1.01.2008

Another long weekend bites the dust

JS and I went bm dress shopping yesterday morning. We were going so that JS could check out colors and designers, not to buy a dress. JS is going to order everyone's together so that the dye lot's the same - and she's not even a stitcher, I am so impressed with her. Plus she's from Jersey, the land of no-sales-tax-on-clothing, so her mom will place the final order over there.

Bridesmaid dresses, or at least all the ones we've been looking at, are sleeveless about 98% of the time. At Orthodox weddings, which this is, people dress more modestly - sleeveless and low necklines (or low cut backs) are not done. Usually what ends up happening is the bride picks a fabric (and might even give it to the BMs) and the bms have a dress made in any style they like. It's more expensive than off-the-rack (about $200-$300) but they really don't make any bm dresses that are ready-to-wear modestly.

JS is very considerate and so she's trying to find a designer that has jackets or something so that we can buy off the rack. It's hard though, there isn't a large selection of jackets and a) they're often not completely represented on the designer's website and b) it's hard to tell how they will look when paired with a dress. So basically, JS and I went to check out the jacket situation for the designer she likes, Alfred Angelo, and some others.

We met up at Penn Station and walked over to RK Bridal on 39th St. They had probably 20 different designers, but we started with Alfred Angelo. Jill pulled the 2 jackets that she liked (the 3rd was very professional looking) and then we tried on like 30 dresses. We have different body types so JS tried on also so that we could see how different styles looked with the jackets. I had lots of fun trying on dresses, but in the end we were there for 3 hours trying on and a half hour poring through books, so it got a little tiring by the end.

We went out for pizza afterwards to catch up, and we were near enough to Times Square to catch some of the preparations for that night's party. We both went home afterwards, no block party for us.

My dad says we have a family tradition of going out for dinner together at 5pm on the 31st, so that's what we did. Over the course of dinner we started discussing cars, since the lease on my mom's car is up in the summer. My mom makes the final decision but we all drive the car, so my brothers always push something they'd want to drive and I advocate more eco-friendly models. Long story short, my middle brother and I have a deal that if I bicycle to work for 3 months to *prove my commitment to saving energy* or something, he'll switch his vote to an eco-friendly vehicle (that I approve of). It's 5.4 miles to work and the route is very hilly so I don't know if that's going to happen, but I'm going to try it out tomorrow.

I am allowed to take public transportation but must take the bike more often than the transport. So I'll probably bike to PW but take the public transport on days I work in NYC.

Today I biked to Michael's as a test run, since it's about 1/2way through my commute. Round trip (including shopping) was 90 minutes, so if you take out the 45 minutes I spent at Michael's I'll need about an hour to get to work. There are some very steep hills in both directions and the plan is to walk the bike most of the way up at first. I don't like sweating, and the point of this is ecological not exercisical. If after tomorrow's trial I decide to go for the whole 3 months, then I'll make plans to build stamina to tackle the hills.

This is a good segue into my Goals for 2008. Resolutions if you will.
1. Keep blogging every month. Try for multiple posts per week or once weekly at worst
2. Continue tracking all project starts, finishes and progress on my blog so I can keep finally count my yearly finishes. I know I have a bunch of finishes in 2007, but no idea how many, I have the worst memory ever :-(
3. Organize my stitching rotation system. Currently I have none.
4. Make a biscornu
5. An ecological resolution, something along the lines of starting to use Freecycle and riding my bicycle more frequently. We need a Velib in NYC!

I'm not feeling inspired about the resolutions so I'll come back to them later.

Last night I went to a small gathering at DP's house. It was Chavi's last night in NY so I wanted to see her, and that's where she was going. We watched Employee of the Month and since Chavi was crocheting a kipah (and the lights were gonna be on anyways), I brought along SB Wish. I'm hoping to finish it on 1/1 but we'll see.

This morning I woke up super early - 8:00 - to go to the Lazy Daisy sale. 30% off charts before 11am, so I got a bunch of stuff. There were a couple of JBW Country charts, some LHN and CCN, and I even found 2 awesome Mirabilia fairies, in case I should ever finish Ivy.

Next I went to pick up some books from a Freecycler that lives near my LNS. I signed up for my local Freecycle group because I have some books to get rid of myself, and now here I am with a net gain! Oh well, I'm going to read and then freecycle them back again so it will (hopefully) be a wash. And now that I've benefited from the system I have more internal nudging to participate myself :-D

This afternoon I met up with JF's recent ex for lunch. It was really good to see him and it wasn't awkward at all, they're both too nice to put their friends in the middle. I worked on Wish for a bit, then went to Michael's. Dinner was sushi with the family, then Coldstone for dessert. Now it's time to stitch a bit and go to sleep. I have a big ride in the morning.

Good night!

8 comments:

DaisyGirl said...

Hi! I visited NY in March of 2007, I loved it, but, where do real people live? We were on Broadway, the tour guy was such a jerk! I was just curious. Glad you read my blog, good luck on biking!
Donna

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

Sounds like a great resolution to bike to work and one that not many would incovienience themselves to do! Good Luck!

Jacque said...

Good on ya for the biking! Today it is 6 degrees (or was when I left the house) so no thanks for me. I do my part by carpooling with Marc! : )

Janet said...

One of life's great frustrations for me is that designers refuse to make clothes with sleeves - what's with that? People need sleeves for all sorts of reasons. Maybe I should start a facebook cause for people who want sleeves!
P.S Great to read about your environmental commitment.

Jennifer said...

I am exhausted just reading about your biking!!! :-)

As for BM dresses, try these sites:
http://www.perfect-bridesmaid-dresses.com/Modest-Bridesmaid-Dresses.htm (Watters has some really nice ones)

If you haven't hit David's yet, they have a cute shrug that can be added to almost any dress: http://www.davidsbridal.com/accessory_detail.jsp?stid=2607&prodgroup=209 It can be worn for the ceremony, then anyone who wants to take it off can take it off after.

Dani - tkdchick said...

Hi Kim,

I don't buy my Michael Powell kits/designs in the US (actually I live in Canada). I buy them from Knowledge and Needles a Canadian shop her website is http://www.knowledgeandneedles.com she has the best prices I can find for them.

Ranae said...

Kim, good luck! on the biking and Please be safe.
Lazy Daisy sounds like they had a good sale, I dont think I ever heard of them .
Happy Stitching 2008!!

Dani - tkdchick said...

Wow! YOu've been super busy! Remember resolutions are not written in stone!