon after you've checked out these trendsetters - one, two, and three.

So, last weekend, Mom and I went to G Street Fabrics and picked out a gorgeous navy wool/cashmere blend to use for my cape; we also looked at buttons and trim, but we'll decide about the specifics later.  I really like double-breasted gold buttons in a kind of military style (maybe like this one) but researching options is so much fun!  Here are a few of my favorites...

[ classic / minimalist / peacoat / sweater / luxury / ruffled ]

What do you think, dear readers?  Have you ever worn a cape?  How can I pull it off without looking like I'm in costume?  And which style do you like best?  Any and all advice very much appreciated!

Wedding Wednesday: Stationery Two

Okay, dear readers, where did we leave off last time?  Yes - Etsy.  Now, I know that wedding (and, more generally, lifestyle) bloggers love Etsy, and I do understand that.  Sometimes I even agree. But Etsy stirs up a lot of uncomfortable emotions for me.  On the one hand, I feel overwhelmed.  (There are too many options!)  On the other, I feel inadequate.  (And I could never be that creative or crafty!)  A whole website full of beautiful things that people made themselves?  What's the point in trying to be a well-rounded woman and, you know, plan a wedding if I collapse into frustrated wails every time I click on?  Wait - is this just me?  No, I'm pretty sure it isn't.  If it were, the founder of Regretsy wouldn't have scored a book deal.

But I do recognize that there are incredibly talented people on Etsy and that it is, when used properly, a fantastic resource.  And I realized that there are ways to use Etsy without having an emotional breakdown: I needed to limit my options.

Because I'm planning what is, in effect, a destination wedding, I communicate with my vendors almost exclusively through the internet.  I will meet each of them at least once before next August, but between now and then we'll rely on email and Skype.  The majority of Etsy stores are based in the United States and the opportunity to actually work with someone local on a piece of my wedding was too good to pass up, so I first filtered the shops to show only those in the DC area.

Etsy presented a really great selection even when limited, but the decision was easy in the end.  Almost every image I liked turned out to be from the same store: Pink Orchid Invites.  There wasn't one design that was exactly what we had in mind, but I loved different aspects of most of her pieces and so emailed Caroline to see if we could work together to create a custom design.  She was totally open and friendly in our emails, so we met up as soon as I moved back to DC.

Mom came too, of course, and we selected the ink and paper colors we liked - which is so important to do in person, I think, because they look completely different on a computer screen - and got a feel for the varieties of paper.  I pointed out the kinds of designs that Jon and I preferred and showed Caroline some examples of other companies' work that were similar to the direction we wanted.  When we left, I was absolutely confident that she understood what we were trying to create and that she was excited about helping us make it happen.

Like I said last week, I want the design of our paper goods to be consistent throughout the ceremony, so we decided to create the invitation first because it's the most complicated and then use it as a base for all of the other pieces.  By the end of the summer, Jon and I (and the parents) had signed off on the design.  Now we're just waiting for our Save the Dates to arrive - I'll show you as soon as they get here, of course!  In the meantime, though, I hope a glimpse of our monogram will hold you....

Ears In The Wind

There comes a time in every blogger's life when she throws down her laptop (gently, of course) and sighs, "This is just not going to happen."  That time for me, dear readers, was last night.  I had a good topic all picked out for today's post, but I wasn't getting any traction when I sat down to write it and then I fell down the rabbit hole of the internet and all of a sudden it was way past my bedtime and I had nothing to share with you.  Nothing, that is, except for the fruits of my travels...

Have you read this Q&A about women's rights and responsibilities, specifically when it comes to voting and leadership, written by a very conservative Christian?  I simply don't understand the world this woman lives in, but I'm captivated.  Now I really want to read Rachel Held Evans' A Year Of Biblical Womanhood.

Charlie isn't actually a bad dog - in fact, he graduated from Basic Obedience a week early! - but he's figured out that he can jump the four-foot chain link fence that encircles our backyard.  Now we can't ever take him out without a leash because he loves showing off his new skill!  So I've been researching options for new fences and everything seemed to lead me to Houzz.  How did I not know about this website before?  This is going to be a dangerous new discovery, I can tell already!

My sister is coming home next week for Thanksgiving, which means I need to do a major clean-out of the bathroom we share.  There are products in there that have been hiding since we were in high school - I bet there's even a little baggie of orthodontic rubber bands in some forsaken corner - and so it's going to be quite a project.  I looked up the shelf life of beauty and bath products and am a bit dismayed because: first, it means that I'm going to have nothing left, and second, that it's a miracle I haven't gotten sick from everything I use! 

I love the show Nashville.  I mean, love.  As Sarah tweeted the other week, I dream in southern accents on Wednesday nights.  I've got Undermine and If I Didn't Know Better going round and round my head, but I've also just learned that the daughters are bona fide musicians, too.  This is the song they perform in the show, but I'm also obsessed with their covers of Sunglasses at Night and I Won't Give Up.

Betsy Transatlantically is never going to be a business or make me real money and I don't want it to - this needs to stay a labor of love, for my own sanity - but I've gotten to the point where I'm examining in what ways I might want to monetize.  This reality check is great but this is a good way to be prepared even on a small scale.  And here's a Mini-Alt Week post from vmac and cheese that gathers up a bunch of lessons on sponsorship.  I went back to an old Blog Brunch recap and am rereading all the bloggers' comments on this very topic, which is really helpful too!

My mother is totally fed up with all of the Thanksgiving recipe suggestions I keep emailing her.  I would like this pumpkin spice cake, please, and also the whipped butternut squash with red onions, but then we're going to need some cranberry port jam, too, and probably these granola-crusted nuts.  Thanks, Mom!  I promise that you can bug me when Jon and I host our first Thanksgiving - if I'm not already bombarding you hourly with "OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING?" emails, that is.

Last but not least, I'll leave you with a few interactive posts from the past week:  You've only got a few more days to enter my giveaway!  A winner will be announced on Sunday.  And have you taken my survey yet?  I'd really appreciate your feedback!  If you want some fun, you can fill out the form to ask Jon a question that he'll answer here on the blog.  I'm seriously considering planting some juicy questions just because I want to know the answers!

Happy Tuesday, dear readers.  I hope you're heading into the week with gusto!

Make Your Voice Heard!

Happy Monday!  Somehow, it's mid-November; suddenly, things feel like they're moving along really fast and I just wanted to take today to enjoy a little blogger/reader engagement.  I'm delighted by the response that my giveaway is receiving - it's so fun to hear about all the transatlantic things you like and miss and I wish I could respond to every comment that you're leaving!  (If you haven't entered yet, you still have a few days to try your luck...)

via

It's unbelievably exciting for me to go through the archives to see how Betsy Transatlantically has grown since April 2010.  It's evolved, of course, as I have, and the focus of the content has changed as I've gone through my expat/repat journey.  But I'd like to take a bit more direction from you, dear readers!  I want to hear what you want to read here.  Are there topics you'd like to hear more (or less) about?  Are you a fan of guest posts?  How do you feel when I get political and/or spiritual?  Which series keep you coming back?

And so, without further ado, I give you my first survey!  Please do let me know what you think - I blog for me, sure, but I also blog for you, and I'd love to hear about your favorite (and not-so-favorite) pieces of Betsy Transatlantically.  I'm still working through my transition to being a lifestyle blogger while maintaining my expat focus, so I'd really appreciate any guidance you might have.  Click here to make your voice heard.

But wait - there's more, because I already know one of the things you want to see more of on Betsy Transatlantically!  After much batting of eyelashes, which doesn't work as well over FaceTime as you'd think, I am able to present to you the man behind the blog: Jon.  He appears here much more than he'd like already so I owe him big time for agreeing to do this, but I couldn't ignore the opportunity for you to hear from Mr Transatlantic himself.  There's a form at the bottom of this post and you've got until Sunday evening to submit your questions.  Anything you want to know about - well, anything! - you can ask and Jon will answer. I've just had to promise him two things:

1. I won't edit his replies in any way.
2. He is only required to answer five questions, though he can pick more if he feels so inclined.

Obviously, I feel a bit like I've opened Pandora's Box here, but I think this is going to be fun!  I can't wait to find out what you're curious about... and what his thoughts are on things I don't dare ask him myself.  Thank you so much for helping me out with the survey, dear readers, and have fun with the form!  (Feel free to leave your name with your question, if you'd like.)

photo credit

Thanks especially to Kate and Gesci for their help on the survey!

Silent Sunday

Pappy on the piano; October 2012

Very much looking forward to having my family together for Thanksgiving in a week and a half and, on this Veterans' Day, sending love and appreciation to all those who serve or have served in our armed forces, including my grandfather.

Psst! have you entered my giveaway yet? Only one more week until it closes!

Frock Fridays: Date Night

Jon and I were apart for fifteen weeks after I moved back to DC from London - fifteen weeks, which is 105 days or 2,520 hours or 525,600 minutes.  No, wait, that's Rent.  My bad.  But it seemed like an excruciatingly long time!

Since I flew over for a visit in September (read about that here, here, here, here, and here) and Jon's landing at Dulles next Saturday, this stretch of long distance will have only been eight weeks and two days long.  That's almost nothing, right?  But I'm still beyond excited to see him next weekend and to share Thanksgiving with him.  This is Jon's third holiday with my family, so he knows what he's in for - and he knows what he'll be saying "I do" to in less than a year!

We've got a lot of low-key plans on top of the usual Thanksgiving festivities, like happy hours with friends and an outing to register for wedding gifts and possibly a road trip to Charlottesville, but we're also going to go on a real date to celebrate our four year anniversary, which was in mid-October.  I feel like I should va-va-voom it up for the occasion, don't you?  The boy needs some American glamour in his gloomy English life...

[ dress / earrings / necklace / nail polish / eyeliner / mascara / eyeshadow / perfume / clutch / shoes / wrap ]

Hey, you should enter my giveaway if you need some help making your own date night!

Ellie Goulding playing as you cook from River Cottage Every Day while wearing the NW3 scarf... how romantic!

Graphics and Fonts and Design, Oh My!

Dear readers, you know how I'm a total grammar snob and logophile.  I've tried to keep it to a minimum on the blog - though all bets are off on Twitter, where the punctuation police come out to play - but I found the coolest nerdy thing over the summer and, since this seems to be The Week of the Written Word around here, I just had to share it with you today.

The Project Twins, a graphic design and illustration studio based in Ireland, made the most beautiful A-Z depictions of unusual words.  You can find the complete lexicography here, but let me show you my favorites:

If you're tired of these sesquipedalian words, here's a smaller one for you: giveaway! Have you entered yet?