CHEERS...to coasters and happily ever afters!

Oh boy oh boy- nothing screams wedding season more than every spring, summer and fall month that lies between your 26th and 30th birthday. Whether you're planning one yourself, desperately hoping for a reason (a ring) to begin planning one yourself, putting every last paycheck and PTO day towards attending engagement parties, bridal showers, bachelor/ette getaways and the actual weddings themselves, or simply watching all of the above unfold on your Facebook Newsfeed daily, this is that time in life when apparently you do nothing but eat, sleep and breathe images of diamond rings and sounds of wedding bells.

So, this last weekend I had the pleasure of being a part of, in my opinion, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful wedding occasions of all time; the weather, the venue, the guests, the music, the flowers, the vows and most of all, the gorgeous bride and handsome groom...it was a weekend I will never forget! I digress though...

While I do think that the concept of a wedding registry is an ingenious one, there are some very special couples whom I simply can't seem to bring myself to giving a 4-slice toaster or 5-piece flatware set to in celebration of such a momentous occasion...this couple was one of those couples. So at the risk of not sending them that sure-thing registry item, I decided to go sentimental and make them something they may or may not have hoped for: two sets of coasters and a hot plate trivet made out of the corks I collected from the bottles we opened during the bachelor+bachelorette weekend in Sonoma. I also had a picture from that same weekend blown up and printed on a 16x20 canvas. Being that it was a dual celebration, I thought they'd both appreciate this?

Below are the materials I used. I found the coaster holders at Bed Bath and Beyond and used the cork coasters that came with them as the foundations for gluing on the wine corks. For the trivet though, I had to buy larger pieces of cork from Michael's and used a large bowl to measure out the circular shape. I found the razor blade at Michael's too. In regard to a good majority of the corks, I asked each winery we stopped at during our wine tasting extravaganza if they would be so kind as to hand over the corks they opened for our group. They were happy to do so.

Next step was to cut each cork down the center to create a flat, sturdy surface for glue gunning. Before gluing the pieces down, I laid them out on the cork foundation to make sure they fit well together. The image on the left is before I used my handy dandy blade to clean up the edges (you do this after you glue). If the razor is sharp enough, this step is actually a lot cleaner and easier than it may appear.

Below is the finished product. I had cans of stain sitting around the house so on a whim I actually decided to stain the coaster holders a bit darker...thought it looked better with the lighter colored corks.

Below is the canvas I had made at Walgreens ($50 for a 16x20 print and mounting). They did an excellent job wrapping the image, as you can see below...well worth every penny!

Final wedding gift below.

If your interest in reading this blog doesn't extend beyond the DIY crafts, you are dismissed ;)

If you wish to read on about two incredible people who now make up one incredible wedded couple, proceed...

Since the wedding on Saturday, I have been asked by a handful of people to share the Maid of Honor toast I gave after the dinner (yes, I typed out every word because you never know what will escape your mouth in the presence of nerves and wine). Someone also suggested that the easiest way to do this would be to include it in my blog. While my initial feeling on posting this for all eyes to see was slight anxiety about sharing something so personal, I have since decided that if any couple's love for each other is worthy of being shared for all eyes to see, this most certainly is that couple...so here goes:

Love ya Katherine and Blake!

A Toast to Mr. and Mrs. Van Treese

Most of you already know me, but for those of you who don’t, I’m Erin and I'm Katie’s childhood friend of going on almost 18 years; also her Maid of Honor.

So I have to say, I’ve had a hard time deciding which direction to take this toast in today because Katie, as you well know, when it comes to circumstances and people in my life that mean a lot to me, I tend to overthink them. Beyond that though, it didn’t help that when I Googled “Maid of Honor Speech”, over a million results came up on what to say, how to say it and how to walk away from the speech having “wow’d the crowd” I quote. So after thinking long and hard about which of our childhood dances or handshakes to entertain you all with, which pop song I could sing retelling the story of how you both met, which childhood anecdote to share, or advice I could offer on how to live happily ever after as Mr. and Mrs. Van Treese, I realized a few things:

1. In regard to sharing our childhood dance: nobody in this room really wants to see me bust out our 4^th grade Tahoe performance of Sheryl Crow’s “all I wanna do”

2. In regard to singing a pop song inserting the story of how your relationship unfolded, I was having an extremely difficult time fitting the story of your first official date "driving" up to Sulphur Springs into "Call Me Maybe" ;)

3. In regard to sharing a special childhood anecdote, I didn’t think that centering my toast around our most cherished middle school and high school memories sitting outside of Keller’s Meats with a good number of the girls in this room would really capture my point...Although I must say, it is slightly applicable to today given the hours upon end spent in front of that place were never really for the delicious Keller’s chillie, but instead were spent praying for a drive-by by any one of the older high school “hotties”, as we'd call them …for me that was probably Perry Clark or Neil White in his drop-top Bronco and for Katherine, that was always Blake Van Treese in his purple Hyandai. You see Blake, you’ve kind of been a big deal in her mind since the beginning.

4. In regard to offering relationship advice on how to live happily ever after as a married couple, let’s be honest people, there’s no "Matron" of Honor about my role today…I’m the "Maid" of honor which means only one thing- I’m single and the last person who feels warranted in giving happily ever after marriage advice ;)

5. And on a completely serious note, I realized that the reason I was having so much trouble writing this speech was because I couldn’t call the person I normally would to get the advice I needed to put things back into perspective and set me back on track. The person who would remind me of why I’m REALLY standing up here today…not to "wow the crowd" by following some script but to speak from the heart and follow my own. Katie, that person is you; the person who’s always reminded me of what really matters in life.

Back in the 4^th grade I gave you an award that, at the time, I had little basis for. I have it with me here tonight and it reads: “This award goes to Katherine Shafer for being a good friend, caring, friendly, hard worker, funny, thoughtful and kind”. 18 years later I stand up here to say that you have lived up to every one of those words and more. There is something so genuine and honest about the friend you’ve always been to me and the person you are to everyone in this room- your family, your friends, your students and Blake. Your sincere character brings out the most genuine sides in others by valuing all the right things in each of them- not by holding them up to living out some silly script.

I read a quote the other day  “A soulmate is someone who will make you be the most YOU that you can possibly be.” That’s who you’ve been to me Katie ,and I truly believe that this is who Blake has been to you. During this entire wedding planning process, I’ve seen you break down just a handful of times-and I hope you don’t hate me for saying that out loud. During each time you’ve reminded me of why I believe so strongly in your love for Blake and the strength of this marriage. Your frustrations were never due to things not going as you expected but due to feeling the pressures of living up to the expectations imposed on you as the bride; the pressures of feeling you should care about the superficial things that shouldn’t matter. It’s never been about the wild last hurrah in Vegas, finding perfectly matching bridesmaid dresses, or how you were going to get your hair or make-up done. None of these things ever mattered to you because none of these things are what this wedding signifies for you. You told me the other day after a failed attempt at your hair and make-up test-run, that all you wanted for today was for Blake to look at you and see nothing else...to see the naturally beautiful girl he fell in love with without having to look past your caked-on make-up or fancy hair. What I’m trying to say here is, that sitting here before me are two people who bring out the most genuine sides in others and the most genuine sides in each other. Beyond that, two people who have learned together, especially through the challenges they've faced over the past 7 years, what’s truly important in life. Katherine and Blake, you both are soulmates and I am so happy that you’ve found each other.

So please raise your glasses to Mr. and Ms. Van Treese. Here’s to always staying true to yourselves and never losing site of what's really important…your love for each other.

"people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it" (foreword)

Part of being a grad student studying Organizational Psychology means that, supplementary to the endless readings on how people interact with and behave in organizations, I also get to learn about the commonly administered tests or "inventories" given to these people by taking them myself; they call this experiential learning.  What I am talking about when I say tests or inventories is that when an organization is experiencing inefficiencies due to an endless number of things, they may call in a third party (me, the consultant) to uncover their underlying issues and find resolutions to them. To do this, administering inventories to employees, as they call them, is often useful for discovering the root of the problem depending on the problem itself and its players. But I digress…

So lasts week’s topic in my Org. Behavior class was work-life balance and stress. Part of my weekly assignment, in addition to the 300 pages of reading (ugh), was to take a stress level indicator and a work-life balance assessment. I think the stress level indicator is pretty self-explanatory, but to be sure you know what is meant by this commonly used notion of work-life balance, that assessment measures the balance between the time you spend doing three things: working, either at work or simply working from a Blackberry or the like, cultivating your personal life, and cultivating your relationships (family, friends, significant other etc.). So after taking both assessments, I discovered that to my complete surprise (not a surprise at all), my stress level is pretty close to off the charts and that it’s no wonder the phrase “work-life balance” is never uttered out of my mouth when speaking about my own life...because it doesn’t exist. Allthough these cold hard facts make it hard for me to ignore the fact that I have a slight problem, the relieving part about it all is knowing that I am far from alone but am in the company of the majority of other people in this country who also suffer from this 21^st century epidemic I’d like to call workaholism- that’s right “I am powerless over [the amount of time I spend working] and my life has become unmanageable.”

So ya, that picture of grad school that I painted of myself spending my hours outside of class leisurely sipping on coffee in some quaint café while calmly flipping through the pages of my textbooks or writing well thought out papers a month in advance just because I had the time….ya, that’s hardly my reality. I now employ 3 part-time jobs (thank god the 4^th ended last week), am taking 5 classes, and am assisting 2 year-long research studies. I hardly know what having a social life means anymore, I recently considered putting a hold on my gym membership, and sleep is just something I do if I have time…I guess sipping my to-go cup of coffee while driving from one destination to the next could be considered leisure time?  

Grad school aside, this type of lifestyle of being constantly on the go, cramming as many of the “have tos” into our day as possible, has become so mainstream that we hardly even recognize it as a problem anymore. The average number of hours people spend at work is unheard of and the number of hours people spend working on work during their off hours (family time, at the gym, at the dinner table) is even more disturbing...and I fall right in there with the rest. When I stopped to examine how I spent the hours of my day (part of the work-life balance assessment) I realized that they’re spent in one of two ways- doing the things that take my energy (work, school, errands, meetings, appointments etc.) or doing the things that are completely neutral or mindless- the things that neither take energy nor give me energy (e.g. sitting behind a TV or computer screen watching some variation of reality television or the lives of my Facebook friends unfold before me on the Newsfeed). At most, I was able to identify maybe a few hours per week spent seeing the social light of day but other than that I make almost no time for doing the things that I used to do- the things that rejuvenate me, that give me energy, inspire me, slow me down, release stress- ultimately, the things that would sustain my mental and physical health during stressful times like these. Sadly, it’s always these things I cut out when life gets hectic so it’s no wonder I am a walking ball of stress/mental case. But I'm not alone, right? If you're anything like me, you may continuously catch yourself saying things like: “I’d love to do more of [this or that], I just don’t have the time”. Be it cooking, hiking, playing music, painting, swimming, gardening, writing, jogging, pleasure reading etc., the question “what do you do for fun” is becoming one of those harder questions to answer these days given we simply have no time anymore. Or do we, we just don’t make the time to create a balanced life?

So I’m left wondering, how do I make the time? It would be completely idealistic to say that I should quit all jobs, take a smaller class load and start-up a coin collecting hobby, or maybe in your case, readopt that obsolete notion of the 9-5, turn in your Blackberry and join a painting club, but that’s just not the reality of the times. Technology has changed the landscape of how fast we have to move and how connected we must be in order to keep up. My answer then becomes that of strategic, almost anal retentive, time management. If working 3 jobs and taking 5 classes is what I need to do to  get to where I want to be, then that's that. It only means though, that my free time outside of my obligations needs to be prioritized almost down to the minute. Although watching mindless television or reading about what Jonny ate for breakfast on the Newsfeed may serve me once in a while, I realize that I need to be more aware of when to replace these kinds of empty activities with activities that actually give me energy, inspire me, get me thinking- thinking about things other than work, school, Facebook, or Snookie. Afterall, awareness is the first step, right?

My second step was starting this blog. This blog will be my outlet for the creative things I enjoy doing that I never make time for- my "hobbies", if you will, although I always think of that word in describing something more trivial. Whatever it is, this blog will hold me accountable for doing those things that give me some piece of mind; after all, now that the url is here, I’ve got to fill it with somthing...

Home décor/interior redesign, I guess you’d call it, is the first piece. I told someone during my last year of undergrad, “I think I want to major in interior design.” A week later I came to my senses and realized it was a bit too late to switch and that I’d have to settle with International Relations. Since then though, I’ve realized that it’s true what they say, “it’s never too late” to at least make it a hobby, which is what I’ve done over the past several years. Maybe someday, when I’ve exhausted my time changing the world of big business, I’ll start my own little business doing some sort of interior design work and I’ll look back at this blog and acknowledge it as the start of building my brand name J

 Second, I’ve been blowing up pictures ever since I had a camera. I love photography, although I’m definitely nothing more than a novice.  Without photographs, we’d see no history, no tangible memories. It’s fun to freeze moments, especially good ones so that is the second piece to this blog; it will be a place for me to cultivate my other casual hobby, photography.

And finally, the most stated advice I’ve heard since being in grad school is “if you want to be successful and you want to be heard in your career, you need to write…a lot”. Although this won’t be focused around text (like this never ending abstract), this blog will carry one final piece- a place for thoughtful writing when I’m in the mood.

Without further ado, I have to end by stating one last thing. I’ve always kind of been turned off by the concept of blogging, although there are some great blogs out there that I really do love to read. I don’t know what it is, it just seems a bit presumptuous-as if I think any aspect of my life or my simple opinion is noble enough to write about or even more, noble enough for somebody else to want to read about. So that’s the final piece of this that I hope to leave out-coming across as a talking head with some opinion you should adopt. I’m not an expert on anything and this isn’t about me and what I know- it’s just a good excuse to slow down, think creatively, and write.

I hope you enjoy!