That’s What She Said

I have a confession. I honestly cannot remember a good 4th of July.  Well, actually, a few years back my friends and I went to the spectacular fireworks down the shore two years in a row and that was fun. But mostly, we don’t hugely celebrate the 4th. Hubilicious’ job requires someone there 24/7/365 and when we were engaged he would grab whatever holidays he could - often the 4th. In fact he is working today too - 16 hours which translates 32 hours of pay or somthing like that. So it’s crazy not to work the holidays.

(Don’t feel bad for him - I packed him sandwiches and set the cofee maker to go off at 1am and he’s taken a nap and is watching the Tick series.)

Usually if hubilicious works a holiday, all my friends are busy with their SOs so I’ll just stay home and relax. I think that’s the plan for today too. I had tentative plans but with this week being so insane - all I want to do is make my dishes for tomorrow’s pig roast and watch Brother’s & Sisters and Lost and maybe Batman Begins (to get psyched for 7/18 and marvel at the hotness that is Christain Bale) and stay in my PJs.

For those that really celebrate this holiday - be safe and have fun!

(I do love my country…I just don’t deal well with crowds at fireworks shows and all that)

I’ve recently discovered the little gem of a reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8. If you are unfamiliar with that show which airs on TLC, it’s about the Gosselin family which consists of parents Jon & Kate, 7 year-old twins Cara and Madelyn, and 4 year-old sextuplets (yup, that’s six!) Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah, and Joel. That’s 10 people in that household!

Of course having two sets of multiples will be entertaining. TLC has marathons of the show during weekends occassionally and I eat it up - I TiVo it and watch it while folding laundry and thank my lucky stars I don’t have nearly as many clothes to wash as Kate does (though hubilicious may beg to differ since he believes I own way too many clothes for one human being).

If I mention the show to people, I hear “Kate is so mean!” “I don’t know how Jon & Kate are still together, they don’t seem to get along at all.” etc. You have to take the show with a grain of salt. The producers edit it to show the most entertaining and drama filled moments in their lives. But if you sit down and watch a couple of episodes, you see how loving and caring the family is. It takes some serious dedication to have 8 children - especially when you have 6 of them that are the same age and go through the same stages at the same time.

Hubilicious and I watched a couple of episodes last night. One of which featured movie night in the Gosseling household. Family traditions are wonderful and Kate and Jon always try to “make memories” - that is the major goal of anything the family does. I think this is a wonderful thing to aspire for. Who cares if there are meltdowns or things don’t go perfectly planned? As long as there are family memories, that’s all that matters.

Well, during family night they watched an episode of Planet Earth since the kids love animals. Seems innocent enough right? Well, they show mating to which Kate refers to it as the animals taking piggy back rides so the kids don’t question what’s going on. Then, she named each animal after every member of the family and would say things like “Oh look what Daddy is doing!” “What’s Cara eating?” etc. Then came the part where the monkey got eaten by the tiger.

One of the kids says, “I’m eating Aaden!” Some of the kids cry, but the tiger-kid? Went up to Aaden and patted him on the head as if to say, “It’s ok, I’m not really eating you, I love you!”

I thought it was both hilarious and sweet. And disturbing.

So anyway, catch the show if you have the guts too. Really gives you appreciation for handling that many kids on a daily breakfast. And I was amazed at how Kate can feed a family of 10 on $150 a week. I need to learn those mad skills!

It’s wedding season. I can’t tell you how many posts about weddings I’ve read. Having gone through planning my own and coming up to close to two months to our first anniversary (SERIOUSLY?!), it’s fun to read through people’s thoughts on the process and what people do at their weddings and how crazy people can get. Perhaps one day I will discuss my own wedding which was at noon which apparently is weird? I read that the other day - a non-black tie wedding is bizarre? To us, black tie is stuffy and we got married under the just-turned-fall trees and open air and it was wonderful. To each their own though. Each wedding I attend I love because I’m honored to be a guest and witness two people becoming one and all that romanticized happily-ever-after stuff.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point of this is to say I’M GOING TO BE A BRIDESMAID! My close friend KS got engaged to a wonderful guy and last week at dinner asked me to be a part of her wedding. She coincidentally was my Maid of Honor (I asked her to be in my wedding at the same restaurant!) not that that really matters but it’s extra special that we participated in each other’s weddings. And let’s be honest. I had visions of our kids being little baby pals and growing up together. Yes, I turned into one of those girls.

Now, the last time I took part in a bridal party was in 1990*. It was my uncle’s marriage to my aunt and since I was 11, I was a Junior Bridesmaid. I didn’t even know there was such a thing! But I was one! I wore an uncomfortable dress that was a deep purple color - velvet on top and a satin type fabric on the bottom. And it was a long dress. Prior to this I never wore a long dress before and you could tell because the day we picked it up from the dressmaker and brought it to my grandma’s I promptly ripped the bottom hem because I took too large of a step. Oh, you know the Rick Roll phenomena going on now? Well, the videographer put that song on the beginning of their wedding video with shots of our flowers as the border of the video. That’s how long ago that was.

So, concidering my lack of bridesmaid experience, I’m a bit nervous to be a bridesmaid. The bride is a bit particular and she’s been engaged less than a month and they practically have the church, reception place, date, color scheme and wedding party all picked out already (oh and the bachelorette party is going to be in Boston). This is just total opposite of my husband and I - we were engaged for 4 months before we even thought of a date or a place. I’m sure it will be beautiful and just them as with any wedding. And I know it’s not about me but I’m super nervous about my role and the expectations of my responsibility.

Fellow readers who have been in a similar situation…or who have been bridesmaids before…what should I expect? I’m a go with the flow kind of girl but the bride is quite opposite. I love her and think it’s wonderful she wants me to be a part of it, but I also don’t want to be crazy and end up not knowing what I’m getting into. Any advice or funny wedding party stories are welcome!

*I was asked to be part of a wedding a few years back but found out I was no longer in it (along with another bridesmaid) through the wedding webpage…that I pretty much designed. That’s a story for another day! And I was supposed to be in another wedding that never happened..thankfully because the girl’s new boyfriend is awesome and that would have never worked out.

Everyone we know who has gone through the process of purchasing a home has told us the same thing. You will have a freak out moment. It could be the night before your closing, or the day you put in an offer, or even the day you sign your mortgage commitment. Whatever the day – it will happen. Makes sense, it is a huge commitment to undertake.

My moment? Happened last night. Approximately 15 days away from closing. The evening was spent scanning over a bunch of documents our mortgage specialist needed and packing a few boxes. After all that fun (sarcasm people), I settled in front of my computer to waste some time on myspace and facebook. Yup, I’m a sucker for social networking (I’m myspace friends with two of my ex-boyfriends – that’s crazy. It’s amazing the stuff you can find on there!).

Anyway, my husband was in bed watching TV and I crawled in next to him still in the clothes I wore all day long. Suddenly all these thoughts rushed to my head and I barraged him with a bunch of questions and thoughts that have been deep in my mind.

This morning I had a dream that you left me and I felt relief that I could move closer to my parents. Are we doing the right thing by staying in this town? My parents can’t drop by for dinner during the week and we can’t do the same at their place. This is potentially 30 years we will live here. Our families will only visit on the weekend – is that ok?

Stressed – I’m stressed! We bought a house, we are leaving the first residence we shared together, I am starting a new position with bigger responsibilities. Too much change in a short time! Did I mention how much packing we need to do? You know I loathe packing…don’t mind unpacking. And the painting we have to do at the house?

Am I a horrible person? That friendship that went horribly wrong – I did ok right? I am always the one to feel guilty or apologize first and I didn’t this time, that’s ok right? That “friend” was pretty inconsiderate to me though during times which should have been happy. And this person can stop being so passive aggressive on myspace bulletins already. I really need to quit myspace huh?

Babies? In two years? Please? I’m going to be three zero soon and I think we should really think about this.

So yes, I freaked with a capital F. Hopefully I got it out of my system!

My mom always loves to tell the story of how my parents met. They were teenagers and  both working as janitors after hours at a business. Mom saw Dad the first day and said to her girlfriend, “I’m going to marry him”.  She was right.

Thirty years ago today, my parents were married. They married in a small church and their reception took place in my grandparent’s backyard. Their wedding cake was a sheet cake. The keg was flowing. The day was perfectly them - my mom wore her hair down and in the photos from that day they looked incredibly happy.

Seven months later they had a daughter. Five months after that they bought their first house - moving in with just a mattress, crib, and a cooler for food. Three years later they added to their family with a baby boy.

Over the past thirty years they’ve reached ups and downs. Fortunately the ups outweighed the downs. They made the most of everything and raised two wonderful grown children.  They grew up together and still enjoy each other’s company after all these years.  Thirty years from now I hope someone can say the same about me.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!

On Friday a bunch of drama happened with the house. It was a bit stressful and it seemed we were facing a setback with our mortgage in terms of rates and down payment. Husband and I were frustrated and feeling a bit defeated. We went to happy hour at the bar we love and then came home to watch some TV. The Travel Channel had a bunch of Disney shows on and when it got too late I TiVo’d what I thought was Disney Splurge. After running errands and getting things sorted out this morning, we plopped down to watch the episode only to see that it was not Disney Splurge, but a show devoted to rich folk who decide to live on a cruise ship.

That’s right, I said live, not vacation, on a cruise ship.

We got hooked on it and watched the entire episode. The ship is called The World and it definately lives up to the name. People must have a minimum of $5 million dollars to live on board. Each ”apartment” has it’s own deck overlooking the water. The cool thing about living on a cruise ship is that you can stock your fridge with exotic foods. You spring water can be from England, cheese from Portugal, and soda from Germany. The tenants all vote on the stops and they often coincide with famous foreign events (they stopped in Cannes for the film festival). While the ship can hold thousands, at most there are maybe 300 people onboard so it’s very empty.

On deck 5 you can buy a $450,000 diamond necklace for someone special in your life.  Or if you’d like, there’s first run showings of the latest movies. What cruise ship lacks a casino? Not The World! It also boasts the first full sized tennis court on ship as well as a putting green with real grass! Hitting golf balls off ships was banned in 1991; however you can on the World! They have special golfballs that turn into fishfood in a couple of hours.

So if you have some spare millions available, you too could own a piece of The World.

In honor of the Summer Solstice, I thought I’d post a list of things I’d like to do this summer. Though, this may be challenging since we are hoping to close on our house in mid July so that means that for the end of June through most of July we will be packing, painting, setting up house, etc.  Maybe if I post it out there in the blog world, it just might happen.

• Visit the butterfly sanctuary and take amazing photos
• Tour Gillette Castle and maybe go hiking
• Visit wineries on the wine trail in state
• Frolick in the Rose Garden
• Hike along the Airline Trail
• Tour the Yale Campus
• Yankees game
• Spend a day at the beach with some good girlfriends
• Watch the sunset at our new house
• Have a big BBQ with family and friends at our house (ok, enough about the house!)
• Go to the batting cages

I’m sure this will continue to grow as the summer moves along. What are some things you’d like to accomplish this summer?

When Sex and the City was on the air, I never watched it. For one thing, I never had HBO until Husband and I moved in together and we splurged on the expensive digital cable package. We’ve since dropped it down to the basic since we’re being more financially responsible since purchasing a home. We also found that we were too busy to watch the 500 channels we had available. By the time we did get HBO, the series was almost over so there was no point in watching it then.

However; thanks to the wonderful invention that is Netflix, I spent the winter of…2006 I think? catching up. I loved the story lines and the friendship Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha shared and my love of flirtinis began. To be honest, I never thought myself to be a “Carrie” or a “Charlotte”. I really don’t identify closely with any of the characters as many viewers did. Truthfully I think I have a little of them all in me.

Somehow I’ve been able to stay away from spoilers about the movie prior to seeing it this past weekend. Thank my lucky stars! My Google Reader was exploding with posts about seeing the moive but I just starred them and saved them for later. My plans to see it fell through about 3 times. I saved it to see with a good girlfriend; however, things came up - she got engaged and delved head first into wedding planning. Come to think of it, it’s a bit ironic, no?

After an evening of venting and being on the verge of tears, my wonderful husband offered to take me. Keep in mind that we are a couple who love to keep “movie scores.” We both keep mental tallies on how many “chick flicks” I drag him to and how many blood and guts movies he has me see. The fact that Husband just offered, without blinking, to take me to see SATC was huge and I am grateful he took me. While I would hav eloved to have seen this with my girlfriend, I began to feel cast aside and I’ve been working hard the past few weeks - DAMNIT I DESERVED IT!

So I haven’t decided  if I’m going to tell the friend I’ve seen it or not. I’d love to see it again anyway. But as my husband pointed out, “you know what happens when you lie.”* Then again, maybe she won’t mind seeing it with me as she has been pretty flaky.

(But I love her just the same)

(For the record while I love Big, I think what he did in the movie was a total cop out. He’s a “big” man, he could have handled it way different. Didn’t like that. Loved the Steve/Miranda story line - that reunion made me more happpier inside than the Big/Carrie fiasco.)

*a node to what happened between Carrie and Miranda.

This year was the first year that I participated in Relay for Life. For those unfamiliar with Relay, it’s a 24 hour event (the idea being that cancer doesn’t sleep) which consists of teams. Each team has fundraisers and sets goals for fund raising for cancer research. During the Relay event, at least one member of each team must be walking on the track at all times (hence the relay part). Teams have their own booths and camping spot – each team sells unique things at their booths with the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society.

The team I joined was also new to Relay for Life. My supervisor’s family created the team in order to honor family members who passed because of the disease or who are current survivors. It was sort of a last minute idea so this year was a learning opportunity. I asked my friend Wendy to join me since I know she’s always up for a challenge. We decided to take the overnight shift since many members of our team have children. We didn’t know until we go to Relay that there were only four of us scheduled for the night shift! That was difficult.

Wendy and I would coach each other during our walk and push us to do more. There were beads provided, when you walk around the track once you put a bead on your string. Four beads equals one mile. We’d walk a couple of miles and head back to our booth to sit and relax, get up and do a couple of miles, etc. Being on the track at 2am was quite nice. The luminaries were lit around the track and there weren’t as many people walking as there are during the day. It was also nice to zip up in the sleeping bag to get a few winks of sleep under the stars!

The downside to the overnight shift is that we missed many of the activities that are out during the day. We missed many things. Wendy and I plan to do it again next year but we will have to be more prepared. I’d love to be there for the whole 24 hours (we made it about 14 hours).  One thing on our list for next year is a container for coffee for the night!

During the night, any time I was on the track I was noticing a guy who seemed to be walking nonstop. I then saw his string of beads – he needed three strings! As the sun rose above the track and all the tents, he started to yell out what mile he was on – the first time I heard him do that he was on mile 34. By the time we left in the morning he was on mile 40. He ended up doing 60 miles total. A fellow walker asked him what his motivation was. “My mother passed away of cancer.” Enough said.

It’s amazing how many stories we hear. It seems like there are more and more people diagnosed. According to the Relay website, 1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. If each team can help just one person, it’s well worth it. It’s really the smallest thing we can do.

This year’s father’s day had me reflecting. My husband and I along with my brother and his girlfriend went to our parent’s house on Saturday to celebrate the day. Mom got lobsters which were awesome. I was mostly in pain because I hadn’t slept much and walked tons due to Relay for Life. I feel bad that I had to lie down and rest and wasn’t my usual self, but I hope my dad understands.

There’s been a few times in this blog that I’ve mentioned how lucky I am in the parent department. Both of my parents are amazing people and I get along with them so well (even more now than growing up). My parents were high school sweethearts and I’ve always been so jealous that they were able to find each other so young and pretty much grow up together.

But anyway, this is about Dad. My stubbornness comes from him. We used to get into these big arguments where in the end, we’d forget where we started. Soon I learned how to control that – I pride myself on how easily I can flip his switch and his face will get red and he goes on and on. It’s actually quite powerful come to think of it (hi dad!). I am a lot like my dad. We both get passionate about politics, the wrongs in the world, etc. We are also very introverted and need time to ourselves which not many people understand. Though he has gotten better and has spent the last few years being a bit more adventurous.

Let me step back a bit. When I was born, my dad was pretty young. To that end, he loved having me do stupid stuff for a laugh. Once he gave me a red onion and told me it was an apple. Of course I took a big bite! To this day I love onions so who knows. Also, when I was in the 1^st grade, we learned about the pilgrims coming over the Mayflower. Excitedly I told my dad that the pilgrims drank beer on the boat. My dad asked me “Well, what kind of beer?” Perplexed, I told him I didn’t know. He urged me to ask my teacher Mrs. Little (he also had me ask her if she was related to Rich Little but sadly, she wasn’t). The next day I marched up to Mrs. Little and said, “What kind of beer did the pilgrims drink on the Mayflower?” If memory serves me right she said “Budweiser”. My dad was thrilled.

And oh did I think my dad was the smartest person who walked the earth. He would sing silly songs that I was sure he made up. He’d open the fridge and sing “Yes! We have no bananas. We have no bananas today!” Found out years later that he in fact did not create that song and that the song predated him by about 35 years. Also, often times before bed he would say “it’s bedtime for Bonzo” which was the greatest thing ever. It wasn’t until I said that when staying at my friend Liz’s house (who I met in college – just to give you a sense of how long it was) and she told me it was from a Ronald Reagan movie.

To be fair, my dad never claimed to have come up with these things on his own. I was just a girl who thought her dad was a genius.

As I got older and went through some heartbreak, my dad always had something wise to say. My last heartbreak in particular, I remember sitting outside on our old glider and he said that I shouldn’t rush into things. Take things slow. That’s precisely what I did in my next relationship. Things just felt more natural that way – there’s no rush in things.

About 9 months ago, my dad saw me marry the man that I took things slow with and just let things flow with. He couldn’t be happier. And on his 50^th birthday this past winter, I surprised Dad with my (formerly) estranged brother. We’re back to being a family again.

And now I’m still a girl who thinks her dad is a genius.