Another first.

A list of firsts.
Last week (or was it the week before?) I got my first speeding ticket in Missouri (to go with the 15+ from Florida) - watch out on Brentwood STL folks - though he did NOT give me a ticket for (1) the out of date tag, (2) having a Florida tag, living in Missouri, or (3) still having a Florida license. Good thing in Missouri if you know a lawyer (which I just happen to) you can get out of any ticket. :)
This week was the first time I was 16 days away from my wedding with no dress.
I also got my first complete make-up makeover last week. I had an appointment at Clinique and we went to get my wedding make-up makeover. Thankfully Marissa and Melanie were there to take copious notes so we know exactly what to do on the wedding day (that's assuming I'm actually wearing a white dress - I'm not sure what to do with my makeup if I have on jeans instead). You would never know how complicated being a girl is! I thought you could just wash your face with the soap in the shower (Zest, Irish Spring, etc.) and then put on tinted moisturizer. OH NO! No No No! There are actually about a dozen steps - take off make-up with remover, cleanse (with face soap), apply toner, apply anti-aging blue stuff, apply moisturizer, apply fountation (apparently tinter moisturizer just doesn't cut it these days), apply powder stuff (with special powder brush). And that's just your base - that's not counting the exfoliating and actual make-up part - it's all actually quite confusing.
I also ran my first race totally, how should I put this, unsober. I wasn't drunk - but I had been drinking at 2am and the race was 9am the next morning. Friday night we went out for Marissa's going away (she is moving to NJ) and we all had a good time - only problem was we didn't get to bed until after 3am - then the race was at 9am. So I ran 5 miles (not a long run, but still running) hung-over/not yet recuperated. Not to mention it was 31 degrees when the race started. Needless to say it sucked. Official time was 43:30 but that doesn't count the time it took me to get from where I was at the back of the pack to the actual start line (the clock starts at go time even though it make take everyone a few minutes to pass the start). Oh well.
And my last first for today is my first daffodils. I planted these back in the fall wondering if it would actually work - and it did! I now have daffodils. This picture is from yesterday when I only had two - today I have about 15 or 20 but it was too dark to take a picture by the time I got home. Something cheery for my not so cheery self. :)

So this is what crazy feels like.

Wow. So much to catch up on I don't know if I'll ever have time. Seeing as though I can write pages about nothing, it would take many pages to catch up on everything lately -I hope to do that shortly, but for now, today's current drama.
My wedding dress saga in short sentences: Looked for wedding dresses, on time, even early. Couldn't find any dresses I liked. Kept looking. Found some that were okay. Kept looking. Nothing perfect. Narrowed it down to three. Still couldn't decide. Kept looking. Still no decision. Deadlines loomed - made a choice. Paid extra for a custom hem (because said dress could not be hemmed after making). Paid extra for a 9 week rush. Dress arrives 13 weeks later. Dress is HUGE - I mean HUGE! Also dress was too long. Dress was mailed back to company who confirmed dress was too long. Another dress magically appeared from company, correct size, style and color and suposedly correct length. Dress was too long.
So that leads us to the present. I went to presumably pick up my dress last week and it's still too long (go figure - they didn't fix the length). The dress shop offered a bunch of half ass options for fixing the situation - wear really really high heels (not what I wanted to do on my wedding day), wear a poofy thing to make the dress poofy (I did not want a poofy dress), move the dress up on my body (it fits fine where it is now - I didn't want it shoved under my armpits), and finally to just hem the scalloped hem and hope no one notices how horrid it would look. Needless to say I was less then pleased- so I was told to return today to discuss matters with the seamstress. Seamstress, who is a rational person, said the dress was much longer (THREE whole inches - that's a lot) then we ordered and the company messed up AGAIN. Only problem? Too late to order another dress. So shop people pondered more half ass ways to rig the dress so I wouldn't trip over it. I continued to be less then pleased and my pleased factor continued to decline as they continued to not offer any reasonable (in my crazy person eyes) solutions. My solution? GET ME THE DRESS THAT I PAID FOR IN THE SIZE AND LENGTH I PAID FOR. You would think that wouldn't be difficult but apparently if you order something custom, that doesn't really mean custom it means as close as they feel like getting and you'd better hope you can figure out how to make it work - because your wedding is LESS THEN THREE WEEKS AWAY!
No, I'm not happy. I'm actually crazy. :) So I left the dress there. Tomorrow dress shop is to call dress company and see if they happen to have another dress in my size and length. If not, I plan on getting my money back and finding a dress that does fit properly between now and LESS THEN THREE WEEKS. So yet again, I have no wedding dress. Although before I had several weeks to spare - I now have NONE. I need to find a dress this week, have it hemmed next week, find a veil and get it all ready to go by next Friday when we leave for Florida (or Atlanta if the Gators make it). Yes, I am now officially insane.
So I don't have a dress - I hope to again soon however. I'll keep everyone posted on my sanity in the meantime - it's not looking good. :)

Cleaning as therapy.

Okay, I really don't think I'm the only person in the world who does this - I've actually heard of other people who do the same thing - so don't laugh at me.
Yes, I can barely keep my house clean on a regular week. I can barely manage to get our clothes washed, our dishes done, the floors swept and vacuumed, the counters cleaned, the mail sorted and dealt with, the bathrooms clean, the yard in order, etc. - it rarely, if ever, is all done at the same time. I can never catch up. Until I get really really really stressed and am just about to my breaking point - then the cleaning kicks it. Some sleep, some drink, some have actual productive means of coping with seemingly unmanageable stress - I clean. I guess I just never learned real stress management tools, because I pretty much stress, stress, stress, until I almost break - and then I clean - a lot - until all hours of the night/morning.
So that was today. I left work early because I just couldn't deal with it anymore. Ran some errands. Came home - and cleaned. I started out cleaning in my work clothes and then eventually changed into appropriate cleaning clothes. I cleaned our bedroom like it has never been cleaned before. I took all the clothes out of my closet (yes, I'm crazy, impulsive and I know this did nothing to solve the source of my stresses but it helps) - even the boxes and boxes that were still packed up from when we moved almost 2 years ago. I took them ALL out - and went through them. I managed to get rid of tons of clothes (Donna - you'd be proud!). The biggest victory of the day was that I found I can finally fit back into the jeans I had in the 8th grade. I know that's not a big deal for some people - but it meant a lot to me - and now I can finally get rid of the 8 pairs of jeans that I had been hanging on since middle/high school. They're hidious jeans - well before low waist was in style - some are even tapered - so they needed to go but I couldn't get rid of them until I could get back into them. I admit, however, that I did save one pair for posterities sake - and to keep me on track in case I ever need to lose some weight again. :)
So after going through every bit of clothes in my closet, I finished cleaning our room (I might like to add that I'm not TOTALLY insane because I did not drag every item of clothing out of my drawers - I let those be -for now). Then I moved on to the hallway - same deal - clean clean clean - viciously clean. Then the bathroom. The tub was scrubbed like it was never scrubbed before - stress and aggression taken out on a tub is better then it taken out on my friends, family, loved ones. :) Then the stairs (I skipped the spare room because that was just too much). Then the Boy Room. Then onto the rest of downstairs. Then I decided that I just HAD to go to Wal-Mart TONIGHT to get some thread for my bridesmaid dresses - yes, I thought that it honestly needed to be done NOW and couldn't wait. So now I have thread.
Needless to say, I got a ton of stress out. I didn't actually deal with any tiny bit of the stuff that was causing the stress - that will still all be there tomorrow - but I at least got some housework done. :)
On another note, my stress was also all put in perspective by an unfortunate event in Cody's family. His cousin (pregnant with twins) was put in the hospital because she was having some problems. I'm not sure on all the details yet, but it certainly put my life and stress in major perspective. Here I was totally stressing like a mad person about the wedding and this and that and she had such bigger things to deal with! I can't believe I was going insane over a wedding, when, at the end of the day as long as we're married, we succeeded when she has her two little babies to worry with. We wish her (and the babies) all the best and want nothing more then to see them born safe and healthy and happy - when they are ready.

More fun with pictures.

While I have Picassa open, I found another picture I just had to post. There were so many great ones from this series, it was hard to chose just one, so there are two. Yup, that's Cody's mom and Aunt Jackie sledding during our trip up to Wisconsin. They were HILARIOUS out there in the snow! It was awesome to watch them sled and spin and fall and spin some more down that big hill.

Not Awesome.

To top off my already insanely busy week where I feel like I have barely had time to breathe, I had to go to the endodontist this morning because of a tooth I've already had two root canals on. Sure enough, I had to have the third this morning. Just what you want to start the day - a root canal. The good news is they didn't even have to numb me because all the roots and nerves were already dead from the other two procedures. Fun fun.
In other, much more awesome news, the bridesmaid skirts came in today - 2.5 weeks early! Yes, I was cutting it pretty close, but luckily the store was great and got them here early. Yipee.

Awesome.

Check this out! This is one of the coolest gifts I've ever received - actually I should say "we received" because it's to me and Cody. :) It's a HUGE stone, carved with "The Raffensperger's 2007" - it's serioulsy huge - I swear it weighs as much as I do. Cody's cousin Trish and her husband, Joe, (who are expecting TWINS in July!) gave it to us while we were up in Wisconsin. Here's a picture of it in our back yard - notice how the yard looks dead - it is - welcome to winter in Cold Corn Country. :) I still can't belive in a little over three weeks I'm going to be a "Raffensperger" - I think it took me three tries just to type it correctly! That's going to take some getting used to. :) Thanks Trish and Joe!

I'm still alive I promise.

Man it's been a while since I posted - SO much going on - SO little time. Seriously this is the first time since I got off work at 5:30 this evening that I have actually had a chance to sit down (other then in my car on my way to running errands, errands and more errands). Things have been insane. Since the last post, we have been to Florida (the first weekend of March) - Cody for his bachelor party in Panama City and me to Tally to get some wedding stuff done - tons of great stories here -but for another time. Last week was just insane - as insane as they get - zero sleep, tons to do. I did get my first speeding ticket in Missouri. That was exciting. More to catch up on there later as well. Last weekend we went to a friend's wedding - gorgeous - got tons of great ideas! :) Then the Gators won the SEC tournament - AGAIN. And then they got the No. 1, First Seed! Then they got put in the Midwest bracket which means we'll see them play HERE in the semi-finals. Yes, we already have tickets. Then we hope to see them in Atlanta in the Final Four - yes, again. So so so much to tell - but I'm beat and need to get about four hours of stuff done before going to bed. One really cool thing today though - I think Cody and him mom picked a mother/son song for the wedding - I won't give it away here, but I'll just say that I would have never thought of it in that context but it is PERFECT! I totally teared up when listening to it. In other wedding news, tons going on! More to tell later - but just wanted to say I'm still alive!!!

I wonder.

I seriously wonder how two people could possibly possess as many clothes as Cody and I do. And how in the world can we wear so many of them in so little time? I did 10 loads of laundry tonight and I'm still not totally caught up - I still have a load of sheets, a load of towels, one more load of darks and a load of socks and underware left to do! How do we possibly do it? I don't know what we're going to do when we have kids and we have their clothes too - I'll have to quit work to stay at home just to keep up with the laundry! :)
To be fair, this isn't the first time this whole massive amounts of clothes thing has been pointed out to me. When Cody's parents helped us move in, they commented repeatedly (beginning with load three of my clothes) about our massive mounds of clothes. I blame it on the massive amounts of clothes that we can still wear from 10 years ago. Cody seriously still wears (as undershirts) t-shirts from soccer tournaments he played in high school - so if you count all the clothes he had then (that he can and still does wear) and then add the ones he adds every year with no purging, that adds up to a lot of clothes. I blame mine on a similar culprit - I still wear many of my shirts from high school - but I also had a Goodwill and yard sale fetish in high school where I picked up massive amounts of random clothes for 25 cents. I figure I keep them around (1) in case they ever come back in style (some really have), (2) I ever have a costume party I need something for, (3) I need something disposable to wear cleaning something or working in the yard, or (4) I just decide one day I want to wear them again.
Too bad all that makes for an awful large amount of laundry!

Cody's First Spreadsheet.

So today while I was out celebrating my dress fitting, I decided to run some errands. One of those was to Best Buy to get Cody some new RAM for his desktop. I got the RAM and when Cody arrived home he put said RAM into his "Linux Box," as he likes to call it (he has Linux, instead of Microsoft on his computer). He was experimenting with all the things he can do now that he has more RAM, like use this great Linux spreadsheet program. So he made a spreadsheet. Of all the things one could think of to make a spreadsheet of he made one with two columns, one with "Heathens" as the title and the second "Years to Death." As you might guess, he was talking about the cats and his predictions as to how long they would live. For instance, Bumpis, the fat cat, or "Heathen," was only predicted to have 4 more "Years to Death" - he figured she would die soonest because she's fat and she'll likely have a heart attack or something. On the other hand Mr. Pickles, the skittish cat, or "Heathen" was predicted to live 13 more years because he just thinks Pickles will live forever. I can't remember how long he predicted Wiggles would live. Call it cruel. Call it creative. Call it funny. That's Cody for you.

A Dress! A Dress! I Finally Have a Dress!

Yes folks, I finally have a wedding dress - with five weeks and 4 days to spare! I am so relieved I can't even explain it. I think I was giving myself an ulcer worrying so much about whether it would fit or not and what I would do if it didn't. I went in to the shop today, tried on the smaller size and it fit wonderfully. Like a glove - literally. It doesn't fall off, move around or restrict my breathing. I need absolutely zero alterations except for the seamstress to sew in cups and make a bustle. I should be able to pick it up next Tuesday all pretty and ready to take home! I seriously can't believe it! Thank goodness for Girl who ordered her dress super early with the wedding in November, because now I will be wearing her dress and she will be getting a new one. :) I guess sometimes things do go right! Still so much to do in so little time but we're moving along!

I'm the luckiest person alive. Really.

Not often do I say that - especially lately when dealing with wedding planning and other random crap. But this weekend really made me feel this way. Reasons why I'm the luckiest person alive:
1) Friends. Since we'd already been planning to go to Wisconsin on Friday and my friend Marissa had already planned to go to Chicago (she was going to ride the bus), we were able to talk her into riding with us and we just dropped her off in Chicago. Not that I don't love all my road trips with Cody, but it was nice to have a friend along for fun and girl talk. She's quite a cool person.
2) In-Laws. Most people hate their in-laws. You always here stories about this and that and you think that everyone is subject to this doom. Well, not me! I have the bestest in-laws in the entire universe - and not just Cody's parents (though they are A+ wonderful) - his entire family. First, his Aunt Jackie planned me a wonderful bridal shower this weekend in Wisconsin so we could go up and hang out with everyone and have a fun shower too! She is fantastic! Then when we got to Jackie's we walked inside, put our stuff done and went downstairs to find Cody's mom!!! She flew all the way from Florida, up to Wisconsin, in the dead of winter, to surprise us for the shower!!! That was quite possibly one of the coolest things anyone has ever done for us! We were beyond shocked and happy! She made the whole weekend that much more perfect. Not to mention that she hadn't visited Wisconsin in the winter in 17 years (for good reason, see below)! So we had a great weekend hanging out with Aunt Jackie, Uncle Fred and Cody's mom. The shower was Saturday and went wonderful - even with a blizzard forecasted we had a great turnout and it was so nice to see everyone! Saturday evening Cody's mom talked Aunt Jackie into sledding - it was hillarious and I have some GREAT pictures of them! I'll have to post them later. :) It was great to have such wonderful people around and know that in less then 6 weeks I'll be a part of that family (though they totally already treat me like family). I am so so so so so lucky!
3) Last but not least, I'm lucky that I don't live in Wisconsin. While I love visiting everyone up there and I think they are all great people, I COULD NOT live in that state for one reason: winter. I thought winter was bad here - we don't have it half as bad as they do. I think while we were there they got more snow then St. Louis does in an entire year! Saturday night we were all convinced we wouldn't be able to travel back on Sunday and that Cody's mom's flight would be cancelled because a major blizzard was forecast. Luckily it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be and we all made it home safely (though it took us much longer because of icy roads and insane wind conditions). I have never seen that much snow in all my life! Piles and piles and piles of it everywhere. There was a huge pile driving onto Aunt Jackie's street that I swear was 10 feet high. Thank goodness I don't live there! Now I really know why Cody's family moved to Florida! And his poor mom - the one weekend she visits Wisconsin in the winter in 17 years they have a crazy snow storm!! Makes you really appreciate not living there! :)
So, today I feel thankful . . . and lucky!
p.s. I was doing fantastic on my "I better fit in my dress on Tuesday" diet and had even lost 3 pounds - until we went to Wisconsin. Aunt Jackie made these two desserts - a fruit pizza and a chocolate eclair cake - both were like crack. I could not stop eating them - they were seriously so delicious I can't even describe. So I really really hope I can fit in this dress tomorrow -then back on the diet!

Fun with Ice.

This is not a wedding related post. Collective sigh of relief.
Usually on Thursdays we have our indoor soccer games, but since this was an "off" week we set up a teambuilding/practice at the local ice rink in Forest Park. We figured it would be a good time to get outside, get some exercise and get to know everyone better - it worked. It was a blast!! We had such a great time skating around with everyone - and I actually didn't suck as much as I normally do at ice skating - and then we all went out to dinner. It was great to get outdoors again and be active. I can't wait until spring!!!

Crisis Super Solved - Hopefully.

Disclaimer: More wedding dribble. Proceed at own risk.
I think the dress crisis might actually be solved. I talked with the dress shop today and they are sending my dress back to the maker and the maker is sending me a new dress on Saturday (it will arrive on Saturday). How, you might ask, does the maker get a dress out that fast? Simple -some people are more on the ball then me. Apparently someone else ordered the same dress in my size and we are similar heights - but her wedding is not until Novemeber. So they are sending me her dress to see if it fits and if it does then they will just make her a new dress since she has until November and I have 6 weeks and 1 day. :) Thank heavens for whoever ordered their dress that early and happens to have the same taste and size as me!!! Since we'll be out of town this weekend (fun in Wisconsin - and I thought it was cold here!) I'm going to try it on Tuesday - I'm holding my breath and my stomach- this thing better fit - we're running out of time here. Hopefully it will fit like a glove and they will only have to take up the bust area. Yipee! A few more days and I get to find out!!!

Oh sweet warmth!

Yeah yeah yeah - "warmth" now has a whole new definition for me. When I lived in Florida 50 was "freezing" - now it's "sweet warmth." So today we got into the 50s - I was so excited! I even left work a little early so I could go run outside - for the first time since October. It was one of the greatest 4 miles I ever ran - even though the last two it was totally dark because the sun still sets early, there was still mounds of ice in shaddy areas, and the breeze off the ponds was ridiculously cold - but it was great nonetheless. :) I can't wait until I can actually go outside comfortably again - and run outside every day again!

Crisis #2 Solved - Maybe.

If you're sick and tired of reading wedding crap feel free to stop here - I promise one day (hopefully soon) I will come out of my wedding cocoon, it will all be over and I can go back to what semblance of a normal life I had "before." So - on to today's wedding crap. :)
As everyone who I've even remotely come in contact with lately knows, I tried on my wedding dress (yes, the one I spent all that money on and waiting all that time for - even after paying even more money for a "rush" - apparently "rush" just means that they'll ship your dress on a relatively healthy donkey rather then sickly mule) on Saturday and it was huge! Saying I was dissappointed and upset would be an understatement. I just knew that I was doomed to wear an ill-fitting dress that I hated. So today I had my first fitting with the seamstress. Well, Ms. Seamstress found it insane how big the dress it - I need 3 or more inches taken in, just in the bust (yeah, I have small boobs but that's still a lot of fabric), not to mention almost 2 inches all the way the sides. Anyway, Dress Shop agreed to pay for the alterations for talking me into the bigger size and to pay for the custom hem to be fixed because it was long and they assumed they measured me wrong. So they pinned me up and we discussed what would be done to basically rework this entire dress - I was, of course, crazy nervous because you never know what's going to happen to a dress once someone starts cutting at it - especially this drastically (I'm also having them take it from an A-line to more of a sheath - basically redesigning the dress). And then Dress Shop Lady decided to double check and make sure the company was right in their length. Sure enough the dress was over an inch longer then they had specified. So Dress Shop Lady called Dress Company and complained. Well, this worked great for all of us. Dress Shop is going to send my dress back to Dress Company, they are going to check to make sure they messed up the hem and because it's a custom hem, they will make a new dress. WELL, while they are already making me a new dress, Dress Shop Lady asked if they could go ahead and make it in the smaller, correct size. Dress Company said that would be fine but needed to confirm with Dress Company Production Person. So tomorrow Dress Shop and Dress Company will pow-wow and figure it all out but we're thinking they are just going to make me a whole new dress, in the right size with the right hem. And it works out for everyone (except maybe Dress Company) - Dress Shop doesn't feel like I'm screwing them out of money because they were going to pay for the alterations (Company is sending a free new dress) and I don't feel like my whole dress is going to have to be redone and that Dress Shop totally messed up my world! Everyone wins and the world is back on it's correct axis.
So, I'm holding my breath for tomorrow - hoping and hoping that Production Person will agree to just make a whole new dress (with correct hem that they messed up) and while they're at it, make it smaller too. :) The only problem is I HAVE to fit into this dress when it comes in since I'll have so little time. Absolutely it MUST fit - so I pretty much can't eat between now and then. Just kidding. But I will have to keep up my normal work-out routine and not slack as things get busy and really really watch what I eat - no more munching on the favor candy or those "please make this all go away" glasses of wine! :)

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who was there for me this weekend when I was dealing with my dress fiasco. I probably sounded like the world was coming to an end and that meteors were going to drop from the sky at any moment - but you kept me calm and brought me back to somewhat rational thought (if that's possible). I am slowly coming to realize that in the end I will, hopefully, not hate my wedding dress, it will fit and the day will go on and one way or the other it will be over in 6 weeks and 6 days. I think I am officially changing the phrase "going postal" to "going bridal." :) As I figured out today, I think I could deal with this wedding okay if that was all that was going on -it's just a wedding, right? And I think I could deal with my family situation if that was all that was going on. But dealing with them both at the same time is really testing the limits of my ability to cope with things. I honestly feel like I'm going to mentally explode at times - my whole world feels like it's just been ripped out from under me and in place of a nice solid floor, I'm left standing on quickly melting Jell-O (now there's a visual for you). :) Thanks for everyone for sticking by me and helping me to not go (as) insane. When this is all over, I owe you all HUGE (especially Cody's family since I wasn't born into their family and they aren't forced to love me - and they still do - even though all this mess)!!

Mardi Gras Fun - Wedding Dress Not Fun

Saturday was a mixed bag. The day started sort of crummy but ended up great. I called the bridal shop where I ordered my dress to make sure it would be in by Tuesday (like they had said after telling me it would be late - again). Turns out it was already in and they just hadn't bothered to call me. Can you tell I'm already annoyed with them? Anyway, I was so excited (and nervous) that I really wanted to try it on ASAP. So we got everything ready for Mardi Gras and made a quick pit stop at the shop. Cody waited in the car while I went in and tried on the dress. I had these huge fears that it wouldn't fit - well, they came true - but in the opposite way I thought they would. You see, when I tried on the dress in the store, I fit into a particular size but when they measured me my hip measurement (I still have a huge butt) put me into the next size up. My hips! It's a dress - who cares about your hips - it doesn't hug my hips!!! Anyway, I trusted them and ordered the next size against my better judgement. The dress is HUGE! Seriously, I can turn it all the way around on my body. They are going to have to take up over an inch the entire way down the dress. Plus, I was told it was a sheath (which I wanted) and that all the extra fabric on the one in the store was just because it was a bigger size and that it would be a sheath when it was ordered in my size. Oh no, it's a A-line, so now I'm also going to have to pay them to take out a ton of fabric on the sides to make it a bit more sheath-like. Needless to say, I was NOT happy. You dream of trying on your dress and it fitting like a glove - I could seriously wear my winter coat under this dress it's so big. I'm debating just asking them to order the next size down and have it rushed or just have this one altered - it's going to take a lot to alter it because there is so much detail and beading. Of course the ladies at the store were trying to convince me it wasn't THAT bad - until another lady came in and said "I hope that's not yours because it's HUGE." They pretty much shut up then. Oh well, I go back in on Tuesday to try to get things fixed.
Thankfully after that the day got exponentially better. :) We headed down to Mardi Gras when it was 23 degrees outside - we each had four shirts, a sweatshirt, our coats, two pairs of gloves, three socks, and three pairs of pants. We thought we were prepared - but we still got pretty chilly by the end of the day. We had a great time hanging out with everyone and then watching They Might Be Giants play - it would have been a lot better had it not been an outdoor stage. Who thinks to schedule an outdoor concert in FEBRUARY in MISSOURI???? That's just poor planning. But it was fun and a great time was had by all (assuming no one lost any toes or fingers to frostbite). :)

Some Days Are Just Wonderful

Friday, that is. Friday was one of those days that we wish we could have more often, though if they came more often, they wouldn't be special. Wonderful days are often hard to come by around here in the winter, mostly because most of what usually makes a day wonderful for me usually involves being outside at some point - which I guess Friday did in a way.
Anyway, Friday was relatively low key at work - not too much going on. I was dead tired so I even managed to sneak in a nap in the afternoon (trying not to drool on any important files) - I sure hope my boss doesn't read this. :) Then I managed to slip out early and go home to work out. Cody was at a happy hour across town that I didn't want to drive to - so I had some good me time, working out and catching up on Gray's Anatomy (online for free w/ no commercials). About the time the show was over, he and Dude came over and we all headed up for drinks at Nick's - a cool pub/bar up the street. We hung out there with some friends until my friend and her friend from out of town came and picked me up. The girls and I went to a place called The Chocolate Bar - a fun, trendy place that serves a lot of chocolate. I had a great time hanging out and meeting the out-of-town friend. When we were done there, they had to go pick up more friends from the airport so I went back to Nick's and hung out. By the time things were winding down there the snow had really picked up, so we went back to the house, gathered all the clothes we could and our sledding gear and went sledding at Art Hill. What a blast! Cody hit the hay bales at the bottom so hard his hat flew about 3 feet away. I hit them so hard I think I have a permanent bruise on my butt. :) Needless to say it was a blast playing in the snow and sledding down the massive hill of snow/ice.
It was a good day.

Nora Johnson . . . or Jones?

So, as most of those who know me know quite well, I am not a pop culture queen. I know nothing about what is on TV - aside from the fact that we don't even have cable, we just don't watch much TV (aside from Gray's Anotomy - I'm addicted). And I don't listen to the radio - for many reasons. First, St. Louis radio is horrible. Really really horrible. Every station has about a 30 minute play list, 20 minutes of which are commercials so you hear the same five songs over and over and over - and four of those songs suck - and then more commercials. Then I'm going through a stage where radio makes me feel old. Back in the day, "Oldies" was the 50's music. I always loved the "Classics" - 60s and 70s - love that stuff. Well, now the stuff I love is the "Oldies" and the "Classics" are the 80s and 90s stuff - that 90s music is on the "Classic" stations just makes me feel old.
Anyway, there is a point to this story. We were watching Dateline NBC or some news show and they had a person on named Nora Jones (which I kept calling was Nora Johnson). Apparently she won a bunch of Grammys or something last year. I seriously had never heard of this person. Never. I had no clue who she was. So I went to work and told everyone this because I assumed she won the Grammys in some obscure category that they give out on Thursday before the live show on Sunday and no one else would have heard of her either. Nope. Everyone laughed at me and told me I need to catch up. Nothing new there. I know everything about pop culture either last or not at all - I just don't really care that much I guess. Anyway, so then she was on Letterman last night. And she was actually quite good. So while we were at Wal-Mart buying on sale Valentine candy (long story - I think we're going to use them as favors) I bought the CD - the first CD I've bought in a long time - sort of on a whim. We listened to it when we got home and I was calm. Really calm. Her voice is soothing. I can't speak for her musical talent or her vocal ability - I'm not a music expert (I listen to They Might Be Giants for God's sake - they are playing at MARDI GRAS!!!) - but she is soothing. Very soothing. So I think Ms. Johnson/Jones and I are going to make a great team over the next 7 weeks and two days. Sorry if you hate her or hate all things contemporary - she soothes me, okay? :) I think I'm going to listen to Ms. Jones and go to bed now. Good night everyone!

Website.

Speaking of invitations, if you got one there is a reference to our website, which might eventually lead you here. First, welcome! Enjoy! Second, I'm not as crazy in real life as I seem here. :) Third, I know I haven't updated the website since December (before Christmas) - bear with me for a few more days and I'll get everything updated (though this weekend might not be the best time because it's MARDI GRAS!!!). I'll add all the pictures since December as well as do a major update on the wedding site. So hang in there and check back in a few days. :) Thanks for visiting. Again, I'm not as crazy as I may seem . . . most of the time at least.

Marissa is the big winner!!!

Marissa is the big winner! She was the first person to return her RSVP card - even after she said she never returns those, especially if she's in the wedding (yes, she's in the wedding)!!! Thanks Marissa, you rock (for more reasons then just returning your RSVP card first). I pretty much threatened her, and anyone else, with severe bodily harm if they don't return their prepaid postage RSVP cards. Yes, I put, for your ultimate convenience, a 39 cent stamp on every single reply card - so send them back - even you think I know you're coming (that applies to family and friends) and even if your household got two invitations - I read SO much on wedding invitation ettique and found that if a over 18 year old person lives at home with their parents, they get their own invitation, as do roomates - so if we have three friends living together they each got their own invitation, thus 39 cent postage paid return envelope. So yes, send all three back - you don't get to send one and keep the rest of the 78 cents of postage for yourself!! :)
So, obviously you can see I sent out the first round of invitations. Don't feel back if you didn't get yours yet, I just sent out round one - that's not the A list - it's just the ones I've gotten to so far -there are plenty I haven't gotten to yet on the A list - not because they are less important, but because they are just farther on the random list (or have funny names or unknown addresses, or other etiqutte situations I have to figure out) - yes, it's a random list. Though if you are a parent or in the wedding (except Jerry because we STILL do not have your address) you should have yours - yours were first.
Needless to say, I am loving the RSVP thing. I can't wait until they flood my mailbox -so flood my mailbox people. Don't wait until the last minute, especially if you already know yes or no. And if you don't -figure it out already. :) Ahhh.... gotta love a psycho bride. :) Love you all!!

Crisis Solved.

Not the other crisis I wrote about tonight (I'm a writing fiend) - a much more immediate, less emotional crisis. Somehow yesterday I managed to break our space heater so last night we had no space heater in our bedroom. Most people would say "cry me a river" but you don't live with Cody. The kid seriously turns the thermostat down to 58 at night in the rest of the house and we close our bedroom door, crank the space heater and get it up to 70. It's much cheaper to just heat our one room since that's the only one we're going to be in for the next 6-8 hours. Plus it's so hard to heat a very old, very drafty, two story house (three when you count the Dungeon of Cold, aka the basement), to a decent temperature when it's EIGHT (yes, 8) degrees outside!!! Our wind chill when we go to work in the morning is forecast to be around -1. Yes, that's one degree BELOW zero. That's cold. So back to the story, the space heater is needed because I like to sleep without fear of frostbite and Cody, reasonably, won't let me turn the heater to 70 at night - actually never - 65 is about as good as I'll get around here - his response to my incessant whining? "You wear a hat and coat outside, why can't you wear it inside too?" BECAUSE I'M INSIDE! Oh well, soon it will be summer and the tables will turn - he will be begging to turn the air on and I'll say, "You manage fine outside, do that inside."
Oh yeah, Cody, the electrical genius he is, took apart our space heater (I was scared to death he was going to electricute himself or burn the house down or both) and got it fixed. No clue what was wrong, I don't really care, all I know is I'm warm again in my bedroom! Reason #482 to keep him around. And he got me weights for Valentine's Day and that's just cool. :)
Good night all! Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day, whatever your mode or method of celebration.

Oh yeah, Happy Valentine's Day.

Oh yeah, peaches and sunshine - Happy Valentine's Day. I have a love/hate relationship with the holiday. Love the candy, hate the calories. Love the sentiment, hate the overly sentimental. Love the happiness, hate the cheesiness. Love the concept, often hate its reality. Love the togetherness, hate the pressure of a Hallmark day. Yeah, I'm one of those "it's a Hallmark holiday" people. Not to say I didn't send those I cared about a Valentine - I think it's a great time to let those you care about know you care and I 100% support that. I can express my caring in a heartfelt note or card - but not in $100 worth of flowers, $50 worth of chocolate and $30 worth of balloons. So Cody and I have our own way of doing Valentine's. Ususally we just make dinner together, spend a carefree evening together and write nice cards. This year, he had school until 8pm and I had to work out and then run errands so we decided to something really special - order a pizza. Since I've moved to St. Louis we have ordered a pizza out exactly once. So we decided to go all luxury tonight and order Pizza Hut - the king of pizzas. So we ordered us one of the new "cheesy bite" pizzas. I picked it up (we will spring for pizza, not for delivery - plus we don't have a home phone) while he was coming home from school - and was so excited. Half pepporoni for him and half tomatoes, light on the cheese for me. Then I got it home - we were starving - it was 8:15 and neither of us had eaten since lunch and I had worked out hard. WRONG PIZZA! It was some sort of hamburger meat (not even sausage - at least sausage tastes good - this stuff is gross) and random other stuff. So, needless to say, we had to go back and get them to make us another one - while we resisted chewing our arms off. So we had our nice pizza, our nice evening and even exchanged presents. The cats and I got him some DVDs and he got me the 8 lb. hand weights I'd really been wanting (doing lots of arm exercises for upcoming strapless dress and I only have 3, 5 and 10 lb. weights - I needed something between the 5 and 10). All in all, a great Valentine's together. No rushed dinner, no crowded restaraunts, no dressing up - I was still in my smelly workout clothes, just us in our house with our kitties.

Round Two.

Why do we let the same people hurt us over and over again in life? How can seemingly smart people be so naive and dumb and gullable sometimes? I just don't get it. I don't know how I got so dumb. I guess I was dropped on my head as a kid - multiple times. I have this thing about always thinking people will present their best selves - always. Not only is that not possible for anyone, but when people have a pattern of behavior, I continue to believe that pattern will magically change and that the last time the destructive/mean/etc. behavior came out it was the last time. But things in life aren't so peaches and sunshine I suppose. People continue to hurt you and let you down. Which on one hand is life, on the other it probably shouldn't continue to hurt this bad.
So, yeah, this dates back to super long whiny post of last week. Same person. New situation. This time trying to get to me just another way. I continue to know this person has the propensity, if not the purpose, to hurt me and I continue to just open myself up to it. I think I'm just stupid. I continue to think they are done with this insane mission to hurt me and then low and behold, I'm wrong again. I'm one of those people that once I put a wall up it would take an earthquake to get it down, not to say it can't happen - but if you push me to that point, it's not pretty. And I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be putting up any walls, but on the other hand I'm sick and tired of being so sick and tired (how cliche). I can't deal with having my world turned upside down every time this person decides they are bored or just want to mess with me. I feel like a pawn in a very violent chess game. The person is apparently upset about something (unknown to me) but instead of dealing with me is now involving others. Enough said.
Add to that I'm super senstive about the wedding and all the emotions that go with that and I'm a stupid wreck. So yeah, I was hung up on for the second time in a week. Note to readers, if you really really want to make me mad, hang up on me. You can bet I won't be calling you back - likely ever. A personal pet peeve of mine. :)

Running Strong?

I sort of quit most of my long distance running back in October or November. My shin splints/stress fractures were absolutely killing me (it seriously feels like there is a splintered bone in your shin) and it was getting colder and I'm not about to run 17 miles on a treadmill. So since then I've been pretty religiously (the wedding is a great motivator - gotta fit in that damn dress or else) doing the eliptical machine (I love those things), the bike (not my favorite thing but we have one at home), and smaller distances on the treadmill (less then 6 miles). I think the last time I ran outside in St. Louis was November (I ran outside in Florida over the holidays).

So today I ran 35 minutes which equated to 3.76 treadmill miles (I don't believe treadmill miles are equal to real miles) and really enjoyed it. It's really the first time in a while that I really enjoyed running again - I was running because it was fun, not just because I "had" to. So that got me thinking about another 1/2 marathon (and a marathon but that will have to wait). The STL one is April 15th - the week after the wedding. We were orgininally going to go on our honeymoon right after the wedding, but to make the most of the weekends (and not to take two weeks off work in a row for two years in a row - this doesn't exactly look great) we are going to wait to go on the honeymoon until probably April 25th. So that opened up the 1/2 marathon possibility again. So tonight I put together my newest "Half Mararthon Map" - hopefully I can do it but I'm not putting too much into in because that's a lot of running (read: time) when I really have little to none. It includes running 11 miles the week of the wedding and 10 miles the week before - that should be fun - right when things are nutty I have to find time to run that many miles.

I'll keep everyone updated on the progress. :)

I LOVE winter in St. Louis!

Apparently I love sarcasm more. Today's weather forecast: Sleet tonight, followed by snow after midnight, with an accumulation of three to six inches -- or maybe more.

Great. Time to get out the snow shovel, the ice scraper, the snow boots and all other fun things winter.

Our Fears

Obviously Cody and I had a great bit of quality time this weekend preparing our wedding invitations. One funny topic came up I had to share. When we were first laying everything out and figuring out how to put everything in we were talking about the task before us and I said that I was so scared that I would accidentally put all the 63 cent stamps on the RSVP cards and the 29 cent stamps on the invitations. Cody was worried that after all this work they would somehow all end up coming back to us - like we would somehow put the RSVP envelope on the outside or they would deliver to the return address. I just thought it was funny that we had such funny fears with this monsterous task in front of us.

Thanks to Everyone - and My Invitations

Sometimes when you're at a really low point in life (case in point, the last post), you realize how great your friends and family are. Last Friday I was feeling AWFUL - seriously awful. I went to work (late) and sat in my office with the door closed until lunch, at which time I came out, ate with pals and then retreated back to said office. I did zero work that morning - seriously zero - I didn't even open my time keeping program on my computer. What I did do, however is realize how great people can be in a time of seeming crisis. My aunt for instance. Wonderful wonderful wonderful. Helped me realize that some things in life you can't change and those people you can't change and you just have to move forward with life like that. Then my grandma - talked to her for a while too - wonderful lady. Grandma's always have a way of making you feel better, but especially my grandma. Then there are my friends - I couldn't have made it through without you guys - thanks for listening to me whine and cry and bitch and moan. :) Then I got home and got to talk to Cody's mom and then today his sister - I could not ask for better future in-laws. I hope to some degree everyone feels "lucky" when they find the person they will marry - well I got doubly "lucky" - I found a great guy and he comes with an amazing set of family. Again, they know just how to make things better - they're rational (this is not always a given when dealing with family) and just so caring and understanding. So thanks to everyone for your kind words, for listening and being there for me. You'll never know how much it means to me.

And then thanks to the invitation company. My invitations got here on Friday and that instantly cheered me up a bit. I love paper products. Seriously love them. Most people dread addressing all those envelopes and hire someone to do it for them - I couldn't dare - I love addressing envelopes - I love putting the enclosures together and even putting on the stamps. I seriously love it. :) So we set up a whole assembly line process - I wrote the addresses and names, Cody stuffed the envelopes and we tried to get the cats to do the licking of the envelopes but they weren't being too coorperative so we got a sponge for that (I heard each envelope is 2 calories so that's over 200 calories just in envelope gum - that's half way to a Snickers bar).

Anyway, life is looking up. Hopefully the family situation will work itself out one way or the other. I think I've got a pretty good solution that works for everyone but not sure if they see it that way yet - hopefully in time. As for me being hurt, I'm not sure when to expect that to go away. Hopefully time will work that out as well. But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this wedding process - only 8 weeks to go - and be thankful I have such great people in my life to fall onto when trouble hits. Thanks everyone!

250 and Long.

Two things:
(1) This is my 250th post.
(2) Damn can I type long posts. :) I just saw that last one on the blog and man can I babble. My poor, poor friends for having to listen to me all the time. :)

Never in my entire life.

Usually I try to post about relatively happy things going on in life - sometimes a bit about stress or dealing with a certain situation (see post about frozen pipes below or the millions of wedding stress posts) - but most of the time I try to keep it pretty chipper and upbeat. That's pretty much how I like to live my life. I honestly am pretty generally a very happy person. Not today. So if you're looking for chipper and upbeat, come back later. :)
We've all been hurt in life. I really don't believe there are many exceptions. We can be hurt by friends - every girl remembers when their first girlfriend really hurt/lied to/betrayed/etc. them. We can certainly be hurt by significant others - I suppose there's truth to the whole "the first cut is the deepest" - breakups hurt, boyfriends can disappoint, we can fight, but we always manage to move on. Then we can be hurt by more innocuous things - a lost job, a wrecked car, a broken piece of favorite china, a lost treasure - all sorts of things. Then of course we can be hurt by family. Hopefully this happens less often then the other categories, because family isn't like a girlfriend in that they move on to a new school and you drift apart. They're not like a boyfriend because, at least presumably, they don't break up with you. And of course they're not like a broken plate. But family can hurt more then anything in the world. Hense today's post.
I have never in my life ever been hurt like I am right now - at least not in recent memory. I'm hurt in a way only family can do. For fear that I'll wake up tomorrow and regret this entire post, I'm leaving many of the details, including names, out. But most of those really close to me will know exactly who I'm talking about. Without going into the gory details, I seriously have never in my life had this type of feeling of hurt and disappointment in my entire life. It hurts in my chest. It hurts to breathe. I tried to explain it to Cody but I think it's difficult for guys to really understand the pain girls can sometimes have. I am such at a loss right now I really don't know how to deal with it. One minute I feel I'm "coping" with it and the next I'm hysterical.
I have a very close family member who has not only been family to me but really a friend. Well, this person and I have had a rather non-traditional relationship my whole life, but at the end of the day I always felt like I could count on this person. Yes, this person has a history of promising to do things and falling through but there's something about family that even if you know their history, you always want to believe they will come through for you. You always trust in them even if they have let you down before. You always see stories on the news about families "enabling" on of the members and the press just can't understand why - I understand why - you want to trust what this person is saying to you - you want to believe that what they are saying is true - you want to believe they have changed and they really mean it this time - no matter the history you always want to believe this time is different - it's close to impossible (at least for me) to be realistic when you're dealing with family - at the end of the day no matter what they did you still love them and want to believe in them. I hope everyone is not like this and I hope other people have the ability to come to terms with these things and move on and be more realistic, but for some reason I guess I'm just a sucker. So anyway, this person has promised to do something very special and important for me. This person has let me down a number of times before but I REALLY belived this time would be different - this time we were dealing with my wedding. Girls will understand just how emotional you can get about a wedding - it's really insane at times, but it's true. There is really nothing more deeply personal in your life then your wedding - until you have kids of course and then if someone hurts/disappoints your kid then God help their soul. Anyway, this thing had to do with my wedding and I really really trusted in this person. And sure enough they let me down. But it wasn't so much the letting down that hurt. That could be dealt with. That could be handled and gotten past and we could have moved on until the next broken promise. We could have continued on with our little cycle. But no it was so much deeper and more personal then that. Without going into details, it was the way this person handled the situation that really just appaled me - it wasn't "I'm so sorry, please let me fix it" - it was excuse #1, and then when that was clearly ridiculous, let's try excuse #2 and then #3 and then #4 and so on. I really wish I had the nerve to post the actual situation here because the excuses were laughable. Really quite a strech - they just made no sense whatever.
This was one situation where had this person really cared enough, it would have been a great way to build trust. It was a very easy promise to keep. But no, it was nothing but excuses.
But it wasn't even the excuses, it was the way it was dealt with after that. It was so much more - but to really explain would be too much.
Needless to say, Cody's going to have a great night listening to me. :) But I guess that's why I picked him - he listens and cares even when I'm a wreck. He understands me more then I do sometimes and can see a situation from an objective standpoint which I often can't. He's rational when I can't be. He tells me I'm wrong when I'm wrong and stands behind me when I'm right. He lovingly explains that some people will hurt you in life and that's the way life is and you have to accept those people that way or not at all. He never ever lies to me and always keeps promises. If he says he'll do something, he does, unless there is something physically preventing him. He's dependable in a world where I haven't always had a lot of dependability. He's reliable and honest. I really got lucky with this one.
To end, I hope to wake up in the morning and feel a lot better, see things with a new light. I hope to read this and understand more but also be able to move forward with coming to terms with things (I'm no where near that now). Sorry for the long, babbling email that is cryptic - those are pretty annoying - but I think it helped to get things out a bit. :) To a better day tomorrow - at least it's Friday!

Why I hate the winter. Reason #392.

We awoke this morning to our weather thermometer reading 3 degrees and dropping steadily. Yeah, that's 3 degrees! That's unholy! Any temperature where I would die if I stood outside for an hour is just not right!
Anyway, that's pretty much par for the course right now, but this morning was even worse. Cody went to the Boy Bathroom downstairs and found the hot water wouldn't turn on. Oh yes, our pipes were frozen! In Florida if it gets cold enough, every news channel around says to run your pipes, but here we all have (us included) basements so there is typically no need. Except if you have an above ground addition. Apparently sometime within the last 30 years, everyone got tired of only having one bathroom so someone went around to all the city houses and offered to build "additions." So all these great brick city homes (ours included) now have a huge vinyl sided wart on the back side, where a room and a bathroom were added. We love the additional space and wouldn't have purchased the home without it. From the inside you can hardly tell it's not like the rest of the house (except it's carpet and doesn't have 100 year old moulding) but from the back it's a huge white wart on our brick house. Anyway, naturally said wart/addition was built above the ground, as they didn't bother to extend the basement out. So the pipes to the whole house are run through the basement (where it is cold but above freezing), but then there are those few pipes that exit the basement, run outside and under the addition bathroom. Normally we think to run the water in that bathroom, but last night being the Super Bowl and all, it didn't strike us. So sure enough the damn pipes froze - actually just pipe - the hot water no less.
Anyway, so when Cody got home tonight he made me stand in the freezing basement and hold my hairdryer to the pipe for what seemed like a very long time, while he went and closed up some outside vents that go under the addition. Then he took over with the hair dryer after I gave up (my words were something like "just call a damn plummer already"). Well, sure enough his crazy plan worked and the pipes are now working again. So we're running the water all night and hoping they didn't burst (we briefly checked but it was dark and cold so we'll do a better job of checking tomorrow).
I gotta hand it to the guy, he's quite resourceful, and determined, and crafty when he needs to be. I guess that should be reason #392 why I love Cody too.

Super Bowl

Well, I guess it's not so much the year of the Gator anymore. I mean it totally still is, but just not in the NFL. Not only did the Bears lose (they have three Gators) but Rex didn't win the MVP (as Cody predicted - in case you're really into football and get the irony there - he was joking). Oh well, we'll have to live with Dancing with the Stars, Marriage Madness, two Gators on the NBA Champion Heat team, and of course the basketball and football national championships.

My Girls Rock!

Backing up a few days I abosultely have to blog about how great my friends are. Not just okay or somewhat great but drop down fabulous great. So here's the story. . . .
Friday was a co-workers last day (we've known this for two weeks), so a lively happy hour was planned at Jack Patricks (a favorite dive downtown). Weeks ago when said happy hour was planned, the girls sent out an email saying essentially, "since we'll already all be out together, let's do a girls dinner night." This is not unusual as we've done Girl's Nights Out before. So we all decided to go to this fabulous place, Sen Thai after the happy hour. Reservations were made and plans were solidified.
So Friday comes around, we ditch out of work around 4pm (it was cold that day so I don't think I got into work until 9 am so you can tell how much work I did on Friday) to hit up the aforementioned happy hour. Happy hour was as happy hours go - beer, drinks, fun times. So we hung out, I had myself my Heffewiesens and we headed to Sen Thai in the freezing cold. Seriously by the time we walked there I was concerned my nose had fallen off four blocks earlier - but alas my nose was still attached. So we walk in, the four of us, and the girls don't even stop at the hostess station. I found that quite odd until I looked up on this raised seating area and there were more of my friends - non-work friends - friends that don't know the friends I was out with. Was this some really strange coincidence or something else? It was something else.
My girlfriends (spearheaded by the lovely Marissa) had put together a surprise Bachelorette Party!! Yes, they somehow managed to break into my computer, get my other friend's emails (friends they didn't even know), email them all an invitation and set up this great party! Yeah, they rock. Why a surprise party you may ask? Because every time Marissa would try to set one up with me involved I would just say (honestly), "we have absolutely no weekends free between now and the wedding" and just drop it and leave it at that. And seriously we didn't/don't - but this weekend our "plans" only included the Super Bowl on Sunday so they managed to find the one weekend day I was free and set up this great party.
I'll post all the pictures later (I know, I still haven't posted Christmas pictures), but needless to say it was a blast. They decorated the table with all sorts of paraphernalia (most of it modeled after a male body part) and even got me a boa, a sash and some sort of tiara/crown with a fake veil on it. To top it all off they had set it up for everyone to bring a bottle of wine to the party to stock my wine collection. And what a wine collection I now have! Anyone who knows me knows what a wine freak I've become - not a wine connoisseur by any means, just someone who likes to drink a lot of wine - good wine, bad wine, purple wine, blue wine, white wine, red wine - I could care less, as long as it's wine. I was on a beer kick but I'm over that because I was tired of the air buildup in my tummy. As for booze, most of the mixers are too many calories, so I stick with wine. Anyway, this was a fabulous bonus to the whole party.
So we had a fantastic dinner at Sen Thai and then headed out for a night of drinking. Needless to say, a good time was had by all (okay I can't vouch for "all" but I can say I had a great time!)!!!
Thanks to everyone who came out - you guys all rock! I owe you huge!!

Why Old Navy is Stupid

Okay, they're not usually stupid - I really like this store - just ask Cody about my credit card there. :) Cheap, relatively classic stuff, if you stay away from the uber trendy items. Anyway, so I go in there tonight because I have some free time (okay, I'm lying I really didn't have free time I was just avoiding all the things I REALLY need to do by going shopping - is that wrong?) and Cody was skiing at Hidden Valley (yes, Missouri really does have a ski "resort" - it's basically a man-made mountain of ice so I refuse to "ski" (meaning, slide down the mountain of ice out of control) there) so he wouldn't get on me about spending money at Old Navy instead of saving it for the all consuming wedding. Anyway, they have an ENTIRE wall of flip-flops! Let me add that it is about 17 degrees outside and SNOWING! Yes, it's snowing outside and Old Navy is trying to sell me flip-flops. I can see this in Florida where spring is probably only 2 weeks away - but we live in MISSOURI!! Spring doesn't really come here until mid-May (it snowed during my half marathon last year in April)! Anyway, a funny little tidbit from my shopping adventure. Oh, and I didn't spend much money - tank tops for working out and some cute t-shirt type things that I may be able to get away with wearing to work.

We Did It!!

FINALLY!! We finally picked AND ordered invitations!! Those who don't understand our huge problems with decisions (read: Missy's huge problems with decisions), just don't understand how horrible this was for us. Hense the reason we STILL don't have bridesmaid dresses, tuxes, real wedding colors, or just about anything that requires a fashion/decorative decision. Anyway, we finally picked one we liked and then sat down to order them. Simple process you would think. Well, think again! First there was the invitation: Should we put "Together with their parents, Missy and Cody . . . ." or "Missy and Cody, together with their parents. . . ." Then there was the wording - oh, holy cow we had to have looked at hundreds of possible wordings from the ridiculously overdone religious to the downright silly to plain bad taste. Then there was the time - what time do we start this damn thing? No clue how to even start down that road - so we didn't - we called for help - Cody's mom pretty much walked us through the timing thing - from when we should have the wedding to how long things will take to what time we should list for the cocktail (thanks to her also for noticing that I spelled cocktail wrong on the reception card) hour and dinner. Then there was the decision as to whether to put the address to the garden we're marrying at. Then we were done with invitiations - a good 1.5 hours later. Then it was on to the reception cards - more wording, more timing, more decisions. Then finally the reply cards - okay, those we're that terribly hard wording wise, but we looking for a good hour on the internet trying to find out the "proper" time to give people to respond and how far in advance we should get the RSVPs back - never did find it - so we just made up a date. By the way, anyone who doesn't return the reply cards that I put a stamp on for them, I will personally hunt down and beat. Love you too. :)
So yes, we now have invitations. They should go out next week but we'll see how long it takes to get them back from the printer, gather the addresses, and then writing them out. Fun fun. We're moving towards making more decisions!! Good thing deciding to get married wasn't this hard or we'd never be walking down the isle (oh, yeah, never mind - it did take us forever - somewhere between 7 and 10 years). :)

I am the stupidest person alive.

For many reasons, but one in particular right now. Yes, it's wedding related. You think I'm crazy about the wedding now, just wait until I have kids and see how much I blog about them. :)

Anyway, I have spent hours of my life looking for wedding invitations. Hours. Probably that add up into days. I've been looking for slightly over 14 months now. I've looked forever and only found a handful of invitiations that I even considered. So today I think I decided on one. So I sit down at the computer this evening to fill out the pages of stupid questions they ask to order invitiations. But before I really commit to this invitation, I decide to browse around a bit. And in my browsing I find tons that I think are cute or possiblities - after months of looking and not finding any! I'm insane - I have a fear of commitment of invitations!

I love the water company.

Well, I guess it's a love-hate relationship really. But right now it's all love! Last week I was cursing up a storm when they cut off our water (we're convinced they haven't sent bills since November 05). So the next morning I marched myself down to the Water District, paid my money to the lady with 2 feet of floss hanging out of her mouth (I think she must have thought it was some sort of fashion statement but it wasn't - it was gross) and went on my way. When I came home that evening, sure enough we had water again. But it wasn't our normal water - it was our water with our full water pressure back! Not only did we have our water back but we had amazing water pressure!!!! Yes, this may seem trivial to some, but when you have as much hair as I do to rinse shampoo and conditioner out of, water presure is a big deal! I'm so excited! So, life is good again.

Fun with utilities.

First it was our electricity - we lost if for 4 or 5 sweltering days in July then lost it for 5 very cold days in December. Then it was our gas company - we don't have an automatic reader (and our meter is in the basement) so they "estimate" our bill every month. The problem is the "estimate" is WAY over what we use in gas (Cody is stingy with the gas and heat). So we finally called them, told them our actual meter reading and now have a $800 credit on our gas bill. Yipee- free gas for the winter - though the gas company has had that money for over a year and we haven't.
Anyway, now it's the water. We first had water problems after the big storm in July (yes, the one that took our power) - somehow a huge water main broke, flooding our street and The Science Center down the street. They've been digging up holes deeper then our house all over our neighborhood since then. We randomly come home to find a note on the door saying we have no water until 9pm that night - this has happened at least a few dozen times - they're working on the main STILL and they needed to cut the water. Other then that the water main thing hasn't affected us greatly except the water pressure is about 1/2 of what it used to be.
Then there's today. Cody came home first, worked out and then realized we had no water. Curious but not terribly unusual. I was working out at the time, got home and Cody informed me of the problem. I asked if there was a note on the door and he said no. So I asked him where the most recent water bill was so I could call them - he brought me the sewer bill. I said "No, not the sewer bill, I need the water bill." He responds with "We don't have a water bill - it's run through the sewer people." "Nope," I replied - "there is an actual City of St. Louis Water Division that we pay bills to - those are the trucks constantly working on our street and surrounding streets on the big main problem." "Oh. I didn't know that. I don't think I've ever paid a water bill" was his response. Sure enough he was right. I called the water company and found out there was no maintenance on our main though our water WAS turned off - we had not paid our bill for a very long time and owed money. WHAT!?!?!? YOU TURNED OFF OUR WATER?!?!? AND DIDN'T WARN US? Don't you have to tell people before you cut off their utilities!!! Isn't that a constitutionally protected right or something??
Apparently Cody took over bill paying about a year ago and seriously hasn't paid a water bill since then. They only come every 3 months so we're not sure if we just managed to lose everyone one of them (I can see us losing one since every other bill we have it auto bill pay, but not all of them) or they weren't sending them to us. We found one from November 2005 and it was sent to "New Resident" - no other name. So we're thinking since we never "registered" with them they stopped sending bills. Go figure.
Anyway, since we were both dirty and sweaty we went to a friends house and took showers and hung out. We figued we can still brush our teeth in the morning with the water in our water bottles and then I can wash my face at work - right after calling the water company and paying the bill. The adventures in life. . . :)

Melissa Raffensperger?

Today I got the first of two sets of address labels I ordered for Cody and I - the first is for our wedding invitations with our names as they are now and the second is for our thank you cards, with our names as they will be in 10 weeks and 4 days. We got the second set in the mail today - it is TOTALLY weird to see us as Melissa and Cody Raffensperger - I'll be Melissa Raffensperger (I think I messed up four times before even typing that correctly - imagine having to write it every day). Wow. I really can't believe it. I'm excited - to be Melissa Raffensperger and have this whole thing over with.

On another note, I think wedding planning has imparted upon me a perpetual state of PMS - and I don't even have periods - (it's a medical medication miracle - sorry boys if you're reading this)!! Anyway, I'm moody, cranky, stressed, antsy, weepy and all over just emotional for no good reason. NO I am NOT pregnant!
I'm scared out of my mind one second and thrilled out of my mind the next. Don't worry it has nothing to do with Cody or my complete confidence in this relationship/wedding/marriage - it's just the wedding part. If something goes wrong at the wedding, something isn't done right, it's my fault. If something, including me, is ugly or looks stupid, it's my fault. The pressure is all on me - and if I screw it up it's not just some keg party that I forgot to buy extra nachos for - it's my damn wedding - presumably a once in a lifetime thing.
So therein lies the quandry - on one hand trying to make it your one big day and that whole once in a lifetime thing and all that crap about how you only do it once it better be perfect, and on the other just making decisions and moving on and realizing it's only one day in an entire life with someone - no matter what happens, in the end you'll be married and that's the point. So there's this dicotomy swirling in my head constantly. How ever to deal with them both?
I love throwing parties - for other people. I adore throwing Cody a huge birthday party every year (if you're in STL and reading this you better be at his birthday party this Saturday or I might go getting all emotional on you) - I seriously love it. I loved throwing four of our friends a big birthday party in September - loved it. I get to do all this fun planning, yeah it's a lot of work getting everything and getting the house in order, but in the end it's fantastic and we have a fun party. But the wedding is a whole 'nother ball game - it's our big party. The center of attention won't be on someone else - it will be me (and Cody I guess too :) ). That FREAKS me out! Yes, I talk a lot and can sometimes be known to monopolize a conversation - but that's in groups of less then 5 when I'm comfortable with those people (so if you're reading this and nodding your head about how, yes, I can monopolize a conversation, at least know that I feel comfortable with you). The wedding is a whole new ball park - tons of people all judging me. Me! If the chairs look like it's a funeral (Cody wanted to get black chairs for the wedding instead of white because they were cheaper but I said no because then it would look like a funeral) people will wonder why I would ever try to make my chairs look like a funeral. If I forget to get a guest book and just get everyone to sign a napkin, people will wonder why I"m an idiot. All sorts of dumb things like that. All swirling in my head at once. Damn I can't wait for this to be over. I think I need a drink . . . Ta ta for now!

Weekend Fun.

This weekend we had fun with home improvement. More painting the downstairs bath - finished even the trim!!! We bought and put up a new light fixture (I hated the old one) and cleaned the bathroom all spick and span. We finished painting the door today so now that can go back up and we can have a door to our bathroom again. Now we just have to fix the leak in the toilet that developed after I took it apart to paint behind it. :)
We hung around, had the normal fun, and got to relax a bit. We got a few inches of snow but by the time we woke up on Sunday it was too warm (around 35 - wow!) that it was melting and no longer sled-able. Next time we'll have to get on it earlier so we can get some sledding in on our new sleds.
I had a nice tumble down our stairs Saturday night as well. I was running and slipped on my fuzzy socks and the carpet, tumbled, skinned up my forearms and twisted my ankle. Always a good time. Now I'm stuck on the bike for work outs for a few days - I hate working out on stationary bikes.
Well, that's the news that's fit to print for now. As usual, the wedding planning is moving along - tonight we researched honeymoon destinations (the best part of the wedding as far as I'm concerned - when it's all over!). Oh yeah, and we're having a big party for Cody on Saturday for his birthday - it's his "golden birthday" - he'll be 28 on the 28th! Pretty cool! So that's the whole motivation with the painting - getting more done for the party. So this week is going to be busy, busy, busy. I even had to pass on going out with the girls tonight so I could work-out and do party prep! Hopefully we can get it all done in time!

Girls Night Rocks!

I guess my last post was Wednesday so I'll catch up from there. Thursday was soccer. Cody had to play goalie because our goalie was out and he'd been sick so he didn't want to do a lot of running around. The team we played was alright but not spectacular - but we still lost 8-2. Such is life. I actually had two shots on goal (very rare for me) but both of them went right into their goalie's hands.
Friday rocked! A few girls and I decided to get together and have a girl's night - just us girls hanging out. It was quite convenient as Cody was also having Poker Night - which while technically isn't strictly boys, I don't think a girl has ever shown up. Anyway, for our evening of fun, we started at P.F. Changs. For those of you without such a restaraunt (hello Tallahassee people), it's a "China Bistro." What that means I don't know, but the place is insanely crowded, they serve typical Chineese fare, but no one that works there is actually Chineese, albeit quite good. I don't think I've ever been to a "Chineese restaraunt" where no one is actually Chineese so that was a first. They even have an item on the menu something like "Vegatable Fun" - does that sound Chineese? Anyway, we had a great time chatting and eating.
Then we moved on to the Chocolate Bar - it just sounds like girl heaven, doesn't it? Well it is. Everything on the menu is chocolate chocolate and more chocolate - chocolate martinis, chocolate coffee, chocolate soup, chocolate sundaes, brownies, banana splits, mousse - anything you can think of making with chocolate they had it - not kidding. It was fabulous. I had some warm chocolate thing with vodka, but it turned out more vodka then anything else. Everyone else had fabulous desserts. We sat outside on the heated patio and had a great time talking for hours and hours. The waiter probably hated us because between the four of us we spent less then $30 and we took the table for probably four hours, but sorry buddy, we were having a great time.
It was really nice to go hang out with girls and get to just chit chat. We are all about the same age, but come from such amazingly different backgrounds. It's so much fun to hear about how others grew up and how they lived there lives and how that effects our families as adults (some fledgling and some not so new). We are all lawyers but all got into law different ways and for different reasons. And everyone brought something different to the table. For instance, I had an amazing time learning all about European royals and how titles pass down and all about Queen Elizabeth and her family and who is related to who. It was great - even though I took AP European History, I learned nothing in that year long course and learned more during that conversation then I ever did in school. So much so that I want to go buy books on American History, European History and Religion. I could literally sit for weeks and learn from those girls and still not learn half of what they bring to the table. There is so much knowledge out there and it's so nice to get out, talk to other people, who know other stuff, and learn fun new things. Anyway, I had a fabulous time and can't wait to do it again.

Been a while.

Wow. It's been a while, so instead of one big long blog I'm breaking them into smaller, more manageable ones. FYI. Oh yeah, I know I still haven't done a year-in-review for 2006 or my New Year's resolutions (though like most of the world, I've already blown most of mine). I'll attempt to do that before hell freezes over, or my head explodes. :)

Sick as a Dog.

Cody, not me. After our fun filled weekend and our "date night" out to the movies, we returned home and Cody said he his stomach didn't feel good. Admitedly, one thing I lack sometimes is compassion - I thought he just ate something that didn't agree with him so I told him to take some Mylanta (this stuff is amazing - I swear by it) and go to sleep. Not 20 minutes later he was throwing up. And throwing up. And throwing up some more. Until about an hour before I had to be at work. So basically he threw up for the 8 hours we should have been sleeping. Yuck. Poor kid. Needless to say, I was more compasionate after that, and he stayed home from work yesterday and today. Today he's been experiementing with eating again - bananas, popcorn and the like. It seems likely it was just a food poisoning but we can't figure out what it might be. I thought it might be the minestrone soup I made since he was the only one who had eaten any, but I had some last night and I'm fine. So go figure - could be anything. In any event, he's getting back on his feet finally after all that trauma and he lost 10 lbs. in two days! No fair - not that I would want to go through that to lose 10 lbs. - some things just aren't worth it. :)

Not much out of the normal in my crazy life. Work. Working out (I've been really good about this lately - totally dedictated now that the wedding is officially 11 weeks and 3 days away - damn!). Cleaning house. Laundry. Painting. Preparing for the party next weekend. Fun times.

Movie #3

Oh, I almost forgot - Cody and I had a momentous occassion tonight. We actually went out to see a movie! This may seem like an ordinary occurance for most people but not us. It's not like there are never movies we want to see - it's just that by the time the movie comes out and we find time to go see it, we always find it's already left the theaters. I've lived here almost three years now and until today we had only gone to two movies at the theater - TWO. The first was "Team America - World Police" and the second was "Fehrenheit 9/11." Obviously, you can tell my political leanings. :) So anyway, tonight we finally saw a movie before it left the theaters. Cody is a HUGE Rocky fan so we went to see "Rocky Balboa." Given that the fifth in the series was so bad, we weren't expecting too much out of this one, but it was awesome. It was really quite a good movie. If you at all liked the other Rocky's (except #5) it's worth a trip to the theater. Though, I must comment, that damn have prices gone up since we used to go to movies 10 years ago. We still use our student IDs and it's still $7.50 each! DAMN!! Aside from the time issues, now you know why we don't go to more movies. :)

Slumber Party

What a weekend - we had a slumber party! Unfortunately this one came out of the "winter ice storm" and not some ingenious planning we can call our own, but it was fun nonetheless. Cody's friend, Dude, and his brother, wife and two kids (ages 18 months and 2 months) all lost power in the "winter storm," which luckily this time we were able to avoid most of and keep our power for once. So we invited them all over and had a slumber party of sorts. It couldn't have been more fun if we had actuall planned it ahead of time! We had a wonderful time hanging out with the kids, playing games and watching TV. The kids were just wonderful - especially given that they were out of their element and in a strange house with strange people. I even got to make food for people which is always fun because cooking for two just gets old sometimes. Unfortunately we tried to make little pizzas on Saturday night and ran out of cheese so we were using sliced cheese and string cheese on some of the pizzas. :) Sunday I got to make my enchilladas that I really love but that Cody hates, so I never get to make them. :) All in all it was a great time hanging out with everyone, even if it was under such crummy circumstances.

In other news, I also painted our downstairs bathroom (otherwise known as the "Boy Bathroom") today. I wanted to get the rest of the downstairs finished before our party on the 27th for Cody's birthday. The room isn't too big but what a pain to paint - taking down all the fixtures, the mirror, the lights, the towel rods, and then taking apart the toilet to paint behind it - yes, I became intimately familiar with our toilet today - fun. :) Oh yeah, I had the day off work - Cody still had to go in (cry me a river Boeing people- you get 7 free days at Christmas time!) so that was my project - paint paint and more paint.

Wow!

Wow! Wow is really the only word to described the crazy elation that is going on in "Gator Nation." We cannot believe the Gators not only pulled off a win in the National Championship Game, but pulled off such an amazing win! Wow! I'm seriously still numb. I can't even believe it yet. Since December I've heard nothing but how Ohio State is going to kill us - EVERYONE - not one person I know (that's not a Gator fan) even gave us a chance! Guess we showed them. A collective "kiss my butt" is in order. :)
A few random thoughts while I continue to collect mine:

The University of Florida is the first school EVER to hold both football and basketball championships at the same time. (There is argument as to whether they were won in the "same year" since technically the football one was "won" in 2007 but it's the 2006 season - in any event, no other school has ever come within 8 years and there are only 6 schools EVER to have won a football and basketball championship). Quite an impressive accomplishment!!

Favorite quote regarding the football/basketball championship comparison:
"How do I compare them? Both have confetti landing on my head," athletic director Jeremy Foley said.

The Heisman curse continues. Heisman QB, Troy Smith, threw only FIVE completions the entire game - and one of those was to a Gator defender (yeah, that's an interception for those football challenged). Pretty impressive defense Gators.

Off to read more articles on ESPN. Good night to all in Gator Nation - another National Championship!

p.s. This caps off the best sports year of our lives - first the basketball championship in April, then the World Cup over the summer, then the Cardinals win the World Series, then football wins the National Championship - add to that we're getting married and this is quite possibly the best twelve months EVER!

Holding our Breath

Right now we, along with probably 1/2 the state of Florida, are holding our breath. In about 24 hours the game should be over/ending. What game you might ask if your head has been stuck in the sand for the past month and a half? THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! THAT THE GATORS ARE IN - AGAIN! Yes, last time it was the basketball one, but we're in another one now. If the Gators manage to beat Ohio State tomorrow, they will be the first team to ever hold the basketball and football national championships at the same time. Aside from all that jazz though, we just want to win. We haven't had a championship in 10 years and it's time. So tomorrow, about this time, we will either be inconsolably upset or exorbantly estatic.

Go Gators!

Life is good.

Yes, life is good. Busy, but good. We had a wonderful weekend here in Cold Corn Country.
Friday, I worked late (until about 8pm) because I waited forever to start on a brief for the trial I had before Christmas. Cody was sort of burnt out from the week so we decided to stay in Friday night and just hang out. So we did a few chores here and there but otherwise, watched some movie on TBS (we don't have cable, and thus don't have HBO, so the best we get in terms of "movie channels" is TBS - don't laugh) and got to bed relatively early.
Saturday was uber productive! We got a boat load of work done around the house. Cody changed the brake pads on my car while I took down all the Christmas stuff, including Christmas tree, packed it up and moved it all into the basement. It was actually quite sad taking down all the Christmas stuff, not only because I worked so hard to put it all up, but because it signifies an end to the "holidays" - now it's just winter. Stupid, cold, winter. No more fun. No more cheer. Just winter. Anyway, we got all the Christmas stuff cleared out, the kitchen cleaned, the boy room cleaned, the living room done, etc. It was great - I even got started on the depths of the mess in the spare room - paper hell. Paper and junk everywhere - all the random stuff that still needs to be gone through from the move (1.5 years ago). But I got a good start - at least got some stuff organized and others thrown out.
Saturday night we had some friends over for a laid back evening sitting around the fire outside. It's been a rather mild winter so far (knock on wood) so it was a nice evening to sit outside by the fire, drink and make S'mores. Yes, there was plenty of S'more making - good fun with good friends.
Today we ran errands - we braved the world of shopping (not our favorite pasttime) and got most of it done. Got all sorts of fun stuff - cat food, ziplock bags, picture frames, brake fluid, antifreeze, etc. Being grown up is so not fun sometimes. :) Then we did more work around the house and hung out. Cody even got to watch three movies while I worked this weekend that I would have never watched with him - Deliverance and Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2. I had/have no desire to see any of those but now I know the basic premise of them all so I can at least chat about them.
Then of course I spent hours of my life on this wedding. We have exactly 12 weeks and 6 days to go and I can not wait for them to all be gone. I just want this thing over with. Thankfully for Cody's mom and sister, we at least have a chair rental place picked out now (you wouldn't think this would be hard or a huge pain - think again - it was - Donna and I called about a zillion places to try to find ones that wouldn't charge an extra $200 to pick up the chairs on Saturday because Maclay doesn't let you leave them overnight). We also sent the deposit to the photographer so that is out of the way - that was a huge one. Then I spent hours tonight looking at invitations. I found ones I really like - for $7.90 each! Yeah right - not a chance in hell am I spending that much money on invitiations - sorry friends and family but you're not getting $7.90 invitations to our wedding that will end up in the trash as soon as you write the date on your calendar. So now we're on the search for affordable invitations. I did get the flower girl dresses while in Tally so now we just have to figure out the bridesmaids dresses and tuxes. Fun with wedding planning!

I guess I'm no Martha Stewart

When people live together, its bound to happen that certain habits or mannerisms will rub off onto the other (mostly voluntarily, though some mandated). For instance, since living with Cody I have become a Gator fan, have learned to hang my towel back on the rack in the bathroom and have occassionally eaten potato chips (only Lime Tostidos with our great salsa - otherwise I still avoid them). Cody has picked up some habits as well, for instance eating a larger variety of food, mostly vegatables. He's taken to agreeing that all meals need to include some sort of vegatable, and not necessarily a meat (though he still loves his meat).

Anyway, so one of my New Years resolutions (which I've still yet to blog about) was to cook more and try new things. I'm not a cook (though my brother and Erica are great ones) but I'm trying. So I found this great reciepe in the Boeing Health Newsletter for Orzo with Spinach and Feta. Sounded great to me and I thought Cody could at least give it a shot.

Basically you cook the orzo, sautee some garlic with green onions, then add frozen spinach, then toss it all together with feta and lemon juice. I think it was delicious - it has so many great flavors that I love! Cody took one bite and said that it made his top five list of worst things he's ever eaten. :) He even went and ate a ton of the salsa we had just made just to get the taste out of his mouth. I guess you can teach a guy to love his veggies but there are definitely limits. I guess I shouldn't make the first reciepe out of my Rachel Ray cookbook (courtesy of Bo and Erica for Christmas) for Cody - it's an omlette reciepe and I still can't convince him to eat eggs.

In other news, I've now gone two days without sugar! No one can truely understand what an accomplishment this has been for me unless they are an equal sugar addict. I did already bust on one resolution - to only drink on the weekends - by having a beer yesterday - but it was only one and I ran three miles afterwards. :)

In actual news, more exciting at least, our niece Baylee, started her first day of preschool this week. I hear she had fun but then said she didn't want to go back. She is such a hoot! She's be one of those kids that knows every kid in class by the second week and all of them will be her best friend - she's so personable and outgoing - not to mention cute. :) Good luck to her and whatever adventure you may be embarking on as well (as long as it's not wedding planning, then you don't need luck - luck will be of no help - you need lots of lots of powerful drugs). :)

It's a Girl!

I'm not sure if I posted about this already or not, but my brother (David/Jack) and his wife (Kim) have been expecting their third child. Right now they have two absolutely gorgeous and wonderful girls so it was quite a build up to what the new one would be. Well today was the 20 week mark and we found out it will be . . . . drum roll please . . . . a girl!! While it's not a boy some might have hoped for, we're all thrilled beyond belief. All anyone really cares about is that she's healthy. Plus now they don't have to go buy a ton of blue stuff! :) They are really wonderful parents and will raise this girl, as they have the other two, absolutely great! I'm so excited for them and can't wait to meet her sometime around the end of April! I'm sure the other two girls are going to be great big sisters!

Congrats guys!!

The 12 Days of Christmas!

The 12 days of Christmas rock! I was talking to my friend Meghan today, complaining about how I had not had time to take down my Christmas tree, as I ususally try to do before the first, and was informed of something quite interesting. My thinking behind taking down the tree by the first is that it's nice to have Christmas packed up and out of the way to start the new year fresh and with a clean, less cluttered house. Well, Meghan (who knows a great deal about a great deal of things) informed me that actually I don't have to take down my tree, and that actually I shouldn't take down my tree, until January 6th. Apparently that is when the 12 days of Christmas are over and when you should take your tree down. And here I was all concerned that I was behind and late and all that, and I actually have a few more days to enjoy the lovely tree. Yippee!!!

Not much going on in other news. Another busy day trying to catch up on life that we missed while in Florida. I was in Columbia for work and while there used some of my down time to run some much needed errands. This evening I spent working out and cleaning the clutter that is my house. Fun fun!

Happy New Year!

Yeah, yeah, it's the second already. I know. As usual, we're late on everything - even The New Year. Technically I suppose it started yesterday, but we spent the entire day driving so we didn't get to do any of the New Year things until today - like make resolutions or eat the requisite New Years' meal. Meal? Yes, black-eyed peas, cabbage, and ham (it's supposed to be hog jowl I think but 1) I don't know what it is and 2) it doesn't sound good or healthy so we substitute ham instead). I believe it's either a Southern or Irish thing and since I'm both, I've had to eat it every New Years' my entire life. Cody is neither so he's never had to partake in the tradition - until we moved in together and I force him through it every year. :) Supposedly the cabbage is for money and the peas are for luck and the meat is for health or something like that. So we had that for dinner tonight, late as usual since it's now the 2nd, but hopefully it was enough to appease the Southern/Irish deity in charge of those things. :)

So much more to write - about the trip, life, resolutions, etc. - but it will all have to wait as I must get some sleep tonight so I can drive (safely) to Columbia in the morning.

Happy New Year to everyone!