are things complicated yet?

Scenes from a Marriage

Chris and A'Dell, looking at iPhone 4 and the AT&T rate plan site yesterday --

Chris: So, we can just pay individually for text messages since we don't send that many, right?

A'Dell: Um, no. I don't think so.  I don't want to feel LIMITED with my texts.

C: What!?  You don't text THAT much!  You're not some high school kid! You totally do not need the $5/month plan.

A: I LIKE texting!  I think it's an easy way to communicate!

C:  <in a high and mighty tone>   Well. I don't send that many.

Chris pulls up last month's bill

C: OHHHHHH! Look. at. this.  You sent NINETY text messages last month! How did you manage to send ninety?!  That's a TON of text messages.

<mock anger as he realizes he's going to have to pony up $5/month to support my superfluous texting habit> 

AW MAN.  Now I'm going to have to buy the $5/month text messaging plan for you.

<wait for it>

C: Oh. Wait. That was ME.  I was looking at the wrong part of the statement..... I SENT NINETY TEXT MESSAGES???

A: HAAAAAAAA!

C: Well. You sent ONE HUNDRED THIRTY NINE! So there! ONE HUNDRED THIRTY NINE! 

A: Dude, just buy a plan with lots of text messages.

C: Hrrumph.

When life gives you a broken dishwasher, you make a cardboard playhouse

I'm not going to bore you with all of the particulars (and believe me, I tried to write THAT post and it was 500 words before I got CLOSE to a point) so here's the short version of how I ended up with no dishwasher on Saturday:

The dishwasher in this house has black and slimy crud inside of it and it's gross.  Blech.

I bought a new dishwasher two weeks ago. I got it on crazy sale. It was a great day.

I spent the next two weeks waiting for it to ship, since it was a special order.

It arrived last Wednesday, but couldn't be delivered until a week later.  I was too antsy. I could not possibly wait ANOTHER week for my beloved dishwasher.

I finagled a plan. My grandfather has a truck so I asked him to lend us a vehicle.  Chris took out our OLD dishwasher, put it in the truck and took it to Lowe's to be recycled/disposed of.

He picked up the new dishwasher and brought it home. Was feeling quite clever at this point.

We opened the box and it was crumpled and smashed and totally inoperable. I stifled a cry of despair.

We called Lowe's.  They have to special order it again.  It's going to be another 2-3 weeks.

In the meantime we have no dishwasher because we (stupidly) gave up our old one before ensuring the new one worked.

But, really, WHO EXPECTED IT TO BE ALL CRUMPLED AND SMASHED UP IN THE BOX? It was like someone had put something very heavy on the back and it went smush.  It even broke out of the wood frame on the bottom of the box. The door only opens halfway and the racks are crooked.  It's a pile of junk.

Claire seemed to enjoy the box though. 

So, that's how we came to be A Family Without A Dishwasher.  This hole in my kitchen is nice, right? 

What's annoying is that I'm not sure exactly how long we'll have to deal with this.  We're on Day 3 and I can say without hesitation that this totally sucks in the most snobby, modern, first-world way possible and I NEED A DISHWASHER.  I'm just one of those uppity people.

*SIGH.*

I got married! Three years ago! Ish!

I feel like I've been looking at and reading about all kinds of gorgeous weddings in my reader these days. 

Of course, there was Holly's incredible wedding which the entire internet must know about by now because it was THAT FREAKING GORGEOUS.

Then there was this unreal Indian wedding that showed up in my Twitter feed and goshdarnit I spent about an hour drooling over those photos and wishing that I had married some awesome Indian man so that I could have had henna on my hands and feet and oh look she wore a ball gown at the reception and not a fluffy white dress - yougogirl stick it to the wedding dress industry with their thousands-of-dollars-dresses you wear for 5 hours.

SIGH. I love weddings.

Then I realized that hey!  I had a pretty awesome wedding too!  I also didn't have a blog at the time so I didn't get to share the photos with any of my internet friends.  I didn't even HAVE any internet friends back then. 

We got married in Maui in 2006.  I'm not even sure how we even agreed that we wanted a destination wedding.  Getting married at home wasn't something we considered for even a day. We knew that we loved Maui and it sounded like a really awesome idea to get married there.  So, we did. 

One thing you should know about the planning process is that I bought three wedding dresses.  That is not a typographical error.  THREE.  Now, it's not like I bought three $2,500 dresses or anything.  I bought the first two at this bargain basement dress clearance center in scary-ghetto-Dallas and I think we spent less than $500 for both of them.  The only reason I bought them is I felt pressured - you know, bargain basement price, there aren't any extras, my mom and I might have been a little overexcited about the whole situation...Anyway, those two dresses weren't The Dress.

The Dress was found crumpled up in a pile in the back of the clearance rack at David's Bridal in Austin.  When I walked into David's Bridal I thought, "Ew.  I do NOT want a dress from this place.  Just...EW."

But then I found The Dress I'd Been Dreaming About in a crumpled pile on sale for $499.  And just like that I turned into one of those people who says "You know, David's Bridal isn't so bad." 

We were married on a Wednesday in April, by a Hawaiian man named Kimo, with 24 of our closest and most beloved friends and family present.  It was amazing.  It was awesome.  It was the Best Day Ever, as any wedding day should be.  And now, picture overload.

I thought my shoes were fantastic. I found them at DSW the day I was having alterations done.  LOVE.  Big, big, big fan of the fun bridal shoe.

I did my own hair and make up, and I will not lie, it was kind of scary.  But, I didn't want to shell out big bucks for some random lady in Maui who might turn me into a lookalike from a soap opera.  I kept things pretty simple and left my hair down.  I bought all new make up after a refresher how-to at Neiman's.  Did it cost a lot?  Yeah.  But it was cheaper than hiring someone who might have screwed it up.  (Or, so I rationalized.)  I was pretty happy with how it turned out, but as you can see, I was Very Serious about my hair that day.

I saw Chris before the wedding on total impulse and I am so glad I did because our photographer took one of my favorite photos from the day at that moment.

THEN we got married.  And it was awesome.  I cried.  About a third of the way through the ceremony I had a very clear moment where I thought, "Oh wait. This is really beautiful. I SHOULD HAVE HIRED A VIDEOGRAPHER DAMMIT." Oh well.

My best friend was my only attendant.  I told her to go buy a dress she liked.  Really, that was the whole conversation.  She found one on sale at J Crew. I thought it looked awesome.

Here's Kimo, the guy who married us. At one point I remember looking down and noticing that he was not wearing shoes.  Huh.

 We took pictures on the beach while everyone else enjoyed the sunset and a cocktail hour.

 

 

We had a lovely evening under the stars on a lawn with tiki torches.  I remember not eating very much and only drinking white wine out of complete fear that red wine would end up on my dress. We visited and ate cake (which a cat tried to eat, so for most of the reception it was in the fridge. It only came out when it was time to cut it.  At one point I turned around and was like OMG WHERE IS THE CAKE?).

 

 It was over way too soon.  But oh man, was it the Best Day Ever.

 

The things people don't tell you while you're in labor...

While I was in labor and had gallons of Pitocin coursing through my blood, both sets of Grandparents-to-be were in the hospital eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first granddaughter.

Because we are technologically savvy Chris was updating them every so often via text message.  And when she was finally born he let them know that she was here and everything was ok and that they could come see us shortly.

I thought this was kind of cute, so I retrieved the husband's iPhone and went through his text message conversations until I found the texts from that day.  I wanted to take a photo and put it in Claire's baby book because they were kind of cute.

Here's what they said:

8:21 am / Dad:  On our way now.  Good luck.

8:21 am / Chris:  Great.  Thanks.  Doing good so far.  

12:55 pm / Dad: We are here with A'Dell's parents.

12:55 pm / Chris:  Great.  We're glad you're here.  I'll try to come out later. 

[Which, WTF?  He's going to try and go out and VISIT WITH THEM later while I writhe in Pitocin-induced pain?  And even though it sounds ridiculous, I actually remember encouraging, nay - BEGGING, him to go out there and eat a Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich they had brought because I remember being obsessed with the idea that Chris was starving and had been with me all damn day without anything to eat.  The things you obsess about in labor are weird.]

4:48 pm / Chris: 10 cm!  We're having a baby!

5:38 pm / Chris:  She is here.  And she is perfect.

I think Chris sent some photos during this time and maybe called them too.

6:03 pm / Dad:  How's A'Dell and do you know what she weighs?  The baby.  Not A'Dell.

Did you catch that?  Or maybe it went too fast?

How's A'Dell and do you know what she weighs?  The baby.  Not A'Dell.

When I read that yesterday I could not stop laughing.  I cannot imagine his father asking this question so I feel certain that it was his mother.  I can just imagine her dictating this in a state of frenzied excitement to know something!  anything!  about the baby but still have her wits about her to know that the way she phrased it may be misinterpreted. 

Also, the idea that ANYONE would be interested in the mother's post-birth weight is hilarious to me.  I mean, WHY NOT?!  We measure everything else, don't we?  We totally should have hoisted me on the scale and checked out how much weight I lost in half a day.  I bet it would have been motivating.  Plus, then I could always say that I lost X pounds in ONE STINKING DAY.  It would be just as impressive as those people on The Biggest Loser!  (For maximum impressiveness, I wouldn't qualify it with the fact that I gave birth on the same day.  Duh.)

I can't wait to put this in her baby book. 

We'll come back to Cat Fight Club later but ZOMG LOOK AT THIS!

 

Last summer my laptop died.  It was sad.  That laptop and I had been together for several years.

I've been using my husband's laptop ever since.  He runs Linux on all of his machines (YES, Chris has SEVERAL computers) and has Very Strong Feelings about Linux and open source software.  This is fine by me.  We all have our pet projects and things that we think the world would be better off with.  Open Source software is my husband's Thing.

After a little debate about whether we wanted to buy me a new laptop (no - with a baby due in a month we decide that would be a bit spendy of us) we decided that he would gift his laptop to me for at-home internet usage and I would learn to love Linux.

And really, I tried.  I tried to love Linux.  But (and surely you see where this is going) for a variety of reasons, this did not really work out.

First of all, Linux is kind of a pain in the ass.  Actually, I take that back, Linux is a TOTAL pain in the ass. 

Linux is a very good solution for a very small, very specific group of people.  For everyone else it's just too DIY.  The rest of us aren't smart enough.  It is a fabulously versatile OS but it is one that requires a lot of effort.  HEAPS of it.  I couldn't do anything except use the internet without whining to Chris about how "This doesn't woooooork," or yelling angrily about "UGH! Why can't I just DO THIS ONE THING?!"

Lots of my favorite websites hate Linux.  The majority of gadgets and widgets I use aren't supported. (Actually, none of them are.)  I can't plug my iPhone into it.  (For that task we have to boot it up in Windows - so you can imagine how often I sync my phone.)  Every task beyond surfing seemed to require hours of his time Googling for scripts to accomplish (what seemed to me) to be the most mundane of computing tasks.

It was not a good use of his time or mine.  And, quite frankly, my constant ire with the damn thing was making both of us cranky.  Frequently. 

After Claire arrived we started taking a million pictures a day and then we got a video camera for Christmas.  Open source software miserably FAILS with tools in these categories.  (Sure, they might WORK but they're not easy to use in the slightest.)

After a lot of research and thought we ended up at the Apple store today.  A man (boy?) that looked vaguely like John Mayer in a poster on the wall showed me how to use iPhoto and iMovie.  I was 100% sold in about four minutes.  Chris has already done the homework on its specs and deemed it worthy.  He even commented that HE might want one soon.  (HEE!)

Three minutes after that we were walking out the door.  Really, they make it far too easy to part with your money there.  (Also? They didn't give me a bag.  He was all, "Here you go," and handed me the box.  It felt weird to trade so much money for something about the size of a Lean Cuisine with a plastic handle.)

I haven't used a Mac daily since, oh, about 1999 and I've spent most of the evening thinking things like, "This would be so much easier if I could just RIGHT CLICK DAMMIT." 

But I love it anyway.

Chip clip as parenting device? You know it.

With another 40-degree temperature drop yesterday (Texas:  Where the weather is always newsworthy.) we are settling in for winter.  Never mind that it will be back in the 60's by Christmas on Thursday...

Today I'm pretending that it's actually Winter.  I'm wearing pajamas by the fire and I have no plans to don "real" clothes for the remainder of the day.  Chris is still in his pajamas but I think he has more ambitious plans for getting dressed than I do.  He's always been something of an overachiever.

SPEAKING of Chris - this morning he displayed some Awesome Parenting Skills.  It is 24 degrees this morning.  Claire was wrapped up in a silky snuggly blanket in the kitchen, but she was so overly excited about her fish in the bouncer that she kept kicking off the blanket and exposing her tootsies to the cold.

And because we are Responsible Parents we don't let our baby's feet remain exposed when it's 24 degrees outside.  (Even though I don't think she cared since we have the heat cranked up to, oh, about 70.)

Chris popped into the pantry and produced a Chip Clip with which to secure the blanket and keep our daughter warm.   I knew I married a mechanical engineer for a reason.

I have been finished shopping for a few weeks but several of my gifts were at Wal-Mart in the Site-to-Store pick up area.  I just needed to go fetch them but had yet to find the time.  Yesterday we finally got over there, Claire was hungry and about to lose it but I figured that since it was Site-to-Store it would be quick and easy.

HA.  Oh HA.

Wal-Mart. Quick.  Easy.  THESE WORDS DO NOT GO TOGETHER.  I know this but for some reason I didn't want to believe it.

It took about 45 minutes to collect three items, which is so ridiculous I almost threw a dirty diaper at someone out of frustration.

One item had obviously been purchased, used, not cleaned up properly, returned and then poorly packaged with twelve yards of packing tape.  I declined to accept that item and we had to find a manager to process the return.  (Ten minutes of my life I'll never get back.)

Turns out though, that they had it in-store anyway.  For $3 cheaper than what I paid online.  (!!!!!)  They also had a comparable item to another thing I bought for $10 cheaper in store which also made me crazy.

And then I decided to get in the 10 items or less lane to check out with my $3 cheaper in-store item but it was also the line where you can buy tobacco.  And every man in front of me hemmed and hawed about which chewing tobacco to get and then they bought gifts of tobacco (just what I want in my stocking) and some redneck got mad that they didn't have a specific kind that they always have and a manager got involved and IT TOOK FOREVER.

Gah.  Wal-Mart.  You just suck.

*********
Here's our Christmas collage for 2008.  Those of you who know us in real life have already received our card in the mail.  But for all of my virtual friends I wanted to wish you a wonderful holiday as well! 

Banff, Banff, Key West, An Awesome Wedding, Our 2nd wedding anniversary, Botanic Gardens (site of the hit and run to both the car and Chris), Baby, baby, baby.

OMG I am so excited about tonight I just can't stand it.

What a big day!  So exciting!  I CAN'T WAIT FOR TONIGHT!!  I wonder how it will go?  Will I be nervous?  Will things go as I hope?

Wait, do you think I'm talking about the election?  Pah!  No, no, no, no.

Tonight is DATE NIGHT!!!!!!

My mother is coming into town and she will be watching Claire while Chris and I go somewhere with real napkins and bottles of wine.  We will have a delicious evening for adults where I do not constantly worry if someone is about to have a meltdown or a diaper blowout or just be inconsolable or how in the hell am I going to nurse her here? 

And also?  Besides the glorious, uninterrupted evening of adult conversation with my wonderful husband?  I might have TWO GLASSES of wine tonight.  OMG, the excitement is just going to kill me.  (I have been studying the wine list all morning trying to decide what I want.)  I have not had two glasses of wine in like, years it seems. 

(Ok, maybe it was last December actually.)

(But that is still forever ago.)

I sort of feel as if I should be more nervous though.  Am I a bad Mom since I'm not worried about leaving her for a few hours?  I don't think so.  I have supreme confidence in my mother's ability to care for her for the evening, there is plenty of pumped milk in the fridge (even if she has a crazy appetite) and we're only going to be about 8 miles away.

As for tonight's other entertainment - I voted this morning at the elementary school down the street.  There were about 100 people in there and I had to wait about 25 minutes.  Not too bad.

I did not get an "I voted" sticker.  What the hell?!  Crappy local place to vote with no stickers...

I suppose once we get home tonight we'll turn on NBC (my network of choice - I might have a small crush on Brian Williams) and see what's going on.  I'm still holding out hope for my guy

The Good Lord doesn't speak directly to me often, but when he does he is very clear

This morning we talked to friends and family in Houston and they're all just fine.  No electricity of course, but also no trees in living rooms or anything like that.

Chris and I sat on the patio this morning enjoying the cool air before the rain gets here.  After breakfast Chris surveyed the lawn and declared that he was going to mow before the storm got here.

"Really?  You want to mow the lawn?  Right now?"

"Well, yeah.  I don't want to mess with it next week and it's going to rain for days."

"Erm, ok.  If you want to."

(Mowing the lawn on Saturday morning is tops on my list of Things I Don't Care To Do.)

Chris went inside to change clothes.  It took about 45 seconds.  By the time he returned to the back door it was raining.  A lot.

Looks like Chris is supposed to do something else with his time today.

File under: Things you never thought Chris would say

Did you know that my husband used to be in a band?�

Oh yes he did. In the late 80's/early 90's in a small town in Iowa. He played the drums and they practiced in the basement.

It's my understanding that they were actually quite the town sensation and played at city and school events and parties. I recently unearthed a photo of him playing in said band wearing a hot pink tank top and matching hat.

He looks totally rad.

One of the first projects I tackled after we got married was organizing the collection of music that we now co-owned. The first thing I did was buy soft sided cases and throw away those space-hogging jewel boxes.

And oh my, I threw away hundreds of them. Unbeknownst to me, I had married a man with an extensive collection of hair band and glam metal CDs. There were classic titles from Twisted Sister, Skid Row and Slaughter.  Suddenly, all the family chatter about "Chris used to be in a band" was easier for me to visualize. Was he in this kind of band?  Did he wear eyeliner or have glittery shirts?

(The answer was a vehement NO.)

He still listens to a lot of this music when he's in his office and sometimes I will get in his car and be greeted by a vintage Poison CD that he's been rocking to on the way to work.

Two nights ago, as he sat in his office and I sat in the living room he hollered out at me:

Chris: Do you think the baby will like to listen to Warrant?

A'Dell: Um, no.  I don't think she will honey.

I think he was kind of disappointed.

In which Chris becomes the topic of a joke that will last for decades

Last Friday was supposed to be a really normal day. 

I had planned to take a half day at work and then we were going to drive to Houston to my in-laws home to celebrate their birthdays and then attend my baby shower in Saturday.  (Yes!  Baby Shower!  Exciting!  Squeeeeee!!) 

I had a few miscellaneous things to do before we left town, but I was confident that since I was taking a half day that I would have PLENTY of time to attend to them.  I was feeling very happy with the schedule.

You see where this is going, don't you?  It didn't work out the way I had planned.  AT ALL.

Problem #1

Shortly after waking up on Friday I received a phone call from my mother informing me of a Moderate Family Emergency (more on that later) that required my attention. 

Problem #2

On Thursday night there was some drama surrounding our birthday dinner reservation and if we were going to be in Houston in time.  With the new Moderate Family Emergency on my plate it was clear that there was no way we were going to be there in time and more drama would likely follow if this happened.

Problem #3

I was still supposed to work this morning and since I have a limited maternity wardrobe I needed to do laundry as well.  I also needed to be packed and ready to go at 1 pm on the dot if we had any hope of making the Important Dinner Reservation.

If I tried to fit it all in and leave town in time to make the dinner reservation (at this point it was not looking good) I knew life wasn't going to be very happy.  (And worse, it would be All My Fault.)

I didn't want any more drama so I took the whole day off.  I spent some time with Moderate Family Emergency.  I did some laundry.  I steamed the dress I was going to wear to the shower.  I packed a suitcase with lots of great shoe options and even my hot rollers since I knew that we'd be taking a lot of photos at the party and I wanted good hair.

All was well.  We left the house on time and I was feeling quite proud of my time-management skills and I even thought "Wow, I am going to be an awesome mom - look at all that stuff I got done!"

Ha.  Oh ha.  So funny.

We got to Houston and raced to change clothes to make the dinner reservation.  I had taken off my grungy travel clothes and was looking around for my suitcase with fabulous clothes. 

A'Dell:  "Um, Chris?  Where's my suitcase?  Did you bring it in from the car yet?"

Chris: Looks around room. "Um."

A'Dell:  "My red suitcase?  (voice getting a bit shrill as I look around the room and SEE NO SUITCASE)"

A'Dell:  "Did you forget my suitcase AT HOME?   IN FORT WORTH?  My suitcase with all my makeup and my clothes in it for the shower?"

Chris:  "Shiiiiiiiiiiit."

Yes ladies and gentlemen, my husband LEFT MY ENTIRE SUITCASE 250 MILES AWAY AT HOME.

To his credit, he felt terrible about it.  Really, really terrible.  The only thing that saved the situation is that the dress I wore to the shower was on a hangar and had actually made it into the car.  But the rest of my things?  Nope.

No clothes.  No makeup.  No contact solution.  No shoes.  No underwear.

I asked him, "When you were loading the car, didn't you think it was weird that there was no suitcase or bag for your wife?"

He responded that he noticed there was more room in the car, but thought it was because we were just being really efficient with space.

Uh-huh.

We went to Target after dinner and spent $120 on things we already own, but were located very far away.  It wasn't so bad.  (After all, Target does have almost everything.)

From now on I'll be visually inspecting the vehicle to ensure that all of my belongings are in the car before we leave the house.  I recommend that all of you in internet-land learn the lesson along with me and do the same.

You just don't want to be caught buying underwear at Target at 9:45 at night when you're seven months pregnant, tired, cranky and complaining about your back hurting and how you are not wearing your walking shoes so please park very close to the door. 

I assure you, there's no way that situation turns out well.