Year in Review.

Wow - it's already the 9th and I haven't done a year in review. So - 2007. It was an interesting year if nothing else. It holds a lot of different things to me - not just necessarily events but a lot of personal growth and intangibles. So -

January - Either the beginning or the beginning of the end of wedding hell. I love Cody and I loved our wedding and I love being married but I did not like wedding planning. I don't think that's a secret to anyone. I don't do good organizing. I hate making decisions. And while in small groups I'm okay with being loud and the center of attention (at times) and socializing, I am NOT good in large groups. I get nervous and stupid and feel like an idiot. I don't dress up and I'm not a princess so the whole gettin' fancy thing got me messed up. I was so out of my element it was driving me insane. I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and I was just getting crushed. The one person I can credit with keeping me sane througout the process was Cody's mom. Cody tried but he just didn't "get" it - he could help with tangibles - get a DJ, call this person - but he didn't "get" what I was going through. Cody's mom had been through it all with his sister (who is almost as nutty as me about certain things) so she knew just what to say and just how to help out and just how to keep me from going off the deep end. She also could provide an unbiased viewpoint on dealing with issues when I was not in an objective mindset. So January was the beginning or the beginning of the end. I got my dress this month - or what should have been my dress. The Gators won the National Championship. Cody turned 28 on the 28th - his "magic" birthday - we had a great party for him. It was cold.

February - More cold. More wedding hell. But my girlfriends threw a great bachelorette party and I really felt loved. It snowed - a lot. It snowed during Mardi Gras. We saw They Might Be Giants at Mardi Gras - performing outside - but they, as well as us, were freezing so the show was stopped. Cody's aunt in Wisconsin threw me a bridal shower and the biggest surprise was Cody's mom flying up for it. We were tickled pink. It snowed - a ton -there and it was cool watching Cody's mom and his aunt sled in two feet of snow - that's an image you don't forget easily.

March - Our friends, Craig and Emily, got married and had a great wedding. My awesome friend Marissa got a job in New Jersey and moved away. I ran the St. Patrick's Day 5 mile race completely hung over the day after her going away party - I will never forget 5 miles of raspberry vodka and tonic bouncing around in my tummy - but I finished in record time - my incentive was to get the race over with and get back to sleep. There was more dress drama in March - escalating dress drama. I had my first batch of daffodils bloom so that was cool - I was proud of that small accomplishment. Gators in the Final Four.

April - D-Day was upon us. First, April 2, Gators won another Championship. We were in Tally the week before the wedding and I was doing everything I could not to go crazy insane. My dress was taken to the seamstress on Monday, my first fitting was Thursday and I picked it up Friday, less then 24 hours before the wedding. Sigh. I held it together pretty good, with great help from friends and family, until Friday night when I now infamously demanded to go back to St. Louis and go to the courthouse. I also think I told everyone that said anything to me to "f" off. Good thing none of them held it against me or I would have no friends or family now. My fabulous friends capped the night before the wedding off by glueing the beads I had planned to painstakingly sew onto my veil in one big thick blob of glue - it is one of my most treasured wedding mementos. The wedding happened and no one died. Least of all me. I woke up that day happy as a lark and ready to get the show on the road. I didn't care what went wrong at that point and all the stress and worrying of months past suddenly went out the window. All that thought and planning I suddenly didn't give a damn about. I put a lot of time worrying about the order people would walk in, what I would say in my speech, what we would do here and there - on the day I just didn't care. Everyone could have walked down the aisle singing YMCA for all I cared. I was going to have a blast come hell or high water. And we did. I think I finally passed out carrying my two foot tall bottle of wine around 4 am and I think Cody finally left the party at 6 am. About 8 am I woke up screaming at him to help me pull the bobby pins out of my hair because they were puncturing my scalp. I was sad to leave family in Tally but glad that this portion of my life was OVER and I could finally move on. The next weekend I ran a half marathon - my fastest time yet. A week later we went on our honeymoon - a much needed, much deserved rest and recuperation from the wedding and life.

May - We had a great post-wedding party in St. Louis for all our friends here who couldn't make the wedding. I loved it. We have way too many people that we don't get to see enough (another resolution for 2008). We bought our first real "big people" furniture - a dining room table, buffet and china cabinet. Even though we got it off Craig's list (that place is awesome - and we're cheap/thrifty so we love it) it was a really cool moment for us. International Gator Day was fun - we helped a children's home and I had an insane allergy attack. We traveled up to Wisconsin for Matt and Jessica's wedding (unfortunately missing another Matt and Jessica's wedding in Florida on the same day - freaky, huh?) and had a great time visiting with everyone. We got to meet Cody's cousins' twins who were just adorable. We did a lot of outdoors things to enjoy the warm while we had it - outside concerts, bike riding, etc.

June - My mom came to visit and we had a good time playing in our yard and landscaping. We took her to some new St. Louis landmarks, including City Museum, my favorite place in the city. Some more outdoor fun - float trips, camping, etc.

July - Saw Lifehouse and some other random bands at Live on the Levee. More random concerts outside - Botanical Gardens, History Museum, etc. Some pool parties. The fish had babies (important things, right?).

August - More camping. More float tripping. Jammin' at the Zoo - free wine "tasting" = too much wine. More exporing St. Louis - Chain of Rocks Bridge, etc.

September - Football season. Enough said. More outdoor stuff to get in as much as we can before we freeze over - Castlewood State Park, Laumier Sculpture Park, baseball games, etc. Went to Memphis to see the Gators play in Oxford, Mississippi. Had a great time chilling with the twins - lots of "Big Ass Beers." Eckerts Farm to pick apples and play with kids. My friend got fired from work which sort of turned my immediate world upside down - I was quite disolusioned with a lot and really felt the harsh realities of life and the notion of fairness. My mom's favorite saying when we were young was "life's not fair" but I always held a belief that it somehow was - but it's really not.

October - Cody's parents visit. Fun as always - I finally dragged them to the Zoo (another favorite of mine) and the Science Center. Halloween - I was a pumpkin, again. Cody was green - he's still not sure what he was trying to be. Ram's game - they lost. Shocking, I know.

November - Leaves turning. Wineries with friends - awesome, awesome day. Our first Thanksgiving in St. Louis. I only cried once about missing family -that was pretty good. Other then that we had a great time getting to hang out with friends and each other and catch up on life. Got our greatest Christmas tree yet - and custard from Ted Drewes in 20 degree weather.

December - Christmas, Christmas and more Christmas. Much more manageable this year. Really felt in control of the holiday season and not totally insane as normal. Enjoyed the holidays, did what I could and said "poo" to the rest. Made some really neat stockings for Cody and I in my quest to form some traditions and really start defining us as an official "family." Went to Tally - went by way too quick. Great to see everyone but felt like we were hardly there and then we were leaving. That's life living far away. Learning to accept that a little more each year. Doing much better with the passage of time.

Well, that's it. Too much information on 2007. It keeps a record for me if nothing else. All in all it was a good year. Some emotionally trying and turmultous times but a great learning and growing year.