Well, yesterday was a good day. I made crabcakes, and a chicken satay. I stuck fruit on little skewers (mmm pineapple). I roasted a tenderloin. It is a fun diversion, this catering thing. It always has been. Some day, maybe when I retire, I will work in a bed an breakfast. I would like that for a few years, I think.
Trish and I had our last pre-marital counseling session last night. It was good. We looked through the service order and talked about some of the details. One that was brought to my attention is that Trish and I are not saying our vows. As it stands the officiant will ask "Do you, Tripp, take Trish to be your skullery wench? Yada. Yada. Yada." I will say. "You bet!" THe Officiant will then say, "Do you, Trish, take Tripp to be an above average roomate? Yada. Yada. Yada." She will say, "Well, since we are all here and my parents have killed the fatted calf...yeah. I guess." We do not actuall say our vows. We simply agree to them. Randall found this curious.
Let the truth be known. I have no desire to stand in front of all those people and demonstrate my inability to speak and cry at the same time. I am the Girly Man. I am serious. I simply would be incapable of it. So, I will simply say "I will." Trish can deliver a Shakespearean monologue if she wants. Wondrous keen! But for me, the simple response will do.
We also spoke about sex and money. Well, Randall did. I agree with him. Essentially they reveal the same things in a relationship. They need constant management and attention. One can never assume that there is never something deeper at work when managing them. Work, brothers and sisters. They take work. Trish and I spent dinner afterward talking about money. Ha!
Here is a question for the peanut gallery. If you are married/partnered etc, how do you have your bank accounts set up? Is there just one shared account? Do you both get your own private stash and there is a shared account for bills? How does that work?
Right now, Trish and I are looking at having a shared account that is for bills like the rent and car payments and the like. We will each have our personal accounts where our "allowance" lives and we have full financial autonomy. This way I can buy guitar strings from Wales and Trish can buy dress patterns from Paris without having to clear it with the other. There will be some sort of plain ol' vanilla savings account in this system somewhere, but we are not certain yet.
What has worked for you? What mistakes have you made?
Yesterday was a banner day for counseling. I also had my second of many meetings with an LCSW to comply with my ordination requirements. Yay. Fun. Sigh. I was advised to enjoy it. I will endeavor to do so. That may be a challenge of its own.
I will keep my eyes peeled for Ekklesia updates. I am interested in what is being said. AKMA posted yesterday. It appears that Geoff is indeed smarter than your average bear. Is this the future of evangelical American protestantism? Lord, I hope so. This is from AKMA.
The session on �Ekklesia and Emergent Church� is being led by Scott Bader-Saye of the University of Scranton, and blogger Geoff Holsclaw of up/Rooted and Life on the Vine Christian Community. Scott and Geoff are devoting some of the workshop time to defining the emergent church (�the emerging church conversation,� as Geoff emphasizes). He sets the emergent church in the context of varying generations of evangelicalism and its instrumentalist outlook, and in the context of the church�s relation to temporality (where evangelicalism has tended toward an atemporal �me and Jesus� worldview, where many mainstream traditions have succumbed to the weight of their traditions).Today: catering till 1pm. After that, receptioning at the church. Huzzah! Posted by tripp at July 20, 2004 07:05 AM
In the Orthodox Church the bride and groom essentially say nothing.
See here: http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/liturgical_texts/betrothal.asp
And here:
http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/liturgical_texts/wedding.asp
I have no financial advice for you -- never tried to do the shared bank accounts thing.
But I did want to let you know that the formatting weirdness persists. It looks like the borders of your calendar are slightly overlapping the first part of your current blog posting. Once I get past the calendar, everything is fine.
I'm using IE on a machine that was probably manufactured during the Reagan Administration. Ah, the nonprofit life... :-)
Posted by: Megan at July 20, 2004 09:18 AMWe have a shared checking account for major things -- mortgage, insurance, groceries, plane tickets, etc. -- and separate smaller accounts for our own stuff. We also have a shared savings account that seems to be hibernating.
As to the vows... amen, brother. You know where I'm at with that. The question is, can you get through reading OUR vows without blubbering?
Posted by: Jane at July 20, 2004 10:52 AMAnd Ours?
Ours require yes or no answers...monosyllabics...good.
Posted by: justin at July 20, 2004 10:53 AMIn the BCP service, you get to do both with the vows... at the beginning of the service is the part where the priest asks "will you take so & so blah blah blah?" and you just have to agree. But later on in the service - after the readings and all that, you have to actually say your own vows.
As to money... we have joint accounts and individual accounts, and we feed into the joint account. Its not exactly cut & dry, but its working for us so far. I think it will be under negotiation every time our circumstances change though.
Posted by: Susie at July 20, 2004 11:19 AMThat is odd Megan. Is that a new problem? I assume so. I recently made a small "fix" to the website so that all teh text fits on the page without the reader having to scroll left or right. Interesting that fix would mess you up.
And, well, the reagan era crack may be closer to the root of the problem.
Ketchup as a veggie. Sigh. Tomoatoes are a fruit first of all and second of all, well, frugal does not even begin.
It may explain you computer woes. Have you tried using ketchup?
Posted by: AngloBaptist at July 20, 2004 03:05 PMWhen we were first married, we had one joint savings account, and two joint checking accounts-- one for standard living expenses, and one for extras. Having the two checking accounts got to be confusing after a while, so we dropped one.
Currently, we have three things that are in one name only: a couple of IRA's (which legally can only be in one name); and a checking account, in my name, that I opened before I started seminary. We did that last only so that we could be sure that the money given me for school is in fact used for school.
Everything else has both our names on it-- house, cars, credit cards, bank accounts, the works. I guess I've just always figured that was part of being married. Yes, there's some negotiating that goes on, once in a while; but I can't recall ever fighting about it.
Posted by: Jane Ellen at July 20, 2004 04:25 PMTripp, sadly enough, I think a baptism in ketchup would actually not hurt my computer at work.
My Mac at home does not duplicate the problem with your un-fix. Thus demonstrating once again the fundamental superiority of Macs. :-)
Posted by: Megan at July 20, 2004 06:19 PMMegan: I am very sorry to hear of your frustration. I dunno what to say.
Some day in the future I will own a Mac. I love my little Dell, but a mac laptop wih the 17" screen would make me happy. I want to run music straight on to the hard drive. A home recording studio gone funky. I would love that.
Posted by: AngloBaptist at July 20, 2004 06:29 PMNever thought I'd be the one giving you marital advice, but if I have it, I might as well share it! We have a major joint account for EVERYTHING. Then I have an account of my own that I had pre-marriage. Hubby should open one of HIS own, but he hasn't gotten around to it. Opening an account in Florida is a pain in the arse.
The most important financial advice I can give you (and this is learned from experience) is to set aside ONE night a month to do the bills TOGETHER. You should both know what's coming in, what's going out, and what the budget needs to look like for the following month. Save yourselves some time, anger, and frustration and do the co-bill-paying thing right off the bat.
That way there are no misunderstandings or accusatory conversations regarding funds.
And those are my words of wisdom.
Posted by: Chandos at July 21, 2004 07:35 AMWe will be celebrating 10 years of marriage this August and have joint everything. It never occurred to either of us (and I guess it still hasn't) that we would want our "own" money seperately. I would still hope that if one of us were making a major purchase, we'd consult the other. We don't ever ask each other permission to spend on the small stuff - just because we're both pretty responsible and we're not going to harrass each other over $10 or $20.
I think having seperate accounts could have done in our marriage, since we have never been financial equals. (I mostly supported us while he was in grad school. Then he worked full time and allowed me to work part-time to pursue some jobs I really loved but didn't get paid much for. For a short time while we both got paid well. Then we had our daughter, and his is the only income.) Having 1 account has always allowed us to know how much we have to do what needs to be done.
We have never done the "paying bills together" thing. For the longest time, I paid all the bills, but he balanced the checkbook. Even when I do both, he just can look online to make sure there's enough money to do what he needs to do.
You do need to find a system that works for you both so, in case of emergency, you both know where all the $$ is.
We have everything in both of our names, and we both pay bills and monitor the account online. When one of us is busy, the other one pays the bills. And once a year or so, we may have to pay a late fee. But it works for us!
Posted by: michelle at July 22, 2004 04:53 PM