I know it's going to come as a staggering surprise. Seriously, most of you will choke on this information, but I must confess here and now: I am not much of a camper. The mountains? Forest? River? Dig 'em. Open sky? Stars? Yum. But gimme a comfy mattress and a mosquitoless, sweat-free zone before you ask me to pack up my weenies and smores and follow thee to the Great Wide Out There.

But thanks to the brilliance that is the Stephanie, Silas and Angi triangle, we have figured out the PERFECT camping plan. A few nights ago we indeed grabbed our weenies and smores and headed up the Taos Mountain at sunset. In a lovely little nook thick with pine and aspen, we built our campfire and settled in for an evening of sumptuousness and storytelling. After listening to the raging river, sighing with the singing wind, and staring into the dancing flame, we indulged in Desperaux, a tale of love and soup and mousehood. (The most charming tale I've ever read. I suggest you scurry quickly to the nearest bookhole and snatch one up!)

The gorgeous thing about Taos is its lack of mosquitos. So we were able to indulge late into the night without losing our blood or tempers. A little red wine, a little coat hanger inspired hot sticky num nums (as the smores are named in our triangle), a little storytelling and a lot of nature's abundance--this is my kind of camping. Now, if we could just figure out how to get an air mattress on the rocky ground without springing a leak, I'd be All In.

 

 

 

Moving along (in reverse) to catch you up on our adventures during and since the  the wedding.

Stephanie arrived at our house a week ago. She's in need of soul resuscitation, and, as a result, our adobe has been the cauldron of much love, magic and friendship. We've been up the mountain and through the valley, to the river and around the gorge. It's been pure pleasure. (More on that later...there's a ski lift, hot sticky goodness and birdie num nums involved).

I take great comfort in the fact that Stephanie is as big a camera whore as I am, and totes hers everywhere, snapping, snapping. Thought you might like to see some of what we've been up to.

 

So, I'm sure you've heard along the enchanted grapevine that Silas and I have recently wed. Up and did the legal thing, in such a glorious way I might add. More than a handful of friends and relations have asked us about our last name. Will I take his? Will he (le gasp!) take mine? This discussion lasted all of 7 seconds, as both of us are attached to our last names. The only fair and reasonable thing, should we want less hassle at airports and other buerocratic institutions, would be to adopt a third last name, chaning both his and mine to something we could agree upon.

Right now the options are:

Mr. and Mrs. Hatter

Mr. and Mrs. Longstocking

Mr. and Mrs. Neverland-Narnia-Xanadu-Oz

But the popular vote seems to be that we drop the Mr. and Mrs. all together and go with King and Queen of Wonderland. Though I doubt the DMV would acquiesce when it came to driving licenses.

Because the wedding was planned in an incredibly tiny window of time (six weeks) and took three weeks of travel to accomplish, I've been offline as of late. But I'm gonna catch you up with all the goings-on of Team Wonderland, promise! And in keeping with the topsy turvy theme of this blog, I'm gonna start with today and work backwards in time on each progressive post. 

*Snap snap* You followin' me? Pay attention!

So TODAY's photo comes to you from the hot luminosity that is Taos. We're currently havin' a heat wave, but that didn't stop us from steppin out in the bright sun for a bit of funnery. God I love this man!

 

 

 

 

I have a confession to make.

Planning a wedding in six weeks is an insane idea and would have never ever been acceptable to me until now. 

Why now?

Well, the Universe beat my butt into submission a few months ago. Actually, through catastrophe, I finally lay down to sleep one night and said to Silas "I'm tired of living for tomorrow. I've been on a treadmill all my life that sounds alot like 'What next?' I want off that machine. I want to measure the meaning of my life by how many nights I can return to my pillow and say 'I had joy today.' That is my new benchmark for success."

So it's all about today. Instead of having a wedding where I have to pour a lifetime of expectations into the gown, decorations, invitations, cake, caterer, I am simply having a wedding that feels good today.

And what feels good is friends and laughter. Springtime and cherry blossoms. Gratitude, delight, bliss. Pinks and reds and turquoise. Watermelon and pomegranate. Love birds and mouse whiskers. 

Wings and wonder.

 

 

It's finally that time. I can no longer contain myself.

Ready?

We're getting married! In Wonderland!!!



Let me just start by saying we didn't plan on this. In fact, on March 6th, we were driving through Taos, having recently just arrived back from our nightmare of a flooded house in Kennesaw, truly spent and utterly in need of some inspiration. Our exhaustion had us musing over dreams, and one in particular, that of living in Prague. As we passed the Taos Cow (it's a local thing)  I said to Silas "You know, if we ever want to go live in Prague we have to be legally married."

We've never been ones for legal procedures. We exchanged rings by the Seine river in Paris in 2006. Just the two of us and two bottles of wine and a loaf of bread. And that was enough for us. But like it or lump it, Silas is from Europe and can legally live there. But me? I'm a Florida girl, and without a legal certificate, the closest I'm getting to long-term Europe is a season pass at Epcot.

So we look at each other and I say "Justice of the peace? There's no way. It's just not our style." Silas smiles that twinkly Pan smile and says "What then?" So that night we contact Christina Baldwin, my friend and writing mentor, who just also happens to be an ordained minister, to see if she'd be available for an intimate wedding on Whidbey Island, my sacred writing home. When she says "yes!" we dance around the living room and begin to plan a road trip for late April where we'll see 8-12 of our sweetest friends in an intimate ceremony.

Because most of our family and friends will not be able to make it, we agree to keep it a secret--might as well not tell anyone until we can have a second ceremony (with plenty of notice) so everyone can attend. That lasts all of two days. When we decide to have a tea party as a reception, and center the festivities based on a Wonderland theme, all of a sudden it's way too delicious to keep it a secret, too inspiring to hoard all the goodness to ourselves.

We blink. And *snap* -that quick-it's a thirty six person affair with caterers, flowers, cupcakes, teapots, mad hats, Victorian boots, an old fashioned photo booth, two chihuahuas and a duirmouse.

I know. Crazy right? What self-respecting Wonderland resident puts together a wedding in just six weeks?

It's a whirlwind but it's a helluva ride.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(stay tuned. more news coming from the Wonderland homefront)

Many of you know that my favorite place on earth (aside from Wonderland, Oz, and Cirque du Soleil) is the graveyard, especially the Eastern European Graveyard.

While Silas and I were in Europe in December, we spent a very VERY cold day inside the walls of a beloved cemetery. My body was fairly miserable but my heart leaped with glee.

We wanted to make sure we had captured the graveyard in winter, so as to add to our project Guardian: Cemeteries and Their Sentinels (seen here: http://duirwaigh.com/images/stories/videos/overyou_st2.swf )

Today I put together a few of the details I captured on that cold day. None of the dramatic figures, just tiny details that left my head spinning.

Enjoy!