Showing posts with label list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label list. Show all posts

It's not Christmas until..

December 16, 2010
All of us have those little things that signify Christmas. Whether it's hearing a particular song or watching an advert on TV, some things will just kick you straight into the Christmas spirit.

I, of course, have a list of these things and would now like to share these with you. So, for me, it's not Christmas until..:

1) The "Holidays are coming" Coca Cola advert is on

2) I hear the "You're a mean one Mr. Grinch" song

3) I watch "The Nightmare before Christmas" and "Home Alone" (the original) + in later years "Love Actually" and "The Holiday"

4) I start opening my advent calender

5) A car drives past with a tree on it's roof

6) Christmas lights are up in town and everyone's got a star in their window

7) My cat starts spending all his time sleeping on the sofa



Planning a wedding

December 14, 2010
Apparently to plan a wedding you need at least a year and a lot of organisation...oh dear, what have I gotten myself into


Announce Engagement
Select Wedding Date
Hire wedding consultant/coordinator
Determine type of wedding: location, theme, # of guests, formality, time of day
Determine budget & how expenses will be shared
Buy a daytimer to keep track of appointments & events
Develop a record keeping system for payments
Create an approximate # guest list
Decide if you will be inviting children or not
Select and reserve ceremony site
Select and book Officiant/Priest/Minister/Rabbi
Select and book reception location
Select and order bridal gown
Determine colour scheme
If ceremony or reception is at a home, arrange for any home improvements
Obtain, passports, visas, birth certificates, any documents need for travel and/or marriage licenses

Select and book caterer, if needed
Select and book photographer
Select wedding party
Give wedding party a list of their responsibilities
Select and buy attire or bridesmaids & flower girl
Select and buy attire for mothers of the bride and groom
Select and book ceremony musicians
Select and book live band or DJ for reception
Select and book videography
Select and book florist
Register for your wedding gifts (this can be done sooner)

Schedule fittings for custom made bridesmaids gowns
Arrange marriage prep-courses, if necessary
Reserve rental items
Select and book decorator
Finalize an A and B list of guests
Select and order invitations and other wedding stationary
Set date, time and location for rehearsal dinner
Select and book honeymoon night suite
Arrange accommodations for out-of-town guests
Start planning your honeymoon
Shop for your wedding gifts to each other
Shop for your wedding gifts to your wedding party
Shop for your wedding gifts to your parents
Buy shoes, lingerie and accessories for the bride
Buy shoes and accessories for the bridesmaids
Select and order wedding bands

Take formal engagement picture
Select and order wedding cake
Order party favours/bombonniere
Select and order decorations
Purchase honeymoon attire and luggage
Select and book wedding day transportation
Start addressing your invitations
Plan activities for out-of-town guests (optional)
Go on trials and book wedding day hair and makeup. Bring your headpiece and wear a white shirt
Obtain marriage license (expires in 3 months)
Send out your invitations
Select ceremony readers
Select ushers to seat your guests
Select guest book attendant
Select your MC
Mail invitations to shower
Get photography permit, if needed

Maintain a record of RSVP's and early wedding gifts
Maintain a record of shower gifts and send thank you's
Purchase all ceremony and reception accessories: guest book, toasting glasses, garter, ring pillow, etc.
Select and reserve wedding attire for all gentlemen
Mail invitations to rehearsal dinner
Plan bridesmaid luncheon
Select your something old, new, borrowed, blue

Finalize all food and beverages for wedding
Finalize all ceremony details with Officiant
Finalize all rehearsal arrangements
Finalize all floral arrangements
Final fittings for yourself and bridesmaids
Make a wedding day itinerary
Give a copy of the itinerary to your wedding party and vendors
Finalize all details with all your vendors
Decide order of receiving line and head table setting
Contact guest that haven't replied
Pick up wedding rings
Give photographer a photo checklist
Visit reception site for floor plan
Create reception seating plan
Give musicians a list of your music selection
Inform attendants when and where to pick up attire
Determine VIP seating for ceremony seating
Print out seating cards
Pick up honeymoon tickets

Give caterer/reception venue final tally of guests
Pack of your honeymoon
Wrap reception flavours/bombonniere
Arrange mail collection while you are on honeymoon

Drop all wedding accessories and decor off at ceremony and reception locations
Make sure you bring all gifts that will be handed out at dinner
Make sure you have all final payments in envelopes for wedding day
Pack over night bag for honeymoon suite
Make sure wedding party has their itinerary
Make sure gentlemen have black socks
Go to church for rehearsal
Review VIP seating with ushers at ceremony location

Most of the details will be on your wedding day itinerary
Eat breakfast
Pack anything remaining on your "To Bring" list in cars
Make sure Maid of Honour has groom's ring and Best Man has bride's ring
Make sure you have your marriage license, photo permit and Special Occasions Permit, if needed
Put your engagement ring on your right hand
Use your wedding day itinerary to get you through the day on some sort of trouble
Remember to look around and soak in the views of the day you planned so long and hard for.

My top 10 Disney

November 9, 2010
I have been really ill lately so I've had a lot of time to do work, and when I'm too exhausted from coughing my lungs out, too watch all my favourite Disney classics. So I've decided to finally make a list. It's not very definite as all of these films are equally amazing and all have great music in them but obv there are some that I will (and have) watched more than others. Mind you that I didn't get to see Pocahontas or The Hunchback of Notre Dame till this year and I've never seen Dumbo. So here goes:

1) The Lion King (Has always been and will always be my all time favourite. I love all the songs, the Hamlet based plot and Scar is the coolest Disney villain ever)

2) Beauty and the Beast (Belle is my favourite princess, mainly because she is so smart and caring and also because she wasn't born rich. Also this film has many amazing songs and it teaches kids not to judge people by their appearance or even by first impressions)

3) Bambi (Makes me cry every time I watch it. Great story and really sweet too)

4) The little Mermaid (Oh how I wanted to live under the sea when I was a kid. This story is so sad, giving up everything for real love is hard. I love Ariel, she fights for what she believes in, she even has the courage to stand up to her father. I also think that Eric is the most handsome Disney prince.)

5) Peter Pan (Also the first book that I couldn't put down. I used to leave my window open so that Pan could fly in and take me to Neverland. I also know the feeling of not wanting to grow up)

6) Mulan (So so funny and shows that girls can do whatever they want if they put their mind to it)

7) Robin Hood (The characters are just hilarious! The songs are brilliant and I love that the characters are animals)

8) Hercules (I used to be obsessed with this film, watched it over and over again. The songs are really amazing and I love Greek mythology)

9) The sword in the stone (May be a shocking for some but I used to watch this loads and I love the magic and Merlin is just so funny!!)

10) Lion King 2: Simba's pride (The only sequel I've ever liked. It's brilliant! I love the songs and the lessons and the villain is still great!)

Easter Eggs

March 30, 2010
Just came back home for Easter holidays. Already met up with two of my friends, which is better than expected (no offence). Is good to be back but every time I visit there seems to be so much news I need to catch up on. Relationships ending, relationships starting, people who start working, people who quit working and start school in stead, and also people who stop talking to each other for some obscure reasons. Sometimes it feels like I've fallen so far behind I can never catch up. It's like I exist in a different world and when I come back to this one I am an alien who has to accommodate to new rules and customs. It can be quite annoying sometimes. It's good to have my friends there to make the transition go smoother, but I wish I could be better at keeping in contact with them while I'm away. That is something I definitely need to improve on, specially since I have every opportunity to do so as they are all frequent facebook visitors.

This Easter I have great plans to actually finish planning my inter rail trip for this summer. I need to look up ways for us to get to our first destination, order all the tickets and hostels etc., and look up recommended tourist attractions in each country we're going to. It will be a challenge to find all the places we want to see and ways to get there, but I think it'll be alright because both Ingrid and I can be very organised at times and so hopefully together we can plan something that will end up being a wonderful trip :) I also want to get in shape for Hadrian's wall as it now seems that I am coming along to that as well. Don't even fully know what Hadrian's wall is or where it is but apparently 8 days will be enough to see it. Those 8 days have been promised to me to be filled with a lot of walking, so I kind of need to prepare for that in advance, so that I don't collapse on the first day and have to go home immediately. That is why I plan to start running 3 times a week. Hopefully I'll stick to my plan this time.

Somewhere in between all of the jogging and planning I also have to work and revise for my exams. All of my exams are crammed into 2 weeks so once again I will have to resume to living in the library. Seems like it's my permanent habitat, that place. Oh and I have to write a lab report while I'm home too, man this is going to be a busy holiday. Life is never easy, is it?!

The new and edited book list :)

February 18, 2010

Books I'm in posession of
Books I need to buy/borrow
Books I've read since I posted this

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Dune - Frank Herbert
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Inferno – Dante
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
Идиот – Ф. Достоевский
Ревизор – Н. В. Гоголь
Золотой Телёнок – Ильф и Петров
A Farewell to Arms – E. Hemingway
Three Comrades – Erich Maria Remarque
The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans - Honoré de Balzac
Hatter's Castle – A. J. Cronin

Presenting my Bucket List

September 18, 2009
Carrie, over at [carrotspeak.], wrote a Bucket List on her page and encouraged her readers to do the same. As you know, I am all for lists, so I was thrilled at this chance to make yet another one. Here is a list of all the things I plan to do before I die. I have only put things that I haven't done yet, cause I though that it'll give me a challenge.


- Grow old with the person I marry (also marry the person I love)

- See ALL the art in Louvre

- Go backpacking through Europe

- Join a war reenactment

- Get a scuba certification

- Build a matching rocking chair set for me and my hubby to sit in when we're old

- Never hear my children say "I HATE YOU", even in their teen years (should have children first though)

- Learn at least 10 languages

- Read all the books in a library

- Never loose touch with my family and my best friends

- Cook all the recipes in Julia Child's cooking book (although I don't think I'll be attempting to do it all in one year)

- Learn Japanese, and watch a whole anime without translation :D (also go to Japan)

- Visit all the continents in the world (and try their food)

- Have an amazing life story told to me by the person who lived it and write a book about it

- Go to an AC/DC concert before they quit

- Learn to play the bagpipe just so I can annoy the neighbours while I'm learning

- Pet a lion or a tiger

- Ride an elephant, a donkey, a horse and a camel...oh and a sled pulled by dogs (or even one pulled by deer)

- Get a tattoo that I won't be ashamed of even when I'm 50 ;)

- Have a job that I love for the rest of my working days

- Live a life I'll be proud of

My new reading list

September 8, 2009
The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

I've read 32, and I plan on reading at least 30 more. The books I've read are marked green and the books I plan to read in the nearest future are marked blue ;)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (in entirety)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - No

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
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