Etiquette Revisited

You might remember my thoughts on Bathroom Etiquette back from December. Some of the comments suggested that what I deemed questionably unacceptable is actually just unacceptable. I’ve been swayed to the other side and want to concede. It is in fact unacceptable to talk on the phone in a public restroom.

It was another work incident that made me realize my wrongful judgment. A woman was in a stall on her cell phone having a rather serious conversation with a friend. It seemed to be a call that this person didn’t want to take from her cube as she was giving relationship advice to the person on the phone. I totally understand that this isn’t an appropriate cube phone call, but that doesn’t make it an appropriate bathroom stall phone call. I felt awkward when it came time to flush the toilet as they discussed whether some guy was worth the time and investment or not. But of course, I flushed and quickly washed my hands and left after feeling I had unintentionally eavesdropped on a private conversation. How awkward!

Another etiquette note: in Knoxville men go way out of their way to make sure women go in and out of doors first and in and out of elevators first. I notice this every day as I take two elevators in and out of work. Men will shuffle around the elevator just to let the women out first even though it’d be much easier if they just exited. It’s actually kind of nice. I’ve grown accustom to it and don’t mind letting men open doors and touch the germy doorknobs instead of me! Plus, not a bad idea from a man’s perspective…they constantly get to watch women’s backsides as they exit meanwhile they come off looking polite! Well played.

The Name Game

Since Matt and I are such well known celebrities, we decided we need a combined name (like Tom-Kat). Okay, so nix the celebrity part...it is just fun to make up a name. After we got engaged we chose "Hoagish" since we have the "g" in common and actually, we could even do "Gishoag" with the "h" in common but Hoagish rolls off the tongue better.

Today I stumbled upon "The Name Game" on the Wedding Channel website. You get to enter in your name and your spouse-to-be's name to generate all your combined name options. Here are ours:

First names

• Camatt
• Caramatt
• Caratt
• Catt
• Macara
• Mara
• Matta
• Mattara

Last names

• Gihoag
• Gishag
• Gishoag
• Goag
• Hish
• Hoagish
• Hoash
• Hogish
• Hosh

In my own opinion, our last names make some pretty ridiculous and kind of ugly sounding names.

Mac N Cheese : Month 1

Well, we tried our first Mac N Cheese recipe. The verdict? Matt just called it "middle of the road." I call that a failure!

We went for the Martha Stewart recipe that Megan recommended. The recipe calls for pecorino Romano cheese OR Gruyere. I bought the Romano simply because I couldn't pronounce the other one. I should have asked Mark and Megan because they would have recommended the gruyere. The Romano was good, but it didn't cut the sharpness enough. We think the gruyere would have been a better contrast to the sharp white cheddar.

Rating: 6.5

But it sure looks like a 10!!

Wedding Inspiration

If you are like I was six months ago, you have no idea what an inspiration board is. I quickly learned what they are as I started planning our wedding. Wedding blogs are all the rage and are an endless supply of inspiration, ideas and DIY instructions. I'm loving it. I have a few that I read on a daily basis. I see inspiration boards all the time and figured it is about time I do it! Essentially an inspiration board is a collection of pictures that shape the theme and details of the wedding.

Here is a sampling of what inspires us for our planning:

We are going with a vintage theme with orange and blue as our colors. My grandma offered us the cake topper from her and my grandpa's wedding and we gladly accepted. This became the main inspiration for the vintage theme. The colors were an easy pick: Orange for our wedding season (Fall)...which we both love. And blue because it happens to be both of our favorite color. Plus the beautiful stained glass windows in the chapel (pictured in the inspiration board) are blue.