Setting the Bar Too High?

I have to admit, I've been a very spoiled lady lately.   I've received flowers from my fiance no less than three times in the last month and a half.  Now before you go thinking that he did something wrong and was doing a "mea culpa", let me just say that he was not in trouble when these flowers arrived and, to the best of my knowledge, had not done anything wrong that required advanced heart softening before I found out.  I am just a very lucky girl whose in love with a very florally expressive man.  In other words, he likes to say it with flowers.

 

On Valentine's Day, these were delivered to my work by the local florist via van
and delivered to my classroom by the school secretary on foot.

I once wrote in a blog, back in my single days, that I was a little jealous of all the girls at work who got flowers delivered on Valentine's Day.  My honey took that little tidbit of information and tucked it away in his steel trap of a brain for safe keeping until last month.  On Valentine's Day, in the middle of math class, my instruction was interrupted by a knock on the door.  The knock was immediately followed by the school secretary entering with a vase full of roses and carnations.  She was all smiles as she handed me the flowers and told me that somebody must love me an awful lot.  My students were suitably impressed and oohed and ahhed while I read the card.  They also awwwed me as I finished reading with a huge smile on my face and a little tear in the corner of one eye. What can I say?  My honey is exceedingly good at expressing his mushy feelings both verbally and in writing.  Like I said, I'm a lucky girl.  It was a very pleasant, though not entirely unexpected surprise.

Throughout the day, friends and colleagues stopped by to see my flowers and tell me how beautiful they were.  I had conversations with two friends that day about getting Valentine's and flowers.  Both had been married for many years and smiled at my flowers while lamenting their lack of flowers.  The first friend told me that in the early years of her marriage, when her family's budget was tighter, she'd made the mistake of fussing at her husband for spending too much money on flowers one Valentine's Day.  He had taken that as a license to refrain from getting her flowers ever again and she's been kicking herself for the remark ever since.

The second friend, my church's choir director, e-mailed me asking me if I could show up early for choir practice later that night.  I'd teasingly replied that sure I could, it wasn't like I really needed to spend time with my fiance on Valentine's Day or anything.  She immediately apologized and told me she'd completely forgotten it was Valentine's Day.  I told her that if she didn't know it was Valentine's Day, then her husband needed to step up his game.  She laughed and then shared that since her husband had been in the Navy for twenty years and in the submarine service (and not home) for several of those years, they'd gotten in the habit of celebrating holidays and birthdays when it was convenient.  However, since he'd been retired from the Navy for many years now, she agreed that it might be time for him to start remembering Valentine's Day in a timely manner again.

These conversations got me wondering.  Do the flowers some day just stop?  When life gets busy with kids and carpools or work and travel does the romance go out of a relationship?  I sure hope not, but as I'm rather new in the land of love, how would I know?  But those were thoughts to ponder a few years down the road, if I needed to ponder them at all.  When I got home that night, my honey had a card, candy, and jewelry waiting for me.  He bought me a gorgeous amethyst necklace.  Romance didn't seem to be in any danger of disappearing from our lives any time soon.

The next round of flowers came just this last week as we celebrated the one year anniversary of our first date.  Can you believe it's been a year already?  The friend who introduced us couldn't believe it had only been a year.  He introduced us in September of 2011, but my honey was slightly slow moving in the game of love and didn't ask for my number until New Year's and then didn't ask me out until March.  Everything is meant to happen in its own time, I guess.  We unintentionally created a week-long anniversary celebration.  Last Sunday, I took my honey out for a fine dining anniversary lunch.  It was a little extravagant, but very romantic, and worth every penny in my opinion.  My honey had arranged to recreate our first date by getting us tickets to the Caps game, but as there was no game on our actual anniversary (Wednesday), we would be going the day after.  Then, Mother Nature decided to intervene, though we still aren't sure if she was intervening on our behalf or working against us. 

Monday morning, the local weathermen were calling for some snow on our anniversary.  We went to the store to stock up on a few perishables and called it good.  By Monday night, they were calling for accumulating snow.  Other than hoping D.C. had cleared the streets in time for us to drive in for the hockey game, we weren't worried.  By Tuesday, they were calling for up to a foot of snow on our anniversary and my honey nervously ran to the store for bread, milk, TP, and...flowers.

Are roses the new snowstorm essential?

Unbeknownst to me, my honey had arranged for flowers to be delivered to me at work on our anniversary.  But, with snow threatening to bury the region, the chances that I would be at school to receive them were looking slim to none.  So, he ran out the night before and grabbed a dozen roses at the supermarket.  He told me that he had to make sure I had flowers on our anniversary.  Isn't he sweet? 

On the morning of our anniversary, we awoke to find maybe an inch of snow on the ground.  School was closed and my honey's employer was offering liberal leave to all non-essential employees.  However, my honey is considered essential personnel.  At least one person from his office has to report to work and it's usually him as his office mate lives across the bridge and always has commuting issues in inclement weather.  He was getting really bummed about going in to work on a day where nothing would be going on and then battling snow and traffic to come home and shovel out a parking space.  Wow, it sounds awful when you say it out loud like that!  At the time, I just thought he was annoyed because I would be home and he'd have to go to work.   But, miraculously, his colleague from across the bridge volunteered to be the one to go in as the Eastern shore wasn't supposed to get much snow at all.

So, I guess Mother Nature interevened so we could spend the whole day together on our anniversary.  But, the joke was on my honey, as the snow never showed and it rained all day.  He took much ribbing at work the following day for staying home because of heavy rain showers and was repeatedly asked if he'd enjoyed his anniversary celebrations.  Oh well.  We did enjoy our anniversary day off, thank you very much.  My honey made me a world class meal and we got to snuggle all day.  Feel free to define snuggle any way you want to define it.

The following day at work the florist delivered the flowers that had been intended to arrive on our anniversary.  They were gerbera daisies, my favorite flowers, and they were gorgeous!

These arrived on the "better late than never" policy.

A different secretary brought these flowers up to my room, the friend who'd lamented making a comment about her husband spending too much on flowers.  She brought them up and stayed to see me unpack the flowers from the 1-800-Flowers box, as well as watch me read the card.  She told me she wanted to see if I teared up again when I read the card.  Apparently, the girls in the office talked about my reaction to flowers on Valentine's Day.  I got teary eyed, of course.  I told you he was good at expressing himself florally and in writing!  Then, my friend made a comment that caught me off guard.  She had seen the picture of my roses posted on Facebook and now the daisies arrival.  She asked me, "Don't you think he's setting the bar a little high?  He's never going to be able to keep this up."

I don't know if it's been set too high or not, so I'm throwing the question out to you, my dear readers. 

Has my honey set the bar so high this year that he won't be able to maintain it over time? 

Am I doomed for a let down in a year? Five years? A decade?

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

Five Months to "I Do!" and So Busy I Missed A Month, Too

You are cordially invited...

 

I've been so busy with work and wedding planning that I completely forgot to post a Six Months to "I Do!" blog last month.  I've accomplished tons in the last two months, but it's left me with very little down time.  Any night where I'm not working on grading papers or planning some part of the wedding, I grab my fiance for some quality time or a date night.  Blogging just hasn't been very high on my to-do list.  I'm sorry, dear readers.

Here are some highlights from the last two months that are worth mentioning:

• I ordered the wedding invitations.  (see above)
• We got the groom and groomsmen apparel decided and ordered for the big day.
• I ordered wedding favors for the guests.
• We took a roadtrip to watch an outdoor hockey game. (More on that in a later blog.)
• A co-worker I don't enjoy tried to invite herself to my wedding.
• We toured local restaurant with my in-laws to find a rehearsal dinner site.
• A small family feud may have developed between me and my sister-in-law.

I've heard that planning a wedding can be a fairly stressful time in your life, but this is just freaking ridiculous.  I'm so done with other people's drama and crap (Yes, I said crap!) that I just can't stand it anymore.  It seems to be coming in from all sides now and I am completely done playing nice.

The last time I wrote to you, my dear supportive readers, I mentioned that I was having some issues with a wild card bridesmaid and some sibling rivalry.  Thankfully, my wonderful maid of honor took care of the wild card for me.  Muzzled her would be a more accurate description, but as it was done on my behalf I throw no flags on the play.  With that handled, you'd think life would be getting easier right?  Less dramatic, maybe?  Not so much.

The co-worker inviting herself to the wedding was almost funny.  My teammate, that IS invited to the wedding, mentioned in passing one day that he might have a conflicting event that would prevent him from coming to the wedding.  Unfortunately, an uninvited co-worker was in the room at the time and began asking questions about the wedding.  When was it going to be?  Where was it going to be?  When was I sending out invitations?  Clearly, she thought her invitation was coming soon.  I told the friend that was invited that it would be okay if he couldn't attend because the guest list was out of control high and that would be two less wedding favors I'd have to make.  That's when the eavesdropper, who had hovered in the room to hear more details, piped in that she would take his place.  I insisted that the guest list simply wouldn't hold anymore people and that I was praying that forty plus people who were invited would also be unable to attend.  The interloper then informed me that she'd just come for the wedding and skip the reception because "anybody can come to the wedding ceremony.  Nobody will be counting heads there."  So, now I may have to have a ticket taker and bouncers at my ceremony to keep this unwanted guest out of my big day.  Maybe, if we don't mention the wedding anytime in the next five months, she'll forget all the details?!

The issue with Squirt's parents flared up again.  As of my last wedding post, we had come to a detente where by I would either A) suck up my pride and ask my sister in law for permission to have Squirt in my wedding the next time I saw them or B) let the subject drop, never to be spoken of again.  I was going to take option B, as asking the waffler for permission to include Squirt was more than I thought I could stomach.  My mother had other ideas, though.



Eventually, we were all in the same place at the same time.  I swallowed my pride and asked for permission to use Squirt in my wedding (under pressure from my mother, of course).  My sister-in-law behaved like the insane lunatic that she truly is and left the room without answering my question.  She hid in the bathroom and started texting my brother who was sitting  (very embarrassed by her childish behavior) in the living room.  I waited ten minutes.  She never came out and I received no answer to my question that day.  This is the bat shit craziness that my mother and I are forced to endure when dealing with my brother's wife.  A day later, in the middle of the Super Bowl no less, I received a long, rambling text about all the things I had done to "piss her off" in the last five months and then a firm "no" to my nephew being in the wedding.  Needless to say, I'm very tempted to revoke her invitation to the wedding and counsel my brother to divorce this bitch. 

 

So, the drama just keeps on coming with no end in sight.  My once happy family is in a total state of upheaval with my mom budgeting her time out between them and us so that we don't have to be in a room together anytime soon.  The part that I really hate, though, is that my sister-in-law has made it a public acrimony by discussing the issue with her friend circle.  Friendamily events attended by that friend circle have become awkward affairs with sides clearly being taken.  Needless to say, my friends support me and antagonize her, while her friends are giving me the silent treatment in support of her. Ugh!  All I wanted was to get married to the man I love.  Why did it have to turn into this drama-filled nightmare?



Lucky for me the in-laws have been delightful during this same stressful time with my family.  My future father-in-law decided to take an active role in choosing the location for our rehearsal dinner this month.  When my fiance and I brought the topic up, we mentioned a few local restaurants that have small to midsized party rooms and reasonable menu prices.  Papa Bear was having none of that.  He informed us that he was not going to be paying for any low rent affair and promptly started naming some very nice, but more pricey restaurant options.  I told him wherever he picked would be fine.  The rehearsal dinner is one of the few things I am not responsible for planning and I was perfectly happy to leave it up to the in-laws. 

 

Papa Bear insisted that we would need to go dine at a few of these nice restaurants to determine which would suit our needs best.  So, we started a restaurant tour.  Every Tuesday for a month, Papa Bear treated us to a nice dinner out with my fiance's parents.  Half of the restaurants he picked didn't even have event rooms, but coincidentally we ate at Mama Bear's favorite restaurant the day before her birthday and we tried out the new seafood restaurant that I'd been trying to convince my honey to check out.  In the end, Papa Bear picked the first restaurant we visited.  But, through the restaurant tour, we got to spend a lot of drama-free quality time with my honey's family, which was wonderful.

 



 

I'm really starting to enjoy my in-laws and they seem to genuinely like spending time with me.  Maybe there is a silver lining to the drama cloud after all, if avoiding my own family brought me closer to my future in-laws.





What a difference a year makes...

Exactly one year ago today, I posted a blog (only the second one I'd ever written) about Valentine's Day from the single perspective.  Twelve short months later, I am on the verge of my first non-single Valentine's Day.  I'm sure I'll blog about the experience later this week, but for today I felt like looking back on where I was last Valentine's Day.  What a difference a year makes!  Since I had exactly two followers when I originally posted this, it should be new for most of you.  Enjoy!

Happy Single Awareness Day!
(or you can call it by it's initials...SAD)



They finally decided to make a card for this underground holiday?!

It's that time of year again, the florists' Black Friday. Time for hearts and flowers, chocolates and candy hearts, cards and stuffed animals. I like Valentine's Day, in theory. A day where you pay extra attention to the one you love by showering them in gifts and flowers? Sweet! (Not tooth ache sweet, but more Dude, Where's My Car? sweet) If that was the way it ever turned out for me, I would be all about this holiday.

I am a single girl. Girl? Woman? The debate rages on in my head. Now that I am thirty-two, woman seems more appropriate, but the chick in my head isn't quite ready to let go of being a girl yet. Wow, I just put my age in print on the internet. Aren't I Little Miss Maturity? I'm just barely over thirty, just a scosh past it, nowhere near approaching forty... those therapy sessions are still years and years away. Deep breathes, Lainey. Head between the knees. You're okay, you're okay. But, I digress. I am a single put whichever noun you feel would be most appropriate here and as a singleton, Valentine's Day is not really a beloved holiday for me.

A few years ago, when the ratio of my single friends to married friends tipped more heavily to the single side, I would get together with my single friends on Valentine's Day. We'd meet up at a restaurant and celebrate Single Awareness Day. For those of you who've never heard of it, Single Awareness Day is the companion holiday to Valentine's Day. It's kinda like Festivus, as it is a holiday for the rest of us who don't have the pre-requisite loved one necessary to celebrate Valentine's Day. Sports bars work best for Single Awareness Day celebrations as they tend to have less couples related activities on Cupid Day. We'd have some laughs, talk about our adventures in singledom, and go home feeling like it was okay that we were still single on this most coupled holiday.

Now, the scales have shifted and the single friend pool has dwindled. Everybody (or at least it feels that way sometimes) has gotten married and I'm still single. Normally, this doesn't bother me that much. By and large, I like being single. There are some benefits to being single in the world today. I don't have to tell anybody where I'm going or when I'll be home. I can spend my money as I please without having to explain my purchases to anyone. I have total control of every remote control in my house. How many married people can say that?

Even with my "single and loving it" attitude, I can admit that there are times (not often, but occasionally) when I wish for something other than my single status. When I get sick or break a bone (a new experience for this year), I really wish there was someone else in my house to take care of me. When I light the Christmas tree lights and lay on the couch in my darkened living room, I wish I had someone to snuggle with while I enjoy the glow. When I play with my adorable nephew, I sometimes wish I had one of my own to play with and tickle (something I won't do while I still have my single status). And, of course, on Valentine's Day when co-workers are receiving floral deliveries and friends are talking about their plans for the evening, I wish that I had someone to send me flowers or make evening plans. Whoa, this got heavy all of a sudden! Quick, back to the lighter side before somebody reading this gets SAD.

So, if like me, you don't have a Single Awareness Day celebration to attend this year, then you have a choice to make.

Option #1: Sit at home watching sappy movies on Lifetime with a box of Kleenex.

Option 1: Pulling a Bridget Jones.

Option #2: Go to dinner at mom's house where you'll undoubtedly be presented with a Valentine's Day card and a box of chocolates.

Option 2: Momma's home cooking and some TLC

Option #3: Get out of the house and make your own Single Awareness Day celebration.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards option 3, too.

As my BFF pointed out in the comment section of the original post, I ended up choosing option 2.  Everybody wants a card and candy on Valentine's Day, even if it's only from Mom.  On a happier note, I now have most of the things I longed for in this post.  I had someone to snuggle with on the couch while looking at the Christmas lights in December .  I've got someone in the house to take care of me when I get sick and I'm pretty sure that I'll be getting a special delivery from the florist at work sometime tomorrow.  At least, I hope there will be or else my honey's going to have some explaining to do when I get home. 

Happy Valentine's Day to all my coupled readers!  Make sure you show the love to that someone special in your life tomorrow.  Happy Single Awareness Day to all my single readers!  May it be a day of enjoying all the benefits of singledom.  Enjoy hogging the remote control for me while you're at it.  I never get to control mine anymore.  I'm lucky if I even know it's location nowadays.

But, losing control of the remote seems like a fair trade for all the other wonderful things I get from being with my honey.  I love you, Jay!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Unleashing My Inner Bridezilla!

I am not one to draw copious amounts of attention to myself.  I guess you'd call me more of a wall flower.  I don't need the spotlight to feel special or important.  If that were true, I'd be a stand-up comedian and not a teacher. Although, the jobs do have similarities.  Making thirty kids laugh and enjoy a lesson so that they hardly even realize they're learning can make you feel pretty special and important.  But, I digress.

I had been taking this same wall flower approach to my upcoming wedding.  You may have heard mention of it over at It's My Mynd! from Wily Guy.  I was trying to be a well-behaved bride.  When the engagement photos took over a month to be delivered by the photographer, I remained calm.  When the engagement announcement took almost two months to appear in the local newspaper,  I was cool as a cucumber.  When a bridesmaid had to drop out for personal reasons, I put on my best impression of a stiff upper lip and soldiered on with the business of planning my wedding.  I was not letting anything ruffles my feathers too much.  But, I've found the straws that broke the camel's back.  Enough of this $#!%.  I am unleashing my inner bridezilla!

Everybody has an opinion about my wedding.  Some opinions I have to listen to, some I don't.  I have to listen to my mother's opinion because she's the one paying for all my wedding wonderfulness.  If she wants to send out one hundred twenty invitations to two hundred twenty two possible guests, then I'm going to let her do that because she's the one who has to foot the bill for all those hungry guests.  Other opinions, though... not so much.  In the last two weeks, I've had to handle a bridesmaid revolt and a sibling trying to make my big day about him, not me.  

Bridesmaids Behaving Badly

Another eclectic bridal posse

The bridesmaids attacked first.  My maid of honor (or MoH) is an incredibly organized, type-A kind of gal.  She arranged for a bridesmaid meeting after the holidays for the girls to get together and start talking bridal showers, bachelorette party, and other wedding details.  This was necessary because I went a little eclectic with my choice of bridesmaids, much to my MoH's dismay.  I had chosen my BFF, whom I've known since my first job fifteen years ago, my college roommate (different friend circle), and a co-worker with whom I've become close.  Unfortunately, none of them really know each other too well.  I was invited to come up at the end of their meeting to hear their decisions and answer any outstanding questions.

Apparently, one of my bridesmaids was being uncooperative with the others.  She was poo-pooing everybody's ideas for the bridal shower, but had no ideas of her own to offer.  She's the only bridesmaid I have whose house was big enough for one big bridal shower with friends, family, and co-workers.  She wasn't willing to let the girls use her house.

She was fine with the dress I chose for them when we were all together trying on dresses in December.  At least, she was until she heard that my maid of honor got to pick her own dress in January.  Then she started lobbying for all the bridesmaids to be allowed to pick their own dresses and claiming that she wanted to find a used dress on E-bay to save money.  The other bridesmaids might have appreciated her financial concerns, if during the bridal shower discussions she hadn't insulted them by saying that she was in a better financial position than either of them to afford to pay to have the bridal showers at a restaurant or community center.  God love my other girls!  They didn't call her out on her bull$!#%, cuss her out, or even slap her upside her head, which would have been my first response.

My MoH tried to use the dress thing as leverage to get the house for the bridal shower, so she proposed the different dresses idea to me.  Doing my "I don't want to upset anybody" thing,  I cringed and almost went along with it.  Luckily, after the wild card bridesmaid left, my other bridesmaids filled me in on the rest of their afternoon in argumentativeness.  Is that a word or did I make it up?  Either way, it seems to apply.  My MoH called the wild card later to talk bridal shower locations and the wild card reneged on the offer of her house, so I revoked the different dress resolution.

"Identical dresses for everybody!" said Bridezilla.

Sibling Rivalry

All siblings have rivalries, right?  There's always some friction when a family has more than one child.  There's jockeying for position, favoritism, and a lot of hurt feelings over trivial matters that took place in the distant past.  My own family is no different.  My brother and I are a classic case of sibling rivalry.

This looks like a cozy family photo, but I'm sitting on his feet.

My brother is the baby of the family.  He's spoiled, thoughtless to the consequences of his actions, and inconsiderate to the feelings of others.  He's also having a difficult time with married life right now as his wife is a passive-aggressive psycho.  I am the oldest child, which makes me the responsible one, the one left cleaning up his messes, and the one who has to suck up her feelings so the baby can have his way.  My brother recently tried to apply this family dynamic to my wedding.

I want my nephew, Squirt, to be the ring bearer at the wedding.  Who wouldn't want an adorable red-headed ring bearer?  My brother's wife, who recently caused a rift between my brother and the rest of the family, doesn't like the idea.  Squirt had some trouble being ring bearer at her friend's wedding when he had just turned four.  But, he's five now.  Some maturing has occurred, plus all of my honey's nieces and nephews are going to be in the wedding.  I didn't want to leave Squirt out.  He's my little man!

So, when I got engaged and my brother wasn't speaking to any of us, I put the Squirt on my wedding website as the ring bearer.  His wife got upset that I didn't ask them and had my brother tell me to take the kid off the website.  I wasn't happy, but since I had to take a bridesmaid off the page before the save the dates went out with the wedding website information anyway, I did it.

Here comes the annoying as h-e-double hockey sticks part.  Friends who knew about the website before the save the dates had seen that Squirt was going to be the ring bearer.  They'd asked my brother and his wife about it and they confirmed he was going to be in the wedding!  Then, the friends visited the wedding website after the save the dates and saw that Squirt wasn't listed any more and asked my brother about it.  So, my brother calls me and asks why I took Squirt off the wedding website.  What?!

It seems he doesn't remember telling me to take Squirt out of the wedding.  He claims he told Mom his wife wasn't happy about the ring bearer deal, but that he never said my nephew couldn't do it.  Now he wants me to ask his wife to let the Squirt be in the wedding if I want him in or to say nothing about it ever again if I don't want him to participate.   And all of this in the name of making his life easier in his dealings with his difficult wife.

Stop trying to make my wedding about your marital problems!

He called me on the phone to ask me why Squirt wasn't on the website and to tell me to ask his wife's permission to include my nephew in the wedding.  What the heck does he want?  I don't get it.  You can't be mad I took the kid off the website (at your request) and then call me all mad because people are asking you why I took his name off the website.  So far, I haven't done anything.  I didn't change the website and I didn't ask his obnoxious wife for anything.  But, I have a feeling we'll be having a long talk soon.

Now Hear This!

LAINEY IS DONE PLAYING NICE WITH PEOPLE!

(who are trying to steal the happiness from her wedding day)

I WILL FIGHT TO PROTECT MY WEDDING!

 If you have a problem with that,

then go ahead and call me Bridezilla!

I'm linking this to the handsome gentlemen at Dude Write for their Dudette Write III competition, where I'm hoping to be nominated for one of their coveted (Wo)Man Card awards.  Hopefully, my days of "always a bridesmaid and never the bride" are over there, too.

 

When Manly Germs Attack!

We've reached another milestone over here at Lainey's Life Lessons.  This week, I got to nurse my honey through an illness for the first time.  After almost nine months of living together, his seemingly perpetual good health had a little hiccup.  No, he didn't get a vicious case of the hiccups.  Hiccups would have been easier to deal with than what he had.  My honey was laid low by a stomach virus.


My honey suffers from migraines from time to time.  I've seen him have to take the day off work and stay home for these a number of times since we started living together.  When he gets a migraine, he stays in bed all day and sleeps a lot.  So, I thought I knew what my honey would be like when he was sick. 
 I was wrong!  Very wrong.


We had gone over to my mother's house for Sunday dinner.  She had made her world famous pork barbecue and we had a great time having lunch, hanging out with my brother's family, and just generally relaxing.  Squirt, my nephew, was really hyper and dragged me off to play with him while my honey and brother watched the Ravens game on T.V.  Funnily enough, Squirt wanted to play football, which in his five year old mind means sack the quarterback.  He gives you the ball and then tackles you.  I was starting to feel like Joe Flacco after all the hits I took from a very energetic Squirt.

Eventually, I had to cry uncle and asked my nephew to play something different.  He chose to turn on the TV and watch some cartoons.  The whirling dervish FINALLY settled down.  I texted my honey from upstairs and asked how the game was going.  He relayed updates from the game and then asked if we were going to stay at my mom's or head home for the BIG GAME. Did I mention I'm a Redskins fan?  Since I had a sneaking suspicion my nephew wouldn't let me watch too much of the game at my mom's, I opted for an early departure from mom's house.

We were putting coats on and getting ready to go when my honey excused himself to the restroom.  He was in there for quite a while, but eventually emerged looking pale and unhappy.  He told me he had an upset stomach and I hustled him home to the comfort of his own bathroom.  He disappeared upstairs as soon as we got home, which was just as the game was about to start.

He was suffering from a manly tummy ache.

I'm not going to lie.  I was torn on where I should be for a few minutes.  The game was going on our big, beautiful HD television downstairs and my honey was feeling miserable upstairs.  After the first series and Redskins touchdown, I went up to check on my wounded warrior.


My poor sick honey!

He was watching the game on the teeny, tiny non-HD TV in our bedroom in between trips to the lavatory.  He was pale and sweaty, but wasn't running a fever.  I offered to make him some tea and he was good with that.  Then I settled in to watch the big game with my baby on the smallest TV in the house.

Side Note:  I hated the idea of my honey's big screen moving in when he did.  I didn't see any reason why we needed to take up a big chunk of a living room wall with some monstrously large TV.  BUT, now that I've gotten used to watching it all the time, the other TVs in the house just seem small and the picture doesn't seem as clear without the high definition.

Just don't tell him I said that.  Okay?

What I wanted the big game to be.

What the big game actually was.

After the first half, he looked exhausted and ready to sleep and I was itching to get back downstairs to watch my team's quickly deteriorating game.  He encouraged me to go downstairs by saying he wasn't going to be any fun to hang out with for the rest of the evening and would probably just sleep.  So, reluctantly I went downstairs to watch the rest of the game.  Alright, so it wasn't reluctantly.  It was enthusiastically.  Cut a girl some slack!  It was the first time the Skins had made the playoffs in a long time!

Just call me the naughty nurse!

 Unfortunately, my honey didn't sleep.  He came trudging downstairs within thirty minutes to get himself a refill of his hot tea.  I instantly felt like the worst fiancee in the whole world.  He was upstairs in all kinds of gastric distress and I was downstairs, ignoring him, because I wanted to watch my game.  If he had pulled a stunt like that when I was sick I'd probably have had a fit.  Since my honey needed me (and the game was over before it was over, so to speak), I played nurse for a while and did a few laps up and down the stairs getting him tea and toast to soothe his aching belly.





I kept him stocked up on Pepto Bismal, hot tea with honey, and toast for the rest of the night and hoped he's be alright in the morning.  Alas, the next day, he was still hurting and didn't make it out of bed, much less to work.  I had to leave him home sick with a massive supply of tea bags, bread to make toast, and head off to work myself.  He looked a little better when I got home, but he cancelled our dinner plans with his parents.  My honey passing up an opportunity to eat his mom's home cooking is never a good sign.

My honey didn't want anything to eat for dinner and urged me to go over to my mom's for dinner.  I opted to call one of my bridesmaids, instead.  We were gone for about an hour and I stopped on my way back to get my honey some soup from Panera.  I returned home just in time for the BCS National Championship Game where my honey's Fighting Irish were preparing to take on Alabama's Crimson Tide.

Yes, he looked like an angry Coach Kelly.

Something funny happens to my honey when his team isn't doing well in a game.  He gets really angry and yells at the TV.  Well, apparently when his team isn't doing well and he's sick, he reaches an all-new level of bad behavior.  My honey got so mad during the game that he threw his phone across the room!  He later, much later, assured me that it was just the case for his phone that was thrown and not the actual phone.  After his rant, he was feeling tired and his stomach was hurting again, so he toddled off to bed. 


He stayed home again the next day as he didn't get any sleep that night because he said the soup I'd brought him upset his tummy again.  By this point, the nursemaid routine was getting a little old.  In two and a half days, my honey went through two bears full of honey, countless tea bags, and all the bread in the house.  He'd had a sports related temper tantrum and I was about ready to tell him to "man up".  Thankfully, by the time I got home Tuesday night, my honey was showered, dressed, and looking (and acting) almost human.  Hooray!  We survived our first bout of illness.

 Here are Lainey's tips for what to do when someone's sick:

 Here's my advice to my honey for the next time he gets sick:

The only thing that would make this meme more awesome would be if it's creator had been able to spell "awesome".

Seven Months to "I Do!" and Save The Dates, Too

The wedding planning continues...

The Save The Dates (a "supposed" must to send to out of town relatives so they can make travel arrangements) have been ordered, shipped, and are now in my hot little hands.  I found this great website called Wedding Paper Divas that allows you to create and preview professional looking Save The Date cards, magnets, postcards, etc.  You name it, they've got it.

After trying out a few different styles, playing around with using different pictures, and generally just having a lot of girly fun with it, I think the finished product turned out well.  But, you be the judge.  I had them make it into a magnet so that all our friends and relatives can think about us every time they open their refrigerators for the next seven months.  That's a lot of thoughts and well wishes that will be coming our way as soon as I mail these out.

Yes, I am marrying a ginger!
  This does not phase me because I come from a family of gingers myself.
 



Other than that, I don't have too much to report on the wedding front.  Although, I did get to have some fun earlier this month.  I got my girls (my merry maids, if you will) together for a marathon session of playing dress up at the bridal boutique.  I had them try on every dress I was considering for the bridesmaid dresses and then let them have some say in which dress they preferred.  It was like having three life-size Barbie dolls  and two Skippers (the junior bridesmaid and flower girl were along for the ride, too).  Don't know what I mean?  Check out the photos below.

 

The girls vetoed this dress for being too wide in the hips.



This dress was very modern, but too short.





This dress was nice, but one of my girls didn't like the bust.




This is the one we decided we all liked. 

The flower girl (right) and junior bridesmaid
had a lot of fun playing dress up and they decreed that this would be their dress.
Good thing the bride approved!

 

The smiley faces are clearly to protect the identity of those who would rather not be seen trying on dresses in public.  Some pictures may have already been removed by the time you read this to protect an innocent little blog writer for getting a bridesmaid-driven smack down.  I took all my girls out for lunch afterward and the groom joined us.  The fact that I took everybody to his favorite Mexican place may have encouraged his attendance some, I admit.  My momma didn't raise no dummies.  I wanted him there so I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. :P

 

 

More wedding fun to come, so stay tuned. 

 

Or if you don't enjoy my wedding related posts...

Only six and a half more months of fun, so keep hanging tough.