whats in a name

My dad and i had a conversation about whether or not i was going to change my name. so when i said what i thought was the obvious answer.....which was yes.....he couldnt understand why.

it made me wonder are women not changing their names now a days? i never gave it a second thought about changing my name to Mrs Lopez. but my dad thought that it was obsurd.

then he suggested that i do the whole Straker-Lopez thing. to which i replied......NO. i already have 2 middle names if i then add on a second last name it is going to take me forever to write my signature.

This is when my mom chimmed into the conversation and stated that she should have kept her last name and then hyponated all of our names. so imagine if they did that then my new last name would be Charles-Straker-Lopez.....that is just crazy.

So i proceed to tell my dad that i thought it was sweet that he wanted me to keep my last name but that it was important to me to change it to be the same as my husband and that he had nothing to worry about and that the Straker name would be carried on with all the man Straker men that we have in our family and that he had nothing to worry about.

Who knew it was that important to him.....

Just A Thought

damned if you do.....

you know what drives me nuts? people that spend all year round complaining about the weather.

In the winter time they are like..."oh my gosh it is so cold. there is to much snow. i wish it was hot out, when is it going to be summer....." blah blah blah.

Then they finally get what they want and it is summer and it is hot and here comes more complaining..."omg it is so hot. it is too hot, oh man it is so gross out....." blah blah blah

i am not saying that i dont complain about weather. but the only time you will hear me complain is when i am putting on 12 layers of clothes to leave the house...but i accept it becuz i know that i live in canada and i know that half the year it is going to be cold. but i get so happy when it is hot out. it makes me think of my guy and Trinidad so i love it.

but if you are going to spend all year round complaining about the weather then maybe you should move some that has the same temp all year round.....like England. but then i am sure that you will complain about all the rain......

Just a thought

Tradition or superstition

One of the first things that all of us girls hear about when we are little and talking about weddings is that on the day of your wedding you must have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. So while we are running around getting all of our other things for our wedding we are trying to find all these things as well.

But here is the thing.......i don’t really care about all those things. And the more time I put into thinking about what I can borrow from someone for my wedding day the more I want to just say forget the whole thing I don’t really care. Then I run into a problem. I become scared. Becuz I keep thinking that if I don’t do these things them my marriage will be doomed.

So I decided that I wanted to know where this whole things started so that I can figure out if it is worth it or not. The first thing that I discovered is that for many years people have missed out the end of the tradition. The saying is actually: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and a sixpence in her shoe. Now I know that a sixpence hasn’t been in circulation in the UK since 1980. So maybe that is why they dropped that part of it.

Here is a quick run down of what everything stands for.

Something Old: keeps the bride connected to her family. So traditionally her something old would be related to that

Something new: means optimism and hope for the future

Something borrowed: they say if you borrow something from a happily married woman then it is like they are sharing some of their happiness with you.

Something blue: blue apparently represents love, modesty, fidelity, good luck, purity and loyalty.

And a sixpence in her shoe: was suppose to bring financial security to the new couple.

Now that I know all this, I feel like I have to do it becuz if I didn’t it would almost be like I am tempting the fate of my marriage if I didn’t continue with the tradition. The question is, has this become more of a superstition then a tradition?

Just a thought

Good intension was there but......

My future husband is a beyond wonderful man. he tries to go above and beyond to make me happy. and when he proposed it was quite the surprise. I mean, sure we had talked about it. but we had not talk about it happening when it did. which i think was great becuz it is really hard to truly surprise me.

But i think what he did not realize and what i think a lot of men dont realize is that once us ladies say yes, we are in a sprint to get everything that we want to make that day perfect.

so when we initially started talking about our wedding and what we wanted and how things were going to get done, i had said to Antonio "you know you are going to have to do the brunt of the work becuz i cant do it from here". so he was all ready to take charge and do everything....the first day. but as the days went on i can hear all the overwhelming pressure beginning to build and about to bubble over. until finally i got him to admit that he didnt want to do it all.

that is when he finally came to the realization that it is hard being a woman planning a wedding. there are so many little details that men dont think of that go into that day. little details like table cloths, centre pieces, flowers, music, invitations, a minister, dj and......i can go on and on.

but it made me wonder. do men really block all the wedding planning out and just show up that day in a new suit (that most dont even realize that you picked out) and think that all that just magically came together? i mean there are days that i know i call Antonio with a million wedding things that we have to talk about and all he hears out of my voice is the charlie brown teacher voice coming through his end of the phone.

I mean i have given him 3 jobs.....just 3, to do with the wedding and he still has yet to complete them. and they are 3 very important things that we cant do without, the pastor, the dj and the food. our wedding is just over a month away and i still dont have any of those things. and that scares me.....*place awkward laugh here*. I ask him about it almost every day also and he keeps telling me yup i got it under control and all i keep thinking is "is it normal for me to want to choke the person i am suppose to be spending the rest of my life with?"

why is it that i have this feeling that when i get there a week before my.....oops i mean our wedding i am going to turn into bridezilla? i mean he has helped out a bit and he has the good intention to help but.......it is like pulling teeth out of my own mouth sometimes. I guess the saying is true behind ever good man there is a great woman....telling him what to do.

All i know is........Antonio is lucky he is cute ;)

Just A Thought

Trini Style

So if you talk to my best friend she can tell you that even before I met my fiancé I always said that I wanted to get married in Trinidad. So maybe you can call it luck or coincidence that I meet my fiancé in Trinidad so it made my dream that much easier to come to fruition.

The only problem with this decision that I made is that I didn’t take into account the whole Trinidad style thing. So imagine everything that you would plan for your wedding here.....throw it out the window becuz it doesn’t apply to Trinidadians.

One of the first things that my fiancé and i did was sat down and planned our guest list and before we even got started i was told “ you know that no matter what total we come to there are going to be more people than that at our wedding?”. Then next thing i heard when we were talking about our ceremony was “you know that no matter what time the invite says it isn’t going to start at that time, right?”

Every time that i think of an idea i have to think to myself “is this going to work for Trinidadians?” how did this happen? How did i end up planning my wedding becuz Trinis run on island time? Another example, my wedding invitations went out a good 3 months ago. Now it’s bad enough that it took them almost a month to get to my fiancé. But i also had him put the stamps on the response cards and hand deliver them to most of the guests. Yet i am still waiting on a single response card from Trinidad. Not a single one has been returned. This is about the point when my fiancé says to me “you know most people will not respond but they will be coming to the wedding”

Now i am thinking....when i was young i was obviously very naive to dream about getting married in Trinidad. I am about 2 more “babe you know that Trinidadians.....” away from turning into bridezilla and freaking out on everyone. I am almost at the point that i want to say that if i don’t get a response card for you then you aren’t allowed in. I mean that is what they would do here.

So to put my mind at ease, this is what i did. I told my fiancé that on that day, the day of our wedding, he is not to run on island time. He is to be at the ceremony site by no later than 1:15pm. Our ceremony WILL start at 1:30pm and anyone that isn’t there on time. Well they just don’t care enough about us to make it on time. And i have given everyone enough warning. I got my fiancé to tell everyone that must be there that it is actually starting at 1:30pm.

Sigh........so my question to you all is was it naive of me to think that i could pull off an on time wedding in Trinidad and should i develop the island lifestyle as to not drive myself into a straight jacket?

Just a thought

nobody told me

So in 30 days i am heading to Trinidad and Tobago to marry the love of my life. I should be really happy right? and dont get me wrong. i am the happiest that i have ever been in my entire life. but why is it that no one ever tells little girls that are playing wedding that it is a million times hard to plan it then just sticking a towel veil on your head and holding dandelions as flowers.
there are so many things that from flowers, to the dress, to venue and food, decor, to guest list....i could go on and on and on.
I mean i had an idea it was going to be hard, and i have yet to quite turn into bridezilla. but i dont sleep becuz i am having wedding nightmares. i barely eat, becuz i am so worried about so many things.
so i decided to come back to my blog and every day for the next 30 days before i leave i am going to do what gives me some piece of mind.....complain...haha. no i am going to write.

so what i want to know is how many of you would have changed your mind if you knew how much effort went into planning it all?

after everything.....i think i still would..cuz i love him.....and i cant wait to own him.....hahahaha kidding....kinda

Just A Thought

finally got what i wanted

you know as little girls your whole life you are told that you go to school, you get a job you fall in love you get married you have babies and you live happily ever after.

But for me i thought that becuz of the type of guy that i usually liked, i started to set myself up to possible live alone. no honestly i thought ok since i have never gotten the attention that i deserve from those kind of guys then i may as well set myself up to learn to live happy alone.

I have struggled with the way that i look my whole life and it never really became a real issue until i was in high school. that was when i played sports and was in the choir and musicals and involved in alot of other things. while a lot of my friends were dating. But becuz i didnt have the typical look or wasnt a particular weight i just became the buddy. i was the one that all the guys i liked would come to for girl trouble. which broke me every time.

I struggled to change. I still struggle to change. but i decided one day that i wasnt going to settle. i wouldnt settle for anything less then what i deserved. becuz not to toot my own i think i am a catch. so i just put it out in the universe that i wanted to find a man that would love me for me.....all of me. i wanted to find someone that would love me the way that i am now and that if i change and ended up back the way i am now that he would still love me...for me.

.....and i found that......

I found the one that loves my giant butt the way it is. i found the one that will look at all my giggly bits and tell me i look gorgeous. i found the one that has made me learn to love myself as i am. i found the one that looks at me and says i want to spend the rest of my life with you just the way you are.

At least i know that when i walk through the rest of my life with other people looking at me and not thinking am a beautiful i just look down at my hand and know that i have someone that vowed to love me the way that i am.......and that is all i ever wanted.

Just a thought