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Weekend house guest

This is Zoe:

 

You've seen her before here. She was our house guest last weekend while her humans took a little trip to the place where all Georgians are required to visit at least once in the fall - the mountains.

Zoe was an awesome house guest because:

1. She's like, tiny. She fits in my lap. Unlike two other 100-pound creatures I know.

2. She comes with a wardrobe. Kind of like Barbie. (And thus the cheerleading uniform.)

3. She shares a name with my future BFF, Zooey Deschanel (okay, it's not spelled the same, but sounds the same).

4. She didn't judge us even though our house is a disaster due to certain unfinished projects. And if she did she was totally polite and didn't say anything.

Between a rock and a nude beach

This week (today, actually), Matthew and I are celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary. I thought I'd switch gears and post something wedding related every day this week. Yes, I said every day - I'm committing to blogging every day this week. Quit laughing.

I thought the best place to start might be to tell the story about how we got engaged. So you may be wondering why I named this post what I did if I'm going to tell my engagement story. Oh, just you wait.

When people ask me how I got engaged, I tell one of two versions - the clean, edited one, and the real, not quite as clean one. Here, I'm going to tell the real one. So if you're offended by or dislike reading the word penis, you should probably stop now. (But please, even if you're offended you know you're going to keep reading.)

About two years and three months ago (we had a short engagement), Matthew and I decided to take a little vacation to Jamaica. We'd been dating for over five years, but it was our first trip alone as a couple. We'd taken plenty of trips together, mostly with family, but this was our first with just the two of us. We chose to stay at a small, couples only resort. Not that the appeal of being surrounded by nothing but a bunch of couples was particularly appealing, but the idea of not having to battle annoying tweens for a kayak was. 

One of the "perks" of a couples only resort - a nude beach (which we had no intention of using). Can someone please explain to me why the only people who utilize a nude beach are the exact ones who should be as far away from the nude beach as possible? (My first nude beach experience was when I accidentally stumbled upon one on a family vacation when I was 12. Scarring.)

So Matthew and I were hanging out on the non-nude beach on our first day there. The beach for the clothed was no further than 20 feet from the one for the unclothed, and was only semi-divided by lattice. LATTICE. And please, who's not going to look to see who/what's over there?

So there are only two people on the nude beach - an older couple who could easily have been my grandparents. The woman seemed a little uneasy with the nudity and stayed mostly covered. The man, on the other hand, paced back and forth ankle-deep in the water in full glory, alternating hand-over-head stretching and hands on his hips. Back and forth, back and forth. But here's the thing. He was wearing a hat. A HAT! Because he was afraid his head might get burned? [Insert bad joke here.]

You can imagine that talk of the old man and his penis occupied the rest of our day. Lots of unnecessary comments and jokes. But really? He had the energy to put on a hat but NOTHING ELSE?

Flash forward to that evening. We ate dinner and decided to hang out in the hammock by the water afterwards. Matthew started talking about how long we'd been together and this and that and I couldn't listen because RIGHT OVER THERE just a few hours ago. The old man. His penis. THE HAT! I mean, he wore a hat! We made some more inappropriate jokes and we laughed. Then Matthew started again with the talking. Then more talk of the old man, the penis. The hat. Matthew kept changing the subject, launching into more serious conversation. It wasn't until he finally said "Will you marry me?" that I knew the reason for the subject change. Of course I said yes (actually, first I said, "Are you kidding?") To my credit, we had dated for five years and Matthew didn't seem the least bit nervous that night.

After that we didn't talk about the old man, the penis or the hat - at least not until the next day.

Here's a photo of us scuba diving in Jamaica - 

Still to come this week - lots of wedding photos, some wedding ideas and maybe a few more funny stories!

In just over one month...

several little kids will come to my door (many of them probably dressed as Spiderman) demanding candy. 

This Halloween, the closest thing to children that we have to dress up are dogs, and if we were the type to dress up our dogs, they would most certainly go as Joe Dirt and Billy Ray Cyrus so that they could wear these:

Yes, that's a mullet. For dogs! And yes, it costs $40. But I almost {almost} think it's worth it. 

Like it? Get your very own from Trixie & Peanut here.

Did I mention I was a sociology major?

Did you know that, with older married couples, if the female dies first, the male is likely to die within a year unless he remarries? I know, morbid fact for a Wednesday night, but I can TOTALLY see the logic in that. (And now you're wishing you had a sociology degree like me so you can share fun facts like this on a Wednesday night, huh? I'm telling you, it makes for SUPERB dinner party conversation.)

My husband can do lots of things. He can pick out a good wine. He can rub my feet. He can BUILD A FREAKING PIECE OF FURNITURE. He can do most anything that requires tools or heavy equipment. 

However, ask him to do something like make tuna salad, bake a box (a BOX, not from scratch) of muffins or wash a dog bed in the washing machine (all things he's had the opportunity to do this week) and he's all, "What? You can do that? I don't even know where to start. We have a washing machine?"

We balance each other out nicely. I don't particularly mind whipping up a box of muffins (a BOX, not from scratch), but I can barely operate a screwdriver, much less a power tool. 

So tell me, how does a person who can take a few pieces of wood and put them together to make a bed or a table NOT be able to follow three steps on a box? Is it a fault of the species? A missing gene? Does Matthew sit around wondering why a person who can wash a load of whites and lights can't operate a cordless drill?

Got to run...my muffins are burning. 

Why I didn't blog last week

Last week I took a trip to the beach, where I expected to blog every day. Or at least once. Obviously, that didn't happen. Is this story starting to sound familiar? 

Yeah, me + blogging on vacation = not gonna happen. I always have good intentions, but who am I kidding? I can't even blog regularly when I'm at home.

Instead, I spent lots of time with these two little people and their mama:

And these two little people:

My parents' cats, Bob:

and Morgan. She doesn't always look that mad - only when I'm around.

Side note: I've found Morgan's kitty twin - Simply Seleta's Pom pom. Seriously, take a look.

We left the guys at home (except Lane, of course) and hung out at my parents' house to cat sit while they were on a little trip of their own.

We took naps (although not that frequently. I'm looking at you, Lane):

Did yoga (okay, so only Lane did that):

And played on the beach (but just for a little while. Have you ever tried to brave the beach with a four-month-old and a two-year-old?)

There was also an incident with a tent. The details are kind of fuzzy, as it was a traumatic situation, but it went a little something like this: Katie and I decided to set up a tent under which we could get out of the sun/Lane could nap. We didn't consider exactly how we'd set it up. Basically, Katie held Lane while I tried to put the tent up by myself. And I put it together the wrong way (and I do remember uttering the words "who needs directions?" at one point during setup). And the wind was strong. And there was a gust. And then the next thing I remember is using my weight to keep a tent from blowing down the beach while holding an infant and yelling for Katie, who was in the water with Kara (and out of earshot). People stared. Didn't get up to help, but stared nonetheless. Katie eventually came to the rescue (sort of) and, during her tent wrangling, waved at the staring people (and may or may not have flashed a mean look their way). The man decided then might be a good time to offer his assistance in the form of advice on how better to set up our tent. BECAUSE THAT'S EXACTLY WHY KATIE WAVED AT HIM. We didn't use the tent again.

I also took Lane's three-month photos and some fun beach pics, so to see more photos, check out my photography blog.

Despite a few bumps in the road/sand, we had a great trip. Katie and I laughed nearly the whole time (even a few times when I think most people would have cried) and I fell more in love with two little people. (The kids, not the cats. The cats have a litter box - enough said.)

I may not have a leg in 48 hours, but at least I can see

(Warning: This is a super long post. If you're going to skip something, the good stuff's at the end. But read it all because I wrote it.)

Let me preface this by saying that this has been one of those weeks. You know, the ones where something weird happens every day. (And this post will have no pictures. Because I cannot imagine what kind of photo I'd post to go along with this.)

Case in point: 

- I started the week on Sunday by putting my shirt on inside out. And wearing it that way for, oh, five hours in public before I realized it. I should have known then that it was not going to be a typical (or even typical for me) week.

- Sunday night I chopped up jalapenos for Matthew. Afterwards, I rubbed my lips a little and made them tingle. No big deal. Then, THEN, Monday morning I reached into my contact case, pulled out a contact and poked it into my eye. With the jalapeno juice fingers. OH MY GOODNESS. 

I would sooner have an eye fall out (just one - I'm not willing to sacrifice both) than endure the pain that I felt for the next ten minutes as jalapeno tears streamed down my face. 

Once the tears subsided, I jumped in the shower, where the hot water opened my pores and exasperated the pain of my jalapeno-laden digits. My fingers were bright red and on fire. I got dressed for work, carefully avoiding contact with my jalapeno fingers as if it was poison ivy I was going to pass from one body part to another.

- Oh, and I forgot to mention that on Saturday my feet were attacked by fire ants, and by this point they were covered in red, itchy dots. Which I couldn't scratch because then they'd be red, itchy, burning jalapeno dots. The pain and itching subsided and I went on with life.

Fast forward to yesterday (Wednesday) morning, when I was once again putting my contacts in. (I'd failed to take them out the night before - I was a little gun shy after Monday morning.) I've been wearing contacts for more than ten years now, so I've pretty much got the process down. Occasionally, my vision will be a little blurry after I've put them in, but once they settle in, everything's fine. 

This particular morning, things were looking a little blurry out of my right eye. Not typical blurry, though. Have you ever put on someone else's prescription glasses? That kind of blurry. I jumped in the shower, hoping it would work itself out, but still no change once I got out. So I took the contact out, flipped it around, and put it back in. Still the same. I took it out and placed it back in the case. I looked out of the bathroom door into the distance and OH. MY. GOODNESS. I could see out of my right eye. WITHOUT A CONTACT. 

I sat down on the toilet and grabbed the edges. It was a miracle! My eye had been healed! Or was I still asleep? Maybe it's a dream. Or maybe, MAYBE, the jalapeno holds the key to 20/20 vision and I was going to be a millionaire! I sat for a moment, trying to think clearly, and reached up to my eye. Where there was another contact in there. AND I TOTALLY DON'T KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM.

So then this morning. I'm in the bathtub. I notice a red, quarter-sized, raised area on my lower leg. Looks like a bite of some sort. Kind of itchy. Definitely not an ant bite. I don't make a big deal out of it, and go on with my day, where everyone who sees my red dot ensures me I'm going to die/spend days in the hospital/have my leg amputated. Then a white ring forms around it.

So I, the person who hasn't visited a doctor for an ailment since I was five, decided to go to quick care so my leg doesn't rot off. Have you ever been to quick care? S-C-A-R-Y. But I braved it, for the sake of saving a limb.

After my not-so-quick wait, I see the doctor. Who takes a 2.5 second look at it and explains to me that spiders (which I thought might have been the culprit) get a bad wrap, and it's more likely a mosquito or ingrown hair. Listen, I've had both. It's not either of those. 

He acts as though I might be a hypochondriac for even coming in, but I'm all THERE'S A LADY IN THE LOBBY TALKING TO HERSELF. DON'T EVEN ACT LIKE I'M CRAZY.

He writes me some sort of prescription and tells me if it's not better in 48 hours to come back or go see a doctor. Um, excuse me, ARE YOU NOT A DOCTOR? Then he leaves the room, returns with the prescription, and shows me two spots on his arm.

"Do you think these are spider bites?" he asks.

"Um, no. Those are mosquito bites."

LIKE I DON'T KNOW WHAT A FREAKING MOSQUITO BITE LOOKS LIKE. I LIVE IN GEORGIA.

So my leg may or may not actually fall off. I guess we'll see in 48 hours.

In which I spend several hours on a hotel bathroom floor

A few weeks ago we took a little weekend {work-related} trip to Savannah. Where I got food poisoning. Have you ever been sick in a hotel room? NOT FUN.

While the whole food poisoning thing kind of overshadowed the rest of the trip, looking back at the photos, we did have fun. We got lots of super recommendations for things to do from Nicole. (Great recommendations which did not include the restaurant where I got food poisoning...should've stuck to the list, I guess.) We did follow her recommendations for most of the trip, including going to Leopold's for ice cream (so, so good).

I can't tell you much about what we did, as the details are a little blurred, but here's our trip in photos:

We did spend several hours (yes, HOURS) on River Street watching this guy play:

He was amazingly talented and endlessly funny. The little tippy-toed boy in the photo above especially thought so - he wouldn't leave! 

He had a crowd around him for hours as he played witty tunes tailored to passersby. If someone walked by wearing pink, he'd play the Pink Panther theme song. A bald guy - the Addams Family theme. A young couple - Going to the Chapel...and then the Death March. He even had a bit of a rainbow over his head:

For any photogs - the next photo was taken with no flash and no tripod. I bumped the ISO WAY up, shot wide open and stayed as still as possible.

I love the backlighting in this pic of Matthew:

And the beautiful evening light in this one Matthew took of me:

And Matthew snapped this one as we drove back to Savannah from Tybee Island:

If only I had known that in less than eight hours I'd be laying on a hotel bathroom floor, I probably wouldn't have had that smirk on my face. I'm hoping my next trip to Savannah will involve fewer oysters, fewer bathroom floors and more {positive} memories. 

"I wanna quit the gym"

We're going to quit the gym tonight, which makes me a little anxious because of this, one of my favorite clips from Friends:

Hopefully, there are no hot girls in swimsuits with too-high leg cutouts there tonight. But seeing as how we haven't been in, oh, two months, I think it's about time. 

When I suggested to Matthew that we go quit the gym tonight, I told him we should workout first, then quit. His response: "I don't want to work out. That's why we're quitting."

Wish us luck!

Family reunion 2009 edition

I had a few posts planned for this week, like showing some photos from my new camera and a before and after on my desk area (which I also photographed with my new camera). However, Photoshop CS3 had different ideas, as apparently it doesn't open RAW files from 5d Mark IIs. I've ordered the upgrade to CS4, which should solve the problem. That's all photographer speak for those posts will be up soon.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some photos from our family reunion that happened like, ten years ago (or a month ago - either way, seems like forever ago). I know you're wondering why anyone would want to blog about a family reunion, but this wasn't just any family reunion. It was Hollywood-themed. Complete with a movie premier. And an awards show (The Oscar Meyer Awards, of course. And the wiener is...) AND we were at the beach. See? Not your average family reunion. 

For our movie "premier," we watched Little Miss Sunshine.

You know how watching a movie alone is much different than watching a movie with your whole family? Yeah. Little Miss Sunshine? Not exactly a family movie, what with all the cursing. Not that we're a family of prudes, but I did have some moments of squirming as I sat next to my GRANDMOTHER with Alan Arkin talking about the EFFING CHICKEN. Seriously awkward.

But everyone was mostly distracted by the popcorn served by the soda jerks (a.k.a "Big Poppa" and "Little Poppa...get it?):

That's my mom and my aunt Rebecca. Who's really my cousin. Sounds a little incestuous, I know. Really, she's my dad's first cousin and has always been more like an aunt than cousin, so I call her aunt and that's that. (I did date a guy once who has an uncle brother, but that's another more disturbing story...)

Did I mention that some of us dressed up like characters from the movie?

Mom and me:

Rebecca/Little Miss Sunshine:

And Bill/The Dead Guy:

Several nights later was awards night. More costumes!

Matthew and I were Brangelina:

Here's my tat:

My cousin (actual cousin) William was Frank Sinatra:

Marty was one of those martial arts guys...not sure which one:

Rebecca as Marilyn Monroe:

Mom as Goldie Hawn:

Shelly, my parents' dog, got in on the action, doing double duty as Minnie Mouse and Mickey Rourke's dog (My dad's Mickey Rourke. Ha. I guess they were Mickey and Minnie. So not planned. And I just noticed the connection.):

And the whole costum clad group, from left to right - Frank, Ninja, Hollywood Agent, Katherine Hepburn, Angie, Brad, the Geico Gecko, Goldie, Jerry Springer (our host), Marilyn, Ron Howard (David looks just like him) and Mickey and Minnie:

We gave out awards like "Best Fight Scene" and "Best Actress in a Family Drama." These were our awards:

Not all of our activities were scheduled or Hollywood-themed (though there were LOTS of giant sunglasses being worn). 

We spent lots of time hanging out on the beach and eating ice cream - just the way every family reunion should be, don't you think?

What's the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini?

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, huh? Except it's not. (Well, it may be, but that's not what I'm referring to here.)

Apparently, it's a difference that I can't distinguish. 

Tonight, in my attempt to make a stuffed chicken marsala, I mistakenly used a cucumber instead of a zucchini. And what do you get when that happens? Pickle chicken.

I know that cooking a cucumber in white wine does not technically create a pickle, but it's the closest flavor that I can use to describe the train wreck which we consumed tonight.

It started out simply enough - a twist on chicken marsala that added squash, zucchini, a little bell pepper and goat cheese. When we went to the grocery store for the ingredients, the produce wasn't particularly well labeled that day. So I stood there for a moment, eyeing the selection of oblong green veggies, and finally picked one up. 

"Is this a zucchini or a cucumber," I asked Matthew. 

"I don't know," he said. 

Which I translated as "zucchini," and added it to the cart.

Fast forward to this evening, when I asked Matthew to slice the vegetables for dinner. He sliced them all and left them on the cutting board for me to finish dinner. I prepared everything and stuffed the chicken with all the vegetables without thinking too much about it, completed everything and sat down to eat. 

I noticed a marked difference in the taste of the chicken and the sauce that I poured ALL OVER our garlic mashed potatoes, a difference that I didn't think a few vegetables could make. It was oddly sour. Just then, the memory of our trip to the grocery store slowly came back to me.

"Matthew," I said, "is this a cucumber?"

"I don't know, is it?" he said. "I kind of thought it tasted like one...and looked like one...and smelled like one when I cut it."

"AND YA DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING?" I asked (very politely, as you can imagine).

I took another bite to confirm my verdict. "We've made PICKLES. It's pickle chicken."