All Or Nothing

Reckoner

Project Runway recap is in the works...just wanted to get this one out there while it was on my mind

That title is only loosely related to anything in this post, and that's only if you get pretty creative with your association.  But I couldn't help myself, as "Reckoner" is currently my favorite song by Radiohead, and I am GOING TO SEE RADIOHEAD LIVE IN LESS THAN 20 DAYS.

Yeah, that's right.  Excited doesn't even begin to explain how I feel about that.  But anyway, I'm not writing about Radiohead, not today anyway.

I am writing about my broken ovaries.  Ha!  I just pictured whatever male readership I've got going "oh great, ugh" and clicking the back button rapidly to erase that sentence from their minds.  So, guys, once you've clicked yourself away from here, I'll continue.  Or stick around, I'm totally okay with it.  I mean, I'm not gonna get grossly detailed or anything; this is much more about what my ovaries AREN'T doing rather than what they are.

Namely, my ovaries are not trying, in any way, to entice me into having kids.  And I am seriously beginning to think they are broken. 

Before you try to convince me of my relative youth (27) and how I've got plenty of time to have kids, let me politely interrupt to say I KNOW.  I don't feel old, I'm not worried about all my eggs drying up, and I am not concerned about making sure that I'm young when my kids are young, etc.  So that's not the issue at all.  My concern stems much more from the concepts of "ovaries speaking" and "baby fever" and "biological clock ticking".  Because dudes, I seriously think either my ovaries, biological clock, or both are broken.

You know I live in the south, where it's perfectly normal to get married at 21 and have at least a couple of kids by 24.  I mean, it's fine NOT to do that as well, and I'm certainly not suggesting that everyone here does that or wants that, but I am saying that it's not out of the norm or shocking to meet a 25 year-old mom with two kiddos in tow.  And here I am, going on 28, married for four years (today! happy anniversary, Cody!) with no kids and no real desire for any. 

Actually, that's not completely true.  Every once in a long while, like when I get to hold my best friend Amy's precious baby girl, or when I have a particularly funny conversation with a certain 3 1/2 year old and meet her week-old baby sister for the first time, I have the "I could do this, couldn't I?" thoughts go through my mind.  And occasionally when I see a mom and her kiddo out on the town, doing something fun together, I'll think "that looks nice".  But honestly?  That's as far as it EVER gets with me.  In the next 30 seconds I'm back to thinking about toenail polish, or whether or not I'm about to run out of green tea and should I go to the grocery store for more?  Ooh, and I forgot about these sunglasses in the console, I love this pair!  Oh yeah, and it's 7:30pm and I haven't seen Cody or thought about dinner, maybe I should get on that.  All thoughts of babies and/or having them are gone.

My ovaries never kick, prod, or speak to me, at least not about babies.  Occasionally they'll convince me that eating yet another Dove dark chocolate square at 1am is a good idea, and every once in a while they do horrible things to me, like grow massive cysts which then rupture and put me in a world of pain, but they really never do anything nice and cozy, like suggesting parenthood, ever.  In fact, as I think back on my relationship with my ovaries, not a lot of good memories come up.  They may be trying to kill me.

I've been trying to reconcile this mystery with myself.  I mean, I like kids.  Mostly I think they're funny, and it's pretty incredible to watch them learn things constantly.  They're enjoyable, for sure.  If tomorrow morning I woke up and someone had dropped a baby on my porch with a note saying "you have to take care of this kid!  you're the only one who can do it!" attached to the diaper, then I'd do it.  I wouldn't hate doing it or anything.  So yeah, if you want to get really logical about it, I COULD have a kid (I mean, assuming my Evil Ovaries would cooperate), and I COULD raise the kid and I wouldn't want to kill myself.

But shouldn't there be more?  I mean, is that going to be my decision maker?  "Well, Cody, I'm 35 and I guess it's now or never on the childbearing front.  I still haven't felt any urges, but I can honestly say I wouldn't become suicidal at the thought of a child.  I guess it's time!" 

That seems like a pretty sucky way to bring a child into the world.  Shouldn't I want one?  What gives?

Oh, Cody

Well, it has been a while since he's graced us with the material for one of these stories.  I guess we were due.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Cody started a new rotation at a clinic in a town about 30 miles from where we live.  Because he was going to be getting up at least 45 minutes earlier than normal, we attempted to get into SOMEWHAT of a routine at night.  (For past attempts at routine, see this, this or this).

Cody is a night owl, and all attempts to determine what I am (night owl/early bird) have failed.  If I have to get up early, I am most certainly NOT a night owl, but am more of whatever type of species you imagine being horribly snarly and mean.  If I can sleep late, then I am happy to stay up til whenever.  Cody doesn't care if he has to get up early - actually he DOES care, but all attempts for him to override his natural compulsion to stay up late are generally met with failure.  He tries to go to bed, but always finds something more interesting to do, like watching SportsCenter or losing his keys. 

This perfect storm of disorganization results in the evening "routine" Cody and I have developed over the nearly four years we've been married.  Sometime between 7-10pm we eat something, and usually we're watching television while eating and/or after we're done eating.  Either that or we've gone out to eat somewhere, and may or may not even come back home until 10:30-11.  Sometimes we forget about eating until really late, and then Cody tells me that he's hungry.  Those are the nights I feel like a REALLY good wife.

We end up watching things that have backed up on our Tivo until at least midnight, and it's only then that either one of us even thinks about STARTING the true bedtime routine; a complicated dance that involves the following:

• Locating and bringing inside Sophie, the outside cat
• Chasing Jill (the mean cat) out from under the guest-room bed and into the laundry room
• Thawing the raw meat patties to feed Lydah (which is, as Cody puts it, "an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege")
• Taking Lydah out and making her go to the bathroom so that she doesn't wake us up at 3am by standing over us in bed, panting
• Getting into bed 

Of course Cody has to have a movie playing in the bedroom DVD to fall asleep, a habit I HATED when we first got married but have now gotten completely used to and hardly even notice.  It was a good trade for me anyway, because the habit he had to lose out on in the compromise was the one where he set his alarm clock like, over an hour early and HIT THE SNOOZE, EVERY FIVE MINUTES, FOR OVER AN HOUR.  Boy, those were the days.

(The habit I had to lose was listening to soft music as I fell asleep.  I know, who would EVER WANT TO DO THAT?)

Anyway.  By the time we've stopped watching back episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and finished the bedtime routine, it's easily 1am.  And I don't care, because I hardly ever have to be up early in the morning but Cody does care, because he has to be up early every day.  And you might think that he would catch on to the fact that every day he has to be up early, and every night he stays up late, and therefore every morning he is miserable, but you would be wrong.  Each night it's like a brand-new misery; he looks at the bedside clock, reads off some permutation of "AM", and gets all upset.

Recently, though, with the new clinic rotation and added insult of a 45 minute drive every morning, Cody decided to make a change.  I fully support all of Cody's "change" decisions (for their entertainment value if nothing else), and so I happily went along.  Plus, I already have my doubts about how I'll ever make it as a mom (see: total disorganization, lack of routine, staying up late, sleeping late, needing my sleep desperately), and I kind of feel like I NEED to get on a good routine as far as normal sleep/wake habits.

11-11:30pm was decided upon as the bedtime goal, and for the past couple of weeks, I'd say that we've hit that goal at least 70% of the time - a success, in my opinion.  It's still hard though, to get up earlier than you're used to, and since Cody's been having to do that, I've been fielding all 3am Lydah bathroom breaks.  She's just so annoying, that dog.  I know it's probably our fault, feeding her so late and then expecting her little system to do a digestive miracle a mere 20 minutes after she's eaten, but geez.  Can't she hold it 8 hours? 

No.  No, she can't.  And when she decides she wants to go, she does this awful thing where she walks around on the bed, stepping on all our limbs, and then finally squeezes herself in between our heads, sitting upright, panting loudly.  Since Cody can sleep through a tornado (and has, actually! another story for another day!) I am ALWAYS the one woken up by hot dog breath on my face.  (Sidenote: foreshadowing for future midnight baby feedings, anyone?)

Normally we fight over who has to take her out, a fight which involves me waking up, Lydah panting heavily, Cody sleeping peacefully, me getting annoyed that he's somehow managing to stay asleep, me kicking Cody and telling him to take Lydah out, and him saying okay and then rolling over and falling back asleep immediately.  Without taking her out.  But for his first week of work, I just decided to forego all the procedure and skip to the part where I take her out.  I mean, that's what happens anyway, 90% of the time.  Oh, and obviously we don't have a fence, or all of this would be totally pointless as we would just open the door, shove Lydah into the backyard, and be done with it.

Earlier this week though, Cody took Lydah out to the bathroom before bed and didn't stick around to make sure she went.  This is a surefire way to make sure I get woken up at 3am, and so when it happened I was annoyed.  I took her out, but as I came back to bed I told Cody that the next 7 times were all going to be his turn.  He mumbled "okay" and rolled over.  Always coming up with something new, that Cody.

Anyway, last night Lydah started up with her whole panting routine and somehow (miracle? karma?) Cody HEARD her, and woke up.  He also remembered the "next 7 times" conversation and dragged himself out of bed to take the dog out, griping all the way.  I rolled over to fall back asleep, relishing in the freedom of covers all to myself and appreciative of Cody for taking the stupid dog out.  I didn't really expect him to do it.

Cue to OVER AN HOUR LATER, I am suddenly awakened by frantic dog barking, coming from outside.  I jump out of bed, blearily looking around for Lydah or Cody, seeing no one, but hearing even louder barking from outside.  I open the french doors from our bedroom and run out onto the screen porch, yelling for Lydah.  At the same time I hear Cody opening the front door and calling for Lydah from the front porch.  About a minute later Lydah comes bounding in the house, full of puppy energy, happy to be back inside.  Cody walks back into our room looking sleepy and I ask him if he just left Lydah outside, roaming the neighborhood, for over an hour.  He confirms that he did.  I ask him why.  He says he fell asleep on the couch after he opened the front door and let her out.  I tell him that I certainly hope he doesn't think this counts as one of his 7 turns.  He says that it should.

So I ask you, Internet:  Should it?

I Am Full Of The Truth

See?  Posting again already!  Look at me.  LOOK AT ME!  Don't look at all the losers and freaks, you look at ME!! (By the way, if any of you know where that lovely quote came from, I'll be impressed.  It cracks me up every time.)

So anyway, today I'd love to get your take on kitchen habits: what is normal, and what is not.  In order for us to have some frame of reference, allow me to present you with what I, for some reason, think "normal" kitchen habits should look like.

Somewhere between 4-6pm arrive home, pour a refreshing beverage and start pulling ingredients for dinner from your well-stocked fridge and pantry.  Of course you already have all the ingredients, because earlier in the week you sat down and planned out your week's meals and have already visited the grocery store for all needed items.

Cook dinner, pausing intermittently to kiss your spouse hello and maybe to shine your countertops.  Of course you are cleaning up as you cook.  Set the dining-room table.  Like, with napkins and placemats and everything.

Somewhere between 6-7pm sit down and eat your home-cooked meal.  Make pleasant conversation with your spouse and (if you've got 'em) kids.  Refill drinks as necessary.  Finish dinner and take all dishes back to the kitchen. 

Someone (preferably not the cook) has dishes detail, and rinses each dish and then places it into the dishwasher.  If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes at the start of this task, the dish detail person unloads the dishes, and then re-fills the dishwasher.

Someone else wipes down the kitchen countertops and cooking surfaces.  However, there's not much to clean, because you were cleaning as you cooked!

So there you go, that's what I envision "normal" kitchen habits looking like.  Why, I have no idea, except that it seems like it would be so nice and calm and organized.  However, let me present you with what our kitchen habits actually ARE like:

Arrive home anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30pm.  Tired.  Pour yourself a drink.  Open refrigerator and realize that no fairy elves have done your grocery shopping for you, and you still only have mustard, ketchup, and that same mold-cultivating tupperware container.  Go to pantry and see two boxes of microwave popcorn, three cans of Rotel, and a can of Healthy Choice soup that you've had since before you got married.  Slam the pantry door and yell to anyone who's listening that there's nothing to eat.

Repeat opening and closing both refrigerator and pantry doors several times, each time hoping that some stroke of genius will strike and you'll figure out something tasty and nutritious to make out of the popcorn and mustard you've got on hand.  Pour yourself another drink, and greet your spouse, who has just arrived home hungry and equally tired.  Give your spouse your drink in an atrocious attempt to appear like a decent homemaker.

Spouse observes that it is nothing less than ridiculous that there isn't a single PIECE of cheese in the house, because you can always make something out of nothing if you just have cheese.  Spouse also helpfully notes that the fact there are no eggs is just unbelievable.  Eggs are, as you know, about 88 cents a dozen.  These pearls of wisdom prove less helpful than you might think.

Discuss what sounds like the best option for obtaining food.  Obviously grocery store and subsequent cooking are out, because it's already hedging on 8pm and you're both starving.  Discuss going to a sit-down restaurant.  Decide that it's too pricey/you're too tired/none of them sound good/they failed the Restaurant Report on the evening news.  Discuss take-out options.

No one wants to get back into the car to pick up food.  One of you goes back to the pantry, finds some stale crackers, and starts spreading them with the same peanut butter you put in the dog's Kong toy.  Life has hit an all time low.  Finally, one of you decides that you'll go pick up food from Horribly Unhealthy Fast Food Restaurant.  Whoever is left at home sits on the couch, flipping channels, only to jump up upon hearing the garage door open and scramble to pull out some dinner plates (the good ones!) on which to place the food. 

Eat Horribly Unhealthy Fast Food, but on the nice dinner plates.  You put your plate in the dishwasher.  Your spouse puts theirs in the sink.  Why?  Because they NEVER PUT ANYTHING IN THE DISHWASHER.  Why would they, when the sink's right there?  And surely someone else (always you) will come by and put the plate into the dishwasher for them.  However, you can't really complain, since your best attempt at being any kind of a homemaker was serving french fries on a stoneware platter.

No one bothers cleaning the kitchen, because no one cooked anything.  The empty fast food bags are left strewn around the island.

Repeat the next evening, ad infinitum.

So, how does it work for you?  Surely there is a happy medium I can aspire to.  Help!

And All The Stuff That Comes Along

First and foremost, let me extend a very happy CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Jen, over at Operation Pink Herring, who has gone and gotten herself engaged.  Jen is my friend in blogging, crazy pet ownership, and general OCD-ishness. 

Also Jen, like me, occasionally finds herself telling accidental lies, not of her own volition, and only on RARE OCCASIONS, and only for really good reasons, such as telling the jeweler that she HAD to have her ring back and sized by today because she was having an engagement party.  Which, at the time, she was not.  But now you are, Jen!  It's not a lie!  Congratulations on being a truth-teller!  And with that, here's my contribution for you and your honey.  I was going to give advice, and then I was going to try something funny like Janet did, but then I remembered that all I can really do is tell stories, so a story is what you're getting. 

When I met Cody, I was deep in the throes of my Anti-Engagement/Anti-Wedding Movement.  This was a movement to which I subscribed heavily in the years 2001-2003, give or take.  Unsurprisingly, I have recently found myself ensconced in a similar movement, the Anti-Baby-Having Movement of '06-'08.  Both movements were founded after a whole slew of friends of mine either A) got engaged and subsequently married or B) got pregnant and subsequently had a baby.  And I was not doing either of those things, at either of those times, respectively.  You might think that these "movements" were based solely and completely on jealousy, but I'm not fond of that type of self-awareness; instead I like to wallow around in largely unexamined feelings and base my decisions on a whole lot of nothing.  It's something I've always been proud of.

Anyway!

I "met" Cody (I say "met" because we had actually known of each other for quite a long time, but had never exchanged more than a sentence or two in all that time) on New Year's Eve of 2003.  My best friend in the entire world was about to get engaged, had been moving towards that finality for quite some time, and I happened to have the exclusive knowledge that It was going to happen that very night.  I was happy for my best friend - thrilled - but I was feeling more than a little left out.  Of course I was NOT going to express that most selfish of reactions to her, nor to any of our similar friends.  Actually, I was just planning on keeping the whole horrible thing to myself, but when I found out that I would be giving Cody, an older brother of my brother's best friend, a ride to Dallas, I had a captive audience; I figured why not?  Poor Cody got the whole earful.  He and I would more than likely never talk again after the ride to and from Dallas that weekend, and we had virtually no friends in common.  If ever there was a chance for some free vent therapy, this was it.  And so I went on and on about how I just didn't understand the appeal of marriage, the whole spending your ENTIRE LIFE with the same person, the whole coming home every single night to the same thing, dinner at 6:30 and the evening news and in bed by 11pm.  It sounded so horrible to me, so boring, so unfit to my personality.  Cody not only agreed with every single point I had, but also seemed to have put thought into the subject on his own, and had well-formed opinions eerily similar to mine. 

Turned out Cody had quite the slew of friends who had either recently tied the knot or were getting ready to, and he was nowhere near being ready to do the same.  Having found that we had a lot more in common than we knew, Cody and I proceeded to make great conversation all the way to Dallas.  I dropped him off at his party, left to meet my girlfriends for an evening of New Year's salsa dancing, and found myself counting down the minutes to when I could pick Cody up the next morning.  This was not in my plan.

Cody's mother, who had always been a friend of my family, had invited me about a week prior to drive up to Houston with her to see a Monet exhibit at the museum there.  I had absolutely no intention of taking her up on this invite, but had responded with the typical "sounds fun, I'll have to see what's going on", thinking that obviously New Years Day, after a long night out, would be an excuse in and of itself not to drive to Houston.  However, after my unexpected discovery the night before, the one where I realized that spending time with Cody seemed like a very good plan and should be acted upon, I decided I would do some sneaky work and try to find out whether Cody was going to the museum.  I'm not sure if he was planning on going beforehand or if he was having a similar decision-making process as I was, but on our drive back from Dallas I managed not only to ascertain that Cody was going to Houston, but also that he was now in the position of trying to convince ME to go as well.  Me, who already wanted to go anyway.  Oh dating power play, how I miss you.

Anyway, I did go to Houston, and after we got back from Houston I managed to finagle a situation where my brother, Cody's little brother, and Cody all ended up at my parents house to watch a football game.  Where, of course, I would handily be as well, looking all cute; just a coincidence.  The football game ended, and SOMEHOW the four of us (two little brothers and their two enamored siblings) went to a movie.   About halfway through the movie I started feeling a little ballsy and also somewhat impatient.  If you know me, I'm sure this mix of emotions is not shocking, and then neither would be my next move, which was to kind of move my right arm near Cody's, put my hand near my shoulder so that my fingers were lightly grazing his arm, and move my fingers JUST A TINY BIT.  Just enough so that he wouldn't mistake it for accidental contact, or even for the "accidental" contact that everyone knows ISN'T accidental but could be explained away as such.  No, this was obvious, and I did it for the express purpose of seeing his reaction.  He seemed game.  But I still wasn't sure.

After the movie was over, I decided that the only way I would know for sure how Cody felt is if I just came right out and asked.  I had figured that I was going back to Lubbock to finish up one last class and figure out when to move out to California for law school.  I certainly didn't have time to waste wondering about some guy, and whether my crush was unrequited.  So I asked him.  "Do you just think of me as Nathan (my brother)'s sister, or what?  Because I like you, but I don't want to sit around wondering whether you like me if you're just thinking I'm a cute kid or whatever."  Cody was taken aback, this being not his style at all; in fact this being THE OPPOSITE of his style.  His style is more like, wait around for a really long time and hopefully everything will work out with no conflict whatsoever and if it doesn't then it's okay because it's taken so long I've probably forgotten what I wanted anyway.  Which, dude.  I SO don't work that way.

So I asked, and he was taken aback, but in a good way, the way where I could tell he did like me (I mean, let's be honest - I'm not THAT brave - I had a good feeling about it before I asked).  Cody told me that he had a girlfriend (! news to me) and that it was pretty much over with her and had been for a while but that he didn't want to talk about how he might feel about me or do anything about it until he had officially ended it with her.  I figured that seemed like a good plan, and he broke up with her two days later.  The day after that we met for lunch, this was around January 9 or 10, 2004.  We got engaged in early March, and married in August. 

It was just so obvious, so completely obvious right from the start, that we were meant to be together.  Suddenly I wasn't worried about boring nights at home with the same guy, over and over, like some sick sort of Marriage Groundhog Day.  I wasn't worried about how I would manage to turn my irresponsible, fun-loving self into a mature, responsible homemaker.  I wasn't worried about developing an interest in the evening news, or somehow knowing how to cook meals that were ready by the time he got home from work, or any of that.  Because I knew our marriage would be nothing like that, because WE were nothing like that.  Our relationship was like exactly no one else's, and because of that I knew our marriage would be completely unique as well.  All the little things we thought and enjoyed and spent time doing as a dating couple, well, that was the same sort of thing we'd do as a married couple.  Only it would be easier!  And neither of us would have to go home at night.

And just yesterday, more than four years later, Cody sat across from me at a Mexican restaurant, celebrating the birth of our newest niece, talking about how what our life with kids would be like, and deciding that it would be like no one else's.  That we would do our own thing, and the ways we would manage to figure out how to deal with the sleeping issues and the babysitting issues and all the things that come along would be unique to us, because we are unique.  And suddenly Cody looked at me, and started laughing, and said "this is all such an adventure, isn't it?"

And he's right.  Congratulations, Jen, and I can't wait to hear about your adventure.

An Interim: Quick Thoughts On Marriage*

It's tricky, taking two people who have lived their entire lives being single, and then smashing them together into one shared life.

One of the concepts that I really had to work hard on getting, especially in the first year or two of being married, was this: every decision that either of us makes, as an individual, affects both of us, as a couple.  Sounds obvious, but it really is pretty complex.  Every single decision you ever make, from now until the day you die, not only affects you, but also affects your spouse.  And therefore affects your marriage. 

Now, I'm not sure how, say, what you eat for lunch today affects your Mr. or Mrs., but it certainly could.  Let's say you and your significant other have plans to go out to dinner tonight because maybe you haven't been out together in a while.  So you both leave the house for work and to go about your daily business.

You're working away, and then it's lunchtime, and you're still working, and it gets later and later, and finally around 2pm, you get a break, and think, yum, what I want for lunch is Super Tasty Lunch Product That Always Tastes Good At The Time But Later Makes Me Feel Bloated And Awful (But Man Is It Worth It!).  Well, okay, so you decide to eat that.  YOU decide that.  It seems to have nothing to do with your spouse.  But all the while, Mr. X is over at his job, not eating a big lunch so that he won't be full for dinner, making plans to get off early so he can put gas in the car or pick up flowers or just do something nice for the date (he's very thoughtful, isn't he?).  And then you come home, he's all ready to go, and he asks where you want to go eat.  And you say "ughhhh, I don't know, I'm not even hungry because now I feel bloated and awful because I ate Super Tasty, Etc for lunch".  And he is outwardly understanding, but inwardly disappointed, because he was looking forward to this evening with you, enjoying dinner and wine and whatever, and now you don't even really want to go.  All because of a decision YOU made.

So obviously, if that tiny decision that YOU, as an individual, made can affect someone else that much, then you can certainly imagine how bigger decisions can affect the other person a whole lot more.  And that really is a hard concept to grasp, because humans are both inherently selfish and also (especially as newlyweds) inherently used to making our own decisions and really only considering how they affect OURSELVES. 

But the reality is, every decision either of you make, for the rest of your lives, is going to affect the other person.  So you not only have to consider A) is this decision good and/or something I want, but also B) is this decision good for my spouse.  And sometimes the answer to A) is yes, and B) is no, and you just have to give up what you want.  Actually, lots of times that is the case.  But I also think that as time goes by, that A) and B) match up more and more.

Thoughts?

*okay, Spelling Nazi, I fixed it :)

For You

I won't watch a single episode of LOST without him.  Not one minute, not one trailer, not one preview.  So that makes 69 episodes we've watched together, sprawled out on the couch, debating just how evil Juliette really is - at about 44 minutes per episode we just racked up 3,036 minutes.   Together.

Trips to Lowe's are generally the same.  I pretty much don't go in there without him, and he usually wants me to come along as his sidekick as well.  I'm not sure what it is about Lowe's, besides the fact that (to borrow a phrase from Erin) upon entering the building a giant spinning vortex opens up and sucks at least three hundred dollars out of our bank account.   Maybe that sort of parallel universe is best traversed with a partner, I don't know.  Either way, I can't even begin to tell you exactly how much time we've spent in the Home Improvement Superstore, but my approximation would be about 90 minutes per week for the last 2.5 years.  That's 195 hours, or 17,700 minutes spent.  Together.

In fact, we just generally prefer one another's company to just about anyone else's.  Given the choice, and a few hours of free time, he's gonna call me to see what I'm doing, and whether or not I can slip away from work for the afternoon.  And given the chance, I'm certainly doing some slipping away.  I can't count the number of times we met for a mid-workday lunch only to finish our meal, look at each other, and have one of us say, "you know what would be really fun?" and the other one finish the sentence with "a movie!".  Then we're off to the theater, to see whatever the winner of paper/rock/scissor chooses.  I said I can't count the number of times its happened, but if I had to guess, I'd say at least 20.  And that means 20 lunches, 20 after-lunch-deliberations, and 20 afternoon movie dates.  By my estimation that's 5,400 minutes.  Spent together.

And then there's the sleeping.  We're both champion sleepers.  Nappers, sleeping-in-ers, hit-the-rack-early-ers, we can do them all.  And of course we prefer to spend our sleeping time curled up right next to each other.  As the past few years have gone by, we've added a few more bodies to the bed in the form of two cats and a big ol' German Shepherd, but the sleeping still happens with beautiful regularity and consumes incredible chunks of time.  Hard to guess how many minutes we've spent sleeping together.  Let's just go with 525,600.  Together, naturally.

When we moved back to East Texas, we did it together.  This house?  We built it together.  When we discovered that the blossoming business we had purchased from some not-so-trustworthy people was NOT actually blossoming, we discovered it together.  When we had to sue those awful people, we did it together, and when the lawsuit drug on for nearly two years, we waited together.  When his first job here took a turn for the unexpected, we hung in there together.  And when he started his own practice, in the midst of the turmoil of a lawsuit and with a wife who brought home no appreciable income of her own, we did it together.  When the lawsuit finally ended with a big fat (and well-deserved) victory, we celebrated together.  And when he jogged through the first-year marker of his practice with flying colors, well, we celebrated that as well.  Together.

There's been house-building, job-losing, financial near-disaster-having, cat-raising, dog-picking, marathon-running, vacation-taking, movie-watching, kitchen-experimenting, wedding-guesting, funeral-attending, and baby-birthing.  And we've done it all together.

It's only been three years, and I love him more right now than I ever knew was possible.  He totally understands me, he totally accepts me, and he somehow manages to find my Crazy Moments endearing. 

Considering all that we've done in the 1,576,800 minutes we've spent together thus far, I can only imagine what's yet to come.  Hopefully it includes a big boat, long stretches of uninterrupted time, and no fishing spiders.

Happy anniversary, Cody.  I love you.

For All Of Posterity

At the request of several emails (and some were strongly worded, too!) I am putting up another post to move those fishing spider links down the page a bit.  You people have made Cody feel so much better.  Neither he nor I had any idea that there were so many other terrified (and expressive) spider haters out there.  Well, maybe we both knew, actually.  Who doesn't hate spiders?  Especially big, hairy, gray ones, with legs that spread out into a circumference bigger than your hand and rows and rows of weird, spidery eyeballs....

Ok, ok.  Sidenote: if I were ever to try and write a horror novel, that's about what it would sound like.  Crappy descriptions of spiders, with their googly eyes...oooh!  Horrifying.

Cody and I went out to the lake this Saturday to celebrate our upcoming (three year - I mean START OF OUR FOURTH YEAR) anniversary.  We wanted to bring Lydah out there so she could practice her dock-diving, which actually consists of her looking at the ball in the water, whining, and then kind of squirming off the edge of the dock, banging her doggy shins and hips against the wood on the way down.  It's REALLY athletic.  She's a total shoo-in for those agility shows.

We also took the boat out, which required us to go into the Closet of Life-jackets and Doom, the closet formerly haunted by the Scary Spider Family.  I did keep my eyes peeled for any strange, eight-legged movement, but all my vigilance was rewarded with was a couple of inconsequential encounters with some Daddy-Long-Legs.  We brought Lydah out on the boat with us and, as could be expected, she loved it.  She stayed on the floor of the boat for a while, and then blah blah, am I actually writing about how my DOG felt about riding on the boat?  Y'all better hope I never have kids.  The potential for totally inane Mommy Blogging is obviously here.

So!  Here's what I was actually writing about.  Cody bought me a hard-disk camcorder for our anniversary.  A camcorder!  That films!  I think it's a pretty good camera, too, but honestly Cody could have given me a camcorder with a little wind-up crank on the side that I had to turn while filming and I would have been totally impressed.  Anyway, this is The Best Anniversary Present Ever (said while avoiding the evil-eye from the cat Cody bought me last anniversary - sorry, Sophie!).  I have wanted a camcorder for ages.  I still watch the videos taken of me and my brothers when we were kids; forcing anyone in arms length to sit and endure the grainy home-video goodness whether they want to or not. 

If not for the fact that I am still working out a couple of Apple compatibility issues (oh MacBook, how I love thee, and how you betray me on a regular basis) I would show you some video right now!  And it's RIVETING, let me tell you.  So far I have taken video of Lydah walking around, Lydah chasing Sophia, Jill hissing while sitting on the windowsill and then attacking my arm (she is SO pleasant), Cody making a series of increasingly entertaining faces, and a LOT of lake footage.  And as interesting as that was to read about, just imagine watching it.  Just imagine!

Anyway, I am obsessed with my camcorder.  I want to video everything, and have it with me at all possible moments.  I think I am beginning to understand how some people feel about their digital cameras.  I've always wondered what it was that drew people to take photo after photo of a flower, or a field.  But now that I've got my camcorder, I can't help but grab it, press record, and point it straight down at the tile, all to document that right at this very moment, I think I might be standing in dog pee.  Is it pee?  I think it's pee.

Have A Glass Of Wine For Me Today

That title should be a song.  Is it a song?  It just sounds kind of melodic.  Somebody get on that.

Today I am celebrating, because it is the anniversary of the store.  Of store ownership.  Of business ownership.  Of not going completely bankrupt or completely insane (although some may disagree with the latter, but to them I say it was inevitable; perhaps the store brought it on sooner, perhaps not).

Anyway!

Today marks the start of our third year in business.  Cody insists that to mark it as such, I am not being completely forthcoming with myself.  He says it is the store's two year anniversary.  I think that since this is my third July, and will be my third holiday season coming up shortly, it is a glaring shame to not mention the word THREE in there somewhere.  To say TWO, it sounds so much less, like I've hardly done anything really, just two years of all this work.  When no, this is the third time around for all these things! 

And yet, I can't say it is our three year anniversary.  So I have to say vague things like "We're celebrating the start of our third year!" or "Our third year starts today!"

Cody wonders why I can't say the words TWO or SECOND in relation to the event.  I tried to explain it to him using this as an example.  He immediately understood.  Or, at least, he understood that he doesn't understand, but he knows what happens in instances like these, when I am grasping at the last remaining shreds of mental stability, and he insists that I behave rationally.

Because, you see, the thing I didn't explain in that story linked to above was this:  After I completely destroyed my hair with the always-disastrous home hair coloring kit, and after I stared at my hair for what seemed like hours in the mirror, mumbling incoherently, and AFTER I tied my hair up in a scarf to go to sleep, just so that I wouldn't have to look at it anymore and could therefore pretend that it hadn't happened, Cody tried to rationalize with me.

"Why are you sleeping in that scarf?" he asked.

"Because.  I have to.  Don't talk to me about it.  I can't look at my hair," I responded.

"But you'll be sleeping,"  he reasoned.

"I CAN'T!  DON'T MAKE ME TAKE IT OFF!  I CANNOT TAKE IT OFF!"  I screamed, as an insane woman might.

"Ummm....ok.  Why don't we take a deep breath and count to ten?" Cody suggested.

"No!  No....please don't make me count to ten," I begged. 

For some reason, when I get really upset, my brain puts every bit of normal conversation into the "demand" category.  I always end up pleading with people not to make me do whatever it is that they might have just randomly said.  For example, you might say, Elise, I'm hungry.  I think I'll make a sandwich.  And I would respond with something reasonable like Nooooo!  Don't make me eat.  Please don't make me eat a sandwich.  It's lovely.  Wanna hang out sometime?

"Well, let's just count to ten.  Ok?  We're gonna count to ten.  Ready?"  Clearly, we hadn't been married long at this point.

"No!" deep breath "No!!  Noooo.  Ok.  Okaaay..."  I tried to harness my completely out of control brain.

"Good, here we go!  One.....two... count, Elise."

"Threee......f-f-ouuuurr...." at this point I broke down into tears.

"Umm....ok!  That's enough counting!  Uh, Elise?"  Cody had not ever seen me cry, to this point.  And I'm crying about my hair, of all things.  And counting to ten.

So, when I reminded Cody about the hair story, known around these parts as "Remember When You Made Me Count To Ten" he let up on the whole THREE YEAR vs. TWO YEAR thing.  He's gonna let me have it.  And I'm taking the word, and making it mine.  Three.  Third!  Thrice! 

It's much better than two.

So celebrate for me tonight!  Have three drinks.  Or three desserts.  Three of something, anyway.  We all deserve it.

Also, All I Had For A Blanket Was My Discarded Bridesmaid Dress

No more giant fuzzy bangs picture.  Enough of you!

Ahh.  That's better.  Now I've just got to think of something to say.  Actually, I've got plenty to say.  My little brother-in-law, who might as well be my real brother given the sheer amount of time I've spent with him over the past 10 years, got married a little over a month ago.  And then my actual brother got married the following weekend.  And then there was Mardi Gras in Lafayette, and then we went to Galveston and came back home where I painted the chairs a horrible army green and then a darker brown and then a creamy eggnog.  And then I went to Los Angeles for market.  And now I'm back home and I haven't really written about any of that, except for Galveston which, although it was certainly the most relaxing event out of the list, wasn't really the most blogworthy.

Or was it?  (Apparently, yes.  Yes, it was.)

I have been waiting to do my wedding recap posts until I've seen all the pictures from both weddings.  I think we can all agree that weddings aren't nearly as interesting sans-illustration, unless they were disasters and someone left someone at the altar, or someone passed out in the middle of the ceremony,  or a drunk uncle went around groping all the bridesmaids - all things, I would imagine, that you wouldn't really want recorded for all of posterity.  But since nothing like that happened and both weddings were gorgeous and fun, I figured pictures would be the way to go.  Besides, all of the sister-in-laws I've been busily collecting over the past few years are so dadgum cute, it would be a shame not to plaster their cuteness all over the Internet.  Also, I haven't asked permission.  So that's out.

Mardi Gras, well, that was just a big whirlwind of tiredness, since we had just spent the last 4 days in Los Angeles getting ready for, participating in, and somewhat directing the reception of my brother's wedding, and the weekend prior we had spent in Arkansas (yes, Arkansas) participating in my brother-in-law's wedding.  We left the Los Angeles wedding at about 10:30pm on a Saturday night, drove straight to LAX, hopped on a red-eye flight to Lafayette via Houston, and proceeded to Mardi Gras like rockstars.  Except that I am SO not a rockstar, because really, the cross-country party circuit is, well, tiring, and I think it sounds better on paper. 

"Yeah, we partied in Arkansas (replace with cooler state for more impact), and then went straight to Los Angeles for like a week-long party and then took an overnight flight to Lafayette for Mardi Gras and partied there all weekend.  It was wicked, dude."

Instead of:

"Ugh.  This carpet is freaking uncomfortable and it's FREEZING in here.  Do they not know it is 35 degrees out?  Oh, is that the heater going on?  I smell that heater smell.....ahhhh....oh.
(Heat from heater sets off some sort of airport emergency alarm)
Oh no. 
(Ear-splitting noise) 
Make it stop.  I have had no sleep for approximately two weeks, it is 6am, I am lying on the FLOOR of the airport in Houston, and there is an ALARM going off that is rattling the inside of my already hung-over skull.  Do we really have to do Mardi Gras?  Look, if you pull the backpack over your head like this, you can hardly hear the alarm anymore. I think we should just stay here and sleep."

Yeah.  You never hear Paris Hilton saying that.

Oh, How This Post Has Changed

It was meant to be a short little description, followed by a few pictures, and concluded with a question.  That I was hoping would then be answered by you guys. 

Instead, it has turned into something entirely different.  And not good different, or even interesting different.  SUCKY different.  I can't find the cord to attach my camera to my computer.  Well, first, I couldn't even find batteries for the camera.  Have I mentioned before how my camera takes approximately three pictures and then promptly runs out of batteries?  Because it does.

So, I stole batteries out of the thermostat.  Ingenious, really.  And then I set forth to take the pictures I needed so desperately, and then ran into the next room to hurriedly post them to my computer before the batteries ran out.  I had taken at least two pictures, and I knew I didn't have much time at all.  However, upon reaching my computer and grasping inside my camera case for the trusty grey cord of connectivity, I found that the cord was GONE.  Ugh.

I HATE losing things.  Not that I believe anyone really likes to lose things, or chooses to do so, but I really, really hate it.  Cody can attest to this.  He knows when I've lost something, because it always results in a phone call to him with me on the other end of the line sighing dramatically and rolling my eyes so furiously he somehow receives "ANNOYED" through the phone line without me even speaking a word.  This, friends, is a joy of marriage.

Anyway, I rarely lose things.  And when I do lose things, I somehow convince myself that I NEVER lose things.  Therefore, I am always looking to place the blame upon anyone else who might have possibly come in contact with the lost item, at any point in time.  No one is safe from my lightning-quick accusations, not even the cats, or house guests who have moved on many months before.

Poor Cody, he tries to help.  He offers what might seem to any reasonable human to be helpful suggestions, but to me are just tiny barbs of annoyance, all wrapped up in patronization. 

"Have you looked in the closet?  You know, where all those cords are" 

"Um, YES, I have, and the camera cord would NEVER be there unless YOU put it there because I don't just haphazardly throw cords THAT I KNOW I NEED into piles in a CLOSET.  Next?"

"Well, there are a lot of cords up in the theater room, you know by the surround sound, all those cords on the ground?"

"AAARRGGGHHH, I already TOLD YOU, I don't just see a cord and say 'ooh, a cord, I'll just put it where I've seen other cords', I always put the cord back in the CAMERA CASE when I'm done!  Where is it?"

"Look, I really don't see why you're calling me at all.  I already told you I haven't seen the cord; I never use the cord, and now that I am trying to help, all you're doing is getting pissed."

"I DIDN'T LOSE THE CORD.  Did you say I lost the cord?  I didn't lose it!  Maybe (enter name of random friend) took it."

"Have they even BEEN to our house?"

"Well, it was here, and now it's not.  I don't know what ELSE could have happened."

"Here's my new policy, Elise.  When you call me telling me YOU'VE lost something, I'm not going to help at all.  I'm just going to say good luck and hang up the phone"

"Yeah, well, that won't be any less helpful than this conversation has been.  Plus, why do you always make policies?  Anytime you don't like something, you make some new policy about it.  That's annoying."

"Good luck!"  Click.

I actually do think I've lost the stupid cord.  And it's even more annoying, because what should have taken 2 minutes (take a picture, post it to the site) has now taken the better part of an hour and a half.  Luckily, right in the middle of writing this (hand to God, it's true, I really am THIS dumb) I remembered that I have a MacBook, which means I have iSight, which means HA HA, stupid camera cord, I have won.

And here are the pictures:

Now obviously I'll be doing some different seat cushions on the chairs.  The current ones are, well...let's be honest here, they're just plain awful.  But!  That's like the easiest fix ever, and I love buying fabric.  So, fun all around.  However, the finish and stain on the chairs doesn't EXACTLY match the finish and stain of the table.  And I don't really like that, plus, I really DO like dining room sets where the chairs are completely different from the table.  In that vein, I believe we are going to paint the chairs, and the color we are considering is a creamy white with lots of varnish.

But - and here comes the question - do you think that painting is the right choice?  Cody always wants to paint wood; if he doesn't like the color of wood even a tiny bit, his ready solution is to paint.  I am what you might call more of a wood purist.  I'll always opt to stain or refinish (unfortunately not really an option on these chairs, as they already have a pretty heavy finish on the existing stain) rather than go for the full-fledged paint job, because unless it's really necessary or you're REALLY FREAKING sure that's what you want, once it's painted, it's painted.  Done.  Finito.  Better like the white varnished chairs, because your only option now is another color varnished chair, and if I can't even decide for sure on white then how will I pick ANOTHER color if I hate it, and oh no, am I making a mistake?

Help.