Wedding Blog
My life is pretty much an open book so I can’t think of any major secrets to share, but I can offer a few interesting tidbits about me.
1. After high school I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go – I just knew that I needed a break from Minnesota. So, I joined the AmeriCorps. I spent a year working as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault, partner violence and sexual harassment. This totally changed the direction of my life and is part of the reason I met Mr. PN! If you are ever at a point in your life where you don’t know what to do next, or if you are considering a career change, I highly recommend the program!
2. Even though I identify as a vegetarian (really a pescetarian since I eat fish), I have a weakness for buffalo wings.
I love the smell and taste of wings and it is the one meat product I haven’t given up. Sometimes when Mr. PN and I go out to dinner we order buffalo wings and I always eat a couple. Typically I only do this when it is the two of us because I’m too embarrassed to do it in front of our friends. As you might recall, I am a vegetarian for environmental reasons and 95% of the time I stick to my guns – but I almost always make an exception when presented with a basket of deliciously hot buffalo wings. Any other vegetarians with a special exception?
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3. When I can’t sleep I recite the alphabet forwards and then backwards in my head. It works almost every time!
4. Similar to Mrs. Penguin, I have a bit of a tattoo embarrassment. When I was a fresh 19 year old I went and got my (second!) tattoo on my upper right back. It is supposed to be the Chinese symbol for peace. When I got the tattoo I originally thought this was the “abbreviated version” for peace, but I later found out that without the corresponding symbols it doesn’t actually mean Peace. Mr. PN teases me and tells me that it really means just pee, but from what I can tell it actually means gentle/mild/just/fair/level/common. I hope to get the other symbols added along side of it to be sure that it does have the right meaning.
I’m pretty sure this is what the tattoo should look like if I want it to mean peace:
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If you can read Chinese I would love some info on what my tattoo means and if I am right about what Peace should look like – I wouldn’t want to end of with Level 9 instead (like Pengy). Oh, and if I add the extra characters should it go vertical or horizontal?
5. I kill plants. No matter what I do, every plant I have dies within a year. This is especially devastating since my grandparents owned and operated a greenhouse (which my uncle now owns) and my mom is master-gardener-extraordinaire! Mr. PN says I have a black thumb… I argue that it is more yellow than black…
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6. When I was a junior in high school my best friend and I flew to Oregon without telling our parents. We wanted a “break” from “small-town life” so we bought plane tickets to go visit her family friends in Oregon. This was before 9/11 so we just went to our local airport and paid cash. In hindsight it is kind of incredible. We told our parents when we got to the Minneapolis airport – before they could figure out the double “I’m-sleeping-over-at-her-house” scheme. They freaked out (no surprise) but we still went to Oregon for five days and then I got Saturday school (detention on Saturday mornings).
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I’m an Americorps alum too! I loved having completed those two years of service and growing as a person and helping the community.
The chinese characters are right.
For years, I also avoided meat for sustainability reasons (that is, until I fell in love with a meat-loving Montanan… but we met halfway). I limited my meat intake by cooking and selecting vegetarian meals, but I would eat meat when prepared by others, when nutritious meat-free options were not available, or simply when I wanted meat. I probably only ate meat about once a month.
I never referred to myself as “vegetarian,” since I wasn’t, but I was labeled by others as vegetarian. I hated it, not because there’s anything wrong with being vegetarian, but because I WASN’T and so everyone was confused when I would eat meat and call me hypocritical, and then I’d have to give the whole explanation again… Sigh. So I also started to eat meat only in private!!! I remember once trying to sneak a meatball sub into my apartment!
Wow, I can’t believe you left to explore Oregon. That is crazy but great, we live in Oregon and LOVE it. I thought I was a crazy kid but my coolest travel was in seventh grade I snuck away after school one night with some older kids and we drove to the Oregon Coast. We didn’t call until our feet were in the sand.
I love Buffalo Wings too! I also cannot keep a plant alive to save my life… I’ve even killed Ivy :-/
Also - your parents must have FREAKED when you went to OR for 5 days! My mom would have killed me.
I was a vegetarian for years but i would cheat with bacon… which is arguably one of the grossest meats around.
I also kill plants… I’m currently killing an aloe plant, sad, but true!
Yeah, sadly houseplants aren’t my forte either.
HAHAHAHAHA You flew to Oregon without telling your parents!! You are mighty brave, my friend!
Do you think maybe you could stop calling yourself a vegetarian? It makes it harder for the rest of us, b/c we end up with someone saying, “oh but I know a vegetarian who eats meat/fish sometimes, so it’s okay if you do too”, which is just annoying. You could just tell people you don’t eat meat much.
Where did you guys visit in Oregon? I love the West Coast 
I live in Washington about 10 mins from the Oregon border…
Oh, and I killed a cactus. I brought it back to life eventually, but yeah, a cactus.
According to this dictionary (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1D )
the kanji you have can be read as Peace by itself in Japanese.
I can’t believe you made that trip without telling your parents! That’s so “Into the Wild” of you… but “Into Oregon”…
In Japanese the symbol means peace- especially when used in names
My partners name is shumpei and the pei part of his name is the same character you have on your back. Written 俊平ーthe first part means genius so his name means peaceful genius.
平和- pronounced heiwa in japanese (which is the opposite to your picture unless it is a mirror image) is the noun for peace.
和平ー （wahei)can also means peace but is not very commonly used in Japanese however it may be in Chinese (with different pronunciation)
i too lead a mainly vegetarian life. my downfall? sushi. i’m a sucker for raw fish. once a year i eat a steak, rare, and pay for it. i don’t consider myself a vegetarian, i just say i eat mainly vegetarian.
I’m a pescatarian too. The first year I was fine, but now I crave turkey burgers all of the time! There’s a place in Dearborn that has amazing turkey burgers. yum! Sometimes I wonder if it is a lack of iron that makes me crave it.
oh my goodness that is amazing that you went to Oregon! I am so jealous! I often just want to grab Mr. P and run off for a few days, but then I get all commonsenseicall and it doesn’t happen.
You’ve got the right characters, it would be pronounced he-ping. Ping is the character you have currently.
http://www.zhongwen.com/d/169/x77.htm - If you look down this entry (the 5th bullet) you can see the 2 characters you’ve mentioned. These 2 characters mean “peace” as a noun.
Another way you could add a character is this - http://www.zhongwen.com/d/165/x173.htm - If you look at the 1st bullet, your original character is first and the 2nd character is pronounced an. These 2 characters mean “peaceful” as an adjective.
Either one would be meaningful and correct. As for placement, the proper way to write Chinese characters is up and down. However, if you choose to write them horizontally, it could be from left to right. But then we read books from right to left. It gets complicated, so I would suggest vertically to avoid confusion.
What you did with Americorps sounds so cool! I need to get off my lazy bum and do some volunteering.
Love the recap! In a round about way, I met my FI through AmeriCorps too! Yeah AmeriCorps!
Haha! I too have a black thumb. in my case, it’s my great-grandparents who own the nursery (my great-grandfather STILL runs it at 93 year old!), and my grandmother worked in a florist for years - I really am the only one who can’t grow things.
It usually only takes me about a week to kill something. Right now, i’m on my 3d herb garden of the fall (I finally reduced it to one plant, that I bought fully grown and super-healthy), and it has survived an inprecidented month now! Unfortunately, it has spent most of that time looking less than healthy. Nonetheless, I am DETERMINED to keep something alive!
Man, and I thought driving to Ohio for lunch in high school was a big deal. (I’m in Michigan, only 2 hours or so away)
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Mrs. Pinot Noir, New York/Napa Valley
Age and Occupation: 24, Health Educator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Market Researcher
Engagement Date: November 10, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 25, 2008
Venue: Auberge du Soleil
About Me: I am a Minnesota raised, NYC transplant planning a destination wedding in Napa. I'm balancing my love for the environment and my hubby-to-be's love for tradition to create our "green wedding in disguise." Our wedding will include local food and wine, antique touches and lots of love and laughter. When wedding planning isn't taking up my free time (and money) I love to read, cook, workout, watch baseball and travel! Follow along in my adventure as I attempt to plan an eco-friendly and socially responsible wedding (with eco-oblivious Mr. Pinot Noir).
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