Conversation with a wedding dress

If I could talk to my wedding dress I'd sigh and say: "Why don't you fit me anymore?" To which it would reply: "One word: CAKE."

And then I would get quite grumpy and sulky because I don't like to be reminded that it's my own fault I'm a chubster. I prefer to think there was some sort of weird invasion of the body snatchers thing going on. In other words, I'm delusional. 

Of course you have to pretend dresses can talk for this scenario. Perhaps it would be helpful for me if all my clothes COULD talk. They would give me a stern lecture about my love of cakies. Then again, they already do this without the need for words. Every time I try to ease my pants or top over my expanding belly, the warning is whispered. And I ignore it. Because CAKE. Sigh. 

But getting back to my wedding dress. I LOVE my wedding dress. It was a very traditional, prim dress with a high neckline, long sleeves and a train. There were pearl buttons on the sleeves and back. It was ivory, even though it appears to look white in photos. This dress was made for me by my mum from a Vogue pattern. For this reason it's very special to me. Years later, my aunt made a christening gown for my son with remnants from my wedding gown. 

I look back at the woman in the photos and think about how young and naive she was. Fast forward almost 21 years and this dress would look quite ridiculous on me. Especially since I could only wear it on one leg. It's actually a good thing that we can't see into the future. If I had known I what was before me perhaps I would have ran shrieking from the church a la Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride.

No, there's nothing wrong with my marriage. But to say that Mickey Blue Eyes and I have certainly been through the whole 'for better or worse' and 'in sickness and in health' thing would be putting it mildly. I'm still waiting for the richer part of 'for richer or poorer'. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Anyway, I was going to say that I'm not really sure why I had such traditional ideas about my wedding dress. I think what I wanted was some sort of Anne Of Green Gables theme, like THIS. However, Mickey Blue Eyes might have thought I was nuts and not married me. I waited until after our vows to bring out the crazy. OOPS. Too late! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Here is the exact Vogue pattern that my Mum used. I'm pretty certain it's that one, anyway.

We were married in a church. I'm not sure why I wanted to get married in a church, considering that I never attend church whatsoever.  I didn't even go to church as a child. In fact, I don't even believe in God. Weird.

This was a dress I have only worn once. It would look a bit odd if I wore it to go shopping. Although if it actually fit me, I'd would just BECAUSE I COULD. Not possible.

As well as feeling beautiful in the gown, I felt calm and serene. There were no wedding jitters for me on this day in 1995. Or the 'olden days' as our boys refer to it.

For this post I believe I should let the photos speak for themselves. These two are my favourites because they are just candid and not posed. 

I feel wistful and weird thinking about this dress. Life has been a bit of a struggle in the past year and I suppose I look back at those innocent times with more than a bit of nostalgia. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I want to say.

My wedding dress is still hanging in a wardrobe at my parents house. I haven't looked at it in a long time. Our 21st wedding anniversary is coming up on November 11th. It was such a long time ago. One of my most vivid memories is the priest who married us saying: "You'll look back at photos and think 'we looked pretty good in those days!'" Yep. Even more so, because since I had cancer, my hair grew back strange and curly. I don't look like myself anymore. Sigh. 

It's certainly true that when you're planning a wedding you put a lot of thought and energy into things such as a dress that you will only wear for one day. Poof! The day's over and it's almost 21 years later. 

In the space of that 21 years we've faced infertility (bizarrely), then babies (luckily), the loss of a baby, cancer (both of us have had cancer), the loss of loved ones, and a million other boring and brilliant things. 

I don't have a daughter to give my dress to, and I suppose it's a bit dated now anyway. It was kind of dated even in 1995. 

But I still can't bear to part with it. I'll always love that dress. 

And I simply can't believe that we were not included on this cover:

RUDE! Of course, we're not celebrities. But we look exactly like Brangelina, so same thing really. 

I did mention I was delusional. 

What do you think about wedding dresses? Beautiful or baloney? 



Linking up for Conversations Over Coffee and IBOT. 

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A Starfish Named Ness

I contemplated writing this post while drunk, just for something different, but it's only 10.30 on a Monday morning.  Oh wait...perfectly good excuse to drink! Especially when you wake up with a rotten cold, sore throat and headache. I couldn't feel any worse, could I?  Hmmm...on second thought, I'll stick to tea. 

I've never been much of a drinker, unless you count tea. And I do. It's totally addictive for me. Plus it leads to harder, more sinister addictions. It's serious, people. First it's an innocent cup of tea, then suddenly it's progressed to tea AND cake. Shocking. 

Anyway, what was the point of this post? Oh yes, I was going to entertain you with the scintillating details of the first and only time I got drunk.Yep, I'm SUCH a party animal. There was only once. I've been tipsy many times, but pissed? Not really. 

The thing is, I don't really enjoy that drunken feeling. I don't tolerate alcohol well. One or two drinks are OK. I feel relaxed and pleasant. However, if I make the mistake of pushing on to a third or fourth drink, it very quickly goes to my head. I detest that seasick, head-whirling sensation. Consequently I've never made a habit of getting drunk.

I've noticed that other people can drink and drink and drink AND DRINK and it seemingly doesn't effect them. No such luck for me. Sigh.

But let's get back to the story of the one and only time I was shit-faced slightly intoxicated.

Picture it. The Hunter Valley, 1992. A young 21 year old Ness with a poodle perm, wearing a body suit with high-waisted jeans. I went away for a Rotaract Wine Weekend. 

Those were 'the olden days', as my boys call them. There was no internet. You couldn't meet people through such classy things as Tinder, so you joined something like Rootaract instead. Oops, I mean Rotaract. And you joined because you really cared about making a difference through community service. Yep. Totally for that reason. If you also met people and made friends, that was just a bonus. Ahem. 

There was a bunch of us rotaractors who went away to this particular 'Wine Weekend', including Mickey Blue Eyes, but we weren't a couple at that point. (I think it was on this occasion, or one of the other wine weekends, when Mickey managed to be drunk the for the duration of the whole weekend while only drinking diet coke. A sign that we would make a groundbreaking, avant garde couple, if ever there was one).

Me circa early 1990s

But back to my being drunk story. My friend Kim and I took a peculiar liking to this vile, sickly sweet wine called Tyrrell's Blanquette. There is a photo floating around somewhere of the two of us proudly holding our packs of this beverage, but a) I would have to find it ; and b) Kim would probably kill me if I posted it here. So you are spared this vision. 

Such a shame, because if I recall things correctly, I had ditched the high-waisted jeans for this occasion. Instead I was wearing a most fetching headband and brown jumper combo with stirrup pants. Yep, I've always been a smoking hawt, cutting edge, fashion icon. Try not to be jealous.

The point is, we drank rather a lot of this wine and were quite merry. After a day spent wine tasting, we all arrived back at the Caravan park where we were staying.The drinking and merriment continued.Well, as merry as it gets for some one as quiet as me. Shut up.

Then, inevitably, we had to visit the bathroom. So myself, Kim and my other friend Pam, wandered off to the ladies toilets in the caravan park, giggling like the silly young things we were. I managed to go to the loo without any incidents. Then, as I was waiting for Kimmy and Pammy, I suddenly decided it would be a tremendous idea to have a good lie down. Right there. In the public toilets. Of a grotty caravan park in the Hunter Valley.

So Kim and Pam emerged from the loo to behold me resplendent in a starfish position on the floor. Classy.

The next morning we were all a bit seedy. We trudged to the reception office where they had a shop to purchase paracetamol for our pounding heads.

"Not feeling too well, are we ladies?" The gentleman behind the counter asked dryly. There may have been some requests from other patrons to keep the noise down. Not that it was me making noise. Even alcohol doesn't make me 'come out of my shell'. But it does make me do starfish impersonations. I like to be different.We sheepishly mumbled something and slunk away with our drugs.

As the years ambled on, I looked back on this incident and kind of dismissed it with a "Wasn't I cute when I was a bit tipsy" thought. I considered that I'd never really been drunk in my whole life.

But then I thought about it some more. I do tend to overthink stupid, pointless things. Hang on a minute, I thought,  I did a starfish impersonation on a grotty public toilet floor. EW. Yep, I was certainly shit-faced.

So there you have it. The one and only time Nesski has ever been drunk. Unless you count  right now, because I just referred to myself in the third person, so clearly I'm drunk. And I lurrrve youse all! Thankshs for reading...!!!*hiccups*

Linking up for I Must Confess

When was the first time you were drunk?

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Decisons

 

I’ve never been good at making decisions. Sometimes I find myself agonising over the simplest of things.  Deciding what to have on a sandwich becomes this epic debate in my mind, fraught with fear and self-doubt. Should I have tuna or cheese and tomato? Perhaps a good old-fashioned curried egg and lettuce would suffice? Then again, there is left-over chicken in the fridge!  There are just too many choices!

Plus, what if it my sandwich filling choice just doesn’t delight my taste buds on that particular day? I’ve already consumed the calories! What a disaster! See? I knew I would choose the wrong thing! 

This probably explains why cheese and tomato sandwiches were my staple diet for many years. It eliminated the decision making progress to opt for the same thing time after time. If I really wanted to be totally wild and crazy I might mix it up by having toasted cheese and tomato. I’ve always been cutting edge.

This cutting edge tendency is probably apparent in my choice of attire. Boring, bland and predominantly black sums it up. Therefore, the amount of time I spend ruminating and pondering over what to wear is patently ridiculous. Who cares what I wear?  As long as I’m covered and clean that’s all that matters.

This doesn’t stop me from wasting an inordinate amount of time fussing over my outfit. It seems that I must be under some sort of grand illusion that I’m a celebrity about to be hounded by the paparazzi each time I leave the house. It’s as if I’m making the important choice of whether to wear the Prada or Gucci instead of the Best & Less or Big W. Often, I mix it  up and team Big W garments with Best & Less ones because, you know, that cutting edge thing again. And do you know what? Except for all the times I’ve been mistaken for Nicole Kidman*, this hounding by the paparazzi hasn’t happened yet! 

Don’t even get me started on grocery shopping. It’s the stuff of nightmares for a scatterbrain like me. So many aisles, so many decisions! I do take lists but still get confused once I’m in the supermarket and all those rows upon rows of choices are around me. Suddenly, things appear in my trolley that weren’t on the list. Of course they are always organic kale and herbal tea, not chocolate or cakies.  No way.

I mean, do you know how long I’d spend agonising over whether to get the Maltesers or Mars Bars? It just seems easier to get both. Ahem. Except that these days I’m on Weight Witches, so I just walk very fast past the confectionary aisle. Then I get to the check out and there they are, right in front me. Sigh. Life can be cruel sometimes.

Anyway, I spend so much time agonising over these mundane decisions it may have prevented me from making any reckless, life-changing decisions that I’ve come to regret. I’ve never taken illegal drugs, gambled away my life savings or robbed a bank.

Yes, there is an infamous mullet-perm in my past but a) it was the 80s, and b) it’s provided ample entertainment as fodder for this blog. So let’s give it another whirl.

I should regret this hairs style- but I won't. I know
you're laughing. You're welcome.

There is one mild regret lurking in my past. Rewind back to around 1992 or 1993. By this time I had ditched the mullet-perm for an attractive poodle perm. Like I said, I’ve always been cutting edge and classy. I was in my early 20s  and working at the State Library. Somehow, on my meagre pay I had managed to save a sizeable chunk of money. I was able to do this because I lived with my parents and didn’t have a car or a social life. This totally confirms my cutting edge status. Shut up.

In the back of my mind I had some hazy idea that I was saving the money to eventually buy a car or go overseas. There were two problems with this grand plan; a) I didn’t have a drivers’ license, and b) I didn’t have any friends to drag overseas with me. The idea of taking off on my own never occurred to me. I was still a tragic Mummy’s girl and ridiculously shy.

Luckily however, around this time I ended up joining Rootaract. Uh, I mean, Rotaract and thusly acquired something resembling a social life. Consequently, I met Mickey Blue Eyes.  My parents were in the process of planning a trip overseas to the UK. It crossed my mind that I had the cash to go with them. I quickly dismissed this thought as absurd. After all, mature, worldly, hip 22 year-old Mummy’s girls who lived at home and proudly owned an entire collection of Carpenters albums didn’t go overseas with their parents!  This would totally tarnish my now legendary cutting edge persona!

Case in point: The Carpenters were totally retro-cool in 1993! There was even an alternative tribute album recorded in their honour! This confirmed that I was ahead of the game and cooler than anyone gave me credit for. To my 22 year old mind I couldn’t risk the damage to my ultra-cool character. It would just be sad and pathetic to go away with my parents. Besides I would have to be parted from Mickey Blue Eyes for a whole month! We were still at that stage where we actually missed each other if we weren’t together every day.

Of course, 20 or so years later I’m wondering why this was even an issue. I see the  man all day, every day. Every. Single. Day. What was I thinking? A  month was a blip in the ocean in the scheme of things.

And the sad truth of the matter is, I would have enjoyed going overseas with my parents much more than going on some Contiki tour with a bunch of raucous, drunken twenty-somethings. Sad, but true.

So I guess what I’m saying is, if I could rewind back to 1993 I would have gone overseas with my parents. But it’s all good, because we’re currently in the process of obtaining our passports so I’m sure we’ll get there eventually. Except now we’ll have three lovely children to tag along just to make it extra special. This should be tremendous fun. I mean what could be worse: going overseas with your middle-aged parents when you’re young or waiting until you’re middle-aged and going with children? This is a totally rhetorical question, just in case you were trying to figure out the correct answer.

Oh well, I suppose I had better leave it there and go and decide what to have for lunch. After all, it could take a while.

 

Linking up for I Must Confess.

 *OK, so I've never been mistaken for Nicole Kidman. But it could still happen! HMPH!

What decision would you change if you could?

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