Love and Marriage

Nearly 12 years ago SOB and I got married. I pretty much knew when I was 17 that it was going down like that, but we were respectable and waited until we were 23 and 24. It was a fun day, but not without it's faults. At the time, I had a lot of anxiety, and the medication I was taking made me quite zombie-like. When I look back on our wedding photos, all I see is a girl with a blank, vaguely pleasant looking face on. Good, but not great. See below for an example, plus a photo of all of my lovely bridesmaids! 

Additionally, and this may ruffle a few feather so consider yourself warned, there was a large part of me that wasn't too thrilled with our catholic wedding ceremony. At the time I was recently graduated from a Jesuit university, but for years I had been having doubts about the faith in which I was raised. I just wasn't sure what I believed in anymore. I knew, however, that I believed in this relationship with SOB, and so it didn't matter to me where we got married. 

As time went on, though, I really began to think more and more about catholicism, and religion in general. I spent the better part of a decade thinking about it. I spoke with clergy, the priest who married us in fact, about my ambivalence towards religion. I spoke with therapists. I spoke with friends. I spoke with family. I spoke with the man to whom I had committed my life. Finally, after many, many years of literal soul searching, I finally came to the realization that I was an atheist. 

SOB had kind of been there all along, just waiting for me to catch up. He never once tried to sway me to the "dark side", but there I ended up just the same. 

A few months ago, by some serendipitous chance of fate, in the two minutes I get alone in the car I heard Penn Jillette on the radio. He was talking about a crowd funding project that he had going on, and as soon as I got home I checked it out. Scrolling through the list of items, I noticed that one of the things up for grabs was to have Penn marry you, or renew your vows. Now you may or may not know this, but Mr. Jillette, besides from being an amazing magician, is also quite the outspoken atheist. Having watched his show Bullshit, having heard various interviews with him, and having read several of his books (two of which are titled God, No! and Every Day Is An Atheist Holiday!) we were fully aware of his godless slant, so to speak. We thought, what a perfect way to renew our vows and shed the shadow of the religious ceremony that had shrouded our union for more than a decade! 40 minutes later it was a done deal.

After a few months of planning and scheduling, the event finally went off this past weekend, and it was everything we could have ever hoped it would be. Thanks to his beautiful and gracious wife Emily, we have a short video of the ceremony. If you are sensitive to swearing or atheism in general, please don't watch. I won't be offend. You might be, though. 

Once before, I have stood with you before family and friends; once again, I take your hand as my partner. I believe in this marriage more strongly than ever. We have evolved and transformed together. We have endured together, laughed together. We are raising a beautiful family together. It is with joy born of experience and trust that I commit myself once again to you.  The best is yet to be.

How Miami Saved My Mental State

SOB and I had a little adults only get away to Miami over the weekend, and boy howdy was it long overdue! Isn't it funny sometimes how you don't even realize how much you need some time away until you're there? It's some sort of survival mechanism to keep you from dipping your young in ketchup and swallowing them whole, I'm sure.

We stayed at The Hotel of South Beach, which was tres chic. And we got to see all of the amazing architecture of the art deco hotels on South Beach. I never left the room without my camera. I think the number of photos I took was roughly equal to the number of cocktails I drank. It was very pretty and a lotta fun, is all I'm saying!

And we got to see some amazing drag queens, which was even more fun than the photos and cocktails, believe you me! Above is the lovely and talented Ms. Noel Leon, and she was beyond. The last thing we did before I left on Sunday was go to Brunchic at Palace, South Beach. I desperately wanted to do this because you'll recall that on our first date we saw the movie The Birdcage. Well, it was filmed at The Carlyle and featured drag queens galore, so I felt like seeing a drag show was necessary above all else. 

We had an amazing 48 hours, and I would go back in a heartbeat, if I didn't have these four lovely little heartbeats here to take care of. Luckily, instead of coming home to weeks and weeks of snow like we did the last time we went to Florida, this time I came home to warm and sunny skies! Which made me feel much less like despairing and more like working on my new garden, which, spoiler alert! is what tomorrow's post will be all about! 

Seventeen

Birdcage

3/16/96

This is the ticket stub from the movie SOB took me to on our very first date. March 16, 1996. We skipped school (I was only a junior in high school at the time, and he was a senior) and we ventured into the city of Pittsburgh. We went to the museum, took in an afternoon movie, and then went to a playground closer to home so that he could drop me off at my bus stop by the end of the school day. I'm pretty sure that no one in my family suspected that I had spent the day being a truant with a boy who made a habit of it, but I wouldn't have cared even if I had gotten caught. We were already friends, and by mid-day I was fairly certain I was madly in love with him. The threat of parental punishment was an afterthought at best.

I still remember so many little details about that day. What I was wearing. The chill in the air. The smell of mud from the park. He didn't kiss me that day, and I was in agony.

Fast forward seventeen years. We've had a typical life trajectory, but most of the time it feels extraordinary to me. I can't even count the number of movies we've seen, or remember how many museums we've been to together, and still a scent on a breeze of a muddy spring day will make my heart flutter like nothing else. I can't imagine that another person exists that could make me feel as happy and loved as he does.

Half of my life so far we've spent together. I can't think of anything I'd like to do more than to spend the rest of it together, too.

Twelve Years Ago...

This was us, December 31, 1999...

This is us, April 30, 2011.

(Please note the: film canister, scrunchy, phone with antenna, in the foreground of the first picture. These are the things that prove we are old.)

This coming year, 2012, will mark our 10th anniversary as a wedded couple. I love you more than I ever have. Every time I look at the faces of our children, I love you more than I did a second ago. Thank you for asking me to marry you, all those years ago.

You're the best...AROUND! And no one's ever gonna bring you down!

Paint and Prejudice

Back in the early part of summer we got some of our deck replaced. Because the deck had been painted in the past, we were going to have to paint the new boards to match. SOB had planned to do the painting himself, but every time he had a few days off to complete the project, it would rain like a mother. After several weekends and even an entire vacation week rained out, we called a painter. A guy and his crew came over and painted like crazy for two days, and now we have a painted deck.

While they were here, we got to thinking. A large majority of the wall space in our house is painted
yellowgold. I'm sure I mentioned this before, but some previous owner of this house was a MEGA WVU fan. Most of the upstairs is WVU
yellowgold and the carpet, which we had ripped up right before Fred was born, was blue. There were blue ceiling fans, even. Now the
yellowgold isn't objectively horrifying, but it's not great. Also, as a photographer, it really sucks. In my kitchen, everyone looks like they have cirrhosis of the liver. Even babies:

A grey card helps, but not entirely.

We inquired about the cost of painting over all of the
yellowgold and found that it wasn't nearly as expensive as we expected. But. BUT! There is always a 'but', isn't there? They wanted to do the job ASAP, so we had to pick out paint colors right quick.

Now, we had our bedroom painted not long after we moved in, and I'll just say that there are still some very raw, unsettled feelings about those colors. In summary, I don't like the colors SOB picked and SOB blames me for giving him the go-ahead on those colors, and we can't talk about this without things ending badly, so we just don't. ever. talk. about. it. Needless to say, I wasn't optimistic about our ability to select paint colors for 50% of our house without it coming to blows in the aisles of Lowe's. However, colors needed to be agreed upon. Luckily, we have a lovely and intelligent babysitter who suggested that we paint some patches of the wall to see how different colors might look. With that in mind, we set off to Lowe's with a spring in our steps.

We came home with four rather beige paint samples, which worked out perfectly. You see, in our kitchen we have four large framed portraits of the kids, all hanging on the same wall. I took down the pictures and painted four beige squares, two of my choosing and two chosen by SOB.

Mine are on the right, and SOB's are on the left. He argued that mine were too pink, and I countered that his were too grey. Things were off to a rocky beginning. However, two days later we were back at Lowe's to give it another try.

This mish-mash of colors had some we liked and some we hated. BUT! We were making headway on coming to a consensus. It was really eye opening to see how different the colors looked in the light of our actual home. On the cards, colors that looked almost identical were wildly different in tone. After one final trip to Lowe's, here are the four colors we ended up with:

The two mid-tone colors are going to cover the bulk of the walls, and the lightest and darkest will be accent colors. All told, we went through thirteen paint samples to end up with these. And the best part? The fucking names of these thirteen nearly identical shades of beige:

Hopsack

Moose Mousse

Desert Fortress

Woodrow Wilson Putty

Mesa Tumbleweed

Holmes Cream

Balance

Oatbran

Lovely Bluff

Cream In My Coffee

Cliveden Leather

Lyndhurst Gallery Beige

Sand Storm

(A major award will be given to the person that correctly identifies the four shades we selected.)

The painters came on Friday to mask and tape, and the real painting begins first thing this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it through this with our marriage intact!

Love, Marriage and Georgia

So the wedding went well. The bride was lovely, as expected. And her groom was delighted in her loveliness.

My girls were lovely, as well.

Lucy, in particular, really held it together well. Until she didn't. But it was 8pm by then, and we called it a day. We literally had to drag her out, kicking and screaming, but when it mattered she was a peach!

I made it through the day in my dress without any major incidents, i.e. no nipple slips. Freddie did dribble a little milk on my dress, but I just held my flowers in front of my left boob and no one noticed!

The next morning, SOB, Freddie and I headed south to Savannah, where we had tea...

And met Paula Dean...

Or a reasonable facsimile of her.

And walked and walked and walked. Seriously, I pushed Fred over at least eight miles of Savannah sidewalk. Which hopefully made up for the meal we ate a Paula Dean's! SOB had a conference, so during the day when he was stuck inside a stoopid convention center I hit the streets with babe and camera.

Freddie was an exceptional travelling companion. He was an angel on the planes, slept well at the hotel and was generally sweet and adorable. Just about everyone I encountered on the street had something sweet to say about him.

I haven't been back to Georgia since we left the ATL. Even though I was rather disenchanted with the south when we left, this trip reminded me of why I wanted to live there in the first place. It was hard to leave, and if three of my kids weren't here waiting for me I may have accidentally missed my plane. But home we came, relaxed and happy, and already looking forward to our next trip back.

Hopeless Romantics

Because SOB and I are so, so in love, on Valentine's day we went shopping for the most romantic things you could imagine. No, not sexy outfits or jewelry, silly! Counter tops and exercise equipment of course! Aren't those the items that instantly come to mind when thinking about our national holiday for love and romance? No? Really?

Well, let me tell you something. Watching your husband demolish counter tops can have a titillating effect. Unfortunately, my father was his co-worker, so any excitement I may have been feeling was pretty much squashed. And even if it hadn't been, my husband won't come within 40 yards of me at this point in my pregnancy, so it was probably better for me that my dad's presence dampened my libido.

Anyway, starting on Monday evening, with the help of pry bars, saws and brute strength, most of my kitchen looks like this:

I say most because my loving husband (and father) spared me the pain of removing the section of my counter with the sink. While I can tolerate the idea of no sink, i.e. no water (and no dishwasher) in my kitchen for a prolonged period of time, the later we can postpone the dry spell the better. So the sink goes Friday morning. Tell me that isn't romantic?

And if the sight of this beauty in your basement doesn't get you all hot under the collar, well, then you should get checked out by a licensed physician. I can't wait to get all sweaty and worked up on this bad boy!

Here's hoping your manufactured romantic holiday was a lovely as mine!

Almost There...

Six more weeks to go

Who Says Romance is Dead?

The following is a transcript of text messages exchanged between me and my husband this morning.

--

Me: Happy anniversary. First! Lubya!

Him: Happy anniversary. I can't believe you first-ed me.

Me: You know it!

Him: Lubya.

--

Eight years of marriage and going strong.

The Cosmic Salad Bowl of Love

SOB and I have been together practically forever. I've known him since middle school, we started dating in high school and we moved in together after my freshman year in college. While none of our parents were super-duper happy about our living arrangements, money talks. SOB had to get an apartment when he came to Philly for school, so it was likely we would end up unofficially co-habituating while my parents paid for an empty dorm room. Thus, apartment 1004 at The Iroquois became our first little love nest.

After a year in a one bedroom on the 10th floor we moved a few blocks away to a two bedroom in a basement. A few weeks after we moved in hurricane Floyd hit and our little basement paradise flooded. We had to toss a few hand-me-down rugs and an old Ikea chair, but it could have been worse. We were in love, after all.

This was all taking place during SOB's first two years of medical school, which meant he was kee-razy busy studying. He received a small loan stipend for living expenses, but it barely covered our rent. In order to do things like eat and drive I had to work. Luckily, I have always been a great multi-tasker. I baby sat, waited tables and ultimately ended up working as a tech in an environmental lab. Starting at $9 per hour, we though we hit the jackpot. Remember this was in 1998. Three months after I started working there, the two other employees quit, making me the de facto boss of the lab. I parlayed this into a raise and a part time position for SOB, who would frequently come in with me on the weekends to help.

Despite our sweet jobs, we were still broke. Not 'getting evicted' broke, but 'occasionally not having enough money for laundry' broke. The early stages of our relationship had moved along quickly, and while we always talked about getting married, getting engaged was going to be a tough considering our lack of funds.

Unbeknownst to me, SOB had been researching some odd jobs. Namely, he had been looking into signing up for medical research. Having two years of med school under his belt, he knew better than to sign up for drug trials or anything else that might have had serious side effects. Luckily, he found a nice, safe study on light and melatonin. Every Wednesday night he would drive into center city around midnight, get a little vial of blood drawn, sit in a dark room for two hours, get a little more blood drawn, then he would sit and stare into a bowl of light. He called it the cosmic salad bowl, and each week the color of the light was different. After two hours and another blood draw he was finished. He got paid $20 each night, but if he completed the entire 12 week study he got a bonus that brought his total to about $1,200.

I bet you can see where this is going. When the researchers decided to do a second round, SOB volunteered again. And then again for the third round. Some of the money had to go towards books, bills and keeping us housed but he managed to squirrel away enough to buy me a ring after three sessions at the cosmic salad bowl. It wasn't huge or flashy, but it was perfect. He proposed on New Year's Eve, 1999, which was very out of character for him. He had always said he was going to propose to me on a random Tuesday in November or something, so I was quite surprised to find him down on one knee. We were already having a party that night, so we were able to celebrate and share the news with friends. It was a magical evening.

Years later I still wear that same ring. Some people I know have upgraded their engagement diamond or gotten a new ring all together, but I would never dream of such a thing. After all, it was paid for by the cosmic salad bowl of love, and that you can't put a price on.

Seven

Seven years ago today we arrived at this little cottage for our honeymoon. It's just a few blocks up the street and one street back, and it's called Felber. We spent five days doing a lot of the same things we're doing now: relaxing, walking on the beach, eating. SOB is drinking some beer, which I am obviously not doing, but that's ok. Last night we went to dinner, and I had wet hair and a bare face, and that's ok, too. We have a few more little people running underfoot this time around, and that's more than ok. 

Seven years doesn't seem that long in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like we've known each other our entire lives. It's hard to remember a time in my life when he wasn't with me. I even sometimes insert him into my memories, and when he corrects me, I'm flabbergasted. 

Here's to at least seven times seven more years of walking on the beach together. 

First Date

This weekend SOB and I are going to celebrate the 13th anniversary of our first date. We can't actually remember the exact date, but sometime during the third year we were together we settled on the 16th of March. It's funny because I remember so much about that day, but I can't remember the exact date. I remember it was a Wednesday, so according to this March 1996 calendar it was either the 13th or the 20th. The 16th splits the difference, so that works for me.

I was a junior in high school at the time, and SOB was a big, bad senior. And when I say bad I mean that. Despite being ranked second in his class, he almost didn't graduate because of all of the tardies and missed days he racked up that year. He forged his parents' signatures and pretty much never came to school unless he had a test. Most of his teachers knew about his bad habits, but because of his charm and high GPA, he was given a lot of leeway. 

We actually skipped school together on our first date. I was kind of a newbie at the whole school skipping thing, so he had to give me explicit instructions so that I didn't get caught. I snuck out through the exit down by the art room and the shop room, where he waited for me in his 1978 sky blue dodge aspen station wagon. We drove into Pittsburgh, up to Oakland where the University of Pittsburgh is located, and decided what we were going to do over coffee at the now defunct Bee Hive cafe. It was only 8:30 in the morning, so not much else was open. 

At 10am, we made our way into the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where I remember being totally entranced in the hall of minerals and gems. We took in some of the dinosaur bones and then headed out for lunch. After we ate we went to see The Birdcage. Because we were supposed to be at academic team practice after school, he couldn't take me home too early so we went to a ginormous state park and played at the playground. I had never jumped off of the swings before, and decided that today was going to be the day. Of course I fell in the mud and had to make up an elaborate story explaining how I got so muddy at school. The story which involved a three foot strip of earth that divided the school's parking lot from the main drive, and I have no idea why anyone on earth believed me, but they did. He drove me home, and not even two hours later he was on my front porch again. That night we had our first kiss. 

(I'm not sure if we even confessed to these misdeeds, so if my mother is reading this she might be surprised. But they can't be mad at me now. I married the guy and had/am having his kids, so grand kids should make up for the lying we did 13 years ago, right?)

Tomorrow we're heading our for an afternoon flick and a late lunch. I'm hoping that we'll end the day with a kiss, just as sweet and warm as the first. 

Just the Two Of Us

New post up over at Philly Moms! It's all about me and my original baby. Check it out. 

Breakfast of Champions

The other day I was perusing the cereal isle at the grocery store. I noticed that the Fiber One brand is now making a high fiber version of pop tarts and that made me squeal a little on the inside. Why? Because now I can buy pop tarts for myself without feeling guilty or pretending they are for my kids. Even those organic ones from Trader Joe's still make me a little guilty. Moving on! So I picked up the brown sugar cinnamon version and headed home. 

The next morning I indulged in my sweet little fibrous treat. Pretty tasty overall. They don't hold a candle to the s'mores ones, but still not bad. All was well until about 12 hours later. Now I get plenty of fiber in my diet already, but I guess this extra little bolus was rather, um, productive. At least in the noise and smell department. I didn't connect the dots, however, and the next morning I popped another two into the toaster. 

Last night the light bulb finally went on over my head. And SOB's, too. And right after that, he decided we couldn't sleep in the same bedroom. 

This morning I contemplated the two remaining 'fart' tarts, the nickname we came up with last night. But since SOB is going to be working late, I said 'fuck it' and threw them in the toaster! 

Moral of the story? Don't come visiting me tonight! 

Love Is...

Going to dinner with someone you love so much you don't even have to wear spanx. That's the kind of relationship you have after twelve years. I couldn't be happier! 

Curfew

Last weekend I finally caved under years worth of pressure and permitted SOB to buy a television for our bedroom. Why? It's hard to say. It's only been in our room for nine days and I already hate it. I guess that I knew it would make him happy. Plus the prospect of zapping on an episode of Sesame Street when those those kids of ours get up super-early on Saturday mornings doesn't hurt. 

But the main reason I am regretting this decision is that almost every night for the past week and a half we've gone to bed over a hour later than usual. Wait, that's not entirely true. We physically go to bed at the same time as before, but we stay up later since we usually flip on the tube. I'm not a person who can fall asleep while the TV is on, but SOB is. What then happens is that I end up staying awake watching a show he wanted to see in the first place. I'm not the one dying to see the new episode of Mythbusters, but I usually end up watching it twice because SOB fell asleep during the initial viewing. The end result is  that I end up seeing the eleven o'clock hour tick by, and then I'm tired as hell the next day.

Yesterday I laid down the law. The TV must be off by ten o'clock. Nine thirty would be better. This will probably require some planning in order to get us in bed early enough to view certain programs. If that means that we have to physically be in bed while the sun is still out, so be it. 

Besides, spending more time in bed could be useful...