Saturday, April 18, 2009

Seeing each other before the ceremony...






Finishing Touches for the Groomspeople







From Top: Adam gets his boutenniere; Jenny's corsage; Rob and his dad, Bob, who came from Florida for the wedding; Kyle gets flowered; Daniel awaits his flower; Steve, Kyle, and Rob ponder the meaning of existence... upside down.

Almost Time...



Aspen was all set, I put some finishing touches on my lips, and my brother in law Sam came in to give me a quick hug before the ceremony began.

Finishing Touches



We waited till the last minute to get Aspen's dress on her. Heather helped me with my shoes. Julia inspected the basket of petals.

Jenny and Russ Misbehave



Getting Zipped



Getting everything into the dress properly was kind of a chore. I didn't want any wardrobe malfunctions. Stacey and Mom helped. Well, mostly Stacey while Mom stood there and laughed.

Me getting ready...



Kira and Julia

This is another of my favorite images from the day. Kira and Julia are my friends Kresta and Thad's daughters and some of my very favorite children on the planet. Kira was a "junior bridesmaid" and Julia was a flower girl, charged with leading our little niece Aspen down the aisle. They both looked beautiful.

Some of the bridesmaids getting ready...



I love how they were all laughing a lot. Kresta thought she had too much cleavage in her dress (center photo). Heather painted her toes and curled her hair -- she was all out of control with girliness that day.

Details...



Top: The programs designed by Rob's mom.
Middle: A bridesmaid bouquet.
Bottom: My bouquet.

Russ Esposito

This is one of my very favorite images out of over 12oo photos. It's quintessential Russ. Like if someone had asked me beforehand who was most likely to be drinking from a flask inside the church, I probably would have chosen Russ. Which is not to suggest Russ is only about drinking, but he is a bit of a rebel. In a good way. We love him.

Rebecca and Peter


Then Kyle got Rob ready...




Then the groomsmen got ready...



Rob Gets Daniel Ready



Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Rapture

So there was this girl I went to high school with that I spent some quality time with at our 10-year reunion back in 1998, and now she's on Facebook and we are Facebook friends. Back at the 10-year reunion, she was telling me how the pastor at this church she went to said that the Rapture was going to happen on New Year's Eve going into Y2K, and he was helping a select group of individuals at the church prepare for it. She was one of them. Imagine my surprise when I saw her at the 20-year reunion last summer! I guess the Rapture didn't happen after all, and I often wonder how a pastor would explain that away. He probably told them all they weren't good enough or something.

So now every single time I see her name on Facebook, I want to ask her what happened. But I guess that would be rude.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Poppa


My grandfather on my mom's side passed away this past Saturday at the age of 88. It was not unexpected but it hurts just the same. He was a husband, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, a friend, a Canadian, a soldier. He meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people.


He was our Poppa. He was Daniel's Great-Poppa.


He cooked us perch for supper every time we visited. Every time.


He liked to tease us.


He made funny faces but stopped as soon as someone pulled out a camera.


He yelled sometimes... but what Holden doesn't yell sometimes?


He had opinions, a lot of opinions about a great many things. Lots of us are like him that way -- it's hard to get a word in edgewise when there are Holdens in the room.


He was a great drinking buddy. It's his fault if I was kind of drunk at Cousin Krissy's wedding.


He was as stubborn as the day is long. If you're a Holden with a stubborn streak, it's probably his fault. Some might say that's an understatement.


He was proud. He was proud of all of us, his kids, his grandkids, his great-grandkids.


He was the kind of grandfather you brag about on the school playground. "Oh yeah? Well, MY grandpa fought in World War II and got blown up by a land mine and lived to tell about it!"


He was handsome. It's not hard to see why Nana fell for him. Not hard at all.


He called us "Pet."


He loved to make his great-grandchildren laugh.

When my older sister and I were quite small, we would travel to Ontario in the summertime to visit Nana and Poppa at their home in Cornwall. They would be at their cottage along the St. Lawrence, and we would mostly spend the days in the water. It was so different from our home, this place -- if we walked up the road to the shop to buy Smarties and Coffee Crisps, we passed by people who spoke a different language, people who dressed differently than the people we were used to. We loved it. It smelled like the river, and exhaust from the road. Poppa always kept a pair of binoculars at the ready so we could inspect passing ships on the seaway, and he had a little book with all the ships' names and flags so we could look up the countries they came from. Norway. Denmark. Sweden. Canada, of course. Poppa had a boat, and while we there, he would take us out, maybe just one time, onto the river. The thought of that boat ride would sustain us for weeks before we ever left home, and remembering it after we returned kept us happy for months. The spray as we sped over the water. The musty smell of the fat orange life vests we wore. Poppa at the wheel pointing out interesting sights along the way -- but Poppa at the wheel was more interesting to us than any other sight. He would be shirtless and tan and his hair glinting in the sun. He loved that river.

And this more than anything is the way I remember him: the smells of the river, the fat orange life vests, the boat, the water, Poppa at the helm.

He was my Poppa.

I love him.

I miss him.


Monday, March 02, 2009

Yay, it worked!


So, as most of you are aware, our wedding was waaaaay back on Sept. 27th. That's like, 5 months ago. And ever since I got my photo discs from the photogs, I've been wanting to post a bunch of them on Facebook. But it turns out Facebook has a photo size limit, and most of our wedding photos exceed the size limit. So I thought, okay, I'll figure out how to resize them and then post them in an album. But resizing them made them look like crap. So it finally occurred to me today (bored, during a conference call) that maybe I could post a bunch of them here in my blog. As though that were some novel concept or whatever. And so I did a test with the photo below of my gorgeous niece Aspen, and it totally worked out nicely. So guess what?? I'm going to post a bunch of them here in my blog, because there's no size limit!


And just for fun, here's a bonus photo of The Pook to tide you over.


This is only a test...


Sunday, March 01, 2009

Outlander

Oh, you Outlander fanatics are so correct -- it is indeed wonderful! I'm only midway through the first book, but I've already joined this challenge to read the whole series before the new one comes out in September of this year:

http://outlanderchallenge.blogspot.com/

Never one to shirk from a reading challenge, I'm sure I'll be finished in no time.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

39 Things

Today is my birthday. Number 39. So I shall do my traditional birthday resolutions. 39 of them. Herewith, I resolve to:

1). Seek actual medical treatment for my PMDD. Otherwise, my husband is going to divorce me. Actually, he won't even dare to divorce me because he will fear my wrath. He'll have to fake his own disappearance a la Olivia Newton John's boyfriend, and sneak out in the middle of the night, and they'll find him 10 years later in a Florida meth lab/trailer park, with a full beard and long hair as his only disguise. And when they ask why he left, he'll say it was because his wife was turning into a psychopath 7 days of every month and he just couldn't take it anymore.

Plus, it makes me absolutely miserable.

2). Listen more to my Mary-Chapin Carpenter cds. I first came to know and love MCC through this stupid tribute show to women in country music back in 1994, and it seemed that she was the organizer of the whole thing because they sang one of her songs at the end, as the Big Production Number. She is not quite country, not quite folk, not quite rock, but always quite lovely. Plus she made a hit out of a Lucinda Williams song. That's just cool.

3). Drop a few pounds. Honestly, until I address a couple of other health issues, I'm pretty sure I don't have the will to lose all that I need to lose, but at the very least, I'd like fit into my pretty summer clothes again, which are size 16W and 18W. It is a sad state of affairs when you're wanting to lose weight so you can fit into smaller clothes that are still plus size clothes, but that's what happens when you're a lazy shit like me.

4). Blog more. Instead of Twittering and updating my Facebook status in blogging's place. Or filling out silly Facebook surveys. Which I love to do, but end up annoying myself when I do that instead of blog. So I'll try to be better.

5). Look at more art.

6). Take a cooking class. An Indian cooking class. Or something fun like that.

7). See better movies. We went to Best Picture Showcase at AMC Theatres this past weekend. It raised the bar. Considerably. Like, I'll still watch the crap on DVD or PPV, but when we're gonna spend 11 bucks on a ticket, we'll aim to be more discerning.

8). Re-examine my career. Find a direction. Make some decisions, set some goals. Figure shit out.

9). Yell less.

10). Laugh more.

11). Love better.

12). Purchase robot for doing laundry.

13). Seek to feel zen about laundry.

14). Do some yoga.

15). Not take American Idol so personally.

16). Not get pissed when people ask why I "need" an 80-gig iPod. No one fucking needs an iPod. No one needs a Shuffle or a Nano or a Touch. No one needs 4-gig or 8-gig or even 16 or more. My 80-gig iPod holds my music collection. No, I do not NEED to carry my entire music collection every single place I go. But I do like to carry my entire music collection every single place I go. Why the fuck do you care?? I will not ask you this, and I will not respond when you ask me why I need an 80-gig iPod. I will just smile serenely and walk away.

17). Get more sleep.

18). Watch more stand up comedy.

19). Play more quiz. I think I like to play quiz just as much as Rob does, if not maybe a little more (I am less competitive about it than he is, thus I have more fun when I play). But I don't get to play as much as him. I would like this to change.

20). Buy more shirts. I'm always at a loss for shirts. It's so aggravating.

21). Read more books. As if I don't read enough now, averaging one per week. I'd like to make it two per week.

22). Revisit my novel.

23). Get more pedicures.

24). Get more massages.

25). Watch more sunsets.

26). Read Jane Austen. I have weirdly never read any Jane Austen except for Pride and Prejudice at the ill-advised age of 12, when it was foisted upon me by a friend's mother. I didn't understand a fucking word of it. So now, having seen all the fantastic BBC movies a million times each and knowing they can't possibly compare to the actual novels, and feeling slightly guilty about it as well, I feel it's time. Since Harry Potter's done, I've got to read something, right??

27). And in that vein, read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I know a thousand people (read: women) who read this series religiously and swear to me that it's really, really, really good. Apparently there's Scotland and this woman who goes back in time and men in kilts running about and stuff like that. It sounds a little romance-y, but it is not stocked in the Romance section of any bookstore, not even the Tattered Cover, and I am confident that these women friends of mine wouldn't read it if it were romance in disguise, so I'm going to give a go. I bought the first one the other night. It's 600 pages, and that's just the first one in a looooong series. So right away I love it, and I haven't even started reading it yet.

28). Quit whining about my hair and actually have better hair.

29). Figure out how to play Bakugan. For Daniel's sake.

30). Be more organized. Especially when it comes to time. I'm always forgetting to get things done or forgetting about plans I've made, or scheduling meetings and forgetting about them until the day before at 4:15 so guess what, I haven't prepared. If I were more on top of my calendar, it wouldn't be such an issue.

31). Keep more groceries in the house. This is so we can avoid all the last-minute trips to the store when we're panicking over what to make for dinner. We have gotten into a bad habit of not doing a big grocery shop on a regular basis, which means we run out of staples more often than we should. I can't even think of the last time we did a big shop -- December, probably.

32). Make more Rice Krispies Treats. Easy enough!

33). Get more manicures.

34). And pedicures.

35). Spend more time with Aspen. And Stacey and Nate. I guess. Since they're her parents.

36). Stay on top of my scrapbooking. I'm in a really good place with it right now, and feel like I can maintain it if I make sure to set aside one crop day per month.

37). Keep the house cleaner. We used to be so good about this and the last several months, since just before our wedding, we've been horribly lazy about it. It's really hard to climb out of that hole once you get into it, but I will insist that we make the effort.

38). Use my computer instead of continuing to hog Rob's. It's just that, his is the laptop, and thus one can sit in the big comfy chair with it instead of at the desk...

39). Drink more tea. More tea, less Diet Pepsi, maybe. Maybe that's the ultimate goal to shoot for with this one.

Damn, 39 was difficult. I better start thinking of the 40 I'm going to need for next year...

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

So 'tis the season again...

For American Idol, that is.

I seriously don't know why I still watch this show. But I do, without fail. I feel kind of funky if I miss it. It seems like it should be something I'm too cool for. But on the other hand, I'm just cool enough to not care whether or not something I do is cool.

So there are some promising contestants this season. I'm pulling for Danny Gokey to go all the way. I had a huge temper tantrum last week when his friend Jemar didn't get chosen for the final 36. I'll hold out hope to see him in the Wild Card round. There are quite a few girls that I enjoy as well, but they're sort of bland. Like, I enjoy them, but I can't imagine listening to, like, an entire album of any of theirs.

Tonight the judges are irritating and getting all fussed over people that aren't that great. At least Simon chimes in with his voice of reason. I'm always really disturbed when Randy gets excited about people that suck. Randy's a dick, but at least he's usually honest. Not tonight though.

I like these rounds, though. It lets you see who can get past the nerves and actually perform. Clearly, Stevie Wright is not one of those people. Uch.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Flirty Girl Fit

So I just saw this awesome ad for a set of DVDs called 'Flirty Girl Fit' which will train you to dance like a stripper slut in your quest to lose unwanted poundage. And like showing us the dance moves wouldn't have been enough, they totally did that thing that sketchy diet products always do in their ads, which is to show before and after testimonials from apparent users of the product. According to this ad, you could theoretically lose like 40 pounds and 2 pant sizes just dancing like a stripper. Now, I don't know about any of you, but if I lost 40 pounds, that would actually take me down about 3 or 4 pant sizes. But I'm sure that was just an honest mistake on the part of the admakers.

It's $9.99 and if you order NOW, you'll also get a free stripper pole to put in your living room.

Look, I do not make this shit up.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Pregnant People That I Don't Really Know

I've noticed in recent years that I always -- always -- know when someone is pregnant, even before they make it public. I don't mean celebrities or whatever, but like people in my life that I may or may not be really close to, or people whose blogs I follow. Because they think they're hiding it (there's the whole "Don't announce before 12 weeks" taboo we've got going on in our culture, because of the increasingly large percentage of early miscarriage in this country), and they're totally not, because they start to talk and act like pregnant women. Part of it is that they'll stop doing stuff they've always done, like drinking wine when everyone else is drinking wine, or staying up late on the scrapbooking retreat (hi, sister Stacey, hahahaha, I totally knew when you were pregnant, maybe even before you did!). And part of it is that they turn weirdly serene, and more introspective than they've ever been. Even the ones who are already really introspective -- they become even more so. It's so funny. And then I'll be sitting there in a room with them or reading their blog (Hello, dooce! Hello, She Just Walks Around With It!) and thinking, "She is talking like a pregnant woman. I bet she's totally knocked up."

And of course I am always correct, and three weeks later they're announcing it to everyone.

I'm so smart and in touch with the energy of those around me.

Anyway, congratulations to Heather at dooce and Kristy at She Just Walks Around With It. It's all very exciting and I'm unbelievably happy for you both... unbelievable because I don't really know you, but feel like I sort of do.

Wow. This post is dumber than I expected it to be. Oh well.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

This is why I heart my friend Heather

Behold, the text of an email from my friend Heather:



From: Hughes, Heather

Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1:00 PM

To: Shannon McEwen

Subject: I am a complete tool....

I just went out into the cold with my big-red-dumb snowcoat on (the one that I refer to as my “sped” coat, because it seems that only a ‘tard would be caught wearing it). I saw a news team out on the 16th street mall, and I tried to avoid eye contact. I do not want to be interviewed in the sped coat. Well, the reporter asked me if I’d do a quick interview, and I thought, “sure, why not?”

So she asks me how much I would be willing to pay for tickets to Obama’s Inauguration.

“Uhmm $1,000?” I reply.

Dead Air. My eyes dart back and forth from the reporter (with a microphone shoved in my face) and the camera. Aaahh! Where am I supposed to look?

A few more seconds of dead air.

“Boy, that’s a lot of money for tickets.” She says.

And I reply, “yeah,”

Dead-dead-dead silence.

Then the camera guy says, “tell us why”

And I say, “well, I guess because I saw him at the convention and at the rally a couple of weeks ago, and I think he is a really good speaker,” (well mostly I stuttered through this part).

More dead air. I start to panic. Do I have to say something else?? Aaahh!

So the reporter says, “so do you plan on spending $1,000 for tickets?”

And I look directly into the camera and say, “no, cuz I don’t have a $1,000. But if I did, I would totally buy tickets” and I do this bizarre thing with my hands. Like, half thumbs up and half some bizarre hand signal I made up.

Then she has me spell my name in front of the camera, and I start to briskly walk away (because I feel like a complete and utter tool). She yells back, “you’ll be on at 5!” and I just looked back and mumbled, “uhkay”

But I realized I forgot to ask what station! Doh!

I did some research online, and I think it was Jane Slater that interviewed me. So maybe channel 7? Lol.