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Because right there in the middle of the parking lot outside of the sushi restaurant where we just had eaten lunch, he gave me a long, passionate kiss and hugged me tight. He then stared at my head and asked me how many new gray hairs I have after last night's incident with my daughter.
It was just yesterday when I mentioned that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in regard to my daughter, Casey. And today she underscored that point by acting all of 13 and trying to pull the wool over my eyes. How dare she! Doesn't she know that I was the master of deception when I was her age and that I KNOW EVERYTHING?
Right now, I'm really tired of being a mother. REALLY TIRED. I would pay good money for a long vacation from parenting. I'm 37 years old and I've been doing this since I was sixteen years old. I know I started young and all, but nearly 21 years of parenting HAS DRIVEN ME CRAZY. I find myself longing for the silence and stillness that's in this house when she's visiting her father or a friend for the weekend. I long for days where there is no homework to be checked, no allowance to be dispersed, no punishments to be handed out and no CRAP to deal with. I'm so very irritated about all of it. THIS WASN'T IN THE MANUAL! I want my money back!
No, I didn't believe her when she told me she was outside sitting right where I could see her when I actually WENT OUTSIDE TO FIND HER, CALLED HER NAME AND SHE DIDN'T ANSWER.
No, I didn't believe that she was on the phone because I PICKED UP THE PHONE AND GOT DIAL TONE! Ha!
And what's worse... WHO THE HELL WAS DRIVING THAT CAR she got out of? LEAVE MY DAUGHTER ALONE! Don't you know that she's not even 14 years old yet?
And for the eternal, life-long question that I know I will never be able to answer: HOW DID MY MOTHER HANDLE ME WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER? Dear God, the woman should be showered with gifts.
My son wasn't an easy child to deal with when he was a teenager, but the worries that come along with having a daughter who is a teenager (and who looks far older than her years, mind you) far outweigh the worries I had with him. Boys are easier. Boys are stupid and will do things right in front of your face. Girls, on the other hand, will nod and smile and tell you they understand the rules and then will go behind your back to break them. AS IF.
During the next segment of my life, after my daughter reaches the age of maturity, is to lavish myself with exotic trips around the world and get the hell out of dodge. I don't want to deal with any child-related problems. I just want a vacation, and I intend to take one. Calgon, where are you?
And maybe I owe my mother more than I realize as well.
Tuesday morning is the day I weigh. There's no governing body that says I should do this except my own. And folks, I'm proud to report that as of this morning, I have lost 13.5 pounds during the last four weeks.
Yay me!
Now, it's off to Chick-Fil-A for lunch! :)
Today I went to my daughter's school to pick up her report card and to participate in a student-led parent conference. During this conference, she had to follow a script and read aloud to me all the different things the teachers wanted her to say about the assignments and the grading system they used. Essentially, we reviewed all her schoolwork for the past semester, talked about her strengths and weaknesses and even had a moment or two to chat with her teachers about what a social butterfly my daughter is.
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," I assured her science teacher after he mentioned that Casey could be making an A in his class if she would just shut up and listen during class. WHAT A CONCEPT!
"She gets it honestly, you know" I said. "She comes from a long line of talkers, and it's always been hard to get any of us to be shut up when we're supposed to."
"Oh, well that explains it," said the science teacher. He then turned to my daughter and continued, "Now I know where you get that sarcasm of yours, too."
Can't. Stop. Reading. Blogs.
When I'm in the bathroom doing my business and make unexpected noises, he cheers me on and tells me I'm doing a good job.
When Jon and I moved in together last year, I had no idea it would be one of the hardest things I had ever done. I went from my comfortable and sparsely furnished 1600 square foot house and moved into his 1300 square foot town home that doubled as a storage unit. Never in my life have I met someone with SO MUCH STUFF. I knew it wouldn't be easy to integrate my stuff with his (including my daughter), but I never anticipated the difficulty it would bring to our relationship.
First of all, I'm a pretty strong-willed person. I know how I like things, and I know how I want things. And I've always had things the way I like and want them. Problem with that now is that Jon is exactly the same way. He is stronger willed than me (hard to imagine!), and has only had to share his space with roommates or his previous wife, but never with kids. And the difference with the previous wife is that she was more compliant than I. I don't go down without a fight (let's not go there, you dirty minded people!), and so as soon as we moved in together and I started making suggestions about how we should arrange this or that, the problems began.
There are times when I am mega frustrated with the layout of his townhome in general. It's three floors of poorly planned space, and some of those spaces just aren't conducive to there being furniture in the room. What the fuck were the builders thinking, I often wonder. And given that I didn't have a lot of decent furniture anyway, I ended up selling the stuff that I did have and decided that living with Jon's furniture would be the best bet. Problem with that is that I hate his furniture as much as I hated the stuff I had, so I went from having crap to having more crap. I never had a chance at being satisfied with the furnishings! But in the spirit of wanting to make this marriage work, I bit the bullet and decided to just live with what we had until we got to a place where we could get new things.
I've noticed, however, that the house tends to give off this air of uber-bachelorness. And I haven't been quiet about this. So Jon has been working hard to help me arrange things in ways that make me happier and help me feel more like the space is also mine. Together, we've cleared out some of the clutter and rearranged furniture. There is talk of renting a storage unit so that we can move some of the boxes and currently unused belongings there. Just yesterday, we invested in a corner fish aquarium and stand that actually looks decent in our living room. We're also talking about finally going to purchase that entertainment center that I've wanted for so long. Things are coming together!
I guess the difference now, after a year of living together, is that we both seem to be on the same page. Now that my house is sold and I have a bit of extra money each month, we've been working hard to pay down our debt. We talk a lot about the things we want, and we're starting to make plans towards that end. I'm feeling more stable in the environment, even if all the clutter leaves me feeling from time to time like I'm just a visitor in someone else's house. I'm very happy at just being with him in the space we have together, because our life together feels right.
So now I know that it's not about the space as much as it is about the feeling of comfort and contentment of what is in it. As long as Jon is there, I'm going to be happy. Isn't that what the feeling of home is about anyway?
It doesn't look like the picture I took in (of course it doesn't!), but I'm satisfied with the cut and the ability of my natural curl to return. And I bet if I curled it with a curling iron and stood in front of a fan that it would look more like it. At least a little, anyway.
Mark this down as the first time in recent memory that I've had a hair cut that I actually like.
I just scheduled an appointment to have my hair cut tomorrow. A girlfriend of mine had hers cut like this today, and I've decided that 1) my hair is long enough that I can actually have it cut to look like this, 2) it would be nice to find a style that would allow me to enjoy some of the natural curl that currently drives me nuts, and 3) Ashley Judd is just too damn perfect. If she were fat or something, I'd probably like her a lot more than I do now. Because we all know that you can walk into a salon with a picture in hand and say, "Make my hair look like this!" but it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll walk out looking like that. I'd just settle for hair that is less flat, has more style and is easy to manage.
We'll see.
Jon gets MAJOR BROWNIE POINTS for this. And oh how he loves those!
"Can you believe that instead of showing the The Bachelor on TV tonight that they are showing the presidential debate? I mean, come on! Who cares about the stupid debate?"
. . .
yes, because pseudo-reality tv is SO MUCH BETTER.
need. new. job.
We had a fabulous time at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and I wish it was still the weekend so we could meander around like we did, tossing money about as if we were rich without a care in the world. We spent a lot of money, but what's more important is that we had a good time. So many freaks! So much food on a stick! It was truly amazing, as always.
We saw The Rogues perform a couple of times. When we first heard them a few years ago, I wasn't much into bagpipe bands. I mean, come on.. BAGPIPES. That was a hard sell to a girl who listens to alt rock most of the time. But this band has grown on me over the years as Jon has randomly played their music over and over, and I found myself looking forward to seeing them perform. They were awesome, as expected, and we bought their Made in Texas CD and companion DVD. Oddly enough, on the drive home I opened up their DVD only to find that there was no DVD inside. Today, I wrote them and explained the situation, so I'm hopeful that they'll send us another one soon. Whatever the case, they rock! Who ever thought bagpipes could rock?
To enhance the whole renaissance faire going experience, I splurged and bought an outfit! There's not a lot to it, really, but I feel much more like part of the crowd when I'm wearing renaissance garb. It's also sorta neat to have your boobs pushed up and out like they are supposed to be. Being the boob man that he is, Jon really enjoyed it, and when I asked him what he thought of my outfit as I emerged from the dressing room all dressed up, he replied with, "I'm erect." What a great response! How could I NOT buy the outfit then, you know?
Here's Jon showing his appreciation for my purchase:
The outfit itself is pretty simple, and I hope that when we go to the North Carolina Renaissance Faire in a couple of weeks that I can dress it up even more. Yay! More Boobs! More husbandly boob adoration!
As for the camping experience, the cabin at the KOA campground made it so it felt like we weren't camping at all, except for those times we had to trek across the campgrounds to use the bathroom. Other than that, it was nice to return to the cabin and fall onto the semi-comfortable mattress and relax after a long day of walking around. We will definitely do the whole cabin thing again!
More pictures of the Maryland faire can be found here.
On Sunday, we headed out of the Annapolis area and towards DC. We made our way without trouble to Union Square (thanks Kevin!) and took the Metro to the Smithsonian station. From there, we walked down the National Mall by the Washington Monument, by the World War II Memorial, by the Reflecting Pool and towards the Lincoln Memorial. Jon had never been there before, and the last time I was there was when I was a Girl Scout many, many years ago! So, we enjoyed being all touristy and taking lots of pictures. We made our way back to our car at Union Station within a couple of hours and headed south on 95 for the ride home.
Pictures of our Washington visit can be found here.
What a great weekend!
It seems that I have caught a cold that my daughter had last week, so all week I've been sniffling and sneezing and coughing and wheezing. It sucks to be plagued with an unusual amount of mucous (I had to look that word up because after typing mucus, mucuos and mucuous I realized that I had no clue and it probably would have been easier just to type "snot"...). But why am I talking about this anyway? Oh yeah, well the thing is, Jon and I are going to Maryland this weekend to attend the Maryland Renaissance Festival and I'm a bit peeved that I'm walking around with this virus in my system. I never get sick, but leave it to me to get sick the one time we decide to go out of town since this summer. Ugh.
I'm quite looking forward to the faire; it's been three years since we last went to the one in Maryland. Last time, we took his truck and stayed at a nearby KOA campground. Thing is, we didn't really have camping equipment, so we winged it and slept in the back of his truck on a makeshift bed made with a huge piece of cardboard (to cover the uneven bottom of the truck bed) and several thick quilts. Jon has a camper shell on his truck and had taken the extra time to seal it with a waterproof sealant in case it rained. And he even brought a heavy extension cord, some lights and a little fan so we could plug up to our AC outlet at the site and have electricity. It was all very contrived, but it worked out rather well, especially considering that it rained like hell the night we arrived. Boy did it rain. I remember lying in the back of his truck with a light on, both of us looking around for signs of leakage. And oh was there leakage. It made me giggle incessantly at how stupid we must have looked to the campers near us in their luxury RVs and such. But I doubt I would have remembered the trip as well had we not been camping in such a manner.
We enjoyed that visit so much that we're returning to the same KOA campground this year, but this time we've rented a cabin, complete with AC and a bed. We made our plans more than a couple of months ago and decided that we'd prefer to be able to relax a bit more than we did last time after a long day of walking around the faire. We're even taking a cooler full of drinks and snacks so that we don't have to go to the store like we did last time for the basic necessities. We are prepared! We'd earn badges of merit if we were in a scouting group.
One of the cool things about this trip is that my long-time friend Todd and his wife Jackie will be meeting me and Jon at the faire. Todd and I had been trying to figure out when and where we could get together for a visit since they live in New Jersey and we're in North Carolina, but we weren't able to figure anything out until I mentioned that Jon and I were planning on going to Maryland. It worked out well since they've never been to a renaissance faire. We've been to plenty and find ourselves looking forward to seeing The Rogues perform, as this is the only faire we attend where they perform. And I also look forward to eating a giant turkey leg. It doesn't get much better than that! Good friends! Good music! Good eatin'! Huzzah!
On Sunday, we're planning on stopping back through Washington, DC because Jon wants to see the Lincoln Memorial. As dull as that may sound to some, it excites me. I love to travel and see things, even if I've seen them before! Oddly enough, on our last trip to the Annapolis area, we drove home and exited off of the highway and into DC for a quick peek at whatever we could see from the car. I snapped pictures as we drove and was slightly disappointed that we didn't stop to see more.
Less than two weeks later was 9/11, and I remember having this eerie feeling that I had just been in our nation's capital and wasn't it weird that I had just taken pictures in the area? Okay, so it wasn't that weird, but it definitely left me with a weird feeling. This time, we're planning on stopping and walking the National Mall and taking lots of pictures of everything we can see.
It should be a good weekend overall, assuming I keep the sneezing and wheezing in check and we travel safely. It's nice to have something to look forward to.
Last week, I joined a group at a local Curves that was participating in the Curves Diet Challenge. You basically are given information on what to eat and why and are asked to follow a particular diet for a six week period. Along the way you move from one phase to another and get measured, all while making journal-like entries into a book to chart your progress in regard to your physical, mental and spiritual well-being.
Tonight was the second meeting, and we were able to share our results with the other participants. I have lost seven (7!) pounds since last Tuesday, more than anyone else in the group. For the first time in my life, I was more than happy to be called THE BIG LOSER.
Yay me!
Confession time: I didn't do the journal stuff. And I didn't really follow their suggested diet. I hate being told what to do. But I avoided processed carbs, ate a lot of protein-rich foods, ate more vegetables than I usually do and drank a shitload of water. Oh, and I exercised as usual (walking, aerobics and Curves workouts). So essentially I think I just enjoy the motivation that being in that group setting gives me.
The only thing now that I'm working on is my internal dialogue about myself. And that will take a lot longer than six weeks to achieve.
So I've finally managed (again) to get Moveable Type installed and up and running. Naturally, however, I don't like using the standard template and will hopefully in the next few days or week be changing the template and applying it to the site. There is so much that I don't yet understand about this system that I've read about and have seen in action; I figure I'll get there soon enough.
I'd like to add a picture or two on a regular basis, along with several different categories for different types of entries, including perhaps some of the older stuff from 1997-2003. I'd like for it to be less blog-like and more personal. I sometimes really miss the good ol' days before blogs. But hey, I guess I just need to go with the flow.
In the meantime, I'm back. And hopefully this time I'll stick around a little while longer.
