Our Weekend: Tucson, John Dillinger and Bears

This weekend Bill took me to Tucson, where we stayed in the Hotel Congress, which you history buffs know is where John Dillinger and his crew stayed briefly in 1934, where a fire in the hotel lead to his arrest and brief capture. 

In honor of John Dillinger, we drank only Old Fashioneds and almost all pictures were taken in black and white.

We drove out Saturday night, listening to my iPod shuffle us around the entire spectrum of human emotion, and singing/rapping our little hearts out. 

The hotel was very very cool, and the rooms were still decorated as if it were the 30's. I love that. 

We did a little bar hopping, almost explored the third floor of the hotel, which is chained off, and had a super hipster breakfast in the morning of red velvet pancakes, and something called baked eggs {I don't recommend it} at Maynard's Kitchen. 

Sunday afternoon we took a little drive to a wildlife museum, which is like a zoo but more spread out and natural feeling, and there was a bear. 

Pretty much the highlight of my year, and it's only January.

The remainder of 2013 will only pale in comparison.

All in all, a fabulous weekend, and a wonderful surprise, and I couldn't have had a better time.

Gotta love Bill for always coming up with the most interesting and original places to go.

Christmas Party

 Saturday night was my company's Christmas party at the Montelucia Resort in Paradise Valley. 

Bill came as my date because he's nice.

It was a very nice night.

November.

I haven't written anything any more beautiful or inspiring than a grocery list in days. I did start one of those obnoxious Gratitude journals though. The ones where you write a one sentence something at the end of every day, saying what you're grateful for.

It lasted for two days, and then was abandoned like a one night stand you accidentally got pregnant.

Right now I guess I am grateful that it's November.

I love November. Nights are chilly and soup recipes are abundant. Lainie's birthday comes up, and it's time to start planning for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. The food and the lazy casual feeling of the day. Just lounging around, eating snacks and appetizers, waiting for a meal of epic proportions to be ready, and then eating that, and then sleeping. And I think you can always tell who really loves you, and considers themself your family, by who stops by on Thanksgiving. The ones who don't need an invitation, who don't over think it, they just drop by for appetizers and bring wine, or they come for dinner because they know you made plenty of food for everyone, or they come over around dessert to fill you in on all the drama with their family that holidays always seem to bring, and you laugh together over pie and the last couple glasses of wine, while everyone else in the house naps on couches, floors and wherever they could find a place to lay down.

November is like my new year. I clean out my closet, I throw things away. When we want to have a little fire in the backyard, the scraps of last year's tragedies make perfect kindling.

It's time to clean up, clean out, and look forward.

I am grateful for November.

...

And just because you didn't ask, some more things I might be grateful for right now....

My new dining room table and the fun things the kids and I have already found to do at it.

Good music I've never heard before.

Halloween visitors.

Hot showers.

3rd quarter profit sharing.

My car, for staying alive this long.

Netflix.

Pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin coffee.

Pumpkin scented candles.

Lainie, for giving me a birthday to celebrate this month.

Bill, for still being there.

Jack, for making me laugh.



Friday Diary: Holy Crap It's Back

Happy Friday everybody!

I felt like it was time to do a Friday Diary since we haven't done one in a while. 

I know you're all very excited.

Try not to urinate on yourselves.

...

This song has been on repeat for like, ever in my house. Lainie and I like to dance to it in the kitchen when we're cooking, and we kind of white boy rap it back and forth to each other.
It's fun.

...

Overheard:
Me: Come on Jackie baby, get in the car.
Jackson: I'm not a baby. I'm a grown up. I'm a motorcycle driver who builds rocket ships and airplanes and is a Power Ranger.
Me; You're pretty busy
Jackson: Yeah, that's why I drink so much milk and always get out of bed when you telled me not to.

...

Letters:
Dear Bill: You give perfect hugs and are the world's best scary movie buddy. You're awesome.
Dear Lainie: You never eat any of the dinners I make you anymore and the other day you told me you're too old to hold my hand at the grocery store. Stop it. Just stop it.
Dear Dad: No matter how old I get I will still love watching movies with you until 1 in the morning, even though I have work the next day and should be sleeping.
Dear Megan: I don't know if you still read this, but if you do, your birthday was yesterday. Happy birthday. I hope it was super awesome.

...

Made:

Black bean fritters, found here.

They were good. My kids seemed indifferent about them, but they ate them, and my dad loved them to death. He thought they were hamburgers with black beans in them though...

...

Pinterested:


...

Read:

15 Ways to Stay Married.
No, I am not married, nor do I plan to be in the near future, but still, this is some solid love advice in my opinion. My heart was nodding along with every word, and it's not the usual cheesy shit, like "Have sex, make date nights, don't stab each other blah blah blah" that's regurgitated in EVERY love advice article.

...

And now, some laughs from the land of internet.
Enjoy.


Well, that's it folks.
Happy Friday.
Don't do anything I wouldn't do this weekend.

Or, more importantly, don't do anything I would do.

Lately

I was going to fascinate you all with a bunch of dazzling pictures of what we've been up to lately, but then I uploaded what's on my camera and realized it's all just pictures of our dinners....and then my dad asked me why I photograph my food...am I making a cook book or something?

NO.

But I might have a problem.

So I decided instead to just bore the shit out of you with my words instead of in pictures.

Lately, Bill and I got back together. Woah, I know. I promise though, I won't write a chapter of our love story for every single little change that occurs in our relationship. In fact I think writing that shit is bad luck at this point anyway.

So no more love story.

Just updates.

Lately, Jackson has been unruly as all fuck. We are officially in the Testing phase, I think and he is desperately trying to see how much shit he can get away with. The answer is zero.

FUCKING ZERO.

Lately, I'm pretty sure Lainie is in the puberty zone. Either that or she just hates me to death. Whichever one it is it's scary as hell and between her and Jackson it's been straight crazy cakes up in this bitch.

Lately, my Saturdays have been 100 percent consumed by kid shit from 7 am to 6 pm. Baseball, ballet, birthday parties, bad behavior and other things that start with B. I'm tired, and I'm busy, and if one more person at work says "you look really tired" I am going to round house kick them in the funny business.

Lately, I sunk to a new parenting low and put Jackson's bed in my room next to my bed. It was a last ditch effort to at least get him out of my bed if I couldn't get him out of my room altogether. So now one whole wall in my bedroom is just all bed.

I roll on it when no one is here.

It's actually kind of awesome.

So that's our lately stuffs.

I'm sorry about my sporadic as shit posting.

As you can tell I've been buried in children and covered in stress and very busy photographing every single thing I put in my pie hole.

Oh well if you're gonna twist my arm, I'll show you all my food pictures too.

I know, I just snuck that picture of Jackson in is baseball uniform in there like nothing happened.

I couldn't help myself, he's even better looking than food.

Letters to You

I woke up in the middle of the night because I was cold, and I woke you up too because I was really cold.

Shivering beside you in bed and the sheet on top of us was offering no protection from the near Icelandic temperatures we'd suddenly traveled to in our sleep.

Without being asked you got up, from a dead sleep, and turned the air off, found me a blanket, and then wrapped your very warm body around me, too.

Heat spread all over me, and you let me put my ice cold feet under your legs because they felt like a campfire compared to mine.

And even though I fell back to sleep quickly, before I did I remember mentally noting:

I loved you so very much in that moment.

It's always been the littlest gestures from you, that have warmed my little heart so.

Our Love Story: The Final Chapter

This is the part I honestly thought I would never have to write.

This is the part that I believed, truly, would never come.

But it has.

Bill and I broke up.

Again, and I think now for the last time.

He came to my house, always a gentlemen, not making me come to him and not doing it over the phone, and he asked me, as kindly as possible, to let him go.

We held each other for a long time.

We said goodbye in as many different ways as we could think of.

And we made promises to stay best friends.

Because in the end, he's always been my best friend.

He's been the person who understood me. Who laughed at my jokes, and knew when my jokes were really masking something deeper, something I couldn't say, and in those times, he held me. He's the person who was always there. For drinks, for support, for help and for countless other things. And while it lasted, he gave me a deep and beautiful love, that I will not forget.

Not in this life, or the next.

He taught me that true love is possible, even if it doesn't last forever.

It can move you, it can heal you, and it can awaken in you a capacity for forgiveness and acceptance and hope that you didn't think you had.

For that, I am forever grateful.

After a lot of tears, and even some laughs, and so many hugs, I walked him to his car.

I tried to be brave and not cry when I said goodbye, and I stood on the corner and waived as he drove away.

I made myself stay upright until he turned the corner and disappeared, and then I hit my knees and cried on the sidewalk. No, I wept.

I wept for all the things I thought we would have someday together.

I wept for all the places we won't see together, and all the things we never got to do.

All the things I never got to say.

All the goodnights and good mornings and hello kisses we never got to share.

I wept because he's always been mine, in one form or another, and now I have to let him go, and accept that at some point he will become someone else's. And when that happens I'll know that that person is living the life I wasn't able to have. The life I never made it to because I couldn't stop tearing this apart. No matter how badly I wanted it.

After I stopped crying I sat in my driveway and smoked my last cigarette, staring at the street he'd just drove away on, and tried not to hope that he'd come speeding back, saying he'd made an awful mistake and he couldn't let me go.

I made myself get up and go inside.

I let myself say goodbye to him one last time in a text, and then I forced myself to sleep.

Maybe it doesn't seem like this chapter should be part of our love story, but it is because I still consider our story a love story. We had it great, and perfect for a while, but it wasn't built to last. Relationships that change your life, and change you as person, don't come a long every day.

What no one ever tells you is they also don't always last forever.

But they were still real.

It was still love, and it's still a love story even if it ends without a happily ever after. 

And I am so glad that I got to live that kind of love for the time that I did.

And maybe now we have a new future ahead of us, and we'll finally find the right place for us in each other's lives.

Whatever role we're meant to play for each other, I have hope that we'll find it.

And I am grateful for every single second I had as his girl.

Every moment that I possessed his heart, and he possessed all of me. 

But now it's time to say goodbye to that chapter of our lives together.

Where we go from here, I don't know.

Hopefully toward an amazing friendship.

Beyond that, there is only what I wish for, and whatever it is we're meant for.

When It Rains

If it were up to me, everything would stop when it rained, and we'd be together.

For as long as the storm made music on the roof and windows, and everything outside was stuck in the twilight blue and grey of a world under water, there would be no responsibilities.

No jobs that need doing, no clocks that need winding, no houses that need cleaning, and no one that needs our attention or time but the two of us.

And there would be plenty of blankets, and more than enough pillows, but the only one I'd need would be your chest.

One arm wrapped around my waist, and an entire afternoon of torrential downpour, 

Drowning out the sound of everything else that makes so much noise, and distracts me from your smile.

From the blue of your eyes

And the smell of your skin

And the way the palm of your hand on the side of my face makes me sleepy

If it were up to me the only thing we'd be required to do when it rained

Would be being together.

The Friday Diary: Goodbye, Wonderful Week

So today concludes my birthday week.

And what better way to wrap it up than to be heading out of town with Bill today?

I couldn't think of one if I tried.

...

Letters:

Dear Bill, This week was so lovely. You made my birthday beautiful, and you made me feel so loved and cared for. Thank you for always caring about the little things as much as I do.

Dear Chris, You've most definitely become my best friend at work, and a true friend even outside the office. You're sweet and hilarious and I don't know how I'd get through a Monday without you.  I like you more than hot coffee and pictures of Juanita.

Dear Lainie and Jack, I loved your handmade birthday cards, and I loved the glitter on the floor and scraps of paper all over the house that showed how hard you worked on them.

Thank you for making my birthday that much sweeter.

...

Overheard:

Me: Lainie, how was your first day of third grade?! Tell me everything!

Lainie: It was SO GOOD. 

Me: Why?

Lainie: We had bean burritos for lunch!!!

I wish my life was still this simple.

...

School Days:

Lainie started 3rd grade on Tuesday. Holy crap. I am so cliche, because every year I always say the same thing "She like JUST BORN yesterday."

Jackson was very upset that he wasn't starting big kid school too, as you can see.

All in good time, buddy.

And all too soon.

...

If You Really Knew Me

I originally saw this here {and then about a million other bloggy places} and I'm low on post ideas, so here you are.

If you really knew me....

If you really knew me you'd know that I am not to be trusted around breakfast meats, such as bacon or sausage. I will eat an entire pan of it if left to my own devices.

You'd know that Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally are my two favorite movies, even though I tell people it's something more intelligent and sophisticated.

Judge me.

You'd know that truly good iced coffee is my weakness. Second only to kisses on my neck and pictures of black bears.

You'd know I'm highly inappropriate.

{but a super good time}

You'd know that I hate the color yellow in almost every shade, especially mustard. 

This new trend of mustard and gray themed outfits, furniture, home decor and accessories is not pleasing me.

You'd know I'm terrified of the dark, insects, strange illnesses, ladders, ventriloquist dummies, being murdered and my car exploding.

I know. Weird.

You'd know that I'm a crier. You probably actually already know this. I cry over the weirdest things, and sometimes just sitting around watching TV my mind can wander into strange enough territories to make me cry.

I cried through like the whole first season of Grey's Anatomy.

You'd know that I cannot, I mean CANNOT watch TV shows or movies that involve themes about hurting/abusing/killing children. Law and Order SVU is one of my favorite shows, but the episodes about kids? Not a chance. I still haven't {and will never} see Shutter Island for this reason. When themes like that come up, I instantly start sobbing and have a massive panic attack.

You'd know I cannot whistle, cross my eyes or hula hoop.

If you really knew me you'd know that in 5th grade I told one of my friends that I couldn't be her friend anymore because she sneezed too loud. I was serious, and I still don't regret it.
It was like a scream/sneeze.

You'd know that I hate taking out the trash. More than any other chore in the world. Seriously.

You'd know that I don't like touching toilet water, I take a super hot shower every night before bed in order to sleep, and the sound of rain and cloudy gray days make me all kinds of happy and sentimental. 

You'd know I actually didn't learn to cook decently until well after I moved out on my own. My fridge in my first apartment had nothing but green olives, coco pebbles cereal and Totino's pizzas in it.

You'd know that new socks and underwear make me so happy that I put them on as soon as I get home. First thing. 

You'd know that I like the guy to drive if I go anywhere with anyone of the male persuasion.

What would I know about you if I knew you?

When

When I have nothing to do, I can always sit and daydream about you.

When I have nothing to say I can always say something to you.

When I can't think of a thing to write I can always write love letters to you.

Because no matter how blank my mind is or how dull my day is, there just seems to be no shortage of ways to say 

I love you

To you.

25 Thoughts on Turning 25

I turn 25 in exactly 1 month from today.

It's weird, this birthday this year.

I was in such a different place last year when my birthday came, that it's hard to believe I'm where I am now.

Hard to believe in a good way, like if someone gave you a million dollars for Christmas. You would barely be able to believe it, but you'd be happy about it, savvy?

Last year before my birthday I did 24 thoughts on turning 24. 

Thinking I would keep with tradition, here are 25 thoughts about turning 25.

Just like last year, but with 1 additional thought. 

YOU'RE WELCOME.

1. This will be the 4th birthday that I've had since I've met Bill, but the 1st where we will be an official couple for it. That's simultaneously weird, and completely normal to me now.

2. 4 days after my last birthday I got engaged to someone I barely knew. Here's hoping that doesn't happen this year.

3. I still hate telling people what I want for my birthday. I've always hated it, but somehow I guess I thought that at some point I'd be less embarrassed by it. I know girls {and guys} that are totally fine emailing out wish lists to their entire families and all their friends around their birthday or Christmas. I get itchy if I am forced to mention even one thing I'd like to receive. 

I feel like it makes me materialistic, greedy or selfish. Or demanding. Even though I don't see other people who ask for specific things that way at all, and I get super irritated when people won't just tell me what they want for their damn birthday {side eye: Bill}. 

4. Every year for the last 3 birthdays I've had, I've gone to a bar and gotten hammered with some friends. This year I would be overjoyed if I could have a really delicious dinner with Bill, and then see a movie or take a day drive somewhere or something. I'm down for drinking, but I think I have arrived at the point of hating bars.

5. I don't feel 25. But then again I didn't feel 24 either. I've always felt older. I wonder if I'll ever arrive at an age that feels appropriate to me.

6. If I buy myself a birthday present, it will either be a new TV or a dining room table. Exciting, I know.

7. Sometimes I wonder if I've become more boring with age. If settling down has made me safer, but also duller. It's kind of a fear of mine.

8. There was a time in my life when 25 seemed really, really grown up. Like I'd have it all figured out by now. I wish I could go back to that younger version of me and tell her  "You'll never know what the fuck you're doing"

9. I've never ever wanted a surprise party. Something about them gives me anxiety.

10. An absolutely ideal {and completely unrealistic} birthday weekend, would be a surprise trip to Vegas or Sedona with Bill. In a perfect world it'd be a road trip, because I love road trips, but it's hard enough to get Bill to sit in a car whilst you drive across town. I'm pretty sure he bought a plane so that he'd never have to drive across state lines again. If I couldn't have that, waking up to banana pancakes and good coffee would be a very close 2nd. 

11. I still don't know where I stand on the idea of legal, traditional marriage. I know that a forever kind of commitment to another person would be fine with me, but something about the whole legal marriage thing just throws me off. I don't really know why. Isn't promising to love another person forever the same thing whether you sign a marriage license or not? Why am I OK with the commitment but scared of a piece of paper?

12. I still feel a lot of guilt over the way I handled everything around my last birthday. How openly I flaunted my new {and ridiculous} rebound relationship, without simultaneously having the balls to admit any of it to Bill. It's hard for me to read my birthday post from last year without cringing at myself. I was trying so hard to be OK. I could not have looked more broken.

13. When I was little, basically up until my 10th or 11th birthday, my favorite cake and ice cream combo was strawberry cake and rainbow sherbet.  Now I'm a pizookie kind of girl.

14. I've started checking for grey hairs this year. Yep. 

15. Nice try mirror, but, clearly those are my mom's boobs you're showing me.

16. If you do want some ideas of what I'd like for my birthday, look here. No pressure or anything.

17. It's harder than I thought to come up with 25 things about being 25. 

18. Yes, there is a china hutch on my "wish list" board on Pinterest. I told you, I've become boring.

19. This time last year I was a midwifery apprentice. Now I'm a department coordinator for a real estate developer. Talk about polar opposites.

20. After we got back together, Bill gave me a necklace for my birthday last year that I have taken off a total of 1 time since he put it on me that night. 

21. For the first time in my life, I hope nothing changes between now and my next birthday. I am just exactly where I want to be.

22. There is no 22

23. Birthdays are my favorite holidays. I love my friends birthdays, and my kids'. I like trying to make them as special as possible. There's just something very sweet about celebrating and making a big deal out of the day a person was born.

24. I love cheesecake. Just saying.

25. Last year I wondered what it would be like looking back on that birthday, this year. I think I've done a lot of that recently. So much has changed. And I think all for the better. That's the first time I've ever been able to really say that. 

All I want is for things to keep getting better. To keep the people I have now, and maybe add a few more to love over the next year. But by my next birthday, I want to be able to say that I'm still where I always wanted to be. The ground didn't fall out beneath my feet, there were no major losses or forced life changes. Everything has just flowed forward the way life should.

A girl can dream.

The Friday Diary: The Haves and The Haven'ts

Happy Friday!

I love Friday.
I get to wear jeans and Chucks at work.
I get to come home and take as long of a post work nap as I want without worrying about being up too late afterward, because I can sleep in the next day.
I love Fridays so much, I stop giving a fuck on Thursday in celebration of the next day being Friday, a day on which no fucks are given, ever. 

...

I haven't been:

Smoking.

I haven't had a cigarette since last Thursday, May 31st.

That's not to say I haven't wanted one.

That's not to say I haven't REALLY wanted one.

On Saturday I came -this close- to buying cigarettes. I went to Circle K and got ice cream for me and the kids instead.

Small victories.
+

Eating fast food.

I cooked every night this week, Sunday through to today, and I will cook tonight too.

How's that going? You ask.

Real fucking hard.
I thought somehow that by not eating out I would be magically transformed into a '50's housewife with a gingham apron and perfect hair.
I forgot I would still be a working single mother who's dead tired when she gets home.

...

I have been:

Working out.

Honestly, I didn't work out at all during the weekend.

Not once.

And I consumed alcohol, which pretty much means I should've worked out twice a day every day of the weekend just to burn that shit off, but I didn't. BUT I have gotten at LEAST 20 minutes of exercise every day during the work week.
A girl at work told me my ass looked good in the skirt I wore to work on Wednesday.
I was so happy I almost wet myself.

...

Overheard This Week:
Jackson: When I was older and I had a job, I went to work every day.
Me: Oh yeah? You had a job? What happened to it?
Jackson: I can't work there anymore because I got little. I'll work there again when I get big again like you.
Me: What did you do at your work?
Jackson: People turned me into a plane and I flew all over da pwace. {read: the place}
Me: That sounds fun.
Jackson: Yeah, and when I gotted off work and picked up my kids I didn't tell them I was too tired to go get them ice cream from da store. Like you did.

Oh. Burn.

...

This time last year:
I had just come back from Vegas, the very first trip that Bill and I ever took together.
It was a very fun trip, and I still wish we would've taken some pictures.
But, I have the memories and I have a blog post, and that's part of what makes this blog so special.
I can always look back at where I was on this date, in some other year and read about what I did from the perspective I had at the time.
And besides, pictures or no pictures, I will never forget how upset poor drunk Bill was when our room service arrived and he realized he ordered a bacon cheeseburger.
Bill: Oh my God, I got a BACON CHEESEBURGER? Why would I do that?!
Me: What you don't like cheeseburgers?
Bill: No, I love cheeseburgers, but there's BACON  on it!
Me: You don't like bacon?
Bill: No, I do like bacon. But why did I order this?!
Me: Do you want me to eat the bacon for you?
Bill: But you got your own food...
Me: That has nothing to do with whether or not I can still eat all your bacon. I can. And I will.

We still don't know why he ordered that. Or why he was so upset about it.
Everybody loves bacon.
EVERYBODY.

...

Craft time

Lainie and I spent some time doing a little crafting this week. 

We made some pretty labels for her boxes of art supplies, and organized her craft closet.

And we've been working on making good choices, so we made a good choices jar. She gets a "drop" in her jar for every good choice, such as helping her brother, getting dressed in the morning without complaint, clearing her dinner dishes without being asked, etc.  Drops in her jar will be things like "coupons" that she can turn in for different stuff like picking what we have for dinner, or getting a sleepover with a friend, or whatever she's been asking to do lately, or sometimes money, or maybe little treats like pretty rocks {which she loves} or candy, or whatever. 

We'll see what effect this has on her choice making.

Spaghetti night

I love how little kids get spaghetti sauce like all over their body when they eat it. Especially on weird parts of their face, like their nose and forehead. It's just adorable to me. Watching my kids eat spaghetti is probably 90% of the reason why I make it.

...

Stuff We Tried:
Over the weekend Lainie and I attempted Fairies in a jar, which was supposed to look like this:

It did not look a damn thing like that when we were done.
That pin was bullshit.
But it was fun trying it anyway.

...

Well, that's our week.
Hope yours was awesome too.
Happy Friday.

Our Memorial Day Weekend: What We Ate

This Memorial Day weekend could've just as easily been called "This weekend when I ate everything terrible for me in a span of three days"

I literally feel like a beached whale sitting on my couch right now. 

I hate running, but if I could muster the strength to get off the couch, I'd run like 5 miles as fast as possible, to try to burn some of this off.

Unfortunately my huge ankles are weighing me down. 

The last two pictures are of Bill and his map-I mean and me, in Wickenburg on Sunday.

We drove up planning to do some offroading, but never really did much because we didn't have GPS and are still getting the hang of off roading. It's kind of scary if you've never done it before!

Fun though.

We also had some awesomely fried and fattening Mexican food for lunch that day, and a huge dinner of gumbo and jambalaya the night before. I don't have pictures of that though.

So see?

It's even worse than what you see here!

Hope you all had a great, and slightly less fattening Memorial day weekend.