There are numerous ways that you can cut costs when planning a shower. Perhaps easiest way is to split hostess duties among several friends. Homemade food, favors, and invitations are another way to make things less expensive. The time of day you have shower may also influence cost. A mid-afternoon party with cake, punch, and light snacks is much less expensive than a dinner or a spa afternoon. Having party at a restaurant may be less expensive if guests all know each other and are willing to pay for their own meals. This may be somewhat awkward, though, so it definitely is a plan that will only fit certain situations.

Handmade invitations are a very easy way to cut corners. With a computer, a printer, and cardstock or specialty paper, you can make invitations that will look practically professional. Or you can choose to make a crafty invitation that perfectly complements your theme. Another option for invitations is to email invitations. Sites like sendomatic allow you to send invitations and maps, track responses, and even send weather reports for big day for less than $15 dollars for 100 invitations. Sending email invitations saves on purchase of invitations, as well as postage.

Academics will freely admit that this man was a troubadour. But what is a Troubadour? They were important to genesis of Cathar mystique for a certainty and Princeton people I will shortly quote will say that Chrétien was one of first Troubadours in this region. Surely they do not think it would be one of first involved in these arts. In point of fact they are very very ancient arts in training of a Druid, who would become a minstrel and jester before taking up involved study to be a Bard or Baird. Druids, Bairds and Ovates are best known appellations for those who completed these long and arduous studies which were already suffering and shortening by time of Pythagoras who was part of last known Dean of Studies in Mediterranean region. Abaris (Rabbi) Druid was that Dean and his name gives us a clue as to one of branches or systems which took over some of their training.

The Cathars were very Gnostic and open to Pharisaic Rabbinical message. In Caesar’s Journals we are told period of study was 20 years but it was 25 a millennium earlier and there were still other specialties one could study throughout their lives. One of those might lead to being called a Peryllat or ‘alchemist’. Many members of family of Jesus were alchemists and it is quite likely that Yeshua bar Joseph studied with Comarius who also tutored Cleopatra. Apollonius of Tyana is part of Jesus amalgam and Cathars kept most of Gaedhil/Gnostic learning alive. One of charges that Inquisition leveled against Cathars had to do with Dianistic or Tantric sexual practices and I believe sexual or Bhakti ‘union’ (Yoga) was part of their training and system which highly valued women including giving them high priestly functions and leadership roles including Esclarmonde de Foix who is reminiscent of Hypatia of Alexandria, who both should be studied as a great heroine for all time.

The Bairdic Educational system had included a seven year specialty in developing languages for their far flung colonies in second millennium BCE and they developed such codes and Gematria as you see in Hebrew and Aymará of Peru. I have delved into these Oghamic studies in many other books including one with title From OM to Ogham. Plato observed that knowledge was declining due to written word after Phoenicians gave them their refined alphabet. Some scholars think a few of poems attributed to Orpheus (a lesser Bard or Troubadour) are in fact writing of Pythagoras. The Grail myths are rich repositories of pre-Christian traditions.