Babies!

We have babies! When I took this picture a few days ago we only had 6 babies (4 from one "litter" and 2 from another) but upon checking today we have two more very new babies - and they're not orange like these guys - very whitish/clear. Yeah, by the way, to clear up any confusion - that's my fish tank (one of many) in the picture - the tiny orange blurry things (there are three of them if you look hard) are the babies - obviously the large blurry things are the large fish - the big orange and black one is the mommy. Awww.... how cute. No, we're not having any babies larger then a grain of rice (that's a very large baby fish size) any time soon. :)

Miracle.

Those who know me know that I'm a procrastinator - of the worst sort. I will put off anything humanly possible. I also never ever finish a project. Painting our house? Started in June of 2005 - still not done. Craft project for my friend's kid who was born in November 2005? Still not done. I'm horrible about getting anything done. I think it's genetic.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the last post I was working on my scrapbook from my Europe trip in 2002. Well, low and behold, I worked a ton on it last week and got it DONE! I actually finished a scrapbook - this is seriously a miracle. I never thought I would ever finish this book. It's not the greatest or the most creative or the best thing ever - but it's FINISHED!!! I'm so happy - now I can't wait to show it off to everyone! :)

Not much.

It's been a while since I updated. Not much going on here - normal summer busy-ness. Usually at the end of the week I say in general that it was a good week - not this past week - something was just "off" last week. Monday and Tuesday I worked on my scrapbook from my Europe trip in 2002 - I figured it'd been 5 years so I need to get it done or be done with it. Wednesday was super fun but bad later. For $10 at the Zoo on two Wednesday's a year they have wine tasting. Not just a few wines to taste - but over 200. It's a fabulous event - nice evening, nice atmosphere, all the wines you could possibly want to taste - and the zoo. Too bad I think I tried to taste all 200 wines. :) Yeah, not a good situation for me at the end. I had a great time while I was still standing but let's just say it wasn't too great after that. I haven't gotten that bad in a long time - I felt like a 19 year old moron - I'm just too damn old anymore to be pulling crap like that - especially on a Wednesday. So Thursday was wasted - total crap. Since I'm running low on time off I went to work and pretty much laid down all day - I got nothing done - it was bad. Friday was good - I was feeling a little better and starting to recover (ahh the days - 10 years ago it would have taken me hours to recover - not these days - now it's days to recover). Cody and I went out for Greek so that was fun.
Saturday we spend the day putting together Dude's going away party (the guy living with us right now). He's moving to Arizona so we were running around getting party supplies. The party turned out pretty cool. We, of course, stayed up entirely too late hanging out with everyone but it was good to see friends and hang out.
Today we were pretty useless so we decided to run errands - got a bit of stuff done there.
So while it wasn't a bad week, I just don't feel great about it - hopefully this next week won't be as long.

Sigh.

I'm not sure how much I've blogged about this in the past few months, but back at the end of May I started having an insane pain in my knee about 2 miles into a run. It came on very suddenly, with no warning, at the beginning of an otherwise normal run. And it just got worse and worse - for the first time I actually had to stop running, turn around and walk home. I usually push though most anything. The second time it happened (the next time I ran a few days later) I ran through it, practically limping the last mile of the 5.65. The next few days after that I could barely walk. So I took a week off, started back slow and got to 7 minues. That was it - I could only make it 7 minutes. Down from 2 hours to 7 minutes - sad. At that point I went to the doctor - and of course, as the weath of information on the internet so informed me, it was IT band syndrome. Basically it's a band that runs from your hip to your knee - it's big and powerful but when it gets inflammed it hurts like hell. Women tend to get it more because we have wider hips and our knees turn in more when we run putting pressure on the band. So I was referred to PT. Usually I swear by the benefits of physical therapy - the last time I had knee problems PT saved me and when I had ankle surgery it was the only thing that got me walking again. So I religiously went to PT and did their exercises - to no avail - still couldn't get over 7 minutes without pain - I got up to 14 minutes once but it was apparently a fluke. So back to the doctor on Monday - he gave me an injection which hurt like hell but was supposed to be the magic bullet. So I couldn't do ANYTHING with my knee all week - biking, running, lots of walking, eliptical, stairs, weights, etc. - nothing. While it was difficult to sit still all week I did it. So today I was allowed to run again - up to 15 minutes said the doc - no pushing it. Well, I made it 10 before it started hurting. Sigh. I guess it's back to the doc for round two or option two - no clue.
I'm so tired of not being able to run like I want to. Anyone who was around me during the wedding or wedding planning found out quickly how much I need to run and how it is a wonderful stress release for me. Hopefully soon.

Done!

Book Seven officially finished - all 780 pages of it! Got it last night shortly after midnight and now done! And yes, I did sleep in there - actually got good sleep for once. But now I have to go pay attention to my husband who I've been ignoring all day. :)

Done!

Book Seven officially finished - all 780 pages of it! Got it last night shortly after midnight and now done! And yes, I did sleep in there - actually got good sleep for once. But now I have to go pay attention to my husband who I've been ignoring all day. :)

Go Wash U!

Check out this article on Business schools! Washington University (Olin) is where Cody is going - ranked 17th in the country! Yipee!

My favorite part of the article is: "A dramatic 25% increase in applicants to Washington University in St. Louis demonstrates Wash U's tremendous popularity."

Popularity? Not so much as free school. Applications may have gone up that much but it was likely all Boeing kids because they can get it for FREE - so that's now "the thing" to do at Boeing - Wash U Business School - it's a good school, good education, relatively low key and FREE! But nonetheless, Go Wash U - now we've got all sorts of new obnoxious college apparel to buy. Good thing they don't have a football team (I think) and play Florida or Cody would be in a really tough spot.

Thoughts for today. . .

Here is a poem/story to epitomize my day (for unrelevant historical reference The Epitome used to be one of my favorite bars/hangouts): (author unknown - not me - famous person unknown)

"Autobiography in Five Short Chapters"
Chapter One
I walk down the road. There's a big hole in the road. I don't see it. I fall in. It's dark and scary. It's not my fault. It takes me a long time to get out.
Chapter Two
I walk down the road. There's a big hole in the road. I don't see it. I fall in. It's dark and scary. It's not my fault. It takes me less time to get out.
Chapter Three
I walk down the road. There's a big hole in the road. I see it. I fall in anyway. It's dark and scary. Maybe I've got something to do with this. I get out.
Chapter Four
I walk down the road. There's a big hole in the road. I see it. I walk around the hole.
Chapter Five
I walk down a different road.

Yeah, today's been an interesting/enlightening/rough day. You realize that you keep walking down paths you've already been on over and over and over and over again and that you've fallen in that perverbal hole over and over and over again. And then one day you realize that's not such a great idea anymore and you stop falling in. I guess I'm there. Not quite to avoiding the road but to the point of learning to avoid the hole. That's really all I can say at this point - and by the way it has nothing to do with Cody. I just wish I would learn - I fell like someone is watching over me saying "when will that kid EVER learn?" And the answer, I guess, is that I'm really really dense.

Clarification

First, sorry the last post is an essay - I'm very very very long winded.
Second, to clarify, I love the wedding - it was fabulous and I wouldn't have changed a thing about that day. It was so great to see our friends and family that care about us and share that with everyone. I'm just reflecting on things I would change if I had hindsight (which we don't), especially with the wedding planning - not the wedding day. Because of the caring and support and love of those around us (especially Bonus Mom - I will never ever ever be able to put in words how much she helped me throughout the process - not only with actually planning and doing work but with just support - I would have crumbled without her) the wedding day itself was the best day of my life.

Weddings.

We've been married a bit over three months now. That makes me a wedding/marriage expert, right? I mean, three months, that's an eternity in Hollywood! Honestly I haven't thought too much about the wedding since the honeymoon. The thank you cards are winding down (if you haven't gotten yours yet, please let me know, because anyone who got us anything before June should have them by now), the dress is back from the cleaners and in the bag, the mementos are in a box (safe keeping for the scrapbook) and the photos are finally in. We've really just been enjoying marriage for now. It actually really rocks - it's so much better then being engaged!! Hell, getting my toenails plucked out with a machete is better then wedding planning! It's so much more relaxing and just nice. So some things I've been pondering on marriage and weddings:
- When we were engaged I had this insane fear that Cody was going to die. I know that's morbid but I was frightened to death (no pun intended) that he was going to die in a car wreck, killed by a drunk driver, drown in the bathtub, mauled by stray cats/squirrels/rabbits/dogs/insert vicious animal here, or whatever. I was just so scared he would die and not make it to the wedding and I was going to lose him and have to face such an incredible loss. I was scared that people would tell me, "at least you weren't married yet" as if that somehow made it easier and less painful. I didn't want to hear that, thus I feared for his death. Thankfully, that is over now and I feel safe and secure with Cody's well-being (not to mention the motorcycle is broken so that makes this part a bit easier).
- I would have had a longer engagement. I know that sounds silly because we dated for a total of something obnoxious like 7 years before we got engaged and had lived together for over two years and were then still engaged for almost 18 months - but I think I would have enjoyed more time reveling in engagement instead of rushing into wedding planning. Though on one hand I say that and on the other, we really didn't rush into wedding planning but put it off forever because it was such a pain (plus we were focused on the Germany trip for the first 8 months) and had it been any longer that likely would have just been more pain and stress on me. But in a idealistic world, I would have liked a few months to just enjoy the engagement and not rush into planning.
- I would have heeded the advice of my Bonus Mom better and really focused on Cody and I in the whole engagement/wedding planning period instead of everyone else. This is one of those things everyone tells you to do and you think you're doing it but you're really not and only after the wedding is over do you realized what a miserable job you did of it. It's impossible, I think, to 100% avoid this in the delerium of wedding planning. I would have cared less and less about impressing others (not that we really tried hard since we had a pretty tight budget) or what others thought (i.e. "people will think I'm stupid if I do ____ " or "people will like ___ so let's do that") and more about just making us happy (as evidenced by my day before meltdown, I was NOT a happy camper at that point). I would have focused more on the event - the wedding and marriage - and less on what people thought. While the wedding was worth every penny and second I put into it in the end, it wasn't worth all the time I spent thinking about what other people would think. It wasn't about impressing others or making them happy - it was about us creating a marriage.
- To add to that, I would have focused more on the "marriage" part and less on the "wedding" part. I think if couples spend 1/2 the time they spend talking about their marriages as they do their weddings there would be no divorce. We talked about wedding this and wedding that pretty much 24/7 (a HUGE mistake) and should have been talking about what we wanted out of marriage and what we expected. Luckily we've been together since the Ice Age and had really covered all those topics over the years - we got lucky and had the time to gradually ease into things - living together, joining bank accounts and finances, talking about expectations, kids, goals, life plans, etc. Since we'd heard that the #1 fight is finances, we spent more time then you can imagine talking about those issues - they are so well talked out we don't even deal with them anymore. But I wish we would have slowed down and really focused on marriage and not the wedding - because now that day is gone and what is left is a marriage for the rest of our lives.
- I wish we would have listened more. So many people, who were much wiser and had much more experience, tried to tell us to do this and that and we didn't listen. We thought we wouldn't fall into that mold/group/category - but of course in the end we did and we kick ourselves for not listening to everyone. There are some things that I think you just can't pass on to people - they are mistakes that everyone has to make and insists on making them no matter who advises against it - but now that we have the benefit of hindsight, they were all right and I wish we would have listened.
-And last, but not least, I wish someone would have told me how great marriage is and I (hopefully) would have stressed less over the wedding. I think there is a sense of insecurity that you try to fulfill with all this great wedding planning and events just in case marriage isn't all you want it to be. Maybe there's a bit of "I better have a super great wedding to remember just in case marriage isn't all that grand." But then when it's all over you realize that actually marriage is a ton better then any wedding - large or small, cheap or lavish - it's so much nicer then any ring or any tux or any dress. It's worth those things, of course, but in the end no one will remember my dress by next year, no one will remember his tux, no one will remember the flowers or the cake or the ceremony or the songs played, I'll probably have stopped wearing my engagement ring religiously (I've come to really love my wedding band - not that I don't like my engagement ring - I love it - but now the band means so much more to me - if I lost the engagement ring I'd be sad but not devistated - I would be crushed if I lost the band) but in the end we'll still have us which is so much better then any of that. If I had to give up my rings, my dress and the whole wedding I'd do it in a heartbeat if I could still have the marriage.

What a wonderful life.

Update of our life:
We got my car towed last week - finally - it's at the shop now. I hope to have it back before I get too old to drive. Yeah - I'm getting pretty sick of not having a car. It's not that I mind driving Cody to work up in North County when I work downtown (oh, and we LIVE near downtown), it's just I like the freedom of not having to sync schedules. We both are very busy and we are hard to sync.
In other news, Cody got into the MBA program at Wash U - a very prestigious business school. Yippee for him. I'm really proud of him and glad we have some direction in our lives now but I'm still on the fence about how I feel about being stuck (I mean "chosing to stay") in St. Louis for another three years. I like it here. We like it here. It's a pretty fun place to be. But we've done 99% of what we wanted to do here so if we left now I wouldn't be crying. Another three years here seems like a really long time. I'm sure it will pass super fast - as the last three years have. But I feel like we could be exploring something new for the next three years and now we're committing to the same old thing for another three. And that's fine for a lot of people - but we're in the stage right now where we want to see things and have the desire/ability to move around. But this is a really good thing for him/us and we'll make it work. Three more winters . . . I can't wait! :)
Friday we both worked pretty late (he picked me up at 8pm) and then went out to eat to celebrate and then had a quiet evening at home (very very rare). It was nice.
Saturday we went to the Soulard Farmers Market with Chris, got some yummy produce and went to the Bastille Day garage sale festival (go figure) and Cody got a stein and I got a bunch of old records (James Taylor, Bruce and the like). After lunch with Chris we went to a fantastic pool party/house-warming party. It was really nice to kick back and relax, have a few beers and swim around (though I am a whimp - if it's barely chilly in the pool I barely get in).
Sunday Cody had an all day golf tournament so I got a lot of work done around the house - laundry, cleaning, etc. - alone time is good sometimes - plus I get a TON of work done when I'm alone. :) Then went out to dinner with the gang at King and I (Cody's favorite restaraunt). Unfortunately for everyone else Cody dared them to get "Thai Hot Number 5" and they about got sick it was so hot - Cody is used to it because he is insane about hot stuff (aka has no taste buds left). :)
So that was it for our fun weekend - nice and fun but also relaxing. Another busy week ahead of us though . . .

p.s. Cody thinks it's creative that people are rumored to go to Harry Potter release parties and flip to the back of the book and shout out the endings. NOT FUNNY!

FOUR MORE DAYS!!

Only FOUR more very long, torturous days until Harry Potter #7 comes out. I swung by my local Barnes and Noble this evening (after an eye exam that took 20 minutes but figuring out my insurance took over an hour - thanks genius eye exam workers) and pre-ordered myself a copy of Deathly Hollows. It works like this: on Friday, started at 6pm you can go by and pick up a wrist band - you get a certain colour depending on the time you picked up your wrist band. You are then free to do as you please - go home and nap in anticipation - go out to eat/drink in anticipation - whatever suites you. Then at 12:01 they start calling out the colours in order and selling you the book. So yeah, I'll be leaving work on Friday early so I can be one of the first colours - who wants to wait in line all night to finally get your book?? :) Then I plan to spend the entire weekend reading. I CAN'T WAIT!!

HE GOT IN!!!

CODY GOT INTO THE MBA PROGRAM AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY!!!!!

And the world spins faster.

Today was one of those crazy days. It started out crazy and got crazier as the hours passed. We started out with Cody having a Wash U information session at 5:30 and me having PT at 5:15 - so we started with a car problem since mine was STILL in front of Babies R' Us in Chestefield (a zillion miles away). Then by 10:30 am it had gotten nuttier. Cody got a call from Wash U noting his planned attendance at the info session. Since he had an interview scheduled already on Friday they wanted to know if he could come in today and do it instead since he'll already be there - of course he said yes. So crazy us spent all day Monday looking for him a suit, paid extra to have the alterations done by Thursday for the interview on Friday and the interview gets moved to Wednesday - that's our life for ya'. :) So we drafted a nice, polite email telling the guy he won't have time to go home to get his "suit" and is it okay if he comes in work clothes - they lauded his desire to be professional and noted it would be fine to come in work clothes. To add to the crazy day I then set up an appointment to have the car towed to the dealer (I hate dealers and wouldn't take it there except they fixed it last time and I think it's the same thing broken again so I'm hoping they fix it for free this time).
So we both left work early, met at the house, got him dressed and ready for the interview (while he couldn't be in a suit because it won't be ready until tomorrow he needed to still look nice), I dropped him off for the interview, drove to Chesterfield to meet the tow guy - he took so long I missed my eye appointment that was strategically scheduled between towing and PT - got the car towed, went to physical therapy while Cody was interviewing and having his info session and then went to pick him up.
Busy but productive. He thinks the interview went pretty well and we should know by the end of the week. Pretty much our entire lives at this moment hinge on their decision. If they say no then we're moving to California. If they say yes, but for spring only, then we have decisions to make. If they say yes for fall then we have to talk but we'll likely commit to 2-3 more years in St. Louis. While I like it here, 2-3 years here is hard to swallow. It wasn't so bad a few years ago to think of 2-3 years here but now that I've been here for 3 years, I think we've done what we need to do here, seen what there is to see, and our time here has run its course. Plus 3 more winters makes me want to cry right now. But this will be a great opportunity for him. It's not that I hate it here, I actually love it here - good friends and good times - but this was never meant to be a permanent move - it's a stepping stone to something better- it was temporary - and we're sort of running on the back end of that. So we'll let you know when we hear!!!

Look what we made!!

We created life -sort of. Months ago our garden looked like the 2nd picture (which because Blogger can be dumb because I uploaded it first the second picture automatically goes on top - not what I was looking for). Tiny little seedlings perfectly spaced in rows. Now it's a massive jungle that is difficult to maneuver through. Yesterday on my way out to run (I'm up to 10 minutes! Take that IT Band problem!! I will beat you 3 minutes at a time if I have to!) I stopped by to check out how things were doing. So far we're getting tons of jalapeno peppers, quite a few banana peppers and we have a good number of bell peppers on the vines. But then I checked out the cucumber - which is half way to our neighbor's front porch by now it's getting so big - and we had a ginormous (newly added to the Webster dictionary today) cucumber! It was almost 8 inches long. While that may not be huge by grocery store/chemically induced plant standards that's pretty good for us! We were quite impressed. I think when we retire we're going to open up a stand at the Farmer's Market - wake up every day at 4 am, pick our wares for the day and open up shop. And we'll also sell our home-made salsa. We'll be the Pepper Stand. And we can barter with other farmers for the rest of the ingredients for the salsa because we really just grow peppers well. :)

Adventures in Adult Land.

Slowly but surely Cody and I are realizing that we are adults and that there's little we can do about that. Sometimes it's me that revolts against this seemingly impending doom and other times it's him. So here's some of our recent adventures in Adult Land - a land where we seem to be visiting more and more lately - for better or worse - though certainly not exclusively.
Thursday my friend Marissa was in town from NJ - those at the wedding will remember her as one of the bridesmaids - so her departure from St. Louis was particularly rough for me as she was one of my closest friends here. But the job she took in NJ was a wonderful opportunity for her and she is now really close to her family so while I may miss her, it's a fantastic situation for her. Anyway, we had a Girl's Night Thursday night and went to the Cheesecake Factory (I think I'm still full from that meal - and I had a "weight control" salad) and shopping - tons of fun as always - though I had no car - it broke down in front of Babies 'R Us out in the middle of nowhere (no there's nothing to tell - I was just getting a baby shower gift).
Friday I had physical therapy (I'm up to running 10 minutes without major pain now!) and then Cody and I went to test the car - still didn't work. Then we went out with Marissa, her fiance, and Melanie - always a fun time - and it included Ted Drewes (for those not from STL - that's crazy good custard).
Saturday we went to a friend's wedding - it was quite nice - and then, gasp, worked on the car AGAIN! We were morons and spent almost 2 hours on something that both of us should have known was wrong - it's a circuits thing - we tested the fuel pump that we thought was grounded, only to spend tons of time getting it out to realize it wasn't grounded and thus the test we did was invalid - it actually did work - so we put it back in and gave up.
Sunday we babysat some adorable kids! They made this whole baby thing look totally easy! Michael is 25 months and Daniel is 8 months -and they were fabulous! We played with them for a while, fed them and then they napped - for hours - so did Cody. Then they woke up - ate some more and played some more. Pretty much I just took whichever one was upset and Cody played with the other one so it worked out great. While I think he would be fantastic at quieting a screaming/crying kid when they either screamed or cried he sort of looked at them confused so I took over there. While I think now I'm great with screaming/crying kids, I'm sure as soon as I have my own I'll think very differently. :)
Today was more of the same - work and the car. We think we figured out what is wrong with the car - the same thing that was fixed a few months ago - so we're going to see if we can get them to fix it for free this time. We also went shopping for Cody clothes - this is the second time we've done this since I moved to STL over three years ago. But this time we were crazy successful - we got Cody a super great charcoal gray suit (for his interview with Wash U on Friday and to have a nice general suit) and a bunch of work clothes. It was overall quite sucessful.
So that's it - still no car but we do have Cody a suit. Now it's time to do my physical therapy - fun fun. I hope everyone is doing great and enjoying their summer. :)

Free Long Distance.

The joys of free long distance! Back in the day when I first moved away from "home" I didn't have a cell phone. Shortly thereafter I was forced to get one for no other reason then free long distance and all the time spent on the road between school and home. At that time I think I only had about 350 minutes a month so I still used my home phone a good deal still for my long distance calls when the 350 was up. My long distance bills were still pretty heafty - even with the cell phone.
Not these days. These days we don't even have a home phone (no reason - we're never home) and I have about a zillion minutes each month for cheaper then I used to pay for my 350. Plus we have free roaming, free nights and weekends, free network to network, and still the free long distance! Times like now this is worth its weight in gold!
My car is broken - yes, again. We believe this time it's the fuel pump or injection or just tiny little elves drunk in my gas tank. But the car is stuck out in Chesterfield (still considered part of "St. Louis metropolitian area" but 30 miles from our house) and won't start at all. Well, we're incredibly fortunate in life in many respects, but right now one in particular stands out - Cody's dad. He's an insanely good mechanic. Not only can he fix anything while looking at it but he can help us fix it OVER THE PHONE! The ability to teach someone else to fix something 800 miles away is quite a skill. When I teach someone something I have to be right there and pointing and demonstrating - that's just how I can do it - but he can tell Cody in such detail what we need to check and what we need to do on a Japanesse car that he's never even dealt with (he hates foreign cars as much as Cody)! So it's a great thing that we have free long distance because we've been using a lot of it trying to gleam some of his genious in order to fix my stupid car! Did I mention I hate my car???

Very quick update.

Friday - Garage broken into. Hated on thieves. Wallowed in hate by renting a movie (McDonald's REDBOX rocks -McDonald's itself, of course, still sucks), getting a growler to go at Schlafly's (brewery) and custard at Ted Drewes.

Saturday - Home Depot - spent insane amounts of money to fix damage to garage, secure garage better and secure home/basement better. Spent the entire day implementing our new security measures (and planting some pretty flowers in the front beds where I took out all the grass and put mulch - now I don't have to yell at Cody to mow and he doesn't have to be yelled at and he doesn't have to mow.) After house/garage/basement was sufficiently secured, went camping in Burbon, Missouri. It was a nice sunny day - until we drove off to go camping - and then it rained and rained and rained. We set the tent up in the rain and slept in the rain. While our tent has a rain hood thing the tent is mostly windows and there's just so much you can do to keep it dry in a rain storm.

Sunday - Float trip on the Meramec. Beautiful but chilly and still somewhat rainy. Nice though. Came home and watched Borat (Cody and Dude pronounce this as "Bo - Rat") - it was hillarious!

Monday - Work. Work. Work. Oh, and work. And ran SEVEN minutes before my knee started hurting. A few weeks ago I was proud of 2 hours, now I'm happy with just 7 minutes - the things an injury does to you.

Tuesday - Worked. Went to Fair St. Louis - saw Lifehouse and Goo Goo Dolls and a cool fireworks display. Drank a bit too much vodka and Diet 7ups. Ordered the largest pizza known to man.

Wednesday - Spent the day painting the porch. We are well on our way to not being the trashiest neighboors on the block!!! Then we went to a friend's party/BBQ - lots of fun - and then saw more fireworks in St. Charles - very very good display. Then I went into work for a little bit to gather stuff for my trip to Columbia tomorrow - fun fun!

Comment of the evening.

Cody's Comment of the Evening: "Is that bug repelant or your perfume? You smell weird. "

For the record - I did not have bug repelant on.