Like this

(from here)

Bouquets

I like these:

(from here)

(from here)

Cuddles

I love cuddles

I love cuddles from O where I snuggle into his neck and breathe him in. I love when he squeezes me tight and I feel protected from everything.

I love cuddles

I love cuddles from my Mum. I listen to her heart beat - it still has the power to soothe me like when I was a baby.

I love cuddles

My Dad doesn't do cuddles. He does short sweet hugs a quick squeeze that says I love you daughter.

(image from here via here)

Thank you

(from here via here)

I just wanted to say thank you to all those who commented on this post.

I love the fact that I can ask your opinions.

Especially when I'm doing my own head in.

Weekend

So what are you up to this weekend?

I'm going for coffee and cake with some friends from Uni.

O and I are going for a drive around our "B" list of venues to see if anything jumps out. Just to double check that we really do love our venue as much as we think we do.

Sunday afternoon we fly to London to stay with my sister (#1) and babysit her kids for their half-term week. My nephew B is 12 going on 17 and niece E is 11 going on 22. I'm really looking forward to spending some time with them, before they become proper teenagers and refuse to talk to me.

So I probably won't be around too much next week. Will try to drop in but if not will catch up with you all next weekend.

What a week

(from here via here)

It's been a tough week at work. My department is being restructured and as mentioned previously it has come as a bit of a shock. I'm lucky, my job isn't really changing, I'm just changing teams and being given slightly more responsibility. For other people however there are going to be bigger changes and it is taking a lot of getting used to. But the negativity is sucking the life out of me. We had an "away day" on Wednesday which was supposed to get us all working together and bring back the positive vibe. Bullshit!

I'm off work for a week, when I get back I'll be in a new team and sitting at a new desk. Hopefully I'll be refreshed and ready to resist the negativity.

We won't be having a religious ceremony

O and I are not religious, our parents are not religious and our grandparents were not really religious.

I have nothing against religion (ok that doesn’t sound right), what I’m trying to say (badly) is I believe what I believe, you should believe what you believe and perhaps one day we can have a discussion about it. Religion has always interested me; I have an A-Level in Religious Studies because I was interested in learning more (people frequently mistake my interest in religion for faith). I think knowledge about other people’s cultures and beliefs should be a basic level of general knowledge that we all have – how else are we supposed to function in a multi-cultural/faith/race society without some sort of basic knowledge of each others heritage and starting point.

Since we announced our engagement we have had a lot of people ask if we will be having a religious or a civil ceremony – and I’m not just talking about venue people. My own sisters have queried this with me, I thought they would have known our standpoint on religion, I would have definitely thought they would have known my standpoint even if they weren’t too sure about O’s.
Sorry I’m grappling with the point here. There are friends of mine who are married and I knew when they announced their engagement that they would have a religious ceremony. We had talked about their beliefs in general conversation and I knew that honouring their faith would be an important part of their day. There are those who I knew would not be having religion involved in their day. And then there are those who I didn’t have a clue about.
This has made me think about the attitude my peer group have to religion. Why is there this embarrassment to stand up and say I believe in this? Or I’m not sure I believe but I think I might, more than I think I don’t? Or simply I don’t believe.

Maybe the point of this post is – do people not know me (us)?

Or maybe it is be proud of what you believe?

Still not sure – see just another spare thought that was running around in my head and then I try to put it on paper and think I should have just kept it in my head ooops.

(Religion is a tricky subject and it is not my intention to offend anyone, my life is richer because I interact with people who have different opinions to me. I'm simply expressing my personal opinion.)

So what do you think?

Hi lovely readers,

I wanted to ask your opinion on something. I think we might have found our wedding venue. It was the third venue we saw on Saturday and we both really loved it. The thing is that the only date they have available when we are looking for is 11 September 2010. Should I be worried about the significance of the date? It bothers me, but only slightly. We're not American and we don't know anyone who was directly effected. What happened was tragic and I don't want to take away from the significance of that event. However should this stop me from having it as my wedding date? What do you think? Am I just being daft?

Thank you
R


edited after first publication

Or here?

(from here via here)

Can I live here please?

(from here via here)