How I Met My Honey

Ooh, another carnival! I love a carnival! And this one is about how we all met our husbands/wives/significant others Go see Reba and play along too!

It was October, 1999. I was living in a really cool apartment near downtown Dallas with  my friend Alicia. I was also casually dating two guys, which is something I NEVER did. Not EVER. I was never good at casually dating because it made me feel very uncomfortable. And this situation was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but I was working it ok. The two guys in question were polar opposites. One was a total guy’s guy - sports freak, no fashion sense, fairly clueless when it came to women but a good guy all around. The other was more on the artsy side. He was a musician but not by trade, dressed very fashionably, and knew all about wine and women (which was a stumbling block to any long-term potential we might have had). Both were older than me - Sports Freak was 32 to my 25 and Skirt Chaser was 36. I liked them both ok but there was no real magic there with either of them. I had just finally after two years gotten over a very slow and painful long-distance breakup, so I guess that was the reason I was embracing my new single gal status with such gusto.

One Saturday night, October 23 to be exact, some new neighbors of ours were having a house warming party in the courtyard. Since everyone’s apartments opened out to the courtyard, Alicia and I decided that we’d better just go to the party - we wanted to stay in and watch a movie and eat pizza since we’d both had big nights out the night before, but knew we’d not be able to hear our movie anyway. So down we went, with the plan of having a beer or two and saying hi and then going back up when the noise died down.

I remember that he was standing by the grill talking to my next door neighbor, wearing a Dave Matthews Band t-shirt. I came up to say hi to my neighbor and he introduced me to Jake, whom he had just met himself. For the next hour or so, we kept running back into each other. We’d sit and chat for a moment then we’d go do something else. I was completely not looking to meet anyone new, as I already had more on my plate in the men department than I could handle, so I was not flirting. We were just talking. There was a moment when I was unintentionally bitchy to him, and although he’ll exaggerate exactly how bitchy I was, I realized immediately how it had sounded and tried to make amends. I don’t know why I cared, because as I said, I was not looking for another guy.

The night progressed and we continued to talk and talk and talk. We both liked hockey. He said very casually that we should go to a Stars game sometime. I said out loud “That would be cool!” but in my head I was thinking “What are you doing? You can’t handle dating another guy!” But instinct must have taken over. We ended up being the last ones at the party, Jake and his co-worker and my roommate and me. We sat at a table and talked until the wee hours. Jake asked for my phone number, and I invited him up to the apartment so I could get write it down for him. At that  point in her life, my dog Lucy was very scared of men and wanted no part of them. But for some reason, when Jake came in the apartment, she didn’t freak out, she even let him pet her. It was like she knew before I did.

As the weekend ended, I had convinced myself that if Jake called, which I was sure he wouldn’t, I would just say I couldn’t see him. But he did call on Monday and he had tickets to the Stars game for the upcoming weekend. Again, instinct ruled over the babbling in my head telling me to not throw another ball in the air to juggle. As the week wore on, I told myself that I would give him the talk after the date ended.

But we went on the date. And we had a great time. I wasn’t nervous. We had so much to talk about. We were laughing constantly. After the hockey game, he took me to a Halloween party. In the car on the way there, he held my hand. The instant he took my hand, my stomach dropped like I was on a roller coaster. After the party, on the way to the car, with a very light rain falling, he stopped me in the middle of the street and kissed me. And that was it.

Two weeks later, I had given both the other guys the heave-ho and he had broken it off with a girl he’d been seeing and we were exclusive and serious. By Thanksgiving, we had acknowledged the fact that we were probably going to get married. We dated for a year to make sure we weren’t insane and were engaged on September 20, 2000. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Anyone else want to share? I love to hear about true love stories. C’mon, dish!

Facebook Gives Me Warm Fuzzies

And not just because I adore throwing sheep at people and playing scrabble.

In the past week, I’ve been reconnected with eight old friends I’d lost touch with, all of them from all the way back to high school days, including my old friend K who, even after all this time without contact, is simply one of my favorite people in the world and has been since I was in 10th grade and we were in Art History class together.

This is way more fun than any of the other old-school high school reunion sites ever were. But maybe if they’d given us the ability to throw sheep at one another, I’d have liked them more too.

Seven Years

Seven years ago today, this girl

married this guy

And then they were off to live happily ever after

Maw-age

Wuv, twoo wuv….

We just got home from a lovely wedding, complete with a totally adorable pocket-sized bride (I’m not kidding, she’s tiny. I’m short and I had to bend over to hug her) and a starry-eyed groom. A fine way to spend an evening right before our seventh anniversary. Wow. Seven years.

The funniest wedding moment was the maid of honor, pulling the groom’s ring out of her cleavage during the ceremony. I’m not joking. And what’s even funnier is that the ring was still in the jeweler’s black velvet box. So she was holding on to two bouquets in one hand, pulling out the ring with the other, opening the ring box, handing the ring to the bride and then trying to close the ring box again using one hand and her chin, and then putting the box back into her cleavage. Now, I have been a maid of honor three times in my life and each of those times, I’ve found that wearing the groom’s ring on my thumb has served me very well. But you know. To each his own.

Welcome to the World, Little Ones!

Y’all, go over and visit Carey at uterus x 2 please. She and Steph welcomed their twins, Bennett and Kate late last night/early this morning.  This brings their family count to three wee ones, as they welcomed Hudson a little over four months ago. What a joy to celebrate new babies!

Saturday in the Park

Without sounding like Mary Fucking Poppins, we had such a great day today. We got Bridget up from her morning nap, packed her up and headed out for a yummy lunch at a Mexican restaurant, then it was off to the park to wear this rugrat out. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, with enough breeze to make it pleasant. Lately we’ve been having hurricane force winds (ok that’s a slight exaggeration, but only barely) that have made it downright impossible to do anything. Plus I’m always worried we are going to lose another section of the house…. Anyway, today was not that way. It was lovely.

Bridget always likes to start her park adventures on the baby swings. She knows where to hold on and how to hold herself up so she doesn’t fall back and forth in the swing. She gets this look of pure glee on her face as she swings, until you push her a little too high and then she lets you know that she’s not enjoying it anymore so please slow her the hell down. After she grows tired of the swings, she loves to walk around and climb. She’s not really big enough to enjoy the climbing structures to the their fullest potential, but she’s getting there. She tries to climb up the slides because she’s seen the bigger kids doing it. If Jake is with me, I’ll climb up the big kid slide and hold her in my lap and go down it. She can also go down the little kid slides if I hold her hand and hold one of her feet up - otherwise she won’t really move down the slide because her feet drag and stop her.

Today we saw a man and his son (or grandson possibly) flying a kite, which looked like a lot of fun. We’ll have to see about getting one and going out one of these days. We also so a teeny little dog that Bridget appropriately called “puppy” but wanted nothing to do with when the little one came up to her. I think she was confused about how that could be a real dog when all she’s been around have been Lucy and Robbie.

All in all, it was spectacular day. Couldn’t have enjoyed it much more, that’s for sure. And our girl is good and worn out, and is now sleeping it off upstairs.

It’s days like today that are rewards for some of the toughest days I have as a parent. Our girl is growing up so fast and I’m so happy to be a part of her discovery of the world. I find myself looking forward to every new step she takes.

Grandma Pat

Jake’s grandmother passed away in the wee hours this morning. At home, not hooked up to life sustaining machines, with two loving care-givers. In short, she went on her terms. Or as much on her terms as was possible. She will be missed more than I have the words to express.

Just Because

I have the best husband in the world.

Today, he brought me cupcakes from Sprinkles just because he was down there and he was thinking about me.

Too bad I hoovered mine up in about nine seconds. Now I want another one.

Skipping the Traditional Recap

I would love to give you the traditional recap of the year as we are nearing the end of 2007. But looking back on my posts, I decided that if you wanted to bore yourself to sleep you could just go watch PBS or something. My year looked like this:

cried
baby cried
I got pooped on
snot
I’m tired
more baby stuff
even more baby stuff
exponentially more baby stuff

So I’m sparing you that pain.

I hope you all have a wonderful year, full of health, happiness, laughter and love.

This Time Last Year

I know I should be cleaning. I know I have guests coming in three hours. But I just can’t help remembering that this time last year we were on our way to the hospital to get me checked, but were sure I wasn’t in labor. We thought surely they’d examine me and tell me that what I was feeling were simply Braxton-Hicks contractions. I figured I’d apologize and then sheepishly call my parents and Jake’s parents and tell them that it had all been a false alarm.

Instead I was told I was four centimeters dilated with a bulging bag of water. And later that day we met our girl for the first time. It’s funny how that day, I had no ability to think toward the future. All I could do was focus on what was happening at that exact moment, which helped me to not freak the fuck out as I am wont to do. But today, almost a year later (I realize we are one day shy but this all took place on a Sunday so I’m counting it) it’s hard not to look both backward and forward.

How many birthday parties will I plan in the course of her lifetime? How many banners and balloons will I hang to celebrate her? How long until she starts to think of our family celebration as the obligation before she can go have fun with her friends? Will I give her guilt over feeling that way?

But more importantly, where is my champagne? Jake and I deserve it after having survived this first year.