LindsSays: good to know

Showing posts with label good to know. Show all posts

Hi friends- hope everyone's hanging in there. Time in quarantine is so weird, and what's even stranger to me is that we all seem to be experiencing it the same: March was 100 days long, April was 2 days long, some weeks fly and some drag on forever. I can't wait for a study to understand this one. Anyway - here are some things I'm liking over the last few weeks:

📺Watching: Dave on Hulu and FX has given me the laughs I need (multiple episodes took me to my highest laugh level - scream laughing which is above laughing so hard I cry on the scale of funny). Broadchurch (subtitles on) on Netflix is filling my mystery-thriller cup. Married At First Sight on Hulu, Netflix and Lifetime is fulfilling my need for reality TV that isn't too trashy (I recommend watching this one with a group of friends and Zooming Decision Day together), 10 whole seasons will keep us busy.
📚Reading: Currently renting audiobooks and e-books from the library since I'm flying through books right now and my budget does not support purchasing at this rate. So far my favorites have been Open Book which I was surprised how much I liked despite not caring/knowing that much about J. Simp (followed by Bad On Paper + Katie Sturino discussion and Be There in Five + Hitha Pepalu discussions). The Girl Before has Girl On The Train vibes and I blew threw it in 3 days.
👗Wearing: This insanely soft Daily Ritual Jumpsuit via Amazon.
🎧Listening: I love Be There In Five and I have been closely following Stephanie McNeal's observations throughout the crisis and they combined forces for my dream podcast episode about Influencing In The Time of COVID. The audio is a little wonky in the beginning but there are so many times I wanted to jump in and join this convo.
🤓Learning: My IRL friend Sydney recently graduated with a Master's in Positive Psychology from UPenn and turned me onto her alumni association's FREE 45-minute webinars on Strategies to Thrive During Uncertain Times - this site has sign-ups for future webinars and recordings of past webinars. I attended Using Virtual Meetings As a Means For Connection and found takeaways I immediately put into action (greeting everyone in virtual meetings, injecting fun to break down barriers) and am signed up for Do You Want to Create a Flourishing Team Culture? Giving me a sense of control during these crazy times!
🛍Shopping: It's the little things that are making work from home more enjoyable, and one of those things is COLOR in my home office. I've added a few plants (mostly succulents due to my black thumb) and am now ISO a new laptop cover. I previously impulse bought this one a few years ago because it was right when the Obamas' portraits were released and it reminded me of Barack's. It's cracked, I need a new one. Currently deciding between abstract pastel, colorful stones (I used to have a cellphone case that resembles this that Harrison called my "Kylie Jenner case"), florals, cacti, or fine arts. Visuals below.

stuff i like rn

Monday, May 4, 2020

Looks like a lot of us are working from home for quite awhile (shoutout to our frontline workers like medical professionals, public transit employees, grocery store employees, and other essential employees who are out there risking lives while I have the privilege to work from the safety of my home). Prior to COVID I worked from home about once per week and spent a huge amount of time studying at home during grad school. I received some crucial tips from a group of Occupational Therapists I worked with, plus some tips from my therapist when I felt so overwhelmed at home because I couldn't separate work and school from my me-time. Here are the top tips that are keeping me somewhat sane right now:

The Office Setup

The space: I set up a corner of our guest room to be my office. This (usually) prevents Harrison from wandering into the background of my video calls and helps me with boundaries- when I'm in that room I'm working, when I'm not in the room I'm not working. If you don't have a separate room even picking a corner or space of the home is helpful here.
Natural light: This is a game-changer for my mood because we NEED natural light, plus it makes you look better on video calls. I set up my desk right in front of the window (it requires a bit of squeezing and rearranging of the guest bed that is not feng-shui but is good for my mood).
Desk chair: Desk chairs are $$$$ and I'm just not committed enough to this to invest in a good office chair so I DIYed it. I have an old kitchen chair with a padded seat and a $26 lumbar support pillow. The OTs told me my knees need to be at a 90 degree angle when I'm working, so I have an Amazon box for my feet to sit on that gets my knees to the right angle (this helped immensely with hip pain I had a few years ago).
LIGHTS: I've discussed this before but when yall join a video call and have one lamp on in the room, you look like an anonymous witness on Dateline trying to protect your identity. You too can have a Love is Blind production-level set in your home office with just a few extra lamps and by keeping your main lights on. I found my lamps around the house and love my little LED desk lamp that, yes, shines right on my face in video calls for that professional set look. Harrison calls my home office "the interrogation room" because of how bright I keep it.
Keyboard placement: The OTs told me my elbows need to be at a 90 degree angle while typing which took some mix and match with my chair and desk setup. Once I got this right, my shoulder pain disappeared within a week. They also recommended a split keyboard to protect my wrist, but these are pricey!
Computer setup: While sitting up straight, our eyeballs should be looking straight into the center of the computer screen. This required me to do some minor engineering by putting my laptop stand on top of a game box. Not cute but good for the neck and ensures you don't sit hunched over all day.
Plants: I have a black thumb, I kill plants just by looking at them but have read a lot about how good it is for us to have plants around so I have a succulent on the desk that is extremely hard to kill. We'll see if it makes it through my isolation. And don't you worry, Amazon is delivering succulents.

Crowdsourced Suggestions

Crowdsourced via Instagram poll

If working from home with a partner, make up a fake coworker to blame (Donna didn't do this dishes again!)
Scheduled breaks
Stand up at least once an hour
Stick to office hours schedule so you don't end up working all day/night
Burn a delicious smelling candle to keep you feeling zen and happy
Remember to eat! If you get sucked into work it's hard to step away and then we get hangry
Have familiar coworkers check in with audio calls so you can walk around while you talk
Keep your same morning routine but use commute time to dance party/read/meditate

Ok. That's a lot but hopefully helps our bodies stay right during this time at home. What else should be included in the home office?

PS: Thanks for sticking this out as we go through a rebrand/redesign. Over the next week+ this space will get easier to navigate and better to look at on mobile.

How to Work From Home: Setting Up a Home Office

Monday, April 6, 2020

As an extremely frugal and analytical person, I intensely investigate pretty much everything before I commit to spending money on it to find any potential hidden costs and to determine whether or not it will actually save me money. Here are the subscriptions that have saved me money (and some that haven't) and my favorite things to use them for:

The Great Subscriptions:

Amazon Prime

Cost: $99/year

How It Works: Free two day shipping on Prime Items (almost everything is Prime) - BUT if you opt out of the two day shipping for an order you get credit towards e-books. Also includes Prime Video, Prime Music (haven't figured that out yet), free e-books (I haven't taken enough time to investigate this part), unlimited Cloud Storage (hi all the photos in the world), and early access to MyHabit.com (fashion stuff!) and Lightning Deals (aka Black Friday Style sales).

Things I use it for/How I justify paying for it:

The prices on products are generally pretty low and I can always find random little things that I don't know where to find with FREE SHIPPING. I think the free shipping pays for itself with the $99. I also feel like the free shipping around Christmas time reduces my holiday stress level ten-fold which is worth $99/year. I buy:

Dog Food and meds (30 lbs delivered to my door is much nicer than carrying 30 lbs from the Wal-Mart zoo)
Transparent (!!)
All Christmas gifts
Pretty much everything except produce - I'm at a point in life where if I can't get it on Amazon I don't think I need it that bad.
Cloud Storage- I have the Amazon Cloud app on my phone which automatically uploads my pictures and videos. I can organize them into files and share them even with people who don't have Prime. Clutch.
Access to all HBO shows and movies (hi snow day!)

Netflix

Cost: $7.99/month

How it Works: Free movies and shows streaming to your computer/cell phone/ipad/Apple TV/Smart TV/Video on Demand.

Things I Use it For/How I justify paying for it:

Before I was roommates with Harrison (my current husband who requires ESPN and HBO), I canceled cable and it was fine because Netflix. All the shows and movies- specifically:

Master of None
Arrested Development reruns for life
Documentaries
Narcos
Making a Murder

Club W

Cost: $45/month

How it Works: For ~$13 bottle, Club W delivers 3 bottles of wine to your doorstep. You can choose your own or take their suggestions. You take a little quiz in the beginning and they make recs based on that.

Things I Use it For/How I justify paying for it:

Look I'm simple and my knowledge of wine includes only three things: 1) red wine stains my teeth which makes me appear drunker than I am, 2) I only know how to buy 2 Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's and 3) Vineyards are fun and pretty! Therefore, when I'm supposed to bring wine to a dinner or something I am clueless. How much should I spend? What do I bring? Is 2 Buck Chuck acceptable? So I leave it to Club W. I have also discovered wines I really enjoy (I usually drink at least one from the box, except snowzilla when the whole box was consumed) and have ordered those from Club W. Thank you, Leslie for turning me onto this!

Subscriptions that didn't save me money or work out for me for whatever reason (don't hate me!:

Meal box subscriptions (Blue Apron, Hello Fresh): $60 for 3 meals for 2 people? I try to feed 2 people all meals all week for under $100. Not in my price range.

Birchbox (eeek I know don't hate me!): I ended up using 1 or 2 products per box, which made me feel like a sample hoarder with nowhere to store my samples - they started pouring into personal spaces. It was too much.

Friday Favs: Monthly Subscriptions That Save Me Money and Make Life Easier

Friday, February 5, 2016

This is the current view from my front porch and I am absolutely not complaining. Harrison was in charge of survival food so we currently have 2 dozen eggs, 6 bottles of peach Andre, 1 jug of OJ, 5 lbs of bacon, a frozen pizza, and enough alcohol to supply the District of Columbia for 3 weeks. I've got Fiesta Chili cooking in the crockpot (recipe coming soon) and have had enough time inside to try every type of necessary cocktail. Here are my favs:

Peach Mimosas

This isn't necessarily winter-specific, but to me nothing says SNOW DAY like a multiple hour brunch with mimosas. This recipe is fail-proof: fill the cup with peach champagne (we use Andre, v. fancy of course), top it off with OJ. Adds a little pizzaz to the typical mimosa. And yes, I drink my mimosas out of a pint glass because I could either refill every few sips or dump half a bottle of champagne in my glass at once. Your choice, but I'm looking for minimal effort on a snow day.

Clean Spiked Hot Chocolate

Something about snow days makes me want to eat everything in sight and the unhealthier the more appealing. I feel better about myself when I am at least drinking clean hot chocolate (even if the spike isn't clean).

Ingredients:

Mug filled 4/5 of the way with hot milk - I always use Unsweetened Cashew Milk (while we're at it, I love funny mugs like this, this, and this)
1.5 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (Pro Tip: the way to know if it's clean is if the only ingredient on the label is cocoa)
2 teaspoons honey, agave syrup or natural sweetener of your choice
1-2 shots of Grand Marnier (this is my personal choice, it also tastes delicious with Bailey's or whiskey if you're a whiskey person)

Slowly add the cocoa powder to the hot milk while mixing. It takes awhile for this to mix in but it will. Next add the sweetener and booze and mix well. Next, drink at a healthy pace because this tastes so good I accidentally drank it really fast and needed a nap immediately after.

via

Easy Crockpot Mulled Wine (set it and forget it - my fav!)

Am I the only one who hears "Mold Wine" every time someone says this out loud? Either way it's delish.

Ingredients:

1 pack of Mulled Wine Spices (I get mine on Amazon here)
1 bottle of Red Wine (I am extremely unsophisticated, no clue if it makes a difference which type you use. I exclusively drink Trader Joe's 2 buck chuck and whatever Club W sends me for the month)
3 cups cran-apple juice

Throw it all in the crockpot, cook on low for 1 hour.

PS - Club W is a Godsend. If you want to try you can use my link for a free bottle

The Bet Bloody Mary in the Whole Freaking World

Again, nothing about this screams winter, but everything about it screams snow day to me.

Ingredients:

1 Pint Glass full of ice
2 shots of vodka (preferably 1 shot regular, 1 shot of bacon infused vodka)
Fill the rest of the glass with Zing Zang Bloody Mary Mix
If you have these items on hand they are delicious additions but by no means necessary - Zing Zang takes care of bloody marys real nice: squirt of fresh lime juice, teaspoon of horseradish, pickle spear, toothpick crammed with as many olives as possible, Slim Jim (gross but works), strip of bacon, banana pepper, chunk of string cheese.

Current Status: Snowed In & Trying Every Winter Cocktail

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Now that the weather is freaking gorgeous I've been running outside a lot. But at least two days each week I get up early to exercise (before you think I'm so motivated for doing that, it's so I can go to happy hour after work). And for nights when I get home late and it's already dark, I need a good ole basement workout. These are my favs right now:

I took a break from Millionaire Hoy to do T25, and I was so happy to get back with his workouts. I love his 500 calorie videos- most are ~30 minutes. He has a lot!

I love Leslie. I have been having back discomfort lately (really why are we still sitting at desks all day when we know how bad it is for us?) and this twisty video has really helped.

Fitness Blender is back and putting out new videos like crazy! I liked this workout - half weights and half pilates. I also love how Fitness Blender gives all the info about their videos (like below):

I've started playing this in the background when I do yoga and it takes it to a whole other level of relaxation and focus. Plus something about music makes concentrating so much easier for me.

Anyone have some good free workout videos I should be checking out?

Wednesday Workouts:Videos lately

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

It's football season which is basically CHRISTMAS over here - (Go Dawgs)! I hate being too far away to just bop down to Georgia for games, so for now I have to settle for Georgia bars and tailgates at home. Essential to the tailgates is the quality drinks. These are some of my favs:

Grapefruit Jalapeno Margaritas by Jillian Harris

Georgia Peach on Food.com

Moscow Mule from The Crazy Wise Woman

Grapefruit and Sage Mimosa from Bakeaholic Mom

You can check out my clean tailgate foods here. I also really like this wine pairing guide from

This guide to how much food and drink to serve is also helpful, as well as this guide to pairing wine because my knowledge of wine is limited to me knowing that a bottle is $3 at Trader Joe's.

What is your favorite tailgate drink?

Tailgate Boozin

Friday, September 11, 2015

I hit a point a few months ago where I was so freeeakkinggg tired of rotating through the same workouts. It was like, if I have to jump around with Millionaire Hoy or listen to Daniel and Kelly's voices I just ... I just can't. I realized the only way I can stay motivated is if I make sure I'm switching up the workouts A LOT. Variety is the spice of life, amiright? Here's what I'm diggin lately on top of running (with some new friends!):

This killer weights workout is nuts. The kind of nuts that I think could get me very toned very fast. I mean just look at this lady.

I'm getting back into running again and this yoga flow is the perfect post-run activity. Can we just talk about how much yoga has changed the way I feel running? So much less sore and less joint pain. My grandma claims yoga is the reason she has made it to 93 "It's the cure-all for everything" and I'm starting to believe her.

Who doesn't love a little barre with peppy Jessica and that Peanut dog of her's?? This is my fav.

Ahh yes HIIT with weights. Let's all die a little. Right around minute 10 I began audibly suffocating. Around minute 17 my thighs gave out. Killer.

How do you keep from getting bored working out? Any videos you recommend?

Youtube Workouts I'm Diggin Lately

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

So when this whole finger thing happened I was given strict instructions: No activity that jostles the hand, and no using my right hand. Aka no exercising, because when you think about it what kind of workout does NOT jostle one's hand (answer: yoga! But wait, you have to put weight on your hands in yoga so nope).

I didn't realize how stressed out I am without exercise. I have so much energy and tension that gets worked out in daily exercise and walking miles with the dogs every night and all of it was just stuck inside of me. When I told my hand therapist how I was feeling she said "oh! Drink more wine. Really." If only my health insurance would cover that... She also suggested a stationary bike (not paying for a gym membership) and pilates so Pilates it was!

I scoured youtube for low impact videos that don't use hands or wrists and here are some of my favs:

Fitness Blender Pilates for Lean Legs & Toned Core (these two really do everything).

Barlates Body Blitz THIS ALMOST KILLED ME. The shakes kicked in right around minute 7.

Blogilates Extreme Abs Workout (Hello Cassey, it's been awhile since you ripped up my insides)

Jessica Smith Barre: Butt Hips & Thighs

10 Minute Barre Abs Workout - my favorite part is the girl in the back complaining about how bad it hurts. THANK YOU!

Do you know any good hands free workout videos? Please share!!

Look Ma - No Hands! Low impact workouts with no hands/wrists

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Penelope Anne Photography

Every time I tell people I ordered my wedding dress from a website in China for $200 they either a) laugh out loud (usually followed by typical! of course you did!) or b) look at me horrified. But I'm here to tell you: I ordered my wedding dress for $200 from China and I survived. Not only did I survive, but I loved my dress:

Penelope Anne Photography

I LOVED the detail at the bottom of the dress. I also loved my shoes (Nine West Flax for $13 on ebay, baby).

Penelope Anne Photography

It also passed my wiggle dance test:

Penelope Anne Photography

So, here's the story:

1. We made a wedding priorities list: our non-negotiables if you will. The things we were willing to spend money on, and if something wasn't on that list then we said we are going to let it go. These are our non-negotiables:

All family and friends (i.e. bigger guest list)
Best party ever (aka music, lights, fun touches, open bar)
Enough food
Venue our out of town guests could easily access AND our in-town guests could easily get to and from (i.e. metro accessible, uber-able, hotels within walking distance - let's not talk about small town guests who have never parallel parked attempting to drive in DC)

Notice what's not on that list? Wedding dress. Because guess how many weddings I've been to where I'm like "Man that was so great and full of love and represented them and a great party because the bride had a pretty dress". Never. Guess how many wedding dresses I remember from the last 15 weddings I've been to? 3.

2. Obsessively researched: Yall I COMBED THROUGH EVERY LAST BOARD on Weddingwire and weddingbee. I actually feel like I know some of the reviewers personally at this point (hey! I loved your dress - I saw you over on the weddingwire message boards too! Did you get the whole ring riszing situation worked out?). There were pretty mixed reviews on the boards which made me uneasy. But then I found http://weddingdressreviews.blogspot.com/ and seeing actual women in the actual dresses made me feel great about the process. After (literally) weeks of research (I could write a book) here's what I learned:

I found the most positive reviews for inweddingdress.com.
This dress was not going to be high quality material (totally fine. I'm wearing it once)
Exact colors look a little different on our American computer monitors - I ordered white even though I thought I wanted champagne (too risky)
Some details may look different on the actual dress (mine were mostly small details, things that looked a lot higher quality online and not so high quality in person)

3. Tried on dresses at a store (in America): I loaded up my bridal posse and hit 2 stores to actually try on the dresses. This was fun (hi champagne!) and it also confirmed the type of dress I wanted.

4. Order THE dress: I ordered this one.

5. Panic: The online reviews said people got the dresses a week later and it's been 2 weeks and omg what if my dress doesn't come and I just gave my credit card info to Chinese sweatshop scam artists?

6. Facetimed a BFF: who made me laugh at how ridiculous the situation is and reminded me that there isn't much money to steal from my little bank account anyway. Have at it, suckas! (thanks Maggie!)

7. Rejoice when the tiny package arrives (so tiny!)

8. Found a GOOD tailor: I gave myself an inch or 2 of wiggle room in my dress (also read horrifying reviews about the dresses being smaller than the measurements, paying hundreds to get it let out, etc). I used Chris at Studio ProjectIssue8 and could not be happier. She took in the dress, altered the neckline, added a built-in bra, added cloth covered buttons (someone in China liked these tiny blingy buttons. Not my style). We ran into an issue with the lace which added a LOT of labor on her part (and my final check), but there is nothing a good tailor can't make look like it's not made in China.

9. TRASH THE THING! I had zero problem doing this:

Conclusions:

You have to actually be chill about your wedding dress if you're ordering it from China, and have medium expectations. The negative reviews I read online complained about how low-quality the fabric was, the feel of the lace, and some even said they were mad because the dress isn't actually made by a legit wedding dress designer. I'm confused about what made them think they were getting a Pnina Say Yes to The Dress Designer brand for $150?
Do your research! Some of the stores out there are not legit in any way. If you can't find reviews online (outside of their own website's reviews page), just say no.
Be selective about who you tell about this. Everyone and their moms believes they have a PhD in weddings and knows what is best for you and your wedding and your dress. But they're not writing the check, nor are the wearing the dress. If I wasn't 100% confident about this, I would have easily been swayed to drop an extra 2Gs on a dress.
You HAVE to have a good tailor, and you HAVE to be willing to drop some money on alterations.
My wedding turned me into a psychotic serial killeresque asshole in the final few weeks. I started having crazy thoughts like "everyone's going to be able to tell I ordered my dress from China! Oh no!" (looking back I see that it's because everything was spinning out of control and I was trying to grasp onto something I could control - like buying a new dress or something crazy). Have people around you who remind you what you cared about in the first place. And also people who cut you off from Pinterest wedding dress boards when you are second and third guessing yourself (thanks, Charisse!).
I loved my dress (obvi) after the tailor fixed it. You can see the dress in action in our wedding video here.

Check out our full honeymoon + trash the dress video below:

SO - would you ever order a bargain wedding dress? Do you know anyone who has?

True Life: I Ordered my wedding dress from (GASP) CHINA for $200

Friday, May 29, 2015

One of my favorite parts of our ceremony was our champagne toast! Captured by Penelope Anne Photography

Personalizing a wedding ceremony was a big task for us because a) I wanted it to represent who we are/what we're about; b) you have one shot to get it right; c) 200 people...; d) I really, really, really didn't want it to be typical or dull or eye rolling; and e) I tend to go a bit overboard and end up with an end product that is either tacky or involves me crying the whole time (see: emotional hot mess). In the end, it turned out perfect. I don't know if anyone was rolling their eyes but I felt great about our ceremony and felt it really represented Harrison and me (annnd I only cried a teeny tiny bit).

SO! These are my tips/a few things that would have ruined everything if we hadn't done:

1) Decide what is important to you in the ceremony/what you want to be represented.
For us, we wanted people to leave knowing that we are about serving God, our choice to love each other (and the things that go into choosing love), home, family, and of course a lot of freakin fun.

2) Research other alternative wedding ceremonies for inspiration.
Because traditional weddings are so engrained in my head, I had a hard time thinking outside the box. Enter: Pinterest! I found this article from A Practical Wedding and this Huffington Post article helpful and good to get my brain jogging in the right direction.

3) Write out your ceremony- in painstaking detail.
Since most vendors have done 1000000000 very traditional weddings, it's important that everyone has every detail. It's not like our's was sooo crazy or different, but there were a few things that our vendors weren't used to. Here's what our's looked like:

Time		People	Details
5:15 PM	Doors Open, music playing	caterers, DJ	make sure champagne table is set by 5:15, confirm time
5:35 PM	Family gets escorted to seats	1) Cory w/Deb 2) Ken w/Sheila 3) Herb w/Pearl	HB goes to stage
5:38 PM	Everyone takes their place, ___ removes string that is blocking aisle	Bmaids groomsmen, HB, LT & Craig	Family Matters theme song
5:45 PM	Father Kemp and HB take place in front - Herb joins from front	Father Kemp, HB, Herb	Herb will hang out to the side after he drops off Pearl
5:46 PM	Father Kemp announces no cameras
5:48 PM	Processional	Bmaids, Gmen	So Good To Me - Chris Malinchak
5:52 PM	LT and Craig come down the aisle	LT and Craig	Hard to Concentrate - RHCP
5:54 PM	Intro from Father Kemp	Father Kemp
5:55 PM	Father Kemp reads "A Poem of Friendship" Nikki Giovanni	Father Kemp
6:00 PM	Cory and Tricia speak	Cory and Tricia	Reading their piece on "choosing love"
6:05 PM	Father Kemp talks more	Father Kemp
6:08 PM	Vows	LT and HB
6:12 PM	Closing Prayer	Father Kemp
6:14 PM	First kiss
6:15 PM	Champagne Toast		caterers serve champagne - Meg T serve champagne to wedding party
6:16 AM	Presentation of the couple	Father Kemp
6:17 PM	Processional	Bridal party	End of Time- Beyonce

4) Run your write-up by a few people who have wedding experience.
Sometimes no one does these things at their weddings because it's a bad idea. Case in point: I originally had my heart set on a candle ceremony where the whole audience lights candles blah blah blah. Our officiant (also a friend and also a priest who has probably done hundreds of weddings) suggested we check with the venue to make sure open flames are allowed annnd... sure enough they aren't. There were a few other logistically impossible ideas I had in the original timeline and thank goodness for our amazing good great friend who is also a wedding planner who talked me off the ledge on a few things. It's important to get other people's feed back ...

5) ...but at the same time, KNOW what you want and be ready to be firm about it.
For whatever reason with weddings everyone thinks they need to give their opinion about everything you're doing, and let me tell you- I'm a people pleaser if I've ever met one. But let me be clear, when I am hemorrhaging my own money on something I WILL get what I want. A few people tried to talk us down from a few elements or convince us to change things around (but why wouldn't you just do what they do at all the other weddings?), and it was important to remember that they mean well and what they're sharing is just their opinion. And that there is a 0% chance that you're going to please everyone in the planning process and about a 0% chance that anyone is going to end up feeling displeased at the wedding.

6) Trust your people
Hi my name is Lindsay and I am Type A. Is my brother going to remember to prepare something to read? Is the planner actually going to get the champagne to us? Is the caterer going to remember to put out the champagne before the ceremony? Are people going to pay attention and grab champagne? What if... what if... what if...

Guess what. These people get paid for a reason. And everyone cares. And everything works out. And if anything didn't work out I didn't even notice.

Those are my tips for planning a ceremony - anything I'm missing? What are some non-traditional elements you've seen or done at a wedding?

P.S. How amazing is that picture? Our photographer (and friend we met on a cruise) was so amazing, there was never a moment that I was like "WHERE'S THE PHOTOGRAPHER SOMEONE GET THIS", and guess what? Flying her in from Florida was half the price of any DC photographers I saw. She travels, she's amazing, she's affordable, check her out (or just go to her site and swoon over her other pictures).

P.S.S. The Penny Hoarder just came out with this article on 101 Creative Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding . Yes please.

Check back next Friday for more budget wedding tips!

Tips for planning an alternative wedding ceremony

Friday, March 20, 2015

I have naturally curly hair and let me tell you something: there is nothing I hate more than crunchy curls (ew, it hurt me to type that), except maybe spending a million dollars on hair products that don't work out for my type of hair. These are my fav curly hair products that keep my hair soft and bouncy (not crunchy) that you can find at any drug store:

1. Garnier Fructis Curl Cream: I usually put 2-3 squirts of this in right when I get out of the shower. It is really light and not sticky at all.

2. Revlon RV544PKF 1875W Tourmaline Ionic Ceramic Dryer with Diffuser: I haaaate having wet hair, and thick curly hair takes ageessssss to dry. I can dry my hair in under 10 minutes every time, and the diffuser is a must have for curly hair.

3. DOVE Style + Strength + Flexible Hold Hairspray: This is a must have for updos, or for when I throw my hair up/pin it back/twist it up because frizzies and flyaways can get out of control. No crunchiness, no helmet hair, just a soft, smell-good hold. I spray it on after I've styled my hair the way I want it. Added bonus: it smells good, not like most hair sprays that remind me of grandmas for some reason.

4. Herbal Essence Touchably Soft Mousse: I always put this in my wet or dry hair before I style it. No flakes, no crunch, and it makes my hair super easy to style.

5. ISO Bouncy Creme Curl Texturizer: I've been hooked on this stuff since 9th grade! I love love loveee it! It smells SO good, keeps your hair soft and frizz-free all day. I can't recommend this stuff enough! I usually order mass quantities on Amazon.

6. Dry Shampoo: I wash my hair 1-2 times/week so this is a must. It keeps my hair shiny and oil-free between washes- I just spray a few sprays on the roots of my hair and toussle it a little.
**note: while I do not wash my hair every day, I DO wet it in the shower and rinse sweat and stuff out of it. When I get out I add a little more Bouncy Creme and blow dry it to keep it looking full and alive!

Some of my fav curly hair do's when I'm in a hurry and/or it is too hot to have hair on my neck (spoiler alert- I side twist my hair every other day- it all looks super complex on curly hair but it is very, very simple):