Seething

I have avoided posting when I am upset with people on here because people I love read this (and sometimes I want to vent about them).  Instead I have tried really hard to keep their lives private, keep the family crap off the internet, and stay above it all.  But not today.  Today I vent because after this afternoon I was shaking so badly I nearly broke the wine glass my husband had just brought me.  

I am who I am.  If you don't like it, you have the choice to not accept it and move out of my life.  If you see my love of the slower paced European lifestyle as un-American, so be it.  You're wrong, but isn't it great that free speech allows you that?  I am a military wife.  While I don't really love my husband's job it's because I value the military men and women much more than many of their superiors seem to.  I am proud of being married to a man who loves his country.  Both he and I love the foundation of this country.  A revolution of people who fought for their independence.  People who worked hard for what they felt was right.  We both love history, and we're both proud of our American history.  

That being said, I do not like that the stereotypical idea of Americans with the fast food, impatience, blatant rudeness to strangers, go go go is one that I see and wage a personal war against every day.  I am not proud that we live in a sue happy country that values work more than family time (no matter what b.s. they try to talk about with "American" values).  I am not proud that parents who occasionally swat their children have to fight child abuse charges (mind you, I don't plan to spank much, but I support the right to calmly use it as a disciplinary method).  I am not proud that obesity and greed is how the rest of the world portrays us.  Forgive me if I have tried to counteract that reputation.  

I stated that I missed "home."  I have been completely upfront about missing my life in England.  I have been completely upfront about loving the life I led there.  Sure there were things missing.  But I liked the slower pace and I will defend that.  It does not make me unAmerican.  For that matter I am not a fan of the intrusiveness of the British government.  That is the reason that I would never try and obtain citizenship there.  I am not against our country.  Far from it.  I love our rights, I love that we don't have judges who can condemn a woman to be buried in the sand and slowly stoned to death (ahem, Iran), and I respect that many people would love to live here (and I fully support their right to immigrate here).  

I have made a choice these last few months to be less judgemental, less argumentative, to take my time more before responding.  I love my life and very rarely feel bothered enough to waste time debating it.  It's strange that people who admire some of my qualities fail to tie them to my life in England (such as my cooking skills, taking the time to make things for friends and family).  But this is who I am.  I am not you.  Many people wouldn't enjoy a slower lifestyle.  I think it's to the detriment of our country, but so are many things in many places.  I am not perfect.  I don't ask that you believe as I believe or choose to live as I live.  But do not even think about calling me un-American if you don't know me well enough to know my ideals and beliefs.  And chances are, you don't.

I Just Pulled The Last Post

And I'm censoring this blog.  


To the anonymous person who keeps leaving "helpful" comments, step off (if you need an explanation see my previous post where she decided to tell me I was "just wrong").  If you don't like me, my blog, or what I have to say, quit reading it.  This is my space to record the good and bad days in my life.  But right now, I feel broken, and I have a right to put that.  You don't know me, my husband or the frustrations we're both dealing with right now.  Hell, even when I do put things on this blog you've chosen to leave comments without reading the back story.  Good for you, you're obviously the type of person who doesn't have the nerve to leave anything about your own life (much less write about it), but feels you have a right to comment anonymously on others without even reading what they've written.  


Today was a bad day, actually it was a bad 30 minutes, the rest of the day had been quite lovely.  My husband called excited that he was getting off work earlier because his workout leader was on leave.  We had a bad half hour (it was probably less than 15 minutes), a glass got thrown, words got said, and we're both venting our frustrations by cleaning.  Do not pretend that because you read occasional posts (as evidenced by commenting on an earlier one after an update had been posted but very obviously not having read that one or ignoring it) that you know us.  


For the record, I love my husband fiercely.  I have since we were teenagers, and many of our problems stem from expectations we had for this marriage and ourselves that in a busy life we failed to meet.  We're working on that.  Not knowing your life and your failures I won't make comments on your life anonymous or otherwise.  I will say that my husband loathes commenters like yourself who he calls trash/junk/trolls.  You're unhelpful and incorrect in your assumptions.  Continuing on the record, my husband loves me.  A friend put it correctly this morning in that a problem of ours is that my husband "worships me" to the extent that he will not communicate when he feels there is a problem because he doesn't want to hurt me.  Our anger issues are a recent thing, born of a frustration that you cannot even begin to understand mainly because you are not me, or him, and you only know of what I choose to write on here.


I closed comments on the post I took down because quite frankly, I have a right to write something when I'm upset and not have to hear unhelpful comments.  Plenty of people have offered suggestions, gently and helpful criticized me and I've had no problem with it, but I expected you to want to comment.  And you did, simply on another post.  You are not welcome here, and quite frankly if you cannot help yourself, if this is some sort of compulsion, I have no problem helping you out.  I can simply do that by making this blog a place where I regulate every comment.  Problem fixed.   


Although you seem to be an individual who is projecting your issues onto others, I do hope you have a lovely day!

It's 4:44 a.m.

My husband is sitting/lying on the couch next to me.  He's been ill all night, something we've never experienced before.  He hasn't had the flu since he was a senior in high school.  It's the time of day when all is silent, still.  The niece is downstairs sleeping, Grandmama is dreaming away, and my parents I think are finally asleep (although they aren't feeling well either).  I'm wide awake.  For once it's not from a lack of sleep but rather I curled up with G at about 8 because he wanted me to, and fell asleep.  I got 7 1/2 hours and now it's the wrong time of day to be awake.  It happens.


It was my mother's birthday yesterday.  She's always like a kid on her birthday, wanting her gifts right away, nearly clapping with the excitement.  I'll have to post photos of everything later as my camera battery has died and the charger was the first on the list of "things we probably shouldn't have forgotten."  I took her out to lunch for Mexican.  As usual it was unfortunate that my brother was the topic of the day.  He's a jerk, and to my knowledge didn't call my mother to wish her a happy birthday.  Oh, nor did he call these 2 days to check in on his daughter.  He also got pissed that her mother called and wished my parents a merry Christmas from her and my niece, but didn't call him.  As my maman and I discussed, he didn't call his daughter on Christmas either.  


I need to vent, and if you don't want to read, don't.  I've tried really hard to not talk about this on here.  Mainly because I kept hoping he would change, turn out different.  Where did my little brother who would spend hours playing outdoor imaginary land games with me go?  Hell, where did the annoying brat from high school who loved to sing and wanted to teach go?  Instead I'm left with a sad impression of a formerly great person.  Instead I get to see his actions rip my family apart, with him accusing my maman of attempting to steal his daughter from him.  No dear, you're giving her away.  You don't call to check on her, you spent less than an hour with her on our "Christmas" with her, and we haven't seen or heard from you since.  Two days off and you chose to go with your girlfriend and her son rather than spend the time with your daughter.  It's sad.  I always assumed you would be a good father, instead you are an embarrassment.  A member of my family that I am trying to ignore.  You don't deserve her, and she never notices when you go.


My niece is a blessing from God.  I truly believe he made her so wonderful so that this whole thing would never taint her.  She doesn't notice when her father leaves.  And as a comparison, twice today when I walked away she started crying and wouldn't stop until I came back.  When she's here we focus on her.  She's going to be incredibly spoiled, but I am loving every second of it.  The first night she was here she woke up at 12:40 and didn't go back to sleep until 3:30.  We played for nearly 3 hours, making her fly through the air, singing to her.  We even e-mailed her father and my maman.  I enjoyed the sheer exhaustion of it all.  Of getting to drift back off to sleep curled up with her.  I wasn't irritated that I lost those hours of sleep, rather I was grateful to have had that time with her.  My brother is missing all these great moments and there will be no way to get them back if he ever wakes up from the land of selfishness.  


She's incredibly smart, watching everything we do.  After I made kiss-y noises at her I began to giggle when she immediately tried to imitate me.  In less than 10 minutes I taught her how to pucker up her lips and make a kiss.  Her favorite trick of the week has been fake coughing.  She was coughing (for real) and I imitated her.  Now it amuses her to have me cough after her, so we go back and forth until she's giggling.  She's learned to say "ta-da!"  and she thinks my husband is the biggest sucker in the world.  She knows he will hold her until his arms fall off, and she utilizes that knowledge to the best of her abilities.  She has no fear and takes of crawling to the edge of the bed, only to turn and roll the other way.  She jabbers incessantly and I'm working on getting her to say "bye bye."  My heart is so near bursting that I cannot imagine how my brother doesn't make her the number one thing.  She's so easy to love.  I should know, I was hoping I wouldn't even like her, now we spend most days pretending we're plotting a grand kidnapping scheme that involves the Swiss guard.  


She will not be tainted by this.  She will go untouched.  Her mother, my maman and I will make sure of it.  She will have all the things she is meant to have, mainly lots and lots of love.  And she will grow up never knowing all of this.  He'll have to answer to her someday, but only as a blank to be filled in.  Never because she wasn't loved enough.  We've got that part covered.

Reality

Buyer's remorse is common with homeowners.  And while I have basically kept most of my anxiety off of here, I feel that isn't being as honest as I like to be.  Well, last night I had a break down and cried and begged G to get us out of this, to sell the house, anything.  This isn't the first time I have panicked about this house.  I wanted to sell it back from day one, I wanted out of the contract right after it was signed.


It's not a bad house.  In fact, all we've heard from people who have seen it is how nice it is. The neighbor even mentioned it while poking her head out.  But the reality is that there are little things that aren't perfect, and I get disappointed and upset easily.  The renovator's did a beautiful job in some areas (and worked miracles in a lot of it----the seller was kind enough to show us the befores....eeek!).  But in some places it was done quickly and sloppily and it just annoys the shit out of me.


But realistically we obviously cannot sell it.  And while I feel panicky and desperate and have told G it just doesn't feel like home, it's always better during the day time for me.  So I am here, in this house, breathing in and out.  And doing what the woman in Under The Tuscan Sun does and slowly introducing myself to the house.  Baby steps people, baby steps.  


The reality is (and this is what I try and keep reminding myself) is that I will probably come to love this house.....right before we have to sell it.  We're a military family.  We want to move overseas again at some point (I'm really hoping for Belgium or Italy myself), and we also wouldn't mind moving to the base that's less than 2 hours from our families either.  G likes his job here, and we could be here a little while, but we were never planning on making this our forever home.  I hope someday to find that place, but it won't be anytime so soon.  He still has 16 years until he can retire!


Has anyone else ever bought a home and panicked?  I've been told this is fairly common.  

Lowe(s) Point in My Day

Well, it's happened again.  I've realized that having spent the first years of our marriage overseas has hurt us.  Why, might you ask?  Because we chose to pay cash, to not go into debt, and to not use credit.  If we knew that when we got home it was going to make life hell, because we have suddenly been told we need to take out cards to establish credit (although we were able to purchase a car and get approved for a mortgage with the credit we have), we would have taken out a card to use for everything. 


Here's how my night went.  We went for coffee to get stir crazy Kalee out of the hotel room and afterwards went to look at appliances at Lowe's.  We knew that they were more expensive than their competitors, but will beat their competitor's price by 10%.  That, and free delivery 7 days a week made them appealing.  We have enough to buy the washer and dryer in cash, but thought, we should take out a Lowe's card and make payments to start establishing credit now.  So we went to apply, and were denied.  I called their customer service and were told it's because our credit is too low, we don't have enough recent credit.  


I understand that the economy is crap.  I understand that getting a loan can be difficult because too many people have had to go into bankruptcy and so creditors are careful about who they give a card.  I get that.  


But I feel like we're being penalized because G was sent overseas for his first base.  If we had been stationed here in the US, we would have credit from paying for phone, cable, and internet.  We would have most likely also had credit for renting some place and paying utilities.  Instead, all of the bills we had were UK companies, which don't show up on our credit.  Great.  


In a few months our credit should look nice, in a year we'll look really nice.  We'll have been paying for a cell phone, car payment, car insurance, a mortgage, gas, electric, water, security, cable, etc.  My hope is that we won't need to establish credit after this with a card.  But we're being told that we need to now, and tonight a company that claims to be partiotic, that has a military discount and hangs a huge flag in their stores does not have anyone we can talk to and have this overridden.  And the most frustrating thing is we don't need the damn card to pay for the appliances, they could give us a $100 credit limit, just something to start establishing something.


So, that's my vent.  I know the numbers are against us, but I'm shocked by a country where everything is so impersonal, where there isn't someone to discuss the circumstances with. I don't feel like America is so Home Sweet Home anymore.  

Hyperactivity

Well, we swtiched hotels no problem.  Well, except for the hotel is supposed to have a "fully equipped" kitchen, which apparently means some dishes, a pan big enough for a box of tuna helper, and a small saucepan....oh, and a plastic spatula.  No spoon, no measuring cups or spoons.  To say I was annoyed is putting it mildly.

G and I had a no spend weekend.  Not that we didn't spend money, but we tried to avoid doing it unnecessarily.  We didn't go out to eat, we picked up groceries.  Which included a BOGO of ground turkey.  So essentially we got almost 3 lbs. of ground turkey for less than 5 dollars....I can't even get ground beef that cheap usually.  Last night I used about a lb. of it to make tuna noodle helper instead of using tuna.  We added red onion, peas, and some shredded cheese to make it nice and tasty.  Then we had a spring salad with tomato (it's odd, but we keep it simple, no dressing even).  Then we dug into Brie with some farm bread.  It was a nice, simple meal in.  

We did run to Wal-Mart and picked up some things I was needing.  My cute blue jacket that I wore to see Harry Potter?  A button fell the hell off.  Great, so I piked up some navy button thread.  We also picked up some knitting needles and grey yarn, and I am attempting to make G a scarf.  Unfortunately it went something like this:  cast on, try another row, get pissed and undo it because it doesn't look right, throw something (generally the needle), pout, cry, repeat.  I must admit a fault of mine is getting very upset if something doesn't come easy for me.  And the fact that I had successfully knitted half a scarf before and paused when I got bored was only too present in my mind as I got frustrated not being able to understand the video online.  So, if anyone knows of a good website with video or step by step images, please, let me know.  I told G that the most annoying part of all of it was that if I were back home I have people I could call who could walk me through it.  No such luck here in MD.  

I also picked up some remnant fabric so that I can make a doll for my niece for Christmas. I've ordered some patterns off of Etsy and will be working on that once we get settled into the house.  

Oh, and I've ate a gazillion oreos.  I hadn't had them in years, and then bam!  First we got a snack size in a bag of treats dropped off at our last hotel by the chapel people.  Then G won a whole package of them from some thing the commissary held for incoming people.  It was fate.  We had already tried to substitute them with Newman's Own and it was not the same, sadly.  

So here I sit, trying to watch Mad Men from last night online, because oh my god the hotel room has two Showtime channels so we can catch Dexter but damn if they don't have AMC....go figure.  And eventually I might try hunting down more info. so I can finish G's scarf.  I am getting very good at casting on though.  Too bad it doesn't keep my fingers busy enough though and I am bouncing off the walls!

I am Going To Respond, and Then I Don't Want To Hear Any More

My first real snarky comment was posted today on my last post. I am going to respond to it, and then I'm done with it.

An anonymous person (don't you love it when they're anonymous?) said some comments about me mentioning that WIC was accepted at the Farmer's Market, and wasn't that for those on limited income?

First off, yes, it is for those on a limited income. And as a military family, we more than qualify. And if your immediate response was, "Well you could work." Yep, I could. And guess what? I would still qualify! I know plenty of families where both parents work (some having second jobs as well) and still qualify. It's a program set up through the agricultural dept. to provide nutrition for pregnant women and children under 2.

But for the record, when I wrote that I was not even really thinking about myself. I am able to be a stay at home wife because G and I are very careful with our money. And to be quite honest, I don't know that I would want to do WIC because it just doesn't cover the types of food we eat. For example it covers JIF type peanut butter, but not the natural kind we eat. I did however think that knowing that some stalls at the farmer's market accept WIC would be something others would like to know. Fresher produce carries a stronger punch, nutrient wise, which would be better for a pregnant woman.

And the second part to her comment was "Or is it also for those who move to a new city and immediately meet with a realtor to purchase a new home?"

First off, I assume this non-entity was meaning to come off as rude and disapproving. Good for her. But last time I checked we weren't the first military family to decide that we liked where we were moving and wanted to buy a home there. For G, this is a base where we could be here for 4 years, or we could be here for 12+. I've known others who bought a home before moving to that city (actually while still overseas), but we thought we would wait until we got here. I am not sure how this person feels it's their business what we do with our time and money, but there you have it. Buying a new home has nothing to do with WIC. Buying a home was us settling down a bit in a place we liked, because we found out we could own a home for less than we could rent, and there would be a backyard for the dogs to boot.

In conclusion, move on. If you don't like what I have to talk about on my blog, don't read it. I enjoy having a place to write about the day to day things. If you don't like the topic, find another blog that is more suited to you, or better yet, try getting your own and posting comments under your own name other than anonymous. I wondered if I should just delete your comment and not respond but thought, no. This is a place for me to come and write, and your anonymous comment was uninformed and cowardly.

If You Don't Like Foul Language....

This would be the time to leave. I's gonna get a bit neurotic (and apparently forget my language skillz!).

Fucking military fuckers. For 7 weeks (seven fucking weeks!) we have been trying to get them to get back to us about paying for the damage they did to our furniture 2 years ago. We turned everything in on time (barely) and waited. We would call, they would say the computers were down and to call back the next day. Which we did. Grrr. Only to be given another bullshit line about it.

Now they are saying that the shipment company is saying G signed something saying we accepted the shipment as is. NO WAY IN HELL. So we asked them to forward that miraculous paperwork. They said they would, but we'll hold our breaths til the cows come home if we think they will send a piece of paper that doesn't exist. So now we get to go chat up the first sgt when we get to MD, and complain. And if that doesn't do anything we go higher. And if I have to I will contact my lovely brother in law and see about getting this problem written up about in the paper, as well as calling our senator and a lawyer.

Yes, I'm pissed. Did I mention these jackasses did not wrap my antique furniture and that my great grandmother's desk had damage where they had shoved the chair in and it had completely beat up the drawer side? Oh, or that said chair has a chunk missing on the front because of it. Between the furniture and home goods they owed us about $1300. Thirteeen hundred! That I would have appreciated using to fix said furniture that they banged the hell up!

So I had a bit of a crying fit this morning and then I got mad. And I plan on staying mad. My experience with military life is that they fuck you every which way they can. And I'm done. Unless they can procure this magic piece of paper I'm getting my money to fix things. And if it takes me making a stink and calling an attorney I will. Because I am done with their bullshit. Done.

My biggest problem is that with everything else right now this was the last thing we needed right before moving. It makes me feel like things are tainted and that the fucking military is going to find some way to fuck us on everything else as well. I'm already nervous about moving some place where we have no home. The military has proved time and again that they don't take care of their people and they don't do what they say they will do. Everyone keeps saying welcome to military life. Well that's not good enough. Not when you damaged furniture to a point it will take a specialist to fix.

Rant over (for now).

Sickened

I should start off by saying you will never see me at a PETA event. I eat meat, wear leather, and I am okay with that. I do not criticize vegetarians or animal rights activists, but I am not a fan of PETA. And G, well, he tends to get quite worked up about them. Something about him not liking their funding environmental terrorists.

That being said, I am adamantly against some of their messages, and I occasionally watch videos they put out. So today I clicked on the video about animal treatment of the Ringling Brothers Circus. And I about threw up. This is not horrible abuse (if horrible is defined by leaving marks, which I am sure they avoid for the cash flow, but it is abuse. And what on earth would make a relative sane human being say "F*** you, fat ass" to an elephant? What are they doing hiring people like this?

I should mention that my favorite animals are elephants. I absolutely think they are the bee's knees. My dream is to take a vacation to an elephant sanctuary someday. And they are one of the reasons I don't go to zoos. Garret and I love animals. I think there is a food chain, so I am not bothered by animals eating animals (and wake up people, we kinda fall into that category). But I do think that animals, even those destined for my plate, should be treated well and housed adequately. I don't feel zoos house animals adequately. So I don't go. When we have children and they want to see animals we'll look into places where you drive through but the animals run free. I haven't quite figured out what we'll do when our children's classes are headed to the zoo, but we'll figure it out eventually.

I hadn't really thought about circuses until just now, because really, we just didn't go that often as kids. I don't think Garret's ever been. And while I am not sure I really like them, you won't find me holding up signs protesting them either. But I do think more stringent laws need to be set for performing animals. And the smacking the animals? There needs to be heavy fines and you should fire those trainers. Because if you maintain that you treat your animals properly, I am wondering if you know the definition. This treatment is anything but proper.

Thin?

My biggest rant lately has been this: every time I see acquaintances out (most recently at our next door neighbor's birthday party) I have these women gasping over me and telling me I am getting so tiny.

(This is the night of the party, and this was one of the better pics. Others tended to show more of a belly, but for accuracy of the way they saw me I chose this one.)

The thing is, I'm not tiny, not in the least bit (I will explain that in a sec), so I am not sure whether to be offended or not. On one hand, obviously it's great that others think I look great. On the other hand, it kind of makes you feel like you looked huge and horrible before. I had put on weight after getting married I was not even close to being at my heaviest. So while yes, I've lost a decent amount since my highest here, it shouldn't be so awe-inspiring. It's kind of been a blow for me, and hard for me to comprehend.

(this is an outfit I recently wore because it's sweltering here and I needed something cool.)

You see, I'll be blatantly honest here. I am still a size 14 and staying strong at between 174 and 176 lbs. Now, I will admit all of my size 14's fit either perfectly or loose and I have plans to go down to a 12 (which of course I am hella excited about because quite frankly I cannot ever remember being this size). But I don't think I even come close to being "tiny." In fact, on a bad day I still feel huge. I think sometimes I let the numbers get to me, because I know on good days that I am looking pretty damn good.

Yesterday G and I were out and about and I bought a yellow cardigan on clearance for I think 8 dollars. I like the color yellow, but because of my skin, I tend to avoid it since the wrong yellow can really make me look bad. But this is a beautiful yellow, so I bought it. And when we got home I threw on a tulip dress that I pulled up into a tunic and threw on the cardigan to show G. He took a pic for me so I could see what I looked like (excuse my dead look, I needed to shower because it's humid like no other over here and I was exhausted).

The thing is, in this picture I look smaller than I imagine I look. ( in fact I was kind of shocked by the way I look in the pic, but G assures me it's pretty damn accurate) But I know I've also learned how to stand to look my best, so this is not the most accurate depiction of myself. So while I look vastly smaller, I'm not really. And I do wonder what these girls thought of me before if they went on for a bit about how thin I look. I can admit I do carry my weight well, I lose it and gain it evenly over my entire body. But this sort of "thin praise" can actually leave a person with a sour taste in their mouth.

Do I want to be smaller? Of course I do. My end goal is to be at a healthy normal weight for my height and structure, which is somewhere between 145-155. So I'm 20-30 lbs away and want to get there within the next couple of years. G wants to have kids somewhere in there, so chances are I will have to fight to lose baby weight to get there, but I will get there. I think I look good now, the end goal is more about being healthy and being able to live longer. I've been doing push-ups (something I am embarrassed about since I used to knock them out like no other and now if I can do 10-15 in a row I am ecstatic!). I've been attempting to run. And we tend to eat healthy.

Okay, gotten off track. I guess what I am wondering is if I'm the only one who finds it somewhat offensive when a group of acquaintances gush over how great you are looking, in a way that makes you feel you were a troll before? Am I over reacting? I handled it graciously, I think, but inside I was all sorts of feeling confused.

Blah

That's the sentiment of the weekend.  Blah.  We went to the Continental Market, which was lovely, but more plants and flowers than anything.  We stopped in to have escargot because it was National Escargot Day, but ended up canceling our order when I started to feel unwell.  

And then we went to browse at the store we bought G's jacket at, to discover that now the jackets are 25% off, so I have to e-mail the headquarters about it, since before we bought it we specifically asked if there was any sales coming up, but the sales assistant told us no, not until late fall, and that even if there were ones before then, the jacket was brand new and would not go on sale any earlier.  A week later, the sale started, literally a week.  So now, to say the least I'm annoyed.  And I hate having to deal with crap like this.

Tomorrow we might be seeing Angels and Demons, so I am whoa excited about that!  Has anyone seen it yet?  Do tell!

Manners Missing

So, this week seems to be the week of rants.  I apologize ahead of time if my tone comes across as too snarky, but eh, that's life right now.

I had plans to go to tea with a friend today.  It was to welcome a new wife to the area, and so even though we are on nights, and normally I would be sleeping at 1 in the afternoon (imagine being asked to be somewhere at 1 in the morning on a normal day), I got all prettified to go out.  I didn't take a pic, but plan on wearing it out to the museum tomorrow since I was in the outfit less than 2 hours.  Why was I in it for so little you may ask?  Well let me share my day.

Because we are on nights, the night before I asked the friend if she could pick me up so that G could stay in bed.  No problem, she said.  I double checked the 1 p.m. time.  Still the same.  So I get prettified, and then I sit and watch the rest of Make Me A Supermodel because what else is there to do?  It's close to 1, but I know she tends to run a little behind, I've gotten used to that.  However, by 1:20, I assume she has had a blonde moment (these happen with her) and she forgot to pick me up.  I'm not offended, she's moving the same time we are, so we're all a little discombobulated.  No worries.  But G says that he'll leave a note on the door saying we went on to the tea room, and he'll go with me to wait in case she really is running this late.  We tried calling her home, she wasn't there.  And her cell was off.  

So we arrive at the tea room at 1:30, and no one is there.  I decide that I'm fuming, so I can either leave and not show up, or G and I can order and hope she shows up soon.  We order (I have amazing parsnip soup) and we drink our Earl Grey.  Garret comments that I have a very cold look on my face.  Good, I think, as I realize it's 1:45.  We finish up and leave at 2:20.  At this point we have just seen her vehicle drive past the tea room, and I make the quick decision that if I see her, I'm going to verbally berate her, so it's best for us to make a quick exit.  Not necessarily my most mature moment, perhaps I should have waited to talk it out, but with a new woman going to be with her, I thought it was best to wait for a better time.  Because as I told G, over an hour late is not late, it's ridiculously rude.  It says to the other people that you consider your time more valuable than anyone else's time .  And in this instance, me having gotten up after 2 hours of sleep and gotten all dressed up, well, I consider my time pretty damn valuable!

On the way home I tell Garret that hopefully she tried calling at some point and left a message apologizing for running so late.  Unfortunately, not the case.  Instead I get a snarky message about how she's at the front gate and I'm not answering, she doesn't know what's up with that and okay, bye.  I am literally frozen with shock.  We didn't leave the house until right before 1:30, didn't see her on the way out, so I am estimating the call didn't come in before 1:45.  Forty five minutes after we were supposed to be at the tea room!

Now I am left with the conundrum of how to deal with this.  I've never been stood up in my life, and she's apparently in the mind set that I was the rude one who didn't follow through with plans.  But honestly, she didn't even drive past the damn tea room until it was an hour and 20 minutes after she had told me we were supposed to meet there.  I tried calling her more than once, to no avail.  So now, I am pretty annoyed to put it nicely.  What on earth do I say to her?  Because I know what I want to say (basically implying her mother raised her very wrongly and she's presumptuous to think her time is more important than mine) will probably only begin a nice yelling match.  The only other thing I can think to do is give her the cold shoulder for a bit.  Any advice?  

Pet Peeves

Today's post is brought to you by the letter P!  Pet Peeves.  

I try really hard to be a nice, easy going person.  But when I am at a restaurant, I tend to expect a decent time.  I am not saying the waiter/waitress has to do a song and dance.  Hell, I even consider it a bonus when you are friendly and smile a lot.  I don't expect much.  But I do expect you to do fairly decent at your job.  

So, to the waitress we had tonight please:

For the love of God and all that is Holy, would you please just bring me water when my cup is empty?  And when my husband asks for you to bring me water with ice, please do so with more than 4-5 cubes in a glass of room temperature water.  They melted before I got back to the table.  Tracking you down should not feel like a jungle adventure, and I shouldn't have to loudly call out to get you to turn and stop at our table for one sec so I can ask for a menu.  In the end, the reason we left after drinks and chips and salsa was because the service was so bad I couldn't imagine trying to order the full meal.  Better luck next time.

And I know, life as a waitress is tough.  But when you have only a handful of tables it really isn't that hard.  I was nice the whole time, smiling, saying thank you.  I don't tend to display my annoyance outright until it's gotten to the point that I would need to ask for the manager, and I hate doing that.  But G and I went out for a quick snack  (the Portuguese place we get coffee is closed on Mondays) and we are fairly easy customers.  Hell, in England where hardly anyone tips because they aren't paid the crap wages like back in the US, we tend to tip.  Sometimes even tipping big enough to have to get an override because their stupid card reader thinks the number is wrong.  So please, put a smile on your face and check to see if my water needs a refill occasionally.  That's all I ask.  End of rant.

Our First Date Night

This is the Abbey we always go to.  Gorgeous, right?  And no, it's not a painting, it's a photo.  If you click on it, you can see how the trees look.  

So I have kept something very quiet here.  Mainly because G's mom reads this, and I try to not ruin her image of him.  But here it is.

Garret and I have a fight a few times a month over the same thing.  We've been having this fight literally our entire marriage.  You see, G has never, and I mean never, planned a date for us pretty much the entire time we've been together.  Okay, I take that back, he planned a dinner while I was in London during our engagement where he was going to re-propose, and it was wonderful, so I am not sure why he gets so flustered about it.  So we constantly have this fight, with me pointing out that it shows his lack of care because I've told him for 2 years how much it upsets me, he always promises to do better, and then he doesn't and the cycle continues.  Garret tells me he loves me at least 50 times a day (no joke) but I've told him it's starting to get hard to hear when he says it but keeps hurting me by not doing something as simple as planning a date.  

Now, G has never dated anyone other than me.  Not really.  He went out once with a girl while a holdover, but that was simple because they could only go to the mall basically.  So he gets slightly flustered trying to come up with a date.  I keep telling him to keep it simple, he keeps wanting to do some huge gesture.  But this weekend he finally did it.  He finally listened during a conversation, noted that I had mentioned that a certain pizza sounded good, and planned for us to go there this weekend, all on his own.  Because I know some of you are thinking that we seem to get out and about an awful lot, but it's always on me.  I am always the one who comes up with where we are gonna go, cause I love my husband, but he's kind of lazy.  Oh, and he tends to only want to do what I want to do, which drives me mad, because it should be give and take.  And yes, I know I'm crazy for sticking with him after 2 years of no planned dates, but I do love him so I held out the hope.  I wasn't disappointed.  

So he took me out to Strada for pizza.  I even brought my camera but forgot about it until after I was done with everything. But I had my favorite pizza which has Italian sausage (and it's the Italian link slices not ground up "Italian" sausage, they get most of their ingredients shipped in from Italy), baby artichokes, onions, capers, sun dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and I drizzle chili oil on it.  To. Die. For.  We started with a salad with crispy pancetta, avocadoes, spinach leaves with a mustard dressing and parmesan for me and G has his fried polenta with creamy mushroom sauce.  For dessert I had an espresso, G got his "girly drink" cappuccino and we shared a tuillerie filled with vanilla bean marscapone cheese and fresh strawberries and blueberries with a mint leaf.  It was a new dessert item, and now knocks the pannacotta into second place.  

It was a pretty decent first date, I'm considering going out with him again.  Maybe, just maybe I'll give him a second shot.  And I figure he's like a great wine, he'll only get better with time and proper care.  I am looking forward to the next date he plans!

(Garret gave me a piggy back ride so I could reach the pink rose at the top of the pic.  I wanted to smell it, but it as part of the arbor and way too high.)

Oh, and on the last note, the other night at the wine bar Garret explains the whole thought process of why he said he loves me more than all the bricks in the yellow brick road.  I thought it was hilarious, but didn't share it because I try not to embarrass him.  He said he didn't care, he likes being mentioned, so here it is.  He thought to himself that he loves me more than all the sequins or whatever they are on Dorothy's red shoes (I should note that this was my favorite childhood movie, hence him thinking of it).  Then he thought that isn't very much, so what is there that there's a lot of?  Munchkins!  He loves me more than all the munchkins in Oz!  But then he decided that sounded weird, hence him saying the yellow brick road one instead.  Isn't he funny as hell?  Seriously, I have never been more amused then I am living with this man.  

And ironically this is what we saw on our way home from our date.  A sign maybe?  Somewhere over the rainbow my dreams really might come true.  

This Is How We Roll

Saturday was a fantastic day.  G had a comp day so off we went to Bury once he got off work that morning.  First, we ran and picked up a necklace for me.  It's a bunch of raw rubies and it's over the top beautiful!  The raw rubies are the color of fruit punch.  

Then we swung by Javelin to have them hold the leather jacket.  We bolted off to grab a light lunch at Cafe Rouge and to talk about it.  In the end, G looks fantastic in it, and wanted it very badly, so we went back and picked it up.  

Then last night we made some yummy sandwiches with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and English cucumbers.  We were pretty sleepy (we woke ourselves up to eat and go out, but had only slept about 5 hours), but we got dressed and headed out to the pub.  Now, last weekend at the pub was the guy who touched my stomach, so I figured nothing bad could happen this weekend, right?  Ahhh, that would be a dumb assumption.  

Neither of us were particularly feeling like drinking, so we picked up one pint of Strongbow to split and sat down on one of the leather couches.  Picture this:  flashing lights couple with a few black lights, leather couches, a ton of drunk people, and techno music.  The particular Brit variety of techno music where they take a perfectly good song and screw it up.  So we are sitting on this couch drinking and flirting with one another as we are wont to do.  Then two guys look over at us.  One looks mildly sober, and trying to discourage his friend from talking to us, but his friend shouts something anyways.  Turns out he was asking if we are going to after party.  He said this as if he knew us, so perhaps we have some Brit doppelgangers?

Next a decent song finally comes on, so we head to the dance floor.  Now I should probably preface this by stating that all night there has been a drunk guy in a striped sweater who was pretty much dancing by himself.  You know the type.  And as I am walking on to the dance floor, with G a few paces behind due to crowds, this dumbass decides to smack my ass/upper thigh with quite a bit of force.  I didn't see who did it, I assumed it was G being a smartass, so I turned, and that was when I saw Garret's face.  Fuming would best describe it.  His jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed, and I could see steam beginning to trickle out of his ears.  That's when I caught on, but grabbed him by the front of his shirt and walked him over to a wall and told him to let it go, to walk away.  It took a minute or so of repeating this mantra to convince him, but he spent the rest of the night keeping an eye on the a-hole.  

(here we are after G calmed down, I'm wearing my new necklace!)

So that was our evening.  Well, that and the men in bow ties.  Particularly the man in a bow tie kicking ass on the dance floor.  Never have I seen a man who I believe in real life probably is something like an accountant break out the dance moves uninhibitedly.  He was my hero, so I took a pic.  

And Happy Mother's Day to all the mamans.  My MIL reads this, so this particular shout out is to her, who finds our life fascinating enough that she enjoys keeping up with it!  I definitely hit the jackpot on the MIL thing!

Eye Hell

My left eye has been useless pretty much all of today.  I am pretty certain that I scratched my cornea.  It happened before (although last time it happened it was both eyes and it lasted a couple days with me terrified I was going to end up blind).  This time it's not quite as bad, but it's painful.  The skin around my eye is raw from it watering so much.  And the watering causes my eye to sting and be pretty useless.  Focusing on things has been hard, and it's only now, after midnight, that I feel okay to do this post.  

So I am hoping tomorrow it's better!  I realized today how bored I get when this happens.  I can't look at the computer (lights hurt, and even dimmed, my photosensitive eyes cannot take all the white on the screen), cannot read, can't really lie down (I found walking around without focusing on anything seemed to keep my eye from watering the best), and sleep took a while, but it was the only thing that seemed to work when my eye was at it's worst.  

Tomorrow is G's last day of work for an entire week!  He and I will be pretty busy thought, since there are Holy Thursday services, then Good Friday, then his baptism, confirmation and first communion on Saturday and then Easter Sunday.  It's making my head hurt just thinking about all of it!  I think for the second year in a row we are going to do a simplified Easter meal since it's just the two of us.  Last year we literally stayed in bed all day Easter, reading and watching movies and just cuddling, so if we even get out of bed this year it will be an improvement (or maybe not quite as good, we did enjoy being that lazy).  G has just informed me (he reads over my shoulder as I type) that we did get out of bed briefly to have a snowball fight on Easter.  But this year it's been unusually warm so I think that won't be in the schedule.  

Hope everyone's week is going well.  Mondays can be a bummer.