statistics

statistics homework is oh so boring.
why must we run the same sort of analysis over and over again?
main effects. interactions. partial eta squared. simple main effects. cohen's d. within subjects. between subjects. mixed model design. blah blah blah.

warm weather

Here in Chicago the warm weather is trying to poke out from behind the cold. In celebration, Neill and I had our first watermelon of the season. Yum!

finally, a nonwedding related post

This week is technically my spring break, but I've got to say - it doesn't feel at all like a break. Maybe I've just got more time to sit around and think about all of the school work I've got, but it feels like I have even more to do this week than last! I'll admit that I'm feeling more than a little stressed out. I'm trying to remind myself to breath and just put one (proverbial) foot in front of the next.

On a bright side, I'm so happy that my mom is back home! She completed her intensive one month training at a Sivananda Yoga Center in Nassau and is now certified to teach yoga! She has been doing yoga since the 60s and I'm so excited that she has decided to make a career out of something that she loves! During her training she kept a vegetarian diet, so to celebrate her return to Chicago we went out to a new vegetarian restaurant that has been getting great reviews - Mana Food Bar in Wicker Park. Yum!

Ketubah Part IV - The Final Reveal

At this point I'm sure you know more details about our ketubah search than you ever wanted to! Thanks for sticking with me :)

In the end, we have chosen to go with Many Moons from New Ketubah. We liked the modern, understated style and that it is handmade. Also, we have chosen the secular text as we liked how this text acknowledged that we are in coming from two separate backgrounds.

I've got to be honest, writing this little series made me question all over again which Ketubah was right for us. As I hinted to, I really do find all of the ketubahs I showed you beautiful and I started wondering if perhaps I liked some of the other ones better that Many Moons. But, after an hour or two comparing the texts available for all of the different ketubahs I am reassured that we made the right decision.

Yippee!

And in case you haven't had enough:
ketubah part one, part two, and part three.

Ketubah part III

Now that I've shown you guys the different ketubah designs we are thinking of, it is time to move on to our text choices. In case you missed Ketubah part one and part two, a ketubah is basically a marriage contract. Traditionally, the ketubah covered very practical issues in regards to the rights of the husband and wife. But now, there are a lot more options in terms of wording. I was raised reform and Neill isn't even Jewish, so we are going more the lovey dovey route :) We want the text to basically be an extension of the vows we will recite during the ceremony. Both Neill and I liked these two text options available through New Ketubah.

 

There are so many more options out there though! On ketubah.com, for example, there are literally 23 different types of texts to choose from! Talk about options! For example, instead of just secular or humanist there are two different secular-humanist texts. But honestly, they all start to sound the same after a while! 

Anyhoo, I think I'm going to drag this out to be a four parter and unveil our chosen ketubah on the next (and last - I promise!) installment of this mini series.

Ketubah Part II

Lots of sites that sell ketubahs offer the same ketubah in multiple texts or even give you the option to write your own, so we first prioritized finding a ketbuah that we liked the look of. It will hang in our home for years to come after all!

Our Rabbi recommended we check out ketubahketubha to get a sense of what we wanted. They have a TON of options from different artists and you can search my price, text, etc. I must have combed through the website ten times - every time I looked at it, I saw ketubahs that I had skipped over before. Honestly, having so many options was a bit overwhelming! After Neill and I went through every. single. option. together we ended up with ten options on our short list.

evening star, papercut - ivory, entwined, life dance I, song of songs, beloved II, momoyama, meant to be, 18 flowers, i'll be there - autumn

Another site we liked was Tsilli Pines's new ketubah. Two of her styles stood out to us as potentials: 

   sunburst, many moons

As you can see, we ended up with an assortment of different styles! Even looking at them now though, there is something about each ketubah that I find beautiful. Do you have a favorite?

ketubah part 1

I don't know why I've been avoiding this blog. I think I'm starting to have enough of Wedding Blogs - partly because I've come to accept that our wedding will not be like the highly stylized weddings that populate the internets. Our wedding will be wonderful - particularly  for Neill and me, since we will end up married - but it will not be perfect. And not every single detail will be special. And probably some people will not have fun and others will be slightly peeved that there aren't enough chairs. And it might even rain. And blah blah blah. I just want to be married already!

Anyways.

I'm not over getting married, so I thought I'd write about something central to the whole getting married part of the wedding - our ketubah! What is a ketubah, you ask? Well, according to this site (here):

A ketubah is a work of art that uses images and words to express the love and commitment of your marriage vows. While the ketubah has its roots in the Jewish wedding tradition, its beauty has become embraced by couples from all different religions and cultures. It is signed by the bride and groom in a special ceremony at the wedding, publicly declaring their commitment and love, and symbolizing the traditional start of their married life. After the wedding, the ketubah is usually hung in a place of honor in the home, and serves as a daily reminder of the vows they have made to each other on their wedding.

I think signing our ketubah and having very important people in our lives act as witnesses will be a really meaningful part of our ceremony. Also, I'm really excited to have something to hang in our home for the rest of our lives to remind us of our vows and how we'd like to live every day.

The complicated part - picking this document! Not only are there aesthetic concerns, but we really wanted to find a text that meant something to us. Let the search begin!