A friend of mine got married, um, well over a year ago and she’s just now trying to figure out how to go about changing her name. She has chosen to add on her husband’s last name to her name, but with no hyphen. I have a few friends who have chosen to hyphenate and others who opted for taking their husband’s last name. I also have a few friends who decided to combine their names and both hyphenate. Cool idea, huh?

photo from The Wedding Lens

Regardless of what you decide, here’s how to go about changing your name:

1. Get a copy of your marriage license in the mail (or pick it up, depending on where you are)
2. Go to the Social Security Administration in your vicinity with your old ID, your marriage license. They will issue you a new Social Security Card.
3. Go to the DMV with the new Social Security card, the marriage license, and your old ID. They will issue you a new ID.
4. Now that you have your new IDs, make sure you change your name on your:

•  
  • passport
  • bank account
  • credit cards
  • 401(k)
  • phone, utilities
  • airline accounts
  • anything else that has your name!

It’s a lot of work initially, but then you dont have to think about it again. And if you’re getting divorced, the process is the same, you just need your divorce certificate instead.

Good luck!

~ Natasha

I’ve been writing a lot about Danish film and its about time to post a picture of the man responsible for so much of it, and the man who is one of the finest, if not the finest screenwriter working today in any language; Anders Thomas Jensen.

He has also directed a few of his scripts (Adam’s Apples, Green Butchers, and Flickering Lights) and was story supervisor on the current notorious Antichrist.

But I laud him most as a screenwriter. His characters are rounded beyond what we normally expect when we hear that term, and the twists in the films are not the usual trendy plot twists, though there are plenty of those, but genre twists. And these twists spring less from introducing bizarre elements but from introducing very human elements into the typically abnormal structure of film narrative.

For instance take Open Hearts.

The basic story is simply an affair; a married man in a loving relationship and close to his children becomes involved with a woman whose fiance his wife has hurt badly in a traffic accident. What sets this apart is that not only is the suspicious party his teen-aged daughter but that there are no villains of the usual sort in the story. I won’t give away the story except that everyone seems to understand what is going on even though it is painful. There is no feel good ending but there is an ending, and all in all, it celebrates the diversity of human interaction.

It doesn’t hurt that he has the cream of Danish acting to draw on. Once again he is working with Mads Mikkelson, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Paprika Steen. These actors and this writer are an unbeatable combination and once again convince me that Danish cinema is among the most accomplished on the planet. (And then consider Lars Von Trier, and Scandinavian cinema in general.)

Other Jensen filmed scripts worth tracking down are After the Wedding, Old Men in New Cars, and In China They Eat Dogs. Unpredictable is bandied about a lot these days but few people actually live up to it in the same respect as this man.

Gladiator, de Lord of the Rings trilogie, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Dark Knight en Slumdog Millionaire. Iedereen kent ze wel, deze blockbusters uit de 21e eeuw die de verwachtingen meer dan waarmaakte.

Er is echter veel meer. Sinds de eeuwwisseling zijn er namelijk ook heel wat prachtige films gemaakt die niet massaal in de bioscoop zijn verschenen en die nog steeds consequent over het hoofd worden gezien. De komende weken zal ik aftellen van 16 naar 1 voor de beste onbekende pareltjes van de 21e eeuw. Deze week de nummer 4: Efter Brylluppet

Waar ligt de grens tussen één van de beste drama’s ooit gemaakt en de gemiddelde aflevering van een soapserie. Het antwoord is eigenlijk heel simpel. Bij Efter Brylluppet van Susanne Bier.

Op Efter Brylluppet kan namelijk iedere filmcriticaster een hele hoop aanmerken. Het verhaal is te voorspelbaar voor woorden en ook wordt er wel erg nadrukkelijk gezocht naar de emotie. Zo zijn de close-ups niet te tellen en vloeien de tranen rijkelijk. Ook de muziek van onder meer Sigur Ros helpt niet om het soap gehalte te verlagen.

Waarom dan toch op plek 4 in deze lijst van onbekende pareltjes zult u misschien denken. De reden daarvoor is erg moeilijk te geven. Eigenlijk kan ik maar één verklaring geven en dat is, omdat het gewoonweg werkt. De emoties ogen oprecht, de tranen komen op de juiste momenten en de close-ups voelen niet aan als goedkoop effectbejag maar staan in dienst van het verhaal.

Misschien wel het allerbelangrijkste reden waarom Efter Brylluppet zo’n fantastische film is geworden is echter het acteerwerk. De film moet het niet hebben van special effects of technische hoogstandjes maar is een kleine en intieme acteursfilm die staat of valt met de geloofwaardigheid van de personages. En gelukkig hebben de Scandinavische landen naast enkele uitstekende regisseur ook een keurkorps aan fantastische acteurs en actrices.

In Efter Brylluppet zijn de hoofdrollen weggelegd voor Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen en Rolf Lassgard. Die laatste twee spelen het echtpaar Hansson dat zich opmaakt voor de bruiloft van hun dochter. Mikkelsen is de ontwikkelingswerker die per toeval via zijn werk in contact komt de mannelijke helft van het echtpaar Hansson en zodoende op de bruiloft wordt uitgenodigd. Daar ontmoet hij ook de vrouw des huizes en naar later blijkt zijn ex, mevrouw Hansson.

Deze driehoeksrelatie is het uitgangspunt van Efter Brylluppet. En hoewel het misschien wat karig lijkt blijkt het, dankzij het acteerwerk van de hele cast en vooral van Rolf Lassgard, meer dan genoeg om als kijker twee uur lang door een emotionele achtbaan te gaan die pas ophoudt als de aftiteling al lang en breed van het beeldscherm is verdwenen.

Eis om in deze lijst te komen was dat een film minder dat 50.000 stemmen op IMDB had. Vanwege deze regel heb ik helaas Mulholland Drive, Magnolia, Garden State, The Wrestler en The Fountain nipt buiten de lijst moeten houden. Deze pareltjes hier nog even noemen kan echter nooit kwaad. Ook staan er geen documentaires in de lijst waardoor Young @ Heart ontbreekt.

flower-categories

Originally uploaded by Jenerek

I’ve been playing around with some free digital art I found on some of my favorite blogs to create some new blog art for the site. Lots of these sites call this digital art…digital scrapbooking, but I haven’t been making digital scrapbooks from it (yet) so I am calling it Digital Art.

It’s amazing what’s out there for free! All you need is a photo editing software (I use Photoshop CS4) to create your very own custom artwork.

Here are a few of my favorite sites…

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/
http://shabbyblogsblog.blogspot.com/
http://paigeandbrooke.blogspot.com/
http://paigeandbrooke.blogspot.com/
http://www.blogdesignsbysheila.com/

This flower categories button is a little sneak peak of what I have created. Give it a try. Be warned…you can loose track of time and waste away hours and hours just looking around.

Africa is one of the most beautiful place sin the world to spend a Winter Honeymoon. An African Safari Honeymoon will take you through the continent’s stunning scenery and bring you up close and personal with the unique wildlife that inhabits Africa.

In South Africa, consider visiting Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope. This is where your honeymoon in Africa will probably start. Also, the Kruger National Park is a must-see for Honeymooners.

African Safari honeymoon

Other Great Honeymoon Attractions In South Africa:

Greater St Lucia Wetland Park
Garden Route

In Zambia you’ll discover amazing wildlife and big game animals in the parks and national reserves. There are also many romantic spots to camp or live temporarily in local villages. Zambia is also home to the Victoria Falls, A natural wonder of the world and one of the perfect African Honeymoon sights.

African Safari honeymoon

Other Great Honeymoon Attractions In Zambia

Lower Zambezi National Park
Luangwa National Park
Zambezi River

Botswana

For many years Botswana has been one of Africa’s least known honeymoon destinations, but in recent years increasing numbers of tourists have been discovering the rich natural beauty of the area. some of the Best sights for you to check out on your African Honeymoon include:

Kalahari Desert
Okavango Delta,

African Safari Honeymoon

The Best Time To Go

South Africa: As a rule, the weather is good or excellent countrywide, year round, however Fall and Winter months are the best for safaris.
Botswana: Dry season is from May to December – so.. the Fall
Zambia: Game viewing is best during the dry season from May through to October.
This link has some great weather advice also

We all know how much time and effort goes into planning a wedding. But remember, there are still a few things to take care of after it is all over. Thank you notes are extremely important and crucial in wedding etiquette.

Obviously, writing hundreds of  thank you notes may not be the most desirable thing to do as a newlywed. But writing these notes doesn’t have to seem like a job. Grab your spouse and make it a fun activity for the two of you! Assign one of you to make a list of what each person bought you, while the other opens the presents. After you have opened all of your presents you can easily see if you have duplicates of anything and make a pile of returns or exchanges. From there you can split up the duties of actually writing the notes.

Also, order fun colored thank you notes or notes that match the colors of your wedding to make it more cohesive and make it even more personal to you. There are great thank you notes out there from Lilly Pulitzer or Kate Spade or many others. Check out finestationery.com for some great ideas!

One part of planning brides often forget is after the wedding is over and the last thank you card is written, how do you make it last.  How do you keep that spark alive forever?  Jason Miller and Matthew Boggs have been working on a book and film documentary discovering the secret to happy, long lasting marriages.  They have traveled the country interviewing and documenting couples that have been happily married for over 40 years.  Some truly amazing stories check out their website for more details.

The wedding was very nice. I really enjoyed seeing all of my family and friends. We partied on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and I have memories to cherish for a lifetime.

Now that it’s 12 days later and the wedding is over and done, we have been trying to get the Thank You cards ready as well as go through all of the gifts that we received. This is actually very fun and exciting because we requested a lot of cooking items and I’m ready to get in the kitchen to cook for my man!

This week, I’ve used a few gifts. My dad sent us a Rocketgrill that I tried to use to make grilled chicken. It’s supposed to cook the chicken in 8 mins but I must’ve put it in there wrong because it cooked pieces of the chicken but not the entire thigh. I think I’ll try using chicken breasts the next time like I see on the instruction manual.

My aunt sent us a crock pot. I’m so excited about this one because I want to practice making a few meals in it. I picked up a 3lb beef chuck roast to get started and can’t wait to taste the final product! My husband is really excited about it too.

Finally, our friend gave us a nice spice rack that I will use when I make the meat in the crock pot. How exciting! I feel like a wife now..cooking and ironing clothes and saying “my husband” vs. “my fiance”.

Loving life!

Is it me or does it seem that there’s been a sudden burst of creativity coming from Scandinavia?  Maybe I just haven’t been paying enough attention.

Some great writers have come out of that part of the world: Undset, Lagerkvist, Hamsun, Ibsen and Strindberg but they seem so long ago.  Of course, you can always point to Bergman.  Bergman: Sweden’s gift to film–to the world.  I saw Virgin Spring for the first time in a recent retrospective and I swear it’ll haunt me till the end of my days…but it too seems from another era.

ABBA?  Oh, please!

So that’s why I find these new films and books coming out of there so refreshing.

I’d like to point you to three films that have come out since 2006.  I’ll work backwards.  This year there was Dead Snow (Død snø)  http://www.deadsnow.com/ from Norway.  I’m not a fan of Zombie movies but this was flat-out fun. Scary, bloody, illogical and filled with plot holes large enough for a Panzer, nonetheless I left the theater chilled and exhilarated.

Recently I was thumbing my way through the “Recently Acquired” DVD’s at the local library when I came to the 2008 Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) http://www.lettherightoneinmovie.com/ .  I stopped for a moment as a big, satisfied grin flashed across my face.  Another Norwegian export this movie takes the Vampire conceit, shakes it hard and comes up with a refreshing and unromantic take on a genre film.  But there’s more to it than that.  Maybe I’m slow but it wasn’t until the next morning when it hit me; when I realized what had really happened in the movie.

The last movie I want to write about is the 2006, Swedish film, After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Wedding .  This is an exceptional film with fine acting and intelligent storytelling.  I don’t want to say too much about it other than it is well worth seeing and the charismatic male lead, Mads Mikkelsen, is at the beginning of a great career.  You’ve already seen him in the first two of the Daniel Craig era James Bond films as the villain, Le Chiffre.

Finally a note about a mystery novel–Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor this translates into “Men Who Hate Women”).  Actually I didn’t think it was a terribly great mystery by any means, but it had damned great characters, especially Lisbeth Salander.  Unfortunately Larsson died in 2004…fortunately he left three more books behind and the synopses for another two.  The second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, (Flickan som lekte med elden) was recently published.

My favorite Blog/Website: http://www.joshuadysart.com Dysart was written up in the New York Times this week.

My favorite trailer this week: It Might Get Loud  http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810025498/trailer

A couple weeknights ago I was downtown at an engagement party.  The party ended and we wanted to go to a bar that was both convenient for us and for some friends who were walking home after to Capital Hill.  We were a little stumped as to where to go until I remembered GoTime.com.  I’d seen my friend use it a few weeks ago to locate a cheap happy hour in Belltown and guessed that someone I was with had an iPhone.  Sure enough, two minutes later the GoTime happy hour application was downloaded and in use.  It directed us to Wann (2020 2nd Ave) which happened to be a preferred happy hour location of one of my friends anyway.  Wann had $2.50 draft beers and an assortment of sushi rolls and other Japanese style tapas.  We were elated to find the perfect place to go combined with non-downtown prices. 

The situation reminded me of a wedding I attended a few months ago where all of the out-of-town guests were asking us for directions and recommendations for where to go afterwards.  If they knew to download GoTime.com, where the happy hours never end, the after party wouldn’t either.  Check it out!

If you’re stuck on an idea for your honeymoon this winter don’t fret. We’ve found a great destination for Canadians to visit on their romantic winter honeymoon.

The Bahamas are often overlooked as a Honeymoon Destinations for Canadians during Winter. But in fact, Winter is the best time of year for you to visit the Bahamas! it’s right after the wet season that ends in November and up until May there is clear weather before the summer storms hit. This makes it a great place to visit during the winter months.

Honeymoon Horseback Riding in Freeport in the Bahamas

There are dozens of activity choices when you visit the Bahamas on your Honeymoon. These Include:

- Scuba Diving and Snorkeling wrecks and coral reefs
- Fishing dozens of Big Game species
- Golfing world renowned, professionally designed courses
- Flamingo shows, held on Nassau are a treat
- Visiting secluded beaches
- Motorbiking or driving along winding tropical roads
- Walking white sand beaches
- Boating to gorgeous island hideaways
- Partying at the many hotels, bars and casinos
- Romantic Horsebackriding in Freeport

Bahamas Nightlife

These are just some of the choices. There are many others. Check out the official Islands of the Bahamas for all the best information, travel warning, weather updates and much, much more.

Remember that the best time of year is Winter. So be sure to book now and enjoy a great Bahamas honeymoon!!

Thanks to Petitshoo for the photo.

How to Register for Pots

Tip #1 Register for many single pots rather than a set

Oftentimes when you go to Macy’s or other stores they’ll tell you to register for individual pots and then exchange them after the wedding for a packaged set.  The reason for doing this is so that guests can purchase something at a reasonable price rather than paying $500-$1,000 for one gift.  When registering for pots I recommend choosing them for the price range rather than for what you’d actually need. 

Tip #2 Think about the pots you have used

There’s no doubt about it, purchasing a set over individual pots saves money.  However, some of the larger sets might not be adding much value and may be unnecessarily cluttering your kitchen.  Here are the pots I use 95% of the time:

• 6 quart stock pot – soups, boiling water for pasta, cooking for company
• 2 quart sauce pan – sauces and veggies
• 3.5 quart sauce pan – for when my 2 quart is in use and sauces
• non-stick fry pan - everything

And the pots I use 5% of the time but can’t live without:

• 12-16 quart stock pot with steamer options – pasta for the masses, lobster and crab, corn-on-the-cob, it’s my “party pot”
• 3 quart cassoulette- coq au vin, I love its multi-use stovetop and oven, great for entertaining

Once it’s time to return the individual pots for your set, do your research on what you’d like to get in return.  The sets are often great deals, but sometimes they sneak pots that aren’t very valuable into the larger sets.  A good example of this is the omelette pan.  They’ll throw in a six and an eight inch omelette pan and charge $200 more than a set without those pans, when the added value is only $50.  Not only that, but I wouldn’t use those two particular pans when I prefer my all-purpose nonstick 10″ fry pan.

Tip #3 Pick a slow day to complete your registry

If you go on a Saturday morning there won’t  be enough associates working to help carry the items from your car, you’ll have to wait and they won’t have the time to make sure you get what you need.   If you instead go on a Tuesday morning, you’ll have the store to yourself and the sales associate will be more entertained and interested in helping you complete your registry to your advantage. (see the next tip!)

Tip #4 Swap out lame bonuses for real value

 Often All-Clad or Calphalon will have the double bonuses if you spend enough money on their cookware.  One bonus might be a nice steamer and the other could be an apron and spatula.  Ask the sales associate if it’s possible to switch out the one you don’t want for something else that’s more useful to you.  At Macy’s I purchased a smaller All-Clad set and augmented it with a large 12 quart stock pan and steamer and a smaller sauce pan as their summer double bonus ~ free!  Originally they’d been offering a panini grill pan but as cool as that sounded I thought the sauce pan would get more use in the end.

Tip #5 Get 20% off for completing at one time instead of 10%

Macy’s typically gives you 10% off wedding registry completion purchases if you come to the store within 90 days of your wedding.  Try to get 20% off – it’s possible!  This past weekend, for example, they had a semi-annual home sale where they gave 20% off “when you complete your gift registry any day of our home sale”.   In the fine print they say it lasts from July 23 – August 16^th,2009 (for Seattle stores).  Chances are if you ask nicely when the last home sale was or when the next one is and are they running their 20% special, you’ll be able to get it.