New York Says Thank You

Today, I'm going to do a little promoting for an upcoming movie. This movie is "New York Says Thank You". 

"New York Says Thank You" is a documentary. The descirption from the director and producer is as follows:

"In 2003, a five-year-old New York child had an idea to help children he'd never met. That spirit of generosity inspired New Yorkers to drive cross country to donate toys and other goods to families affected by disastrous wildfires in Southern California—a cathartic way of giving back to their fellow citizens the same kind of extraordinary compassion and support they themselves received after 9/11.

The film “New York Says Thank You” is a great American story, filled with heart, humanity, and selflessness. This feature-length documentary film is dedicated to telling the amazing story and sharing the contagious spirit of the New York Says Thank You Foundation. Every September, the New York Says Thank You Foundation sends volunteers to help rebuild American communities affected by natural or man-made disasters. Since that first trip to Southern California volunteers have been to Illinois, Louisiana, Indiana, Texas and Kansas to rebuild churches, hospitals, homes, barns and other buildings destroyed by disaster. On each trip, they brought with them tales of survival, love and compassion and each year their efforts have snowballed, adding to the numbers of this unique national disaster relief organization."

As someone who lived just minutes from the Pentagon on September 11, this movie does mean a lot to me. (Granted, it is also important because Austin's cousin is one of the producers and it would be important anyways.) I remember the day it happened, I was in the sixth grade. My dad was working in the Pentagon.The area that was hit was where his office was going to be. I remember the fear, listening to the reports come in, watching the planes fly into the Twin Towers in New York and wondering why.Living on a military base, I saw not only the civilian response from kids I was going to school with, but I also saw the parents' reactions. I remember the reaction from one teacher, her husband was working in the Twin Towers. He never came home. I remember a neighbor, her husband was a firefighter at the Pentagon trying to get the fires to go out. I also remember the way people came together afterward and actually helped each other. And now, we can see New York never forgot the kindness and support showed by Americans.

And now, to the reason for this post. "New York Says Thank You" is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival April 28!! Head over to the Tribeca Film Festival site by clicking here to learn more!

April is just around the corner!

There were a couple things I wanted to get done in March such as:

- Finalize ceremony readings with readers
- Finalize ceremony songs
- Begin working on programs, wording, etc.
- Finish up gifts for the bridal party
- Make escort card holders
- Continue collecting RSVPs
- Have all guys fitted by the end of the month
- Meet with DJ about special songs

Since we didn't get everything done, my To-Do list for April is going to carry over everything as well as:

- Finish up gifts for the bridal party
- Make escort card holders
- Continue collecting RSVPs
- Meet with DJ about special songs  (Meeting set for April 6th)
- Work on, and complete, all wedding favors (chocolates ordered, already have boxes, have labels for all favors, need to order wine)
- Complete ceremony programs
- Have both Bach. parties (set for April 29-May 1)
- Begin calling guests that have not RSVP's
- Create seating chart
- Meet with venue in order to decide all decor

I'm sure there are a million other little details that I will be adding to this list as time goes on this month... I just can't think of anything at the moment. And here I was thinking we didn't have much left to do!

Place Cards - Update I

I've started working on my place cards! Its turning out to be quite an easy project (thankfully). Just as a quick reminder, this is what I wanted to make for my escort cards:

Well, I started working on it a couple weekends on getting some of my corks sanded down. I don't have all of them yet, we're going to get the ones Austin's dad has and is willing to let us use, but I figured I needed to get started on them. I know that they will need a flat bottom so that they can all stand up on the table for display and not be rolling around making a mess of things. So, being the type of girl I am, I haven't got the slightest clue where to get sandpaper since I don't have any idea where a hardware store or home improvement store is. I can direct you to any DSW within a 25 mile radius, but not a single hardware store. And there's the fact that I'm trying to cut costs (and I haven't the slightest how much sand paper is), I decided to sand them down myself.

If you look outside, I'm sure you will see concrete. Concrete is not smooth. It will sand down a wine cork. It will in fact be able to sand down hundreds of them. So I took my bowls of wine corks and sat outside for about an hour and sanded down about 75 until they were able to stand on their own!

All of that tan stuff is after working on only a couple of corks!

See! Its flat! It really does work!

So there you have it, the cheapest way to get to work on your wine place card holders! So far, we've spent a grand total of $0 on this project. I think its my favorite so far!

RSVP Count

A an update... This is how our RSVP's are coming along:

Invitations sent out: 165
Can't wait to join us:  38
Party poopers: 4
Lolly gagging: 123

It doesn't seem like a huge improvement over the few that we got in last week. But when we consider that with 165 invitations, that's a total of 215 that we know would bring a guest, that brings it up to a total of 55 that we know are coming. Not a shabby start.

And please people, if your invitation is addressed only to you, that means I don't have you down for a guest. So if you decide to bring a guest, they wont have a seat. At least do me the courtesy of writing down their name so they will have a spot on our seating chart.

Why I am an Angry Atheist

Note to readers: I didn't write this, a blogger Greta Christna did. You can find the piece in its entirety here. It is quite a long piece, but I think it is worth your time to read the whole thing.

"I'm angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. And not a broad, "God had a hand in evolution" creationism, but a strict, young-earth, "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" creationism.

And on that topic: I'm angry that school boards all across this country are still -- 82 years after the Scopes trial -- having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and any of the time/ money/ resources that they're spending fighting this stupid fight is time/ money/ resources that they're not spending, you know, teaching.

I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.

I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.

I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.

I get angry when advice columnists tell their troubled letter-writers to talk to their priest or minister or rabbi... when there is absolutely no legal requirement that a religious leader have any sort of training in counseling or therapy.

And I get angry when religious leaders offer counseling and advice to troubled people -- sex advice, relationship advice, advice on depression and stress, etc. -- not based on any evidence about what actually does and does not work in people's brains and lives, but on the basis of what their religious doctrine tells them God wants for us.

I'm angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.
I'm angry that so many believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I'm angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe, as if God gives a shit about who wins the NCAA Final Four -- and as if the other teams/ players/ contestants weren't praying just as hard.
I'm especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I'm angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I'm angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.

And I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn't what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously, and it's absurd for atheists to criticize it.

I get angry when believers use terrible, grief-soaked tragedies as either opportunities to toot their own horns and talk about how wonderful their God and their religion are... or as opportunities to attack and demonize atheists and secularism.

I'm angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn't draw in heaven. And I'm angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority... when in fact she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in heaven but not draw? And why the hell would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?

I'm angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I'm angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.
I'm angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children -- who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they're told, and (b) are very literal-minded -- with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.

I'm angrier when religious leaders explicitly tell children – and adults, for that matter -- that the very questioning of religion and the existence of hell is a dreadful sin, one that will guarantee them that hell is where they'll end up.

I'm angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality. And I'm especially angry that female children get taught by religion to hate and fear their femaleness, and that queer children get taught by religion to hate and fear their queerness.

I'm angry about the Muslim girl in the public school who was told -- by her public-school, taxpayer-paid teacher -- that the red stripes on Christmas candy canes represented Christ's blood, that she had to believe in and be saved by Jesus Christ or she'd be condemned to hell, and that if she didn't, there was no place for her in his classroom. And I'm angry that he told her not to come back to his class when she didn't convert.
I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.

I'm angry about 9/11.

And I'm angry that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People For the American Way. I'm angry that the theology of a wrathful God exacting revenge against pagans and abortionists by sending radical Muslims to blow up a building full of secretaries and investment bankers... this was a theology held by a powerful, widely-respected religious leader with millions of followers."