Anniversarial Top 5

Jon and I just celebrated 14 years of marriage...the day after my birthday. What a rip-off, right? This poor date selection was the inspiration behind 'Happy October'...a semi-annual celebration of all things retail...but I digress.
We just celebrated 14 years...which is really close to 15 years...which is even closer to 20 years. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. Time flies. He's the best thing that ever 'happened' to me, and here's why:
5. Jon is Old-School: He knows how to do EVERYTHING. He can fix and/or build anything. He's the last of a dying breed of man that understands how things work, why, and can do it himself.
4. Jon is a Renaissance Man: He knows a lot about a lot of different things...depth and breadth. He's the kind of dad that will always have an intelligible response for his children. The real world, science, math, religion, politics, values, books, home decor...just ask him.
3. Jon knows how to cook. He can wing a recipe, create his own, and clean up to boot. Although I miss the now-mythical Eggplant Parmesan (bunk recipe) and Gnocchi from our courtship, it's almost enough for me to know that he could make it...if he wanted to.
2. Jon is a hands-on, no-wusses-allowed, diaper-changing, get-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-kids, throw-up-cleaning, tummy-tickling, bike-riding-teaching DAD. He couldn't be married to a 'prima donna' like myself if he wasn't! Although we often employ a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy regarding daddy-supervised time, he doesn't freak out about being with our kids. He never 'babysits'...he parents.
1. Jon is a good man who adores me with his kind, generous, humorous, and self-sacrificing ways. A couple of days ago, I turned to my husband and asked him if he ever remembered criticizing me (and BELIEVE ME, I provide some really good material). There have been times we haven't agreed, that we've fought, etc...but I couldn't for the life of me remember a time when he'd flat-out criticized me. What a great memory not to have! What a great measure of a man. I love this guy! He's a keeper!

Multi-tasking Birthday

How does a time-crunched mom get ready for a lunch date with a hungry toddler running around? Watch and learn...from the white trash academy.

It's a good thing I went to the gym today with mom-pick-up friend because two friends of mine, Heidi and Jessica, spoiled me with lunch today at Brio's, where I made a fool of myself, but more on that later...(or never). Among other things, we (not Calvin) discussed my two favorite subjects: religion and politics...ok, ok, and some fashion/home decor.
Later, the fam and I opened presents...with Mackey handing me all of my gifts (mostly [ahem] scented candles from the dollar store) from inside the gift bag. Which I loved. Totally respecting that I don't love cake but love food, my parents took us all out to a family-friendly dinner at Pei Wei's.
But the real coup de foudre was coming home (after hustling free stuff from our home builder no less!) and finding a package from Jon on my doorstep. Jon has a pretty good gift-giving record barring a few missteps: our first Christmas yielded windshield wipers - no kidding - and a hand-painted card that was still dripping wet and the 'unusually practical' gift of a Roomba for Valentine's day.
But today, Jon sent me the most precious gift of effort. Knowing how I liked a shirt at JCrew, he looked for a mall in Austin where he's traveling right now (I can only imagine how painful that was for him), went there, bought the shirt, and overnighted it to me so I'd have it - if not him - on my birthday. Please know this about my husband: he DETESTS the great and spacious building (the mall), and he is SERIOUSLY frugal, so I can only imagine what the over-nighting cost him emotionally. Ok, but it only gets better. He asks me how I like the shirt and if it's the right one. I'm trying like CRAZY to avoid telling him that it's the wrong one, but he keeps persisting. Finally, I say that I love it, and that I really liked the polos as well. Yada, yada, yada, he offered TO GO BACK and get me the polos, too...and, of course, I didn't want him to feel disappointed...
Good food, good company, phone calls from friends, surprise cookies, JCREW...ahhh. It's been a nice birthday.

Jon's Haircut

I thought that I'd JCrewed the frugality right outta my husband over the past 14 years...apparently not. Please see Jon's latest foray into hair and respond (anonymously as always) to the poll located to the right.

Mom Pickups

For years, Jon has been telling me to write a book about how to 'pick up' moms. I attribute my 'ability' to 'pick up' moms to what I'm sure is adult ADD, really poor impulse control, and a voracious sociological fascination with what people do all day.

Today...(gasp!)...I was picked up!!!

It was really quite flattering...I was at the gym - the great and spacious building I go to SIX TIMES A WEEK (I should look like Giselle Bundchen but don't). This mom who I see all the time (and who commented a couple of weeks back that she really liked my workout top - again, flattery will get you EVERYWHERE with me) introduced herself and told me that she saw me at the gym a lot and was looking for a serious work out partner. Might I be interested? (The other IRONY to all of this is that a year ago I would have mocked the current me for even BELONGING to a gym. Ha!) After I stopped laughing at her use of the word 'serious', we exchanged info and discovered that we live about 800 feet away from each other, and I've put her displaced mail in her mailbox when it shows up at my house.

However, I have not had Jodie's good fortune of having a personal trainer offer to work with me...for free.

Socially, it's been a fun week. My parents have been in town to help me with my troops while Jon is finishing up some PITA projects. I've met up with some fun moms the past two Fridays (even though I show up an hour late and eat tons of food 'laced' with white flour) Amy, Jessie, Rachel, and chat with another mom friend regularly even though we keep missing each other for lunch - Heidi. I tend to go in and out of hermit-tude, so it's been nice to see the light of day.

Yeah, and can you tell that I JUST figured out how to make hotlinks and add music?

Flour Tortillas and Marijuana

Last night: It started with one little innocent white flour tortilla, and then it was two. Then it snowballed into half a bag of Reese mini cups... Today: Blood sugar unsatisfied, it culminated into an "All You Can Eat" pizza buffet where the dessert pizza beckoned...often.
The 'it' I speak of is my addiction to 'white' food - curse you! To quote my friend Audrey: I hate myself for loving you! The flour tortiallas are a gateway drug in the way that drug experts call marijuana a gateway drug...and how exactly does one become a drug expert? Maybe they're all just half-loaded sociologists running amok in the inner-city? I digress. Then comes the hard stuff and the fiending. Sigh. And, in a way that only irony can strike back, all in my gym clothes.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Think Dorothy, beautiful red slippers, and a dog named Toto... From a native Californian's perspective, I think I just got as close to a tornado as I ever thought I would. This is evidenced by the fact that our massively huge trampoline that was in our backyard last night at 9 pm was gone by 4 am. We feel quite fortunate that it, nor the accomanying stool, came crashing through our windows. We also feel grateful that we still have our trees as most our neighbors have lost theirs.

Irony

Lucy recently asked me what irony was...I can't wait for her to get home from school so that I can share this example. Irony is still stinking in your workout clothes after over an hour at the gym, eating a HUGE Reese Peanut Butter Egg while reading the following email advertisement:

You! I'm a Geek!

Stop me if you've heard this one...ok, that's probably all 4 of you. How about, indulge me? When Jon was serving a mission for our church back in the day - like 18 years ago or something - some punk Italian kids wanted Jon to teach them how to swear in English. Ok - duh. They're on church assignment. So, Jon told them that the phrase "You! (while pointing at someone) I'm a geek!" was a total insult to someone. Ha ha ha. Well, in a recent retelling, the kids, particularly Calvin, picked up on the punchline. He goes around to everyone saying, "You! I'm a geek!" But what's really funny/humiliating about this is that it really comes out like this: "You! Ugly!"