My Pretty Baby Cried She Was a...Mom? (Birth Story, Vintage Baby Boy Greeting Cards)

Good morning!!

Don't worry, I haven't fled the internet yet-- I've just been busy the past several months as Matthew and I welcomed a brand new baby boy into the world...!! Our son, Remy, was born in late January, and I've been trying to get my wig back on straight ever since. 

Vintage Baby Greeting Card Boy Blue Background

While I promise She Was a Bird is in no danger of becoming a mommy blog (no shade on mommy blogs, I'd just much rather write about vintage typewriters and 1940's decorating than how little sleep I'm getting or what laundry detergent we use on Small Fry's duds [answer: not any and Dreft, respectively]), I hope those readers of you still out there will indulge me in a little rambling on the life altering event itself for posterity. I've been meaning to get to my many woefully blank journals I'd stockpiled for "all that spare time I would have on maternity leave" (ah HAHAHAHA, mister, you're funny), and then remembered there was a perfectly good blog sitting around idle where I could spitball to my heart's content and maybe even be able to reference back to it at some later date. Unlike my long-lost-in-the-attic college jottings or that cache of circa 2007 photos that are in SOME envelope SOMEwhere in this house, I've always been able to find and share words and images I've squirreled away on this blog-- which is my second favorite thing about it (after, of course, hearing from you all from time to time with tantalizing stories of vintage days gone by). So! Get ready for a personal post, or, stick around but wait until next week when I return to our regularly scheduled retro ranting. ;)

Vintage Birth Announcement Card 

Where to even start?

Matthew and I had been together a total of seven years, married two, when we decided to start trying to get pregnant after we got back from our second trip to Paris. There was no way I was missing out on every kind of French food and wine in the world during aforementioned trip, so I kind of marked late July as the "that's when we'll get 'for real' about this family planning stuff'. You'd think from those pamphlets they pass out in high school wellness that it takes BUT ONE TIME, slightly off your guard, even THINKING about the act of conception (or not thinking! Either one!) that you would instantaneously get pregnant, but maybe at thirty, or maybe when you're as massively stressed a person as I feel like I must be at all times, it doesn't necessarily work that way. We got serious about those ovulation tester things after about six months with no child in sight, and around the second month of trying and failing with those "blinky smiley face...ok, no today it's a solid smiley face!!" digital pee sticks, I started legit hating to check my Facebook feed and see another tiny, bald-headed miracle arrive in some else's life. Wasn't this supposed to just happen?? 

Nine whole months into the ordeal, I was out with my mom at an estate sale in Madison, sorting through some sheet music in the basement, when I spied a vintage, early 1980's PacMan cocktail table out of the corner of my eye. This is not a drill, folks, this was the real deal, and for some reason, it was sitting all on its lonesome in the corner of this cinderblocked basement next to a mansized pile of silk outdoor flowers. The model was the kind you'd see at Pizza Hut back in the self same decade (in fact, this one came out of the one on Dickerson Road we used to go to when I was a kid)-- it was on, it was working perfectly, and it was marked $100. Having spent the princely sum of fifty cents all day on some Ann Landers advice guides, I thought I was getting out easy that weekend, but no dice. The owner's son was a middle aged, stringy guy who looked a lot like Tom Skerritt (bristle mustache and all) and after I'd paid him, I took off my 1990s Hopi Indian symbols blazer and, in my uniform of  black dress loafers, black tights, and black dress, and tried in tandem with him to manhandle this monster out the back door and into my mom's Honda Accord...to no avail. We tried it backwards, upside down, sideways...and finally discussed coming back in my dad's truck later in the day before they closed to pick it up. 

When my mom dropped me back at the house, I promptly burst into an uncharacteristic gale of tears... what if turning it upside down had dislodged something in the Pac Man machine and it didn't work anymore? What if we'd scratched up the surface trying to get it into the car? What if the model was some lame version I didn't know about and was a waste of money? What if Matthew gets home and he thinks he has this great cocktail table, and my dad broke it when he loaded it into his truck? Then my hundred dollars was gone, was it dumb to spend $100 on it? Should I have dickered more? What if it wasn't even worth a hundred dollars? And then we're stuck with it! And then it's broken! I called Matthew in Clarksville (his office at his last job was moving to another building, and everyone was pulling overtime that Saturday) and, through my weeping, managed to get the flurry of ideas menacing me across to him. He was a little taken aback, said to calm down and wait until he got home, and he would see what was going on with everything. I proceeded to stomp around the house a little, tears still streaming down my face-- and then thought, hey, you know what, I'm going to take that second pregnancy test from the box. You know, the one I had disconsolately shoved back into the box after its mate read yet another single, not-pregnant line on the Wednesday of the same week? 

And weeeeeelll....bust. My. BUTTONS. After the cursory waiting period, there was a a solid blue cross on the stick.

I texted Matthew a picture of the stick with the words, "Sooooo....?"

Vintage New Baby Greeting Card

For the next nine months, we anxiously followed the updates on the Ovia Pregnancy app I'd downloaded on my phone ("The baby's as big as a pineapple this week! Look at what his little hand would look like if he could touch the screen!!") and googled "pregnant can eat ok" coupled with every kind of food, drink, and medicine you can think of...I had no morning sickness whatsoever, got icked out by the smell of cooking meat, and craved pancakes and turkey sausage at all hours of the day. When we found out we were having a boy, I was a little thrown. But.....! But....! I had twenty girl names picked out, all ready to go, and no boy names! Who am I going to bequeath this closet full of sequined dresses and fur coats to some day? I got over it seconds after the initial gender panic set in, seeing that tiny hand on the ultrasound, looking like it was waving "hello" at us. As long as he was healthy and happy, I decided everything would be ok. I tested high on the initial glucose test that checks to see if you have gestational diabetes, so I had to go back to my doctor's office after a week of eating a strict, mandated diet of almost disgustingly rich foods (we're talking lumberjack breakfast, people-before-they-understood-what-calories-were lunch, and seriously-I-can't-eat-this-many-starches dinner)...and get my blood drawn four times in four hours. Lord have mercy. Turns out I didn't have gestational diabetes, so good deal! My mother-in-law bought me a fancy black and gold maternity dress at the Green Hills Mall Pea In the Pod location as a present that I took as "the official sponsored outfit of Lisa's pregnancy"-- if you saw me once in it, you pretty much saw me 100 x in it. Matthew surprised me by secretly finagling a visit from our friends Rob and Oznur-- I woke up the morning of my baby shower to the two of them sitting at my breakfast table, having flown all the way from the UK to attend the festivities! My mom threw the shower and all my girlfriends and friends of the family turned up to fete me in style. I had a brief scare when the brand of the hummus I'd insisted on having as a healthy alternative to whatever homemade dip my mom was going to make got recalled for listeria...oh, just one of the worst things you can catch if you're pregnant and in your third trimester. Did I mention this year was also the summer of Zika, THE worst thing you can catch if you're pregnant? I spent a lot of 2016 literally jogging from my car to inside buildings and wearing long sleeves and leggings through the heat. But! Again, I made it through in one piece and only complained as much as I had to. 

 Vintage Greeting Card Baby Congrats King Boy

As the new year rolled in, my doctor told me that there was probably no way I was going to go all the way to my due date. I was measuring huge for my height due to extra fluid around the baby, which I continually had to talk myself down from a panic attack about... she also assured me that, after three ultrasounds to determine the height and weight of the baby-to-be, he was a large though healthy as could be baby and the only things I had to worry about were a) how big his head was in terms of delivery [both Matthew and I have enormous heads, soooo] and b) hoping I wasn't in a public place when my (considerable) water broke. The day after his due date was my weekly third trimester appointment, and we scheduled a possible induction for the Monday after, giving the little guy the weekend to show up. I dragged Matthew around three different Goodwills and an indoor flea market that Saturday-- all I wanted to do was lay in the bed and watch old episodes of Project Runway All Stars, but I knew walking was supposed to help the baby arrive. And also hot food-- I put myself through some TRIALS [Nashville hot chicken is not kidding when it calls itself hot chicken] before the Saturday night, two days after my due date, when I sent Matthew to go get Thai food from the Smiling Elephant on the other side of town.

I was watching a vintage episode of the newly posted Unsolved Mysteries on Amazon Prime, and looking through an East Nashville Buy and Sell Group on Facebook for treasures, when I felt something weird. I called Matthew and said, "I'm going to be super embarrassed if this turned out I've just peed myself or done some other kind of thing that happens to pregnant ladies I don't know about, but I'm pretty sure my water just broke?" Homeboy was in line at the Thai place like, "WHAT! REALLY? OMG!" I texted my mom, called my doctor's after hour line, and then took the latter's advice to go to the hospital, where, sure enough, we were checked in around 7 o'clock (sadly sans Thai food...I thought we'd have more time, Thai food!).

Vintage baby boy congratulations card 

An hour after I was admitted, the nurse put me on pitocin to induce contractions, and Jesus Christ Our Lord, did they ever do just that. I really hadn't been through very much pain other than just feeling uncomfortable from how huge I was towards the end in this pregnancy-- that all changed. There was a monitor behind me to measure how strong the contractions were, and I thought I was doing ok around 15...when one cranked up to an 80 something on the monitor, I asked for an epidural WITH THE QUICKNESS. The only time I was really upset through the whole delivery was the epidural-- after how hard the pitocin-induced labor contractions had been for the hour or so I'd been able to stand them without medicine, I just didn't have any strength left and cried and cried and cried as this poor woman tried to stick a needle in my freakin' spine. Low tide for yours truly. Immediately after, however, I felt four hundred percent better, just exhausted and starving (and unable to eat until after the delivery...woe was me). My water finally BROKE broke a little after the epidural, and it was like a scene in Grey's Anatomy where the nurses aren't trying to alarm you, but something medically crazy just happened. Not to be gross, but it sounded like someone had overturned an aquarium right there on the tile floor, just all of a sudden, and with one loud splash. The nurse, who was wonderful and I think had a South African accent, kept giddily saying "I'm sorry, I've just nehvah... NEH-VAH ... seen anything like that before." Once the epidural went in, the only thing that really hurt was the IV that for some reason they put in through a vein the back of my left hand-- it was at a near constant throbbing, but after the seismic contraction pains, I was like, "You know, this could be much, much worse".

Thirteen hours into labor, I still hadn't progressed like I was supposed to-- the baby wouldn't move down into my pelvis, probably still a little shell shocked from the swimming pool he'd called home for nine months being tout à coup emptied in one go. He kept wiggling around in my stomach, ducking in and out of the fetal heart rate monitor on the belly band, and causing an alarm to go off on one of the machines I was hooked to. Finally, after talking my poor mom's head off all through the night and none of us, she, me, or Matthew, having gotten more than twenty or so minutes of sleep, during yet another episode of Unsolved Mysteries on my phone, my doctor came in Sunday morning and said it might be a better option for me to go ahead and have the C section. I'd heard recovery times were better with natural births, so I'd been trying to avoid those two words ever since they'd been offered to me as a possibility instead of induction when we set up my just-in-case appointment. At this point though, I felt like the writing was on the wall and that was the way it was going to go-- I told Matthew, after some discussion, that I was ok with going with the C section delivery. He said he was going out to get a Coke-- really, he chased down my doctor in the hallway before she left for church services to say I was ready to go ahead and have this child be born now instead of waiting another three or four hours to see if he would come down on his own.

So we went into surgery! I was a little scared but the team was so sitcom-level-jovial and I was so out of it from food and sleep deprivation that it seemed to me everything was going to be all right. After no pain whatsoever during the delivery, the little guy made his debut-- shrieking a shriek I am now all too familiar with, lol, as the doctors and nurses sang "Happy Birthday" to him and he was weighed and checked out by the NICU nurses to make sure everything was jake from the waterpark ride he'd been on earlier. It was! And he was! Matthew handed him to me above the surgical field's drape and I started talking to him, the same as I had on all those commutes to Lavergne for work when I was a million years pregnant or those days in the house watching tv before he was born. He looked at me, squalling, and then slowly calmed down and laid his cheek on my chest. I have a video of it or I wouldn't believe it...but I think he recognized me!

And so little Remy, all eight pounds fifteen ounces of him, became a part of our lives.

Vintage baby boy congratulations card digital download

That was two and a half months ago, though it feels like at least ten years have passed since then.

It's extraordinary watching our little micronaut grow... just as you get used to one stage of his development, it feels like another one begins immediately. This apparently continues throughout their lives, lol. Considering we didn't even have a goldfish before (but remain extremely responsible people, ne'ertheless!), it's been quite the learning curve, but we've both eagerly anticipated and celebrated even the smallest little changes as he gets bigger and bigger. "He laughed! Did you see, did you see?!" "I think he's starting to try to crawl!!" As much work as it's been, having a kid has also been the most joyous period of my life-- it sounds hackneyed and overprecious, but they really do change everything. And JOY is the best word for it...I've never worked so hard at anything, but I've also never been so happy with anything. Having a partner who really feels the same way has been no surprise to me, knowing Matthew as I have over lo, these many years-- but I am thankful every day to have someone who has my back and truly cares about my feelings through this crazy process. It also doesn't hurt how cute he and Remy look together when they're making each other laugh. But I digress!

So, there you have it-- my birth story. Can you believe the old girl's a mama now? She can't! :)

its a he thanks to me vintage birth announcement mad men abstract adorable

How about you? What in the heck have you been up to in the almost year since I've dusted off the old blog? Any exciting life changes? Any couldn't-believe-it estate sale finds? I'd love to hear from you if you're still out there!

With the dumpling in mid-February...he's much larger but just as cute now. :)

That's all for now, but I'll be back! There are so many crazy things I've been wanting to write about, and ain't this just the place for it. Stay tuned!

Happy (Belated) Easter! (What I Wore)

Good morning!

Long time no see! I am back from my blogging hiatus, and hope you guys didn't mind the weeklong radio silence too much-- I'll say I missed gabbing at you through this medium a lot more than I thought I would! What's been going on, let's see...found a couple great outfits at a whale of an estate sale Friday, went to a wedding Saturday, and had Easter Brunch with my mom and dad on Sunday-- definitely lots of activity since we spoke last! Of course, first things first-- what I wore on Easter!

Take a look:

What's an Easter Sunday without a fittingly over-the-top bonnet? After some contemplation of the "hat wall" in my den (I'll have to tell you about that later this week), I settled on this floral number which features silk flowers in different shades of blue. I bought this hat at an estate sale in Erin, Tennessee, a tiny little town west of Clarksville. My dad and I must have REALLY wanted to go to an estate sale that weekend, or maybe the preview pictures were really good-- I just remember that when we got there, after a long drive from Nashville, there was hardly anything worth snapping up that hadn't already been snapped up. In the otherwise empty front room of this 1800's farm house, there were a pair of perfect atomic age googie type lamps with their original whipstitch fiberglass shades, plugged into the wall, glowing like a mirage...guess how much? $425 for the pair....FOUR HUNDRED and twenty five DOLLARS for the pair. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but no, that was the actual asking price. Luckily, there was a trunk in one room completely filled with off the wall hats for $3 apiece, and this one came home with me!

I put it together with this gauzy fifties' dress- isn't it strange! I love the scalloped neckline and the powder blue of the dress, and how it is completely see through. What? Why? Have you seen other dresses like this with a similar must-be-worn-with-something-else lack of opacity? It looked much less wrinkly not in broad, unforgiving sun, and I just carried my same Enid Collins bag ("Drifting", a butterfly pattern from I think the early 70's) from the wedding outfit Saturday night.

Because I like to match our outfits so we look even more like a tiny little pair, I put Matthew in this yellow gingham check sports shirt from Kmart's men's department, circa 1965. Isn't it a perfect Beach Boy, Ken Doll looking shirt? It still had the tags from the sixties' on it when I found it at the Rivergate Goodwill.

At my mom's house, we ate lunch and played a ton of Heads Up with my parents, who are surprisingly good at the "Hey Mr. DJ" category. I can hear my mom saying, "What d'you mean SURPRISINGLY?", but I have never laughed so hard as when I realized both my folks and my husband were all insistently humming "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" in unison. Have you played the game? It's essentially charades on an iphone, where you hold the cell to your head and have people give you clues as people, places, and things flash across the screen in different categories. The best part, though, is that it records the people doing the clue-giving. My dad, trying to get Matthew to guess "Chicago": Dad: "It's a musical, it's in a big city, it's near the Great Lakes-" Matthew: "Oh, ohohohohohohoh, I know this one, OKLAHOMA!" just as the buzzer went off. The video, which is now saved on my phone for posterity, captures that moment as I almost fell out of my chair laughing, my true heart's laugh ringing out. It's hard to be in the hot seat as the "guesser" on this game! I just love seeing the video after the fact.

Here we are in the backyard of my parents house...look how if you put the picture in Black and white, it could be Easter 1960!

Last but not least, my mom told me to put my iPhone over this nest in the hedge just to our right in the photo above, and see if I couldn't get a better picture of the robin's eggs in it than she had on her Kodak. When we looked at the picture, wow! Two of the little birds had JUST HATCHED, and a third was making a break for it! We were careful not to disturb the little guys on their first day out of embryo, but how neat to see the tiny things. It was an Easter miracle!

How about you? Did you do anything special or family related this last weekend? What's the most over the top season-appropriate attire you've donned? Had any close encounters with Ranger Rick like nature in all its glory? What have you been up to this last week? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I will see you back here tomorrow for a regularly scheduled week of vintage goodness! Have a great Monday, enjoy some of this sunshine! Til then.

Christmas Loot

Good morning!

We lived! Christmas is over! Long live Christmas! Matthew and I spent most of yesterday after I posted about Ru watching the fourth season of Eastbound and Down, drinking palomas, and eating entirely too many servings of vegan mac 'n cheez. I have to admit that I'm a little bit worse for wear after our day long bacchanal, but dragged myself into work this morning in the bitter cold for the one more day I have to work this week. My weekend-off foruitously lined up with the holiday, so I'm out Fri-Sat-Sun after today! YES. I'm going to spend all day tomorrow sleeping in and playing with my new Christmas spoils. First off, we don't have a holiday photo from this year (because I'm lazy), but here's one from last year, taken by Chad McClarnon at his now annual holiday party:

Don't we look festive! I have a doozy of dress to wear to the McClarnon seasonal soirée this year, but it's not until this weekend (two words: Bob. Mackie). I am looking forward to Saturday!

So-- what did Santa leave you on Christmas morn? I'm not to the point in my adult life where I scorn the pleasure of being completely spoiled on December 25th with commercial goods. Here are some of the things Matthew got me for Christmas this year:

1) Bee Gees Lunchbox:

Not that I've been wanting one of these since seventh grade, but I have been totally wanting one of these since seventh grade. There was an article in a local "indie" publication called SMACK, circa 1997, about all the amazing things you could find at thrift stores, and in one of the photo insets, was this lunchbox. Just sitting on a shelf at the Salvation Army. For all I know, the photographer brought his late seventies' lunchbox into the store and planted it as a "ringer" retro good, but nevertheless, I have ever since spent at least a fraction of every Metro Nashville thrift store visit secretly hoping I'd find one. Matthew scooped this one up for me from Ebay! I reiterate: I am so spoiled. After seeing honest-to-God Barry Gibb appearing on The Barry Gibb Talk Show sketch on that Fallon-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live (!!), we have been playing "Nights on Broadway" nonstop in the house for like a week. "I had to folllllow you....though you did not waaaant me to....but that won't stop my loooooovin' you..." has been blasting on Spotify an almost embarrassing majority of the time I've been off work this week. Viva los Bee Gees! I am exicted to start taking my lunch to work in this, most impractical of vintage lunch containers. Don't be jealous!

2) Czech dangle mummy earrings

I may or may not have left a link to an ebay auction in a Facebook message to Matthew. I'm only sorry that I'm not sorry-- how freakin' cool are these?! Combining the curse of the pharaoh with the Theda-Bara-silent-movie-ishness of dangle earrings, I have not been so excited about earrings since he got me a pair of encased-in-lucite-crab-earrings (see here) one Valentine's day. They're not here yet as the auction didn't end in time for holiday shipping, but you'd better believe they will be featuring large in my accessory wardrobe from the moment the postman delivers them until well into the new year. Expect a lot of dramatic head-tosses to draw attention to my ear adornment. Yay!

3) A Surface RT!!

I kind of feel like someone's grandma who was gifted an unbelievably au courant gift for Christmas. Matthew and his dad and April threw in on this laptop-meets-tablet device and I am still trying to figure out how to use it. Shouts of "Bibi, where is my email? What if I want to read a book? How do I close this tab?! How come I can't install Silverlight!" have been ringing through our home since dawn yesterday, but I have managed to watch Chicago Hope while cooking (score! Usually I would just have to blast the speakers on the computer in the den to have audio-accompaniment to my culinary endeavors!), read a 1929 issue of Photoplay, download some scary ebooks from the library, record myself singing along to a karaoke version of Cher's "Just Like Jesse James", and set the screen to a photo of Joan Crawford. Not bad, not bad. Matthew installed a PacMan app on it last night, but I haven't tried that yet. Hopefully, I will learn how to use this device before this time next year, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Alternately, I have to say, the things I was most excited about giving as gifts this year:

1) Transporter from Star Trek: Next Generation:

Yes, I dang did get this for my sister and her husband for Christmas. It was sitting on a shelf in the toy section of the Great Escape on Charlotte, with the price written on a yellow sticky note. Under the price? The capital letters, simple description: "IT WORKS!!". I didn't know exactly what "it works" meant in this context-- Matthew and I joked with the guy behind the counter that it should be way more expensive if it actually works, maybe we should call the Smithsonian, etc, etc-- but once Sus popped in the C batteries (isn't that a flashback? IT RUNS ON C BATTERIES), we were surprised and delighted to watch a stand-in pink Power Ranger figure disappear before our very eyes! Sus has a Picard figurine but I couldn't figure out how to get her to bring it without ruining the surprise, so a bendy doll of Kimberly stood in for an Enterprise crew member. Check out this video on Youtube to see the thing in action...I thought they would use some clunky "switch the chambers" thing to create the disappearance effect, but it's something to do with lights and mirrors, and it looks REALLY neat!

2) It's a Man's Man's watch...from Timex:

I got Matthew a pretty neat vintage early 80's gaming console for Christmas (which deserves its own post, another day) as his big present, but I was also excited to give him this retro-looking watch from Timex as another in our parade of holiday gifts. Doesn't it look like something Michael Douglas would wear in Wall Street? Because his store doesn't have a large, visible clock near his workspace, and he's not able to use his phone, my poor little guy often loses track of time at work, and I thought, "What could be more practical, old school, and manly, than a Timex digital watch?" It beeps on the hour, features an indiglo face, and draws stares from his coworkers. "Is it some kind of Pebble?" No, it's just a time piece! But a neat one, and next-to-the-console, probably the most well received gift I've ever given my now-husband.

There were more gifts given and received, but these are just some of the highlights. What a Christmas it was! I'm ready for tomorrow so I can get more time to tinker with my toys!

So! Did you make off like a bandit this Christmas? Give or receive any amazing gifts? Have any holiday traditions that bear recounting? 

That's all for today, but I'll see you tomorrow for Photo Friday! Happy day after Christmas! Talk to you then.

Matthew's a Star! (Honeywell Security Telecommunicators' "You're in My Heart" Music Video)

Good morning!

Hope you had a great weekend! Things were wild and crazy, w-w-wild and crazy, at the homestead Friday-- fellow librarian Jen Q and I hosted a party at my house involving large quantities of wine and dramatic readings from a pile of library-owned romance paperbacks (so scandalous). There was a great turnout, and I don't know if I've laughed that hard at something in real life in probably a year's time, so all and all, a success. Saturday morning, I woke up with the devil's own hangover and an update in my Facebook feed from a friend of mine about a Honeywell Security video. Sounds like advertising spam, right? NO, NO IT WAS NOT. It was Matthew's big music video debut! Folks, check out my tiny guy's little 15 minutes of fame (link here, stills from the video below):

Professionally, Matthew has traded his KORG keyboard for a desktop keyboard in recent years, transitioning into the tech field from the unstable world of "giggin' for a livin'". In spite of the swap, he is still a MONSTER of a piano player and an even better composer. I stand by the idea that if it was 1986, we would have to use a platinum rake to manage the obscene amounts of money he would command as a frontman of a pop band (I would probably be replaced by Tawny Kitaen in this scenario, but let's just dream it's me for a moment); however, in 2013, the music business just isn't what it once was. Which is why hearing a new Telecommunicators song is like Christmas came early for us Matthew's-music-supporters! In August, Matthew went on set to record a music video for Honeywell Security, who had commissioned a song about "being connected even when you're away from home". My extremely talented husband came up with the song "You're in My Heart" (which you can download for free, here). 

Selected lyrics:

Think of me, through the static
I hear you like a voice inside my head
With you and me, it's automatic
We're ready for whatever lies ahead

When you're far from home
You're never really alone
Doesn't matter if we're apart
You're in my heart

Do you love it? Correct answer: yes. Matthew had previously penned a song called "Opportunity Knocks" for a Honeywell promotional video, but this new spot features not only the song, but Matthew and his band in a starring role in the production!

Whole band shot, with Bobby (guitar, also produced the song), Noah (drums), and Ernest (bass)

Thoughts on the song: one, the "ha-HA-ha-heart" line will tug at the most unsentimental of heartstrings, and is catchy as all get out; two, I am completely biased, but this is GREAT. When we first met in 2008, I invited Matthew over to my house for our second date to watch the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (like you do..I still stand by forced-movie-screenings as a sterling example of how you vet boyfriends in the early stages of a relationship). He was working on some tracks for an album that summer, early drafts of which had been posted to Myspace (yes, Myspace was still a thing at that point-- isn't that bizarre to think about?), and I remember the split second of "oh, no, I'm going to have to listen to his album and act like I like it" portion of the date like it was yesterday. At that point in my life, the mating call of "Here, listen to my album!" cues me going "Here, let me grab another beer first". I have listened to so, so many acoustic covers of Beatles songs, weird, tripped out electronica, and annoyingly saccharine-ified-on-ukuele country standards in my college and post college dating life that I had become conditioned to look poorly upon the prospect of a musician significant other. As much as I support creative arts, I am not listening to your ska/jam band version of Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere", and that is just the way it is. Matthew turned on his first track and I was surprised to hear something that was a tonal cousin to the music of New Order/Bauhaus/Depeche Mode with the sentimental heart of Cat Stevens. Neo-new-wave-vulnerability! And look at me now... I married the guy! 

Check out his tiny 1,000,000 watt smile here:

The video was shot at an east Nashville home I would like to live in, and centers around the idea of Matthew being a musician on the road who is still able to connect with his family via a host of Honeywell Security products. My Facebook blew up when I posted this on Saturday with "What! Matthew's living a secret life as a bigamist!" to which I countered "I am ok with a secret family if I can not so secretly live in their house". Seriously, someone let me have a house like this. As we're actually going through the conversations about starting a family and buying a house in the next year, it's really sweet to see him interacting with a wife, a daughter, and a chocolate Labrador puppy after my own heart in a dream house as a visual placeholder for what I hope 2014 has in store for us! Baby + house + dog = living the good life. 

The video, shot by photographer/filmmaker/friend of us Chad McClarnon, is just gorgeous to look at.  I'm the kind of person who would cry at a Hallmark commercial, so subjects like "family" and "homesickness", etc, etc, are particularly émouvant to me. I congratulate this commerical and its makers for being so sweet! You can see behind-the-scenes shots from the filming under the hashtag #honeywellheart on Chad's instagram (see 'em all, from other members of the cast and crew, here). Isn't living in the future amazing?

Anyway, I'm so proud I'm busting my vest about Bab's video stardom. Here's to more Telecommunicators commercial success in the future! :)

So! What do you think about the video and the song? If you like what you hear, there's a whole album worth of goodies in the sidebar of the blog to the right (link here) and again, you can download the song with one fell click here. Do you have any family members or significant others with musical talent? What's the worst ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend musical project you've had to support in the name of love? Let's talk!

Back to the vintage grind tomorrow, thanks for listening to my proud-wife ramblings today! I'll see you back here Tuesday. Til then!

              

Wedding Week 4: Honeymoon Snaps!

Good morning!

I'm finishing off this week sans our usual She Was a Bird flourish of Photo Friday, as I wanted to show you a couple photos from our honeymoon! We went to Jamaica the Monday after our Saturday wedding, and came back home 7 days later! I am really glad we went, and we had a ball, but as I've told several friends, I could have kissed the ground I missed America so bad by the last day!

We left BNA for Miami's International Airport in the afternoon, had a short plane trip down to the tip of Florida, and posted up at Bacardi's Mojito bar for the three hour lay over. The plane arrived in Jamaica around eight that night, and we took a cab from the airport in Montego Bay (yes! Just like "Kokomo!" We saw Key Largo, and then were in Montego! Baby,  why don't we go?) to the Decameron in Runaway Bay, St. Ann Parish. The cab driver was a tall man in his fifties' named Clive who spent the entire forty five minute ride describing various cultural and physical landmarks of Jamaican history in fluent, liltingly accented English, practically without taking a breath. Dude really knew his Jamaican country side! Unfortunately, it was pitch black with no illumination for the most part of his tour, and we had to imagine "up there, the home of Usain Bolt" and " on this spot, where Bob Marley was born". 

The nightscapes were punctuated with tiny bars, the size of a small storage shed, the doorless doorframe of which gave view to space for maybe three people and a handhewn configuration of shelves and bottles behind a tiny counter. "ROLEX CLUB", one hand painted sign read. "PRETTY LADYS PLACE", another. I didn't get any pictures, but they looked almost exactly like this, but illuminated at night by a single fluorescent light. "Eeen JahMAYcah, is all kin' of people...you got de black, de Chiiinese. De Indian, and de white man. Eeen JahMAYcah... it's nottabout de color of de skin...but de color of the money," Clive opined, as we bounced along down one of Jamaica's main highways, on the left side like British roadways, large commercial trucks passing on the right. He talked about various cultural groups, how they came to the islands, and which groups had been most successful in terms who lived in the residential areas, and who lived in the "innah CIT.TEE." I wish I could remember more, but I was so tired and on edge at this point it was hard to retain information.

We rolled into the resort, tipped Clive heavily, and checked into our room. Each room was in its own little cabin type thing, like a nicer (but less kitsch, sadly) version of the Cave City concrete teepees in Kentucky and California. I loved being "separate" from the other vacationers while still being "around people". I always hate walking down hotel hallways in a dripping bathing suit or in the middle of the night on an ice run!

The beach, naturally, was the main attraction, and we got up every day to go sit on the shore like it was a paying job. The all-inclusiveness included drinks, but the quality of those drinks largely depended on the bartender (who might also be a dancer in the night show, or head chef at the evening's meal). We sat with the waves at our feet and drank frozen pina coladas and talked about all the marine life we hoped to see!

On Tuesday, walking through the commissary type area for breakfast, we realized we were possibly the only Americans on the entire resort! Most people were from the UK, and the dining room was a patchwork quilt of accents from Northern England, Southern England, and everywhere in between. I heard a little German, a little maaaybe Dutch, and one, very vociferous fan of a butt-shaking, built Jamaican dancer, who kept shaking the national team jersey he was wearing, and yelling "COLOMBIA! CO-LOM-BI-AAAA" in much the way Tony Montana does in Scarface at the stage. The resort people were very friendly and only a little mean in their teasing of us poor tourists. Once, when getting beach towels, one enormous man greeted us with an aggressive, insistent, "WA GWAN? Waaaa gwaaan, mon? Wa gwan?", sounding like Terry Crews as a Martian. Turns out, that's the Jamaican "What's up?". We heard this many other times over the course of the trip (along with "Ya, mon", almost as one word, and peppered throughout conversation the same as a Valley Girl might say "like"), but this was hands down the most intimidating time.

Here, a fellow vacationer from New Zealand took our photo. Matthew: "I bet our accents sound totally insane to you." Kiwi: "Yaah, theeey DO-oooOO." Well, at least it was mutual.

Before I left for vacation, I took some of the money I received from my bridal shower and dropped about eighty bucks at Target. Folks, you know I don't own any clothes that are both a) cotton and b) not swishy little cocktail dresses (ie ANYTHING suitable for beach wear), so I did some much needed wardrobe shopping. Luckily, September is the end of the line for Target beachwear, and with deeply discounted shorts and tops and shoes and everything else, I was able to make out like a bandit. All of my pictures seem to show me in swimsuit and shorts or skirt, but I had dresses and t shirt and everything! My poor dad, who has always been mildly against my "creative" attitude towards personal self-expression through dress, kept commenting over these pictures, "You look so grown up! You should get clothes from there more often! No joke, you look nice!" I'll take whatever compliments I can get, though! See how blue the water is?

Here, Matthew poses with a skeleton we bought from a guy on the beach who was carving them. He had flaming hearts with the Harley Davidson logo flying above them right next to Rastafarians smoking next to maps of Jamaica, in terms of his figural work. I felt bad because when we started the bargaining process, he mentioned that he usually gets $70 for a carving. Um, in estate sale or flea market terms, that means you usually get $35, and you would take $20, so I offered $25...oops. He wasn't mean but he was obviously one, not taking twenty five bucks for his work and two, deeply disappointed at this opening negotiation. Over the course of several trips to the Jetty Bar (next to which he was set up), we talked him down to $30, and heck, look at the thing. It was worth it! We named him "Skullford".

Here I am playing Trivial Pursuit on the beach. YES, I WON. What did you think?! Bibi put up a pretty good fight, but I emerged victorious. Matthew was amazed I knew that the Green Bay Packers were the most winning team of the 1960's super bowls. My dad lectures me about everything, and Vince Lombardi was no exception! This is day 5 down there, and thanks to SPF 50 sunscreen, I still look pretty pale:

Matthew, doing his best Jack Lord impersonation. He looked so freakin' cute on a beach.

We found this Alice in Wonderland sized chess set near our cabin, and Matthew may or may not have beaten me (in spite of professing to be "terrible" at chess. What a hustler!). You can see other cabins like ours in the background, and at night, they would be covered with little translucent skinned lizards. As you can imagine, we both had a fit looking at them in extreme closeup.

The food was so strange here! I decided to go pesceterian for the trip, and the best thing I had was at the "rsvp only" menu-based restaurant upstairs of the buffet-style commissary. The "Jamaican Run Down" included scallops, shrimp, crab, and snapper all in a curry-like sauce, and it was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. We also had lobster tail one night, all we could eat (which was a lot)! The weirdest thing I saw on the buffet is a two way tie for "braised cow foot" (nope) and "curried goat" (HECK no), the latter of which is a local delicacy! Poor goats. There was brown sugar cane granules to put in your coffee at every meal, but the hilarious part? It's distributed in Jamaica, but imported from Brazil. Dang! And I thought I had a local product on my hands.

All and all, we had a fabulous time, but I was so ready to go back on the last day that I hardly slept at all the night before! I told my parents, upon returning to Nashville, that one of the best parts of the honeymoon was getting to go on it with Matthew. As tense as situations got so far from home (the power went out one night for like 8 hours in 90 degree weather! The car ride back to the airport in daylight was ACTUALLY hair-raisingly dangerous w/r/t other drivers! The decided lack of non-poultry, pork, or beef based protein on the buffets! etc etc), he never said a single cross word to me and we got along like real troupers throughout both the fun and the slightly taxing parts of our honeymoon. I think that says a lot for the married couple we hope to become!!

Did you or a friend go on a neat destination honeymoon? Have you been to Jamaica? What was your experience of that country? Let's talk!

That's all for this week! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment on this life-event heavy posting schedule. Next week, nothin' but vintage stuff, je te promets! Have a great weekend, and I'll see you on the other side. Til then!

Wedding Week 3: First Dance and Cake

Good morning!

Thanks for all the well wishes yesterday! We're speeding right along with wedding week to bring you pictures of the first dance and the other post-ceremony events of our big day. Lo, look upon us shaking a tail feather on an impromptu dance floor (this first one might be my favorite wedding photo):

I preface these photos by mentioning I had made the greatest and best reception mix of all time especially for the occasion. Matthew and I are both almost too into FM Gold hits of the late seventies' and early eighties'-- bands like REO Speedwagon and my beloved Huey Lewis and the News don't have the street-cred-earning weight of saying how much I love Lou Reed or Bryan Ferry, but by godfrey, I love them just as much on the eight hundredth rotation of "Roll with the Changes" or "Heart and Soul" as I did the first time. And I ain't ashamed! 

The playlist was built around that criterion and that time frame. My dad bailed on my proposed father-daughter dance of A Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie" (and, honestly, disco of that calibre requires 100% commitment on the dance floor, so I'll give him a pass). I thought I would probably just have music at the reception, but no "formal" dancing. However, in a split second decision as speeches by Rob, my dad, Matthew's dad, Kelsey, Ernest, and Noah wrapped up, Matthew cued our song from the playlist and led me to the front of the room for our first dance.

What song did we choose? "September", by Earth, Wind and Fire, which goes a little bit like this:

Do you remember the 21st night of September?
Love was changing the mind of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away
Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing
As we danced in the night
Remember, how the stars stole the night away, yeah yeah yeah
Hey hey hey
Ba de ya, say do you remember
Ba de ya, dancing in September
Ba de ya, never was a cloudy day

COULD IT BE. MORE PERFECT. IT COULD NOT. The sentimental, sweet, upbeat feeling of the song, and dancing with my Bab, made me stop worrying about looking dumb in front of everyone and just have a fabulous time with my brand new husband. He's such a cute dancer, too, that it was hard not to feel like this dance was our victory lap after months of planning.

I only almost cried three times at the wedding-- once during Matthew's dad's speech, once during my dad's speech, and once as I hugged my parents after leaving the dance floor directly after the first dance. "You know," my dad said, in the pontificating way he starts many a sentence, "It's funny, but I always thought, wedding traditions like first dance and all that were kind of dumb, and people just did them because they had to. But watching you all out there, you just looked so happy, like the definition of a beaming bride, and I thought, 'This is really nice'." Cue stifling of waterworks of an amazing proportion. That's why I especially like that last photo I posted, where my dad's looking on as I'm laughing at some complicated footwork Matthew's perpetrating. Memories!

We let Rob, as the farthest-traveling guest, be our witness as we signed our marriage certificate to make it legitimate legitimate. Here are some photos Oznur took of the happy event:

Kelsey's mom, Linda, with help from her friends Charli and Carolyn, made this wedding cake for us! I think it looks gorgeous, and the little ornaments on top were just exactly the right size! There was also a chocolate mousse flanked on the table by two sprites from Castlevania for the "groom's cake" (you knew Matthew was going to get a retro video game reference in there somewhere, right?).

As Monica, our photographer, was taking photos of the slicing of the cake and all that jazz, I got nervous over the "feeding cake to each other" part, which I was worried would look too weird, cuddly, babyish to be cute in the photos. Matthew solved this problem for me by pretending to feed me, then redirecting his fork's course straight into his own mouth. The resultant Kodak moment you see below (thanks to Matthew's cousin, Rachel):

I mean, if that doesn't deserve to be hanging over the mantle in our family home, I don't know what does. 

Did you do a first dance? If I hadn't done "September", and gone with an earlier idea of doing all forties' and fifties' songs, I think Louis Armstrong's version of "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" would have been our first dance. What song/era/reception playlist did you choose? What thought governed your choice? I have to say, the best first dances at a wedding I've been to were at my friend Caroline's, where she and her dad danced to "Nothing Can Change This Love" by Sam Cooke, and she and her husband danced to "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison. SERIOUSLY. IT WAS LIKE IN A MOVIE. 

I think I'll do a lightening fast Photo Friday tomorrow of our honeymoon in Jamaica, then it's back to your regularly scheduled vintage posts! Bear with me, and I'll see you tomorrow for some tropical souvenir snaps. Til then!

Bonus: You know you want to stream this completely awesome reception mix. Check it out:

                                               

Week of Wedding 2: The Ceremony

Good morning!

Without further ado, your humble narrator as a bride:

AAAH, right? What do you think?! After trying on every dress it seemed like they had at David's Bridal, and never finding anything that seemed even close to "me", this dress was standing on a mannequin in the window of the Jessica McClintock store at Cool Springs Galleria. My mom and I were cutting across the second floor to look for shoes at Macy's when I saw the hoop skirt and went..."Well, I know I said I declared war on bridal dresses and am actually going to walk the aisle in a pickle barrel, but listen...I think I should try that dress on." Wasp waisted and pintucked at the bodice? Check. Ivory satin for days? Check. It looked even better when I tried it on. Who would have thought! Jessica McClintock, founder of Gunne Sax, ubiquitous prom gown manufacturer, and my bridal gown designer. I could not be more pleased. As for the veil, I kept telling my mom I wanted to look exactly like something that would sit at the top of a wedding cake-- frothy and feminine without being frou frou, ultra traditional without being tight-laced. I love it! This look is E-X-A-C-T-L-Y what I wanted.

I kept eeking out, "I look like a vintage Barbie! I am so happy right now!" Kelsey, who's been my best friend since 1997, helped me get ready, and had a "day of wedding" kit that is like nothing a non-professional wedding planner has ever seen. From granola bars ("I googled "Vegan snacks", these are good!" she said) to chalk for stains to rice paper to blot perspiring pores, this girl is like A MACHINE. And this machine freakin' nails it at weddings. She also took me to my hair appointment that morning and served as a day-long morale coach to everyone involved in the wedding. Between her and the Huberts and Rob, I kept remembering all day what an amazing group of friends I have, and that was the spark I needed to keep me not scared about the ceremony!

I assure you I'll bug you all over the place when I get my formal wedding photos back, but here are some that Kelsey took as the photographer was also taking photos. I wore a bracelet, necklace, and earring rhinestone jewelry set from the sixties' (half off day at a Michael Taylor estate sale, and looking like way more than $8), and those gold Steve Madden shoes from the shoe post I did a while back. No one could see the slippers, but they made me feel even more Cinderella (if possible).

Matthew was in our room at the hotel well I readied myself in Kelsey's room. The bride's side of the preparation involved double sided tape, last minute spritzes of hairspray, the fastening of tiny clasps on jewelry, and squeals. The groom's side looked like this:

That's bibi eating a square of Lindt chocolate while playing Mario Kart on his 3DS. He is possibly the cutest thing ever. Kelsey took a video of us seeing each other in our little wedding clothes for the first time, and it was a really sweet moment. Then we broke back into boys team and girls team of wedding attendants. Our camp drank champagne and joked about how I could probably make it from the half-balcony of the hotel room to the drainpipe to the parking lot if my nerves got the best of me. Here's Kelsey (l) and Alyx (r) and then my sister Sus and me:

After that, we took about 1,000,000 formal photos, and got ready for the main event! Here's Matthew an hour or two later getting ready to go in with Pastor Chris and his brother Noah:

The processional music we chose was "March of the Siamese Children" from the 1956 movie version of The King and I (dubbed from tv version of the scene here). I was absolutely obsessed with this movie around fourth grade, at which time I had committed the soundtrack to memory and was totally in love with Yul Brynner ("Ah...I forget...English not scientific enough for use of chopsticks"...burn, English nationals...ouch). The song from the presentation of the king's many progeny to their new governess peaks at the presentation of the number one born son, whose entrance in heralded by clanging cymbals and swelling strings. Where do you think I decided to come in? 

                                                  

The aside my dad is making to me in the photo below has something to do with the fact that it took us so long to walk down the aisle. During the rehearsal, I mentioned to everyone that in spite of having rearranged the order and length of the song professionally (thank you, producer-friend Bobby, for making this happen!), there was still a small room and a lot of music! Accordingly, we practiced walking slow but there was a good forty seconds or so to go when it was supposed to be time for the father to escort his daughter down the aisle in the actual event. It was a classic "Lisa and her dad" moment:

Dad: ((in a whisper, but over the music)) We're gonna look dumb, man! How long do wait before we walk?

Me: You know who they're waiting on, right? Us! We're the show! Let 'em wait! I ain't walkin' til I hear cymbals!

Dad: ((standing solemnly, then cracking up again)) They're all in there like, what the heck are they waiting on?

Me: I'm waiting on my cymbals!

It was totally worth it. I would also like to mention that I worried for no less than the entire walk down the aisle that my "back looked fat" as I was walking or that my bra strap was showing. Success! Neither was true!

Pastor Chris delivered a really sweet ceremony. The one hiccough was when he mentioned to Matthew, in the preamble to the vows, that "Lisa is going to have days where she's stressed out from work, or she's tired. Lisa might have bad hair days--" to which Babu immediately interjected, "She will NOT!" and we both giggled as the audience outright laughed. I mentioned later at  the reception that I don't have bad hair days, I just call out of work, sick ("SICK OF THIS HAIR!"), but it was a cute little moment. I could almost see Matthew through my veil, but it was so surreal how the whole event took place in soft-focus behind the tulle netting! Also, what a "wow this is for real!" moment when he lifted the blusher and kissed this very happy bride.

We face the guests as man and wife! I specifically asked the pastor to introduce us as "Mr. and Mrs. Matthew H------", because whatever the opposite of feminist thought on that is, that's what I subscribe to. I'm nobody's property, but to be Mrs. [Husband Name] [Last Name] is something I've been looking forward to for years and years, ever since my grandma used to sign her checks in that format. 1962, I've arrived! Here I am!

Here we are just after the ceremony, giving a hug! It was sweet because I was so giddy the entire time after the ceremony....we did it! We're wed! Matthew had a hard time letting go of me after each hug, and could you blame him? Smitten to death, both of us.

Thanks again to Kelsey and Jules for taking these photos so I could tell you about them!

So! What do you remember from your wedding ceremony, the actually nitty gritty of the event? Have you had a wedding or been to one where the ceremony was really special? Let's talk!

More on our first dance and cake tomorrow! You'll be sick of weddings by the time I'm done with this this week, haha. Thanks in advance for your forbearance, and I'll see you soon! Til then.