Cue “Controversy” by Prince.

This really doesn’t need an intro. Here we go…

You Are Not A Princess

There are legit Princesses as in a member of a royal family. You are a not a princess on your wedding day, at the prom, at a salon or other venue that offer “princess packages”, or any other time. UNLESS YOU ARE AN ACTUAL PRINCESS. You are not your Daddy’s little princess. You should not tell your husband to treat you like one. Instead, you should be wise enough not to marry a man who treats you like shit so you never have to tell him to treat you like the princess you aren’t.

Dude, I’m a grown woman. I’m married, I drink wine, I have sex, I clean up dog poop, I go to work, I regularly attempt to replace my blood with coffee, I vote, I have a 401-K, I take birth control pills, I cuss, etc. I don’t want to me treated like I’m anything other than a grown woman.Telling your daughter she is a princess will only create a sense of entitlement and selfishness in their adult life. Playing princess dress up is one thing, but treating a girl like she’s a china doll is going to backfire.

The Disney Glorification Is Overrated  (You Are Also Not A Disney Princess)

Disney movies are fun and nostalgic. Lately, millennial women have been glorifying Disney and its princesses all over social media. I love Cinderella and Ariel, too. I also realize they are cartoon characters and I will never have a talking flounder fish friend or mice who wash dishes with me. You betcha I have an Ariel shirt, but I realize I’m not an actual mermaid princess. The over sexualization of these characters is horrifying.  Last time I checked, Snow White wasn’t sexy. She is a victim and a glorified maid to seven dwarfs. That’s not a life to strive for.

Also, these people who repeatedly spend thousands going to Disney World need a lobotomy. Have you been to Disney World? It’s hot, overpriced, crowded, and pretty much the same rides for the past twenty plus years. Take your kids somewhere else for another experience. They will remember it more fondly than the fifteen times they’ve been to Disney World. If you have the means to take your family to Disney year after year, you can afford to go somewhere else for half the price. I am saying not to take your kids to Disney World? Not at all. Go for it! I don’t get the obsession, attraction to go to the same place over and over again, or the glorification of it all. I have been to Disney several times and each time was before my thirteenth birthday. By that age, I’d had my fill of Disney and was ready for another experience. While I loved Disney as a kid, I’m over it.

 

Getting Married Is Not An Accomplishment

A friend once said to me, “I’ve worked much harder getting through college than I have to get engaged.” She was absolutely 100% correct. Note: you shouldn’t have to try to get engaged/married. It will either happen or it won’t. Forcing a relationship doesn’t work. Getting married is a right passage, not an accomplishment.

 

Being Irresponsible Is Not Cute

Remember on Sex and the City when Carrie couldn’t afford her apartment because she spent all her money on shoes? Not cute. Remember, fictional characters who have it all together are not as entertaining.

 

“Adulting” Is Not Hard

This ties into our culture of praising being irresponsible. Sure, the occasionally “adulting” joke is funny, only when it doesn’t have a basis in reality. Making a sarcastic remark about going to the gym, eating spinach, and doing your taxes all in one day has a place. “Adulting” simply means doing what you have to do to survive and it’s completely normal. Going to work? Not hard! Paying bills? Suck it up, buttercup. It’s called life.

 

Marilyn Monroe Is Not A Good Role Model

Misquoting other women over a picture of Marilyn on Pinterest is cheap. This recent phenomenon of Marilyn worship on social media has led to an even more tarnished legacy for Monroe and those who are misquoted with her image. The only reason Marilyn Monroe is such an icon today is because she looks good on tin signs and posters. And died young. Harsh, but true. A drug addict who slept her way to the top only to screw it all up by being irresponsible, unprofessional, and disrespectful to colleagues by showing up late and on drugs is not someone to look up to. Ring a bell, Miss Lohan? Honestly, Carrie Bradshaw is a better role model. You know who actually is a good role model? Audrey Hepburn.

 

This afternoon, I decided it was way past time to run a system clean and scan on my MacBook. I only really use it for writing, web surfing, and the occasional illegal streaming this is something I often neglect to do. As someone who hates clutter even in the digital form, this is something I should do more often. I was looking through my desktop folders and clicked on one I haven’t taken the cursor to in some time…the music folder.

Anyone who grew up in the age of LimeWire, Napster, Kaaza, and later iTunes has this folder. At one time, it was probably the most cherished folder on the whole desktop. You spend hours and bandwidth downloading those awesome songs you heard on TRL that you have HAVE to hear again and again only to get computer herpes from the sketchy programs you downloaded them from in the first place.You do a virus scan only to learn the MP3 Willa Ford-I Wanna B Bad is actually a Trojan Horse Virus. So, you’ve lost your sweet jams AND will probably have to get a new computer because it’s 2002. Sidebar: I literally destroyed a computer from burning too many CDs. Sorry, Mom. I believe I’ve made it up to you by not being a complete dumpster fire of a person. Also, all the CDs you burned with aforementioned sweet jams are scratched to hell and barely play because you threw them around and dropped your Walkman portable CD player a million times. Repeat process for another ten years.

 

Kids today with their iPads and safe spaces will never know the struggle.

The chronic CD burners of yesteryear will also no longer have this struggle thank to literally every song we could ever want being in an overpriced brick we sometimes use to make phone calls.

Today, I came to the sad realization that I no longer need megabytes of MP3s taking up valuable space on my computer. An MP3 I’ve had for over a decade is virtually and literally worthless. All those Ja Rule songs that are older than both my nieces and nephew are the computer version of space junk. With a touch of a button, I can re-live my early and mmid-2000s music shame via the majesty that is Spotify in my car, at the gym, on my TV, at work, etc.

I still remember the day LimeWire was shut down by the government. It was one of the darkest days, and the end of an era. I was a few days shy of my twenty second birthday, sitting in my mom’s sunroom and most likely hungover and over-caffeinated looking to download the new My Chemical Romance album. That also happened to be their last complete album before breaking up. Looking back, this should have been a sign the heyday of the 2000s were no more. Almost twenty-two year-old me was devastated she couldn’t illegally download MCR like she could when she was sixteen. A part of me died that day, along with LimeWire. A jovial and computer-infecting pastime was lost to the theoretical man who finally won. So I shelled out $2.12 to iTunes and got my MCR songs. That was the day I truly began my descent into adulthood.

 

Today, I finish that journey by removing 17,685,980,852 bytes (yes, that’s not a typo) of MP3s from my hard drive. So long Avril Lavigne, Jessica (and Ashlee) Simpson, Christina Aguilera, NSYNC, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Sum 41, MCR, and others. I’ll catch you on the nostalgia tour in a few years.

Time for some shameless self-promotion.

I really hate doing this but my ego needs good book reviews.

I’m currently running a promo where you can get a FREE copy of my e-book, “The Bride Wore Brains” from Smashwords.

 

Use the coupon code QW56T at checkout. You can download the e-book in several formats or you can read in your browser.

Note: this book contain graphic violence, strong language, and a character nicknamed after a sex toy. No joke. This isn’t Danielle Steel. You’ve been warned. 

Once you’ve read it, enjoyed it, hated it, or feel like you have to go to church afterwards, please leave a review at either Amazon, Goodreads, or Smashwords.

 

 

My grandmother and twin sis, Peggy Maxine and Patsy Pauline, turned a whopping 90 years young on July 8!

90 is a REALLY long time. At this point, they’ve spent more time together than any married couple ever will (not counting vampires).

The time of their life span in correlation to mine and said events didn’t hit me until I heard about Olivia de Havilland turning 100 a mere seven days before Pat and Pet hit the big 9-0; that’s only a 10 year difference.

People 10 years older than me aren’t even 40.

There must be something about being born in the first week of July between the years of 1916-1926 that promote longevity.

As someone who is only 27, I realize my grandmother and great-aunt are significantly older than many other grandparents and relatives of my peers. After witnessing this  super-human feat of being alive, I starting thinking about all of the world and pop culture events these fab ladies have experience and how these things (like Pat and Peg) have stuck around throughout the ages.

Such as…

DC Comics, 1934

Being older than Batman is a feat all its own.

 

Marvel Comics, 1939

Again, with being older than the characters who’ve been around forever and now make billions of dollars in pretty much the same movie over and over again. Yet we still love them. There’s a reason why super heroes never go out of style.

Rock ‘n’ Roll, late 1940’s/1950’s

What we know as rock ‘n’ roll today wasn’t like it was then, obviously. Enjoy some “Buddy Holly” to get the best of both worlds.

Twinkies, 1930

In 2012, we thought we’d never get the horrific cream-filled snack again. Before then, these “cakes” were giving us beetus for 82 years.

McDonald’s, 1955

Unlike Twinkies, I don’t want to live in a world without those fries and $1 iced coffee.

Frozen Food, 1930

If my husband didn’t cook and frozen food never happened, I would be so hungry.

Slinky, invented 1943 and sold in stores 1945

Damn right everybody loves Slinky! 

 

Something about the summer and warmer weather gets me all nostalgic for the horrible AWESOME, cheesy pop tunes of my middle school years. Hearing these songs reminds me of the days before we all bought organic almond milk and phones weren’t smart. I’ve noticed people my age tend to be VERY nostalgic. I blame this on the fact we have the world the power of Google literally with us constantly. This gives us the ability search for those obscure songs, movies, music videos and TV shows from yester-year whenever we get the urge or someone asks you if you remember said pop culture event from 2004.

Gone are the days of waiting for TRL to play your favorite song, recording songs off the radio with a cassette tape, and giving your computer a million viruses by downloading music from LimeWire and Napster.Thanks to Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and the angels from Heaven who upload music to YouTube, we can hear any song any time we want on multiple devices. We no longer have to pay anywhere from $15 to $25 for a CD and only like a few songs.

While these technologies have improved the entertainment aspect of our lives, hearing a song you like isn’t the anymore because you can simply pull said song up any time on your phone. There’s little thrill in hear “your jam” on the radio after listening to hours of Avril Lavinge on repeat, (note: Avril was never my jam but I still totally downloaded her songs).

My husband, who is ten years older than me has made fun of my everlasting and undying love for this crap music. But then he told me that you will always love the music you grew up with.

This is something I’ve found to be true as I get older and makes me happy I don’t hate all the crap music from almost twenty years ago.

 I recently took all of my old CDs both burned and legit which were scratched beyond repair to my city’s electronics recycling center. This is something that I flip-flopped about doing for some time. I was torn between keeping an old part of myself and my hatred of clutter. My adult self won because I realized just because I no longer had those old, scratched and barely playing CDs, the boy bands live on! 

If you too are feeling randomly nostalgic, here’s a Spotify playlist I’ve created over the past few years with 31 HOURS OF 2000’S TUNES.

You read that correctly, 31 hours.

Enjoy, or don’t.

It can be done. I’m a successful childfree wedding haver and survived to tell the tale. I’ve been married for almost three years and have given advice on how to hold a childfree wedding before to a few curious friends. Now as wedding season approaches I’ve decided to pass along some advice on how to successfully pull this off.

Just going to start out getting real, people will most likely tell you are you being selfish for banning children from your wedding.

It’s hard for me to see the other side of this argument as I am anti-kid at fancy events and pretty much anti-kid in general.

Be prepared to defend your decision and deal with some general pissy attitudes about the whole thing.

if you are lucky (like me) you will be surrounded with supportive and understanding people who get it.

Weddings bring out the worst in people. Not just in your friends and family but also in you, dear bride/groom. Yes, you might just bring out the worst in yourself when making guest lists and picking out the flowers.

I wouldn’t say deciding to have a childfree wedding brought out the worst in me, but rather the best. To all of those who are planning weddings, remember it is your day. No one else’s. If someone tries to make your wedding about them, you don’t need them in your life or at your wedding (if you can help it).

No one would say you were selfish for having kids, so why would anyone care about who you invite to your wedding?

BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL TAKE ANY OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOMETHING ABOUT THEM IF THEY ARE TYPE OF PERSON TO DO SO.

This is especially true when it comes to kids. Weddings are not the place to show off your babies. That’s what Facebook is for.

These selfish opportunity takes often include over-obsessed parents who are looking forward to forcing their kid into a frilly dress or tiny suit which THEY WILL ABSOLUTELY HATE!

Which brings me to one of the reasons why I chose to have a childfree wedding: kids aren’t going to have fun.

While I’m sure some of them would and could have fun, I don’t know any kids that would want to go to a wedding. Especially a very adult one. Like I said, your wedding is YOURS and isn’t about entertaining someone else’s children.

I’m not the biggest kid fan and wanted to have an adult party with adult conversations and booze sans screaming rugrats. Kids are entertaining in small doses and I can appreciate the darnedest things they say. I think we can agree a wedding and reception is not the ideal location for a kid.

Another reason I went sans-children is to give the grown-ups a much-deserved and needed break.

Look, I’m childfree and happy about it (sometimes my extremely spoiled dog is worse than a human baby).

I understand being a parent is hard. Like really freakin’ hard. And exhausting. And a bunch of other tiring and money-sucking things. I admire parents and their dedication to being responsible for another human life, but come on, they need a break.

I had no verbal complaints about banning children from our wedding. I actually got the total opposite. People loved it! If there was someone who wasn’t so happy about it, I didn’t know because they didn’t tell me. Whoever you are (if you are even a person), I’m grateful to you for staying quiet and not adding another item on my to-do list of wedding madness.

The parents I knew told me and my mom they loved having a night away from the kids. Not only was it a night away from the kids but they had specific instructions NOT to bring their kids.

By doing this, it prevented them from having to worry about whether or not they could, or should bring their kids. This allowed for parents to make arrangements ahead of time instead of having to shove little Billy or little Susan into aforementioned frilly dresses and tiny suits at the last minute. Or, prevents them from coming all together and parents not getting a well-deserved night away with free booze.

Here comes the part where I tell you want to do.

One of the biggest questions I bet you have is “how do I not hurt feelings?”

Well, there is no correct answer to that question. Like I said, some parents will be grateful and others will consider it a slap in the face for not including their children. If this is something you really want to do, you can’t let others get in your way. IT’S YOUR DAY!

Wording is everything when you decide to have a childfree wedding. You have to be firm with guests and lay down the law on the invite.

For example, our wedding invite was worded with the following:

“Please make other arrangements for your children. Adults only.”

See how easy?

The next step is properly formatting and wording the RSVP cards and invitations.

On the RVSP card only include a spot for up to two names. Note: if you have invited an entire family including adult children or teenagers, you should leave plenty of room for more than two names if more than just a couple are attending together.

The same goes for the invites. Only write the names of the adults unless you are inviting a whole family with adult children/teens and then you would put “The Smith Family” on the invite envelope. Another note: DO NOT PUT THE FAMILY IF THERE IS CHILDREN YOU DON’T WANT TO COME. Etiquette implies if you put “The Smith Family” the whole fam damily will show up, including children. If you want to invite a couple and not their kid, simply word the invitation “John and Ann Smith”.

Now, here is when it gets tricky. Honestly, this is something I didn’t have to deal with so I’m not sure how exactly to answer this: what if someone responds with a child on the RSVP even though you clearly said no children?

Or, worst case scenario someone brings a child to the wedding anyway.

Sh*t just got real.

This is the part where the worst might come out in you.

Scenario #1: get in touch with said person and tell them the wedding is childfree and they are not to bring their child. If they get offended with you, screw ’em. You don’t need people in your life like that.

Scenario #2: this one is tricky. You have every right to be pissed at this person for being disrespectful to your wishes. However, don’t let it ruin your day. This person is a jagweed and their baby is probably ugly.

Don’t let people walk all over you. There’s nothing wrong with standing up for what you want for your wedding.

While requesting a childfree wedding is easy, dealing with the fallout (if any) won’t be.

Remember, it’s YOUR DAY.