A tulle wedding dress: from shop to bustle to overseas packing

My wedding dress

So, I got married to my partner of seven years last April. It was a lovely small ceremony in Australia, followed by a larger reception in the southernmost corner of the Netherlands. There are many sweet memories, but the purpose of this post is to share my journey with one of the most important aspects of the wedding: The Dress.

Although my husband is of course the most important aspect of the wedding, admittedly, The Dress was very important as well. It set the entire mood of the wedding to a whimsical romantic atmosphere which I like. Thus, here I’d like to talk about the journey of my dress, from shop to bustle to packing for overseas trips.

Brides who choose tulle princess dresses might want to read the bustle part in particular, because I share with you one of the most important, yet often forgotten, aspects of a wedding dress: the Bustle. If your seamstress failed to make you satisfied with the bustle of your tulle wedding dress, read on. Because you CAN make a beautiful bustle out of a tulle dress.

Lovely Very Valentine

Adriana Trigiani is officially my favourite authoress now, on par with Sophie Kinsella on my book (or book shelf?). I admit that I had been eyeing ‘Very Valentine’ since before Christmas last year, but was put off by its expensive price. I was also reluctant to start reading a story from an author I haven’t read before. Then I spotted the smaller TPB version of VV last May at the airport (most of my fave books I encountered in airports!), really browsed the first few pages, and… well, I can’t resist a novel that talks about shoes (particularly bespoke wedding shoes), can’t I?

But Adriana delivers much more than a quench for my thirst for good shoes and a good story about how bespoke shoes are made. She delivers Life itself that speaks through the heroine Valentine Roncalli, an Italian American living in Greenwich Village New York (I swear, if I ever go to NYC, I shall visit Greenwich Village. As Colin Firth’s Darcy said: “I shall!”). In many ways, I can relate to Valentine. Single woman of mid 30s, has big family that more often than not are noisy about her personal life, has to prove to herself that she can save and live her dream life… and has a good taste of well-made and comfortable shoes. Okay, I don’t have a nice tomato garden at the rooftop, but I am contemplating about it now.

Tips for international shoe size conversion

I’ve recently made some purchases from US, so I thought I’d just pour myself some more tips on converting your shoe size when you do online purchase. For reference, I usually wear size EU 38 or 39 for heels; I’m happy with insole length 9.5-9.75” (24.5-25cm) and width of ball of foot 3” (7.5cm), but for heels, if it gets larger than that, it won’t do me good. I go up to EU 40 for boots. My right foot is half a number smaller than my left foot, but that’s common for many people, so I’m not an alien here. I might have to say that these sizing tips apply only for women shoes. Sorry, guys…


Is AU size = US size?The thing is, whenever I go to Novo, one of my favourite shoe stores in Australia, I usually go with “8 = 39” and it fits me well. So naturally, I thought that my size is AU 8 or EU 39 (which is the size I use in Indonesia). Several time I shopped in Ebay UK and I always asked for UK 6, and they fit me well.

Then came the time when I found Modcloth and got confused because they said AU 8 = US 9.5, or EU 41. Which is impossible! So, what is my US size? Is it possible that I actually had been shopping with US 8, and thought that it was AU 8?

Metanoia

I owe my dearest friend 'Cabe' for introducing me a new term today. Something that I've been experiencing and I am very aware of, but never knew the term until now. Metanoia.


From Wikipedia:

Metanoia (from the Greek μετάνοια, metanoia, changing one's mind) in the psychological theory of Carl Jung denotes a process of reforming the psyche as a form of self healing, a proposed explanation for the phenomenon of psychotic breakdown. Here, metanoia is viewed as a potentially productive process, and therefore patients' psychotic episodes are not necessarily always to be thwarted, which may restabilize the patients but without resolving the underlying issues causing their psychopathology.

It's going to be okay

It’s going to be okay
by Barin Taylor

It's going to be okay...
Just hang in there
It’s going to be okay
Just give things a little time

And in the meantime…
Keep believing in yourself;
Take the best of care;
Try to put things in perspective;
Remember what’s most important;
Don’t forget that someone cares;

Search for the positive side;
Learn the lessons to be learned;
And find your way through to the inner qualities…
The strength, the smiles, the wisdom and the optimistic outlook
That are such special parts of you.

It’s going to be okay

I know it will be
Because I know you

The Stepmother’s Support Group - not your usual Saturday snack

It’s weird to read something with such an intense and uncommon theme like The Stepmother’s Support Group (SSG) novel… but authoress Samantha Baker (current editor of Red magazine in UK) has made it so fresh and alight (despite having serious sub-themes inside) that I can’t help but writing a short review about it. About how I enjoyed and admired it.

SSG was not exactly what I needed for a lite ‘chick-lit’ reading after a day(s) of struggling with your thesis. But it’s actually not a wonder why I chose it. I’ve lived with step-somethings almost a third of my life. My parents were divorced and now I have a set of step parents, one is much more dysfunctional than the other. My sister will be a stepmother herself in a year’s time. My cousin remarried as well, so her daughters have a stepfather now. My other cousin is a rebel, for his father remarried again, and he has to cope with the stepmother (actually, it’s the other way around. The stepmother is the one who has to cope with him!). I even once considered myself as a potential stepmother for the children of a man I used to love so much (still love so much), but…it never went that far…

Breaking the patterns: Healing at cellular memory level

Again, I have data analysis to do, but my right brain kept begging me to write this down, so here we are. Right brain, the intuition wins. Let’s hope this is a useful epiphany for you dear friend, for it definitely is for me.

First, I would like to acknowledge (again) Christiane Northrup, MD (Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom) for her amazing book that I have yet finished reading, for it seems like chewing up the last bites of a very delicious meal. I am utterly most grateful for the research and wisdom she unravelled for us there. Other women I would like to thank are a sisterhood of Jane Austen fans, mainly Laurie Viera Rigler (Rude Awakening of a Jane Austen Addict) and Mariana Gheorghe, whose recent article in the Becoming Jane Fansite about Bad Tuesdays for Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy has unconsciously triggered a new shed of awareness in me.

By now, you would be quirking your nicely trimmed eyebrows, for what is the relationship between Northrup’s feminine bodily wisdom and the deceased British authoress of the Regency Period? Two phrase: cellular memories and repetitive patterns.

From Romantic Relationship to Spiritual Journey

I’ve been thinking about the term ‘relationship’ lately, and how in spiritual world it seems to be counterproductive with one’s journey within. Well, from its track record, any kind of relationships – friendship, mother-daughter, father-son, or and particularly intimate relationship – often notoriously give adverse impact to one’s spiritual journey. Particularly intimate relationship, it has the large potentials to you needy, clinging, pining etc that eventually make you lose your self-respect. I often then understand how conscious people, inter alia but not limited to nuns and monks, choose to live celibate lives, for enough is enough. It is painful to go through a relationship. Why bother? Better get out and enjoy being alone.

But… but… How do I say this? I’m not saying that being alone is wrong. I think it’s great when you are alone and immensely happy with yourself. It’s great, it’s amazing. You feel whole, well… you ARE and always have been whole… and you feel that the world is in your hand. Or rather, you are melting and becoming part of the world. Part of Life. Trust me. It’s good. IT’S GREAT, and it’s peaceful. More over, it gives you time to thoroughly explore the journey within. It’s amazing and for some people – including me – it is the best thing that comes out of a single life. You become acquainted with yourself, and you are immensely happy with it. After all, Khalil Gibran put it most eloquently:


It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

Sacred Moon, Sacred River: Celebrating my 5th year of living healthily

I was waiting in a domestic departure lounge for a delayed flight three nights ago when I saw a big discount in the local Periplus booth. Being a book aficionado, I had to go there and browse. That was when I found a very important book to me as a woman, and as a person: ‘Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdoms’ by Christiane Northrup, M.D. A New York Times Bestseller, and upon reading it randomly since two days ago, I have no doubts about its bestseller status.

The book is about – among others – how women’s bodies try to tell women what’s the best for them, that illness comes to tell the women what’s wrong with their lifestyle … and how the health of women is link to the health of the Earth. Completes with a great guidance of the seven chakras and how our problems with a particular chakra is likely to result in a health problem in particular organs. Very… new age. Very pagan… very me. In many ways, the book resonates well with an older post of mine about the joy of menstrual cycle, our sacred monthly rites.

The Benefits and Blessings of Periods

Periods can be a pain, so why have them at all?

That’s the first line of an article I read today at lunch, titled ‘The Great Escape’, published in the NewScientist edition 29 September 2007, Issue 2623. And I did not need to read the entire article to know that I will be pissed off. Well, for the sake of science, I did read it all, and still pissed off. Hence, this post, for I need to blow the steam. So here, we go, and I hope I can be as systematic as possible.

I could not find the PDF or online version of the article, so I will just scan the four pages later at my more leisure time and post them here as well. The writer of this article is surprisingly a woman. Ms. Hannah Hoag, whom based on my internet searching, is a truly credible writer in her own right. This is her private blog, or at least I hope it is. This post is definitely not to attack Ms. Hoag’s position or article; but rather to criticize from a woman’s point of view how the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of a natural phenomenon as menstruation leads to the findings of any means to avoid or even eliminate menstrual cycle from women’s calendar, an action that may be based on sympathy, but definitely against the rhythm of the Nature herself.