What're you lookin' at? | Ramblings from a self-proclaimed yada yada yada...ist

Closer to fine

I am seriously in awe of newish moms who are able to blog more than once every few weeks. Good Lord, where do you find the time? My intentions are good, but between changing diapers and doling out snacks and paying the bills and remembering to shower, this Web site always gets the short end of the stick until I can't take the dust anymore; then I pound out seventy million paragraphs that probably would have worked better as several concise entries but, well, this boot-camp phase of my life doesn't allow for such strategic blog posting. That said, just one day shy of Nathan's nine-week birthday, I feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel.

A lot's happened since I last wrote. For starters, thanks to a switch in formula and bottle type, we have a much happier boy on our hands. Nathan is still high maintenance in the sense that being held is not always enough to calm him, and he still spits up a lot more than Kara ever did, but he's no longer screaming for hours every day; in fact, he's finally starting to enjoy life, smiling at us, cooing at my over-the-top baby antics ("Hi there, handsome boy!"), showing interest in rattles and toys, even paying attention to some of Kara's books during our various marathon reading sessions. He's still not even close to sleeping through the night, though, and because Kara was clocking eight-hour stretches the night she turned six weeks old, this kind of sleep deprivation so far into the newborn phase is majorly kicking our asses. Luke and I are both well aware that hers was not typical baby behavior, and I don't want to be all about the comparisons, but dude. THIS FAMILY NEEDS SLEEP. GET WITH THE PROGRAM, SON.

The change in Nathan's temperament combined with the slow return of spring has encouraged us to get out with the kids more often. We bit the bullet and purchased a double stroller, a Graco Quattro Tour Duo to be exact, a stroller that sold me on the color scheme alone, but so far we've only used it a couple of times because damn, that thing is hard to navigate, and when Luke and I are both around, it makes more sense to pair one child with each adult rather than burden one of us with roughly thirty-eight pounds of baby weight.

But look! So pretty!

 

There's a short walking trail behind our subdivision that leads into an even fancier one, and now it's one of my favorite things about where we live, because no longer are we confined to loop in circles like we were at our apartment complex, and gone are the days of having to pack up and drive to another part of the city to stretch our legs. I think this will be key to me getting back into shape, as I'm too busy playing catch-up after work to commit to a gym and I'm just not motivated enough to join Weight Watchers again. Instead, I'm trying to maintain perspective, reminding myself that birthing two babies in two years is hard work, and my body needs longer than six weeks to heal.

You like how I casually slipped in that whole "Oh, yeah, I'm back at work" reference? Because yes. I am back at work. And if you think leaving one baby at home is hard, just try it with two.

I'm lucky, though, that the transition has been much smoother. I had an infinitely easier time finding transitional clothes to wear while I'm (half-heartedly) working on my fitness, and that's been a huge boost to my self-esteem. Last time I was trying to squeeze myself into tens and twelves and failing miserably, resulting in an Ugly Cry in one of Eddie Bauer's dressing rooms last year. This time around, I had a Reality sandwich and just got the size fourteens I needed to keep my muffin top squarely at bay. And do you know that even though I was smaller last year, I look much better now because I'm actually wearing clothes that fit, that are a smidge too big even, and when that happens, there is no muffin top? There are no unflattering bulges! Who knew? Once again, I wonder if I've been in denial about my true size all along. We'll see what happens as I start shedding these extra layers of skin.

Anyway, work. I went back on Tuesday, and while the days leading up to it were pretty stressful, it felt kind of nice to get back into the swing of things and start concentrating on my family's new version of normal. On the flip side, I never knew what to say when people asked if I was happy to be back, because no, actually, I wasn't happy, I was flipping out over how Luke would manage the needs of two babies without losing his damn mind, and I was missing my children something fierce, and I'm sure that was evident by the look on my face. When I pulled into our driveway a little after four (still doing the seven to three-thirty with only a half-hour for lunch), Luke and Kara were staring at me from her bedroom on the second floor, Kara waving her sweet little fingers off, and I ran in as fast as I could, scooped her in my arms, and promptly burst into tears. I did it again at seven-thirty, uttering a strangled, "It's bedtime already?" as Luke went to bring her upstairs. The other thing that's been hard is dividing my time between both Kara and Nathan, trying to give them each my undivided attention, but I fail almost every time because when I'm reading to Kara, Nathan's crying to be held and when I'm holding Nathan, Kara is running after me with a book in her hand. To combat this, I've decided to take back ownership of Kara's night-time routine, since Nathan goes to bed so much later and there's still plenty of time to hang out with him one-on-one before I hit the sack around midnight or later, depending on the timing of his bottle. I've been pestering Luke with talk of two-versus-three almost every day since we brought him home, and now that I'm back in the corporate grind, I'm imagining what it would feel like to timeshare with yet another child, wondering if that will be the proverbial nail in my reproductive coffin.

ANYWAY, now that we're finally living our new version of normal, I'm continuing to challenge myself to let go of the small stuff and focus on important things like spending time with Luke and the kids, improving my health, stealing some quality time with my pillow, and picking up the house during an episode of Lost. On hold are things like mopping floors, cleaning out closets, updating baby books, making out a will and trust (for all my bitching and moaning about this before Kara's birth, I still don't have this done), and repopulating our new phone book until Nathan has a more predictable sleep schedule and we all have a better handle on our routine. Until then, I'm just putting one foot in front of the other and doing the best I can with the precious time I do have. I'm also holding on to this new feeling of peace, because even though life is hella crazy right now, I really do have it all. A wonderful husband, beautiful children, well-paying job, a place to lay my head, food to put on my table. When I think about how blessed I am, it truly blows my mind.

 

Nathan: How did you people ever get along without me?

Frema: I don't know, son, but at least we were well rested.

I've said before that 2009 will be about finding a new balance for my family and maximizing our time together, and getting a better handle on our priorities also means we'll probably see a little less of our extended families; at the very least, we'll be mostly staying put and they'll be coming to us. While it was a lot of fun to see everyone so much last year, it also took a huge toll on us, and now that we're farther south than we were in the apartment, it takes three hours to get to Luke's parents' house and four to get to Chicago, and that's without even one bathroom break, which, HELLO, two babies, ain't no way THAT'S gonna happen. I refuse to piss away my remaining PTO with half days here and there so we can run around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to cram a weekend's worth of diapers and clothes and toys into a gazillion duffel bags and listening to the kids whine in their car seats and attempting to time our breaks so that we can get everyone fed and changed in as few stops as possible and then come home on Sunday minutes before bedtime with no time to recharge before the upcoming week. Next year will be a different story, when both kids are off the bottle and sleeping through the night, but right now, it's just too hard. That said, this past weekend we did make the trip north to see everyone, seeing as I had added two weeks of vacation on top of the six weeks of paid leave generously granted by my employer, and I wanted to make them count. Plus, I was dying to introduce Nathan to my side of the family, as Dan, Samantha, and baby Danny were the only ones to meet him until then.

 

Here's Kara having a jolly good time in Luke's old backyard.

 

Daddy D, Kara, and Grandma before our drive to Chicago.

 

The majority of mi familia loca. Look at all those babies! If two of them weren't mine, I would totally be spiking a temperature. You know, because of the baby fever.

 

Me lovin' on my nephew Danny. The last couple of times Samantha and I have gotten our families together, our time was cut short by one medical emergency or another (remember Kara's party?), so this was the first time in a long time I was free to snuggle her baby. He looks so much like Samantha did when she was his age it's scary. So I was a little emotional.

 

One day they'll be knee-deep in snips of snails and puppy-dog tails, but for right now, Nathan and Danny are still working on forming their magical bond.

 

My nine-week-old family of four. I think we're gonna make it after all.

Let her eat (cup)cake

Despite the huge change we'll be experiencing in six weeks, things finally feel like they're becoming more manageable in the Frema-Useless Clutter household. Except for our bedroom (currently the latest catch-all room), our home is finally in order, my work load doesn't feel quite as overwhelming, and we are all set for Christmas. Hopefully this means you'll see me around here more often, because I really missing interacting with you all. And the house post I've been promising for thirty-seven years will go up after the New Year so it doesn't get lost in the holiday shuffle.

This past weekend, my family engaged in two noteworthy events, the first and most unexpected one being a visit from my sister Ryan and her husband Jason, who decided to fly in from Germany and surprise everyone for Christmas. Not only that, but they drove the three and a half hours it takes to get here from Chicago because they knew Luke and I were wanting to stay close to home. Even though we TOTALLy would have made the trip to see them because hello, GERMANY.

They showed up on our doorstep late in the morning and didn't leave until the evening. It was a wonderful visit, and especially nice to have them all to ourselves.

Since Jason's spent a lot of Kara's life on army duty in Iraq, she spent a lot of the visit sizing him up. Here you can see her weighing the pros and cons of remaining where she is or tackling her auntie.

Apparently, it was an easy choice.

 

Don't worry, Uncle Jason, Kara still loves you. See? She's totally letting you mack on her toys.

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The second event happened on Sunday, when Luke made a batch of banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (from scratch!) in honor of Kara's birthday. With five days of wellness under her belt, it was finally time for her to enjoy her first rite of passage as a one-year-old. The recipe for the cupcakes came from a homemade baby food cookbook Luke really likes, so now I'm almost glad her first major experience with sugar was something a little more healthful than the grocery-store cake we bought for her party. Not that there's anything wrong with ready-made goodness--if the task were up to me, I would've just gone back to Marsh. What can I say? June Cleaver's got nothing on me.

Anyway, at first, Kara was unimpressed.

 

This concoction is offensive to my delicate baby senses. I banish it from my sight forever! 

 

What's a girl supposed to do with this crap? Maybe there are instructions in the creamy white stuff?

 

You mean this is FOOD? Food I'm allowed to EAT? Why didn't you say so?

 

I don't care if there's frosting on my forehead, I must approach this substance with all the care my index and middle fingers can provide.

 

Say! I like green eggs and ham cupcakes! 

 

(Don't you feel like you're looking at a twenty-one-year-old who just had her first taste of beer?)

 

I'm saving some for later, and I'm putting it right HERE.

 

Where, oh, where is my squishy little baby? Perhaps this young girl can tell me.

 

Bloggers* in flight

* I can call us that because even though Luke hasn't posted since June, he still does have a blog, and Kara certainly held her own during my back-to-work hiatus, and it makes for a short and catchy title, and it's one fifty-seven in the morning as I sit to write this people, give me a break, will you?

I'm tired.

It feels like the last couple of weeks have been non-stop around here. My little family did make the looong trip to Chicago two weekends in a row, once to see my sister Ryan off to Germany, and once for my nephew Danny's baptism, though it was canceled at the last minute due to the poor little guy spitting up constantly and his pediatrician's recommendation that Samantha and Dan bring him to the hospital for observation. Thankfully, it appears to be a simple case of acid reflux to the -enth degree, but he gave his parents a little scare, nonetheless. So the weekends, not exactly a time for productivity.

Plus, work has been busy, and I had to play a lot of advance catch-up to be able to take the first part of this week off. Then there's the Web training seminar I'll be taking in Nashua, New Hampshire, next month, for which I'll be gone three nights, and the very idea of being away from Kara that long has me feeling much like I did in the days leading to my return to work in March. It's been suggested several times that I bring Luke and Kara with me, but between my tight schedule and our tight budget, it's not a good idea. I just have to wear my big-girl panties and resign myself to a good cry on the nights I should be putting her to bed.

And of course, in between work and family and trips up north has been our house, our blessed, wonderful, pain-in-the-ass house that is eating our money and sucking our will to live. To be fair, it's not so much the house itself as it is some of the contractors that have been dragging their feet (I'm looking at you, Cutting Edge Flooring). The last loose end should be tied up tomorrow, and then we can finally collect our spare keys and collapse in a sea of cardboard boxes and Tupperware bins that unfortunately won't unpack themselves. I'm so sad about leaving this apartment--this modest, two-bedroom apartment, where I held Kara to my chest and sobbed the night we came home from the hospital, where the two of us spent hours of my maternity leave snuggled on the couch while the snow fell outside, content to just sleep and breathe each other in--and yet, so excited about our new home, a home that will see a properly sized Christmas tree and stockings along the staircase (I just listened to our holiday playlist on iTunes, can you tell?) and the pitter-patter of little feet that my heart smiles just thinking about it. It's a bag of mixed emotions I've got going on here, but I'm hoping the joy wins out once we're settled in and I can revel in hammering nail holes wherever I damn well please.

All of this would explain why my contest winners have yet to receive their prizes, but rest assured, friends, they're coming soon to a mail box near you.

In the meantime, pictures! Good ole pictures. They're like the the pinch-hitters of blogging, when words are not enough (or just really boring).

 

Here are a couple from last weekend, aka Ryan's American farewell. She and Jason probably won't visit until sometime next fall, so we tried to soak up as much of her as we could. The sentiment seemed lost on Kara, though.

 

In this shot, the childbearing sisters attempt to show off their offspring while the offspring couldn't care less. Way to ruin a Kodak moment, kids.

 

How cute is my nephew? Let me count the ways.

   

Okay, one more, but really, how cute IS he? And can you believe that come February, this picture will be my life? GAAAAH.

 

Here, Kara and Grandma Dunscombe have a meeting of the minds.

 

Kara wants YOU to know about the awesomeness of Daddy D.

We weren't in Chicago long enough this past weekend to pull out the camera very much, but I did catch one of Kara and my mother in a full-fledged hands-and-knees face-off. Grandma seems determined to win, but she's no match for Kara's adorableness. That always trumps speed.

 

One of the rare instances in which Kara allows herself to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of the highway.

And now, seeing as it's three in the morning and Luke is already hauling miscellaneous crap to our car, I'm going to sign off, but not before I tease you with the promise of after pictures the minute AT&T says we can.  

Closing time

So. Today is closing day! The day Luke and I officially become homeowners for the first time in our lives. Final walk-through is at 2:30 p.m., closing is at 3:00, and of course we're still waiting to get final numbers from the bank for our cashier's check because why should we expect things to run smoothly?

I came into work this morning with a huge rock in my stomach (aside from Baby Brother), and as excited as we are to begin this new chapter of adulthood, Luke and I couldn't be more nervous. And because everything's happening so late in the afternoon, I'm not sure how we're going to celebrate. Maybe remove the "For Sale" sign in the front yard. Possibly go out to dinner because there's dried Rice-A-Roni on the stove from last night and Kara will need to eat shortly after we close and our apartment is a good forty minutes from our new pad. Continue to hash out paint colors and a schedule of what we can reasonably expect to accomplish before our October 28th move-in day. Originally the plan was to spend three weekends painting the entire house and the last weekend moving in, but my nephew Danny's baptism is now set for on October 26 and by the way, Ryan is moving to Germany to reunite with her army husband the weekend before that, and there's no way I'm missing out on my last chance to see her before spring. This leaves us only two working weekends left, so the NEW objective is to simply finish the second floor before the new carpet and bathroom tiles are installed later in the month.

Not that any of this makes me the slightest bit uneasy. Or crabby. Or hungry for a big bowl of spinach dip and a day in my pajamas.

It's overwhelming, how much there is to do before vacating our apartment; so overwhelming, in fact, that all I can do is think about October in small, manageable chunks. Call the flooring company. Price-check options for Internet, phone, and cable. (Yes, after more than three years of doing without, the Frema-Useless Clutter household just might hop on the cable bandwagon again.) (Also, I'm thinking not so much with the Comcast.) Buy primer and paint. Figure out when to paint. Figure out what to do with Kara. I would totally put her to work if she could walk more than five steps at a time. Also, if she could be trusted to keep her gums off the paintbrush.

(Actually, we do have some plans for Kara. A friend of mine from work who I knew from my Saint Joe days is going to come to the house and keep her company next Saturday so Luke and I can tackle the upstairs at the same time. Marissa heard about our baby-sitterless plight and actually volunteered to baby-sit. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a beautiful, paid friendship.)

In more uplifting news, did I tell you how much fun Kara is these days? Oh, wait, I guess I did. But I want to document it here, too, that my baby toddles and eats yogurt and "reads" her board books the right way and still has to play with my hair when I rock her to sleep. Luke and I are constantly looking at pictures from her newborn days and marveling over how much personality she's developed since then, how active she is, and how she loves us through each fumble. I would never categorize myself as patient, and I'm embarrassed to admit how damn frustrating parenthood is sometimes, but despite my shortcomings, Kara still scrambles to my arms when I come home each day. The biggest fear I had about being a working mom--that she wouldn't want me as much--has now reversed into my biggest obstacle, at least when trying to tackle my daily to-dos. She can't get enough of me. But I wouldn't want it any other way.

It's amazing to think that soon, there will be TWO little wonderfuls vying for my attention.

This was taken last Wednesday morning to document me at 20 weeks. Tomorrow I will be 21 weeks. Where is the time going?

Kara doesn't know, either.

It's mind-boggling, how much I love her.

If my uterus weren't already occupied, I would totally have baby fever

Meet my new nephew, Danny Jr., born August 18, 2008, at 5:28 p.m., weighing eight pounds and five ounces and measuring between 20 and 21 inches long.

Isn't he beautiful? The marks on his face are from the forceps, but Danny won't suffer any permanent damage. The nurse almost did, though, after telling Samantha, "At least you didn't have a c-section." Like a third-degree laceration is anything to write home about.

 

Mom and baby are doing just fine. I talked to Samantha yesterday, and she said, "He's so wonderful, I can't believe we get to take him home."

 

Of course, Dan is smitten with his namesake. See how much they look alike, already.

There's our Brooke! Much love, friend, for sharing the photos.

 

I've got Friday off so my little family can meet him. It can't come fast enough.

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P.S. We have a house! Visit my Parents blog for details. Pictures of the dreaded cabinets soon to follow.

In case you couldn't tell, I got a haircut, too

You don't mind an entry chock full of pictures, do you? Good. Because I am very tired and these images are the only reason I was motivated to post tonight.

Last week, Luke, Kara, and I spent four days up north visiting family, prompted by the fact that my new brother-in-law, Jason, was on a two-week leave from duty in Iraq, and not only did I have to miss his and Ryan's wedding (remember my Saint Joe scare?), he was deployed before Kara was born, so he still hadn't met his niece. We wasted no time getting them properly introduced.

Uncle Jason was happy to see Kara, though he admitted at one point, "I don't know what to do with her!" Here they are both looking to my mom for further instruction.

For our four nights away from home, we spent the first and last one at Luke's parents house and the middle two with Samantha and Dan. My sister is just over a week away from her due date, which just so happens to fall on the anniversary of her wedding. Little Danny Junior's arrival is eagerly anticipated by all.

(Here would be a great place to include Samantha's picture, except that I didn't take any. Bad big sister!)

Here's Luke reading to Kara one of the mornings we stayed with Samantha and Dan. I'm including it because Kara munching on her bunny's ear--the one that has helped her recover from a rough sleep patch these last couple of months--is way adorable, and it showcases one of her very favorite books: Gossie and Gertie, which is actually part of a Gossie-and-friends-type series. MY favorite is the one about BooBoo because it talks about burps, and what could be cuter then a story about a gosling who burps?

 

On Saturday morning, our little family stole away for a couple of hours and drove to Navy Pier. It was Kara's first time seeing Lake Michigan, and Luke and I had a blast strolling her down the boardwalk and giving her a view of the water. The Pier is one of my favorite Chicago landmarks, so it was probably natural that I felt a ping of sadness over not living closer and being able to see it any old time we wanted. Staying in Indianapolis is the best option for us right now, but part of me holds out for the chance of someday making the move to northwest Indiana, where the grass is green and the commuter trains are pretty.

Later that afternoon I attended a surprise baby shower for Molly (I know she'll be sharing pictures soon) (hint, hint, Molly), and while I was gone Luke and Kara hung out with my mom, who was ecstatic over having so much time with her granddaughter. There are some especially cute pictures over at Parents, where Kara's reading Grandma's face Helen Keller style and Grandma's teaching Kara this "so big!" move that she absolutely loved.

(Notice Kara's travel chair? It's a Chicco Caddy Hook-On Chair we can use at places where a high chair isn't available. It was thirty-five bucks and works like a charm, though Kara did cling to me for dear life the first couple of times she was in there.)

Kara likes the hustle and bustle of Chicago, but she also enjoys the quiet calm we experience when we visit Grandma and Grandpa Dunscombe. Also, Grandpa provides adequate lap space for naps.

The next day, before we headed out of town, we stopped to visit Molly and Jack. They were both excited to see Kara, because Molly has baby girl fever and Jack still gets a kick out of Kara's "Oopsie" video. I think they had a good time with each other, though Jack was not thrilled with Kara's tendency to drool on his toys.

Jack's like, "What are you doing with my bus, woman?" and Kara's like, "Boat?"

I don't know why innocent pictures like this make me want to joke about a future pairing, but they do, except then I get weirded out contemplating my baby daughter's potential love matches. Forgive me, Jack.

Molly and I juggling small children and fetuses (feti?) in utero. Neither of us expected to get knocked up with surprise babies this year, but who does? And anyway, there's nobody I'd rather freak out with.

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Now, the random stuff.

My Hoosier Momma shirt turned out to be too small, so my embarassment over wearing it can wait until next year. Maybe we'll just save it for bedtime.

It looks like the top three venue choices for BlogHer 2009 are Portland, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. I voted for St. Louis because it's closest in proximity to Indianapolis, but I would be way stoked to visit Philly again. I went there with Luke in 2004 to visit his best friend. We visited Old City and Valley Forge and took a ghost tour and all of it was awesome. Luke is actually encouraging me to sign up next year and even suggested that the four of us (!) could go together and turn part of the trip into a mini family vacation. I am so all over that; I really did have a great time last year. My only hang-up is my purpose for attending: my personal blog is often left to collect dust, so ads are definitely not a part of my near future, and sometimes it's difficult to keep up on the one I get paid for. Am I looking for larger readership? More freelance work? Or simply network (Amalah, for the love of God, PLEASE SAY YOU'RE GOING IN '09) and have a good time? Is that good enough?

I suppose it doesn't really matter. Luke's on board with my going, and I bring in enough money from blogging that attending a conference like this would be totally worth it. Count me in.

This week has been great to me, baby-wise. I entered my thirteenth week and experienced an energy surge that didn't come until closer to week eighteen with Kara, and my work unveiled a new maternity leave policy, effective immediately, that pays six weeks at one-hundred-percent salary. Words can't express the impact this will have on my life, but I make the attempt over at Parents.

On the housing front: Luke, Kara, and I will visit three more houses on Indy's south side. Wish us luck.

Lastly, Kara is just nine days away from turning eight months old and making the cutest "mamadadababa" babbles you've ever heard in your life. On Monday morning, Luke will take her in for her first professional photo shoot. I didn't realize how bummed I'd be over not being able to join them, but I'm already leaving early that day for an ob/gyn appointment, and things are too busy for me to take off the whole day. Where did the time go? When did my sweet baby girl go from this:

To this?

Hell if I know, but damn if she isn't the most beautiful person I've ever met.

Let Freedom Ring

There is a buzz in Indiana today as Hoosiers flock to the polls; apparently the idea of actually influencing the selection of a party candidate has us all atwitter, because according to the local paper, turnout is more indicative of a general election than a little ole primary.

I hit my polling station on the way to work, and as I parked my car, I realized that for the first time in my entire life, I was truly excited to vote. In fact, it wasn't until very recently that politics meant anything to me at all.

Growing up, the whole function of government seemed a mystery not unlike the Bermuda Triangle. Sure, I took the Constitution test in eighth grade (and passed, lest you deem me a complete moron), and it was interesting enough, but when it came time to apply those principles to the world around me, it was too overwhelming. Hell, I could barely get a handle on basic algebra--there was no way I felt smart enough to talk about the merits of those running for office. My parents are loyal Republicans, and I have memories of watching the news with them at dinnertime, my father complaining about Mayor Daley's latest crime against the Chicago Fire Department, my mother nodding her head in agreement, and I remember feeling slighted on their behalf, too young to do anything but pretend I understood. When I was eight years old, I distinctly remember asking my mom why she didn't like Michael Dukakis and her telling me he wanted to kill babies. Kill babies! I was horrified. Lil' Frema had visions of men in uniforms lined up against a concrete wall, cradling newborns in their arms, each waiting to rid the planet of their vast uselessness.

(And here I must tell you writing that last paragraph was really uncomfortable for me, and in no way do I maintain a cavalier attitude towards abortion, but I'm assuming you all can appreciate my attempt to liven up a hazy childhood memory with the humor that accompanies a child's literal interpretation of a statement way beyond her level of understanding. You got that, right? We're still friends? Good.)

That political naiveté stayed with me into early adulthood. The first time I was eligible to vote was during the 2000 presidential election, but I was attending school in Indiana, and my permanent residence was Illinois, and I didn't know enough about the issues (or care enough, if we're being honest) to request an absentee ballot at the time. I did vote in 2004, at which time I knew enough about politics to label myself a Democrat, but I was only slightly put off by the results, not emotionally invested in John Kerry by any means, and certainly not heartbroken over the outcome.

But now I am different. Now I am motivated by our current state of affairs to want better for my family--specifically, for Kara. Now I follow the news to learn more about the goings-on in my city and surf the Web to become more educated on which candidates best meet my criteria for local and national leadership. Luke and I are currently rooting for Barack Obama, so much so that we seriously considered attending one of his rallies last night, but having a four-month-old baby who wants to be fed and changed and entertained on her terms, not ours, was reason enough to stay home (read: go to Applebee's, where we didn't have to wait in line for two hours and beg for admittance). But we listened to several of his radio interviews, and we watched last month's debate, and we talk constantly about how inspired we are by his vision and his ability to stay gracious under fire.

Also, his winning smile. So dreamy!

 

I like Barack and I cannot lie.

But this post isn't about who I voted for or why (so please don't flame me for my opinion, I have a "Delete" button and I'm not afraid to use it). It's about my new appreciation for the way leaders are chosen in this country and how grateful I am to have a voice in the process. This morning, I almost teared up reflecting on how lucky we Americans are to be able to elect our commander-in-chief (however imperfect the process may be) and support our favorite without fear of repercussion.

And Kara is lucky, too, because finally, she has a mother who cares.

Jesus loves me this I know, for my baby slept during the entire composition of this entry

Holy crap, has it really been seven days since I posted here? I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates, but I always hate it when bloggers do that, like, do you think I've got nothing better to do than refresh your site? But then again, before Kara, I really didn't have anything better to do than refresh your site, and what the hell was going on in your life that you couldn't take five seconds out of your precious day to let me know you're still alive? You can appreciate the dilemma, no?

Anyway, things are going much better. In my last entry, I talked about how Kara had suddenly altered her schedule to accommodate less sleeping and more crying, to the point that her mother was crying because oh my God, if you aren't hungry and aren't wet and don't like your bouncy seat or transportable swing or the rocking chair or just bouncing around with Momma throughout the apartment, that's it, kid. There's nothing more I can do.

Now, though? I can take her restlessness in stride without taking it personally, and I've even figured out a few more things we can do together, like looking at blocks dressed in primary colors and reading picture books and paying more attention to tummy time. Don't get me wrong, half the time she fusses through those things, too, but there are moments in which I can see her actually paying attention, reaching for one of her blocks or following the duckie rattle with her eyes. She turned four weeks old yesterday, and I already feel like she's a completely different person from the one Luke and I brought home from the hospital. She's so much more expressive now, experimenting with various smirks and (gassy) smiles and working her hands together while she takes everything in. She also sleeps more predictably through the night, albeit in patches, but it's still enough that between ten and six I can hoard about five hours of sleep, which is more than enough for me to get through the day. This may sound silly, but I almost feel like the newborn stage is over, that she's already taking the appropriate steps to become her own little person and shift into some sort of routine. Time really is flying by.

Things on the pumping front are...almost nonexistent. My quality time with the Ameda is down to just once or twice a day, and I'm only producing embarrassingly tiny amounts of milk each time. I have a feeling that by the end of the week, Thelma and Louise will be all dried up and we'll be solely dependent on the makers of Similac and other formulas for Kara's nutrition. Oh, well. I'm proud that she received the benefits of breastmilk for four whole weeks and that I gave the whole boob thing my very best shot. Maybe my best wasn't as good as some of yours, but we all do what we can.

This past weekend was crazy for us, as we celebrated Kara's baptism at the Episcopal church we've been attending intermittently for the last year and my family was finally able to make it to Indianapolis and love on the baby. There was much chaos as Luke and I frantically tried to clean our apartment and get our daughter ready for her longest trip away from home. Sundy morning, we left the complex armed with individually packaged amounts of formula, two bottles of water, six diapers, two back-up outfits, a pacifier, and prayers to God that Kara would make it through the ceremony and luncheon without waking up the dead. And she did! She was a perfect angel, sleeping through almost the whole service and all of the pizza party we had afterwards. Auntie Samantha and Uncle Dan, her godparents, bought her a beautiful christening dress, and as Luke and I changed her into it minutes before Mass, I couldn't help but tear up because she looked so lovely and grown up and I was so proud of her for not pooping in her pretty new clothes. Also, she's not even a full month yet and already I'm losing my baby and thank you, God for blessing us with such a wonderful gift waaaaaah hiccup sob.

But enough from me. It's picture time! Hopefully they'll hold you all over until I'm able to post here again. (At least you've got my Parents blog to tide you over, though, right? In case you haven't been keeping up, I posted my birth story there. All four parts of it. You're quite welcome.)

(Also, thank you for the birthday wishes. My January 9th introduction to the ripe old age of 28 was marked with presents from Luke, wailing from the baby, and an episode of Deal or No Deal. I swear, NBC must've aired it just for me.)

I know I'm her mother, but honestly, this child is the most photogenic baby on the planet. For real.

Kara with three of the four members of the Lost A Sock family. No, Molly, you may not take her home.

Grandma and Grandpa Ma'Ayteh checking out their first grandbaby.

Auntie Samantha, Uncle Dan with Kara in tow, Momma, and Daddy. Now would be a good time to tell you that my sister is pregnant with her own bundle of joy, who's due in August. How awesome is that?! Everyone's got the baby fevah!

Kara getting smooshed by her fabulous aunties.

"I don't care what the law says, love is not limited by gender!" (Or: Kara with Uncle Geo and Uncle Dan.)

Look! Kara and Grandma Dunscombe match! Also, if I were just two inches taller, I totally could've captured the smile she flashed at Daddy D.

The guest of honor with her grandmas and grandpas. How lucky she is that all four are around to spoil her.

Kara giving that creepy girl from The Grudge a run for her money. Atta girl, sweetheart.

It's a wonderful life

All is well.

Since my last entry, an incredible sense of calm and well being has covered Luke and me like a blanket, which has made these last couple of days the best ones since Kara's birth. I'll tell you about it soon enough, but for now, all I want to do is revel in how blessed we are and how thankful I am for everything God has given us.

Most of the members of my family have been too sick to make the trip to Indy, so it was extra special that my sister Ryan drove in from Chicago to spend Christmas with us. Newly married and desperately missing her army husband, who's currently in Germany awaiting February deployment to Iraq, a little baby fix was just what she needed to get through the holiday.

As for my own spouse, I can't tell you how mesmerizing it is to watch him with our daughter. He's so gentle with Kara, so enamored with her, and I honestly don't know what I've done to deserve such unconditional love and support. This last week has been the most exhilerating and terrifying one of my life, and he's been right by my side the entire time, holding me when I cry and telling me what a good job I'm doing when he's not washing bottles, refilling my water glass, and reminding me to take my pain meds. I couldn't ask for a better life partner or a more loving father for my baby.

I look at these two people and wonder how I ever lived without them.

Merry Christmas.

The title of my next post will be original, I swear.

I don't think Samantha ever made it, either

At long last, it is here. The last day of NaBloPoMo.

I have to say, this year I disappointed myself. The first time around, I did a good job of writing about a variety of different things: sharing stories from my childhood, creating Tragic Love Friday, initiating the cheesy love song swap, blah blah blah. This year saw no such variety from me--it was pretty much all baby, all the time.

Then again, I'm about to have a baby. And that's what I think about. All the time. Surely you understand.

Today was one of my final days at the office, and even though I spent most of it cleaning out files and meeting with coworkers who'll be taking over my core duties while I'm on maternity leave, this whole experience still doesn't seem quite real. It reminds me of the years I spent in Girl Scouts when I was a kid, and every year our troupe visited a local pumpkin patch for a day of fright and fun. I'd never been to a pumpkin patch before, and the month leading up to the event I was always so excited I could wet myself.

(And sometimes I did.)

(Just kidding.)

Anyway, every year something happened that prevented me from going on the trip, and it was always my own fault. One time it was because I'd mouthed off to my mother the day before; the year after that, my sister and I were caught fighting in church THE MORNING OF. By the time I got my act together, I wasn't in Girl Scouts anymore. My pumpkin-patch ship had sailed.

Where am I going with all of this?

It's like the birth of this baby is some wonderful event being dangled in front of me like cheese to a mouse, an event so wonderful that it's too wonderful to actually come to fruition. Like I'm going to do something stupid--say, trip on a crack in the sidewalk or drop a coffee cup on my belly--and Freka will never be born. It's hard to comprehend that I will go into labor, that she will come out, that I will hold her in my arms and become a mother for the first time.

Her clothes are washed. Her room is ready. She has Christmas presents for her stocking and even one for under the tree. We've got enough newborn and size one diapers to last us the whole winter (or at least the first two weeks). What Luke and I don't have is a firm grasp on the notion that this baby, our baby, is actually coming.

But when she does? It'll be so much better than a romp through a pumpkin patch.

I wanna rock with you, baby

Seeing as this baby is just about three weeks away from her scheduled arrival, I've been starting to panic a bit over all the things Luke and I still have yet to do. My biggest priority of late: reupholstering the rocking chair my mother gave me years ago, the same rocking chair she used to lull me (and eventually my four siblings) to sleep. I can also remember being thirteen and sitting in this chair when my youngest sister, Donna, was born, pushing my feet against the carpet and moving in time with her breaths for hours.

To say this chair has special meaning to me is a gross understatement.

Another thing that can't be underestimated? The horridness of the fabric.

Here's the front, in all its mismatched-patterned glory:

The brown plaid is what initially covered the chair almost twenty-eight years ago. The questionable green-pink-blue concoction is thanks to my mom, who swears this once complimented the rest of our living room furniture. I wish I could believe her.

Here's the back:

I think we can all agree, it's time for a change.

For months, I've planned on doing this. I've had visions of reupholstering this precious childhood heirloom with a rich, creamy, neutral fabric, allowing the chair to match the decor of any room it might find itself in, which right now happens to be the baby's room. I knew it could be done--after all, my mother had the same itch herself once (probably in the mid-eighties, judging by her color choices). Her solution? Nail the fabric to the frame for the front and back and sew up the cushion. I figured I could do at least that much and didn't give it another thought until fall, when I realized this project wasn't going to complete itself.

The nails didn't seem like such a good idea then.

But staples! We could staple the fabric and thus avoid bludgeoning our fingers. Problem solved (read: problem shelved for another couple of months).

Which brings us to the present time.

Every weekend for the past three weeks, I've expressed to Luke my desire to PLEASE LET'S GET THIS CHAIR DONE, OH MY GOD, and every weekend it slips off the radar as we wash dishes, fold clothes, and make yet another mad dash to Babies R Us. Finally, this morning, I told him enough already. This baby, she could come any time she wants, and it would be more helpful to finish this off before I'm breathing through contractions on the way to the hospital.

This afternoon Luke removed the second layer of fabric from the front of the chair, after which he realized that staples might not be the smartest solution, either, as they might be just as hard to hide as the nails were. Carpenters we are not, people.

We first googled "upholstery shops Indianapolis" with the intention of purchasing better materials with which to attach new fabric. Then I was calling businesses and requesting quotes and suddenly we were driving through downtown to meet with the only shop owner with Saturday operating hours. It's all a blur now, but the bottom line is that handing the problem off to a professional will ensure us a quality job, not to mention completion before Freka's due date, so that's what we're going to do. If I were even half as crafty and resourceful as a certain domestic goddess I know, I'd vow to save the money and find a way to do this ourselves. But you know what? I'm not that crafty. I'm not that resourceful. I'm almost thirty-seven weeks pregnant, is what I am, and holy cow, do I not want to deal with this damn chair anymore.

Now I can finally dedicate my time to finishing a project more up my alley. Like wills! The fun, it never ends around here.

Day four of NaBloPoMo...

...and I'm already questioning my commitment. Luke woke me up from a delicious cat nap to make sure I had enough time to post today's entry. I almost said "To hell with it" and went back to sleep, but I didn't because I'm...dedicated? Just plain stupid? Only time will tell.

I know my half-hearted attitude towards blogging these days comes from the numerous to-dos already competing for my time. Today was another action-packed day, filled with more family visiting, more apartment cleaning, more Christmas shopping, and even more maternity clothes shopping, seeing as most of the items I received in my last Gap order are already too snug, and also seeing as it's unacceptable to attend professional work functions in a shirt that constantly threatens to expose the mass of purple stretch marks hiding underneath.

(As I'm typing this, Luke is giving me a wonderful massage with one of those hand-held contraptions you can get at Bed Bath & Beyond for like, ten bucks. So good, and so worth it.)

Anyway, for those of you wondering, Tori's concert on Friday was wonderful, and I'm so glad I decided to go, even though I felt like a senior citizen in my black pants and sneakers compared to the college-aged grungies in ripped tights and brightly dyed hair and the savvier gals who donned heels, jeans, and jackets, jackets that wouldn't stand a chance against my plentiful waistline. I only left twice to pee--once during the opening act, and once during her second encore performance, after listening long enough to make sure the song wasn't one I would kick myself for missing. Freka liked it, too; for at least half of the show, she couldn't stay still.

Speaking of Freka (ha! Like there's anything else I talk about these days), tomorrow I'll be thirty-five weeks, and I'm genuinely amazed at how quickly this last stretch is slipping through my fingers. Instead of constantly devising new ways to relieve my back pain, my thoughts are now centered around delivery and postpartum: preparing my birth plan, coming up with questions to ask potential pediatricians, whether or not I'll labor in my own things or the hospital's poor excuse for a gown, and how in the world I'll manage breastfeeding around my family during the first month when I'll have to whip out a boob every two hours. My mother formula-fed all five of us, and though she's supportive of my desire to nurse, she's already said something along the lines of "You're not going to do that in front of your father, are you?" As if feeding my child were on par with pole dancing in an x-rated night club, even though I've seen more breast at work parading under the guise of business casual than I have from nursing mothers in all those parenting magazines I skim at the doctor's office.

I picked up two nursing camis and one nursing bra from Target this afternoon, so at least I've got some clothing that'll keep the quote-unquote indecent exposure down to a minimum, and I'm not against using a blanket around those who are truly uncomfortable with watching a woman breastfeed, but I hate being made to feel like I'm doing something that needs to be covered up in the first place.

I also think about how long I'm going to make it in my current ginormous state before I either abandon work for early FMLA leave or demand the doctor induce me.

Yes, I admit it. I am big. Huge. The belly, it is gargantuan.

I know this because Luke and I attended a labor support class at our hospital last week, and despite all six of us having due dates ranging within one week of each other, I was the only mom-to-be who looked like the simple act of breaking wind would be enough to bring her baby into the world.

If only it were that simple.

Forget the epidural; why doesn't anybody warn you about the IV?

It's been a long few days.

Those of you who follow my Parents blog already know about last Thursday's ER scare; those of you who don't? Well, you really should follow my Parents blog.

Just kidding. (Except not really.)

Here's the story: Almost two weeks ago, I showed signs of my third pregnancy-related yeast infection. I began treatment and took my last dose this past Wednesday; the following morning, I awoke to mild irritation in my vaginal area. Initially attributing it to an ill-timed poke with the Monistat applicator, I drove to Rensselaer as usual for class because my friend Jackie--fellow BlogHer attendee and seasoned PR executive--was scheduled to give a presentation about her experience with blogs in the marketing world. I didn't want to waste her time or cheat my students, and anyway, I figured the discomfort would fade away as the day wore on.

Only it didn't. Two hours before class, I was crying to Luke about the pain, my God, THE PAIN, in my special place and now my stomach, too, wondering how the hell I was going to make it from six to eight-thirty without running to the bathroom, pulling my pants down, and trying my damndest to relieve myself, as by that time, my symptoms were comparable to the worst urinary tract infection imaginable.

As it turns out, I didn't make it. Hell, if you ask my students, I barely made it the first thirty minutes. Five minutes before class began, I called Luke to tell him I needed to get to the hospital. I knew I couldn't drive back to Indy in my condition, so the plan was for him and his brother to meet me in Purdue country, enabling my husband to take my spot behind the wheel without leaving behind a second car. I figured Jackie could make her presentation and I could end class shortly after to get started on the forty-five-minute trip to Lafayette.

Educating young minds without sacrificing my need for immediate medical attention. Everybody wins!

Jackie eventually transported me to the local ER.*

I didn't know what to feel. On one hand, Freka's activity level hadn't changed at all, and I wasn't leaking any fluid, so a phone call to my doctor reassured me I probably wasn't in labor. On the other, I was also experiencing irregular contractions and a physical strain so intense I could barely walk. All I could think about was parking my ass on a toilet and willing it out of my body.

The ER nurses loved hearing that. "Don't push, don't push!" one of them barked when I explained my urge to pee. "We don't want to deliver a baby right now!"

Me, neither, lady.

Thankfully, I wasn't in labor. I was, however, badly dehydrated, and apparently lack of fluid was to blame for the contractions and that horrible pain. I received my very first IV feed, and it hurt like a sonofabitch. A non-stress test confirmed the baby's heart beat was strong, and three and a half hours later, Luke and I left the hospital with the results of my urinalysis and strict instructions for me to get more rest and drink lots of water.

The fun part? A follow-up appointment with my ob/gyn the next day showed that our little Freka is sitting way lower than normal for this stage in the game; also, my cervix has already begun to soften. Even though there's still seven weeks to go until my December 10th due date, it's not totally off-base to think my Christmas baby might be here by Thanksgiving.

At least she's head down.

Things are OK now; I had another "episode" on Saturday night, but I'm thinking the six hours Luke and I spent running through the aisles of Babies R Us and Super Target in a frantic attempt to stock up on the last of our baby essentials had something to do with it. Once again, copious amounts of water saved the day.

...And consider yourself officially caught up on all matters related to my uterus. Don't you feel special?

In other news, my sister's post-wedding wedding shower is set for November 18th, but in light of recent events, there's no way I can in good conscience commit to a trip to Chicago. Ryan was extremely understanding, and she promised to visit with Jason while he's on leave, but still, knowing I have to miss one of the few marital milestones I could've actually participated in for her doesn't have me jumping up and down for joy. (Their elopement, by the way, was rescheduled for this weekend due to outrageously priced air fare, so she still has another few days of living life as a single woman.)

Tune in again on Wednesday to see all the progress I've made on my prenatal to-do list. You'll be amazed, I promise.

* Words can't express how grateful I am for all Jackie did that night--taking over my class, driving me to the hospital, staying by my side until Luke arrived.... I couldn't have managed on my own, and she made it possible that I didn't have to. Jackie, thanks so much for being such a good friend. It means more than you know.

The one time I'm grateful she doesn't read my blog.

Once again, much thanks to everyone who provided suggestions for Ryan and Jason's wedding presents. In order to preserve what little sanity I have left, Luke and I decided to save the tangible items for their November reception/shower and go with a monetary gift to celebrate their actual elopement. I also ran to Victoria's Secret last night to pick out some pretty things for her to wear on her wedding night (smart thinking, Liz!). On the way to the mall, it hit me, really hit me, that I won't be there to watch my little sister get married. When I see her this Saturday, she'll be a single woman. The next time? She'll sport a new last name. She'll have taken vows to love and cherish another human being for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as they both shall live. And I WON'T BE THERE.

Dammit, I'm crying again. Luckily, rolled-up tank tops make excellent hankerchiefs.

It's probably safe to say that emotions will be running high at my baby shower this weekend. Expect lots of pictures (and possibly more tears) for Monday.

So as not to leave you on a completely depressing note, I want to get a feel for how many of you plan on participating in this year's National Blog Posting Month. I fully intend to hop on the bandwagon just like I did last year, especially since I was so freaking productive. Cheesy love song swap inspired by Lionel Richie! The birth of Tragic Love Friday! Yes, November 2006 was quite the month for Frema.

With everything going on in my life these days, I haven't been paying attention to this blog as much as I'd like, and since I have no idea how often I'll post once Freka arrives, think of NaBloPoMo as my early Christmas gift to the Internet.

Who's with me? 

I want fried chicken. (This entry isn't about that, though.)

Also, I'm still in awe that 58 of you commented on a post dedicated to cloth diapering.

Thank you all so much for the many, MANY recommendations you left in response to my call-out for cloth info. It sounds like the best plan is to buy a diaper here and there and see which ones Freka likes best. Luke and I don't mind using disposables while we're testing the waters, especially since we never planned on an all-or-nothing type deal to begin with. I have no intentions of touting shit-stained diapers when traveling outside city limits.

I have to admit, though, using anything other than an All-In-One scares the bejeezus out of me, even though several of you are die-hard advocates of the more...involved products. The idea of trying to assemble various diaper parts and do I have to order them all separately or are they included in each individual order and what the hell is a PUL is enough to scare me into Huggies's open arms for the rest of my childbearing years. I can only pray detailed instructions and step-by-step diagrams are included in every package.

I'm nervous about working out the kinks but definitely excited about keeping money in the bank. Somebody mentioned that the added expense of increased laundering might cancel out the cost savings associated with buying cloth, but I can't imagine doing one more load every couple of days will run me $336 a month--the approximate amount it would take to keep Freka in Pampers each month.

Hmm. Thanks, Jana, for pointing out my faulty logic. I took the numbers of diapers I anticipate changing every day (12), multiplied that by seven, and then multiplied that by four, which gave me 336--a correct number if we're talking about how many diapers Luke and I will change each month, but not the monthly cost.

On BabiesRUs.com, they carry boxes of 96-count Pampers for $22.95. Three boxes would leave us about 48 diapers short for the month, but the cost for those would be $68.97, so let's assume I'd spend a hundred dollars a month (with tax) on disposables. Not the huge monthly savings I anticipated, but still, a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks, and my cost for diapers overall should be considerably less with cloth. Kerflop shares a breakdown at her Very Baby Web site, one she probably didn't attempt to outline at 1:30 in the morning.

(Now back to our regularly scheduled entry.)

As far as the environment goes, whether or not it makes a significant difference to our landfill problem, it certainly can't hurt. So we'll give it a try and see how it goes.

Now on to more important things, like the fact that my sister Ryan is getting married in two weeks so she can move to Germany in December to be with her high school sweetheart slash ambitious Army husband.

My mother called last week to say that Jason had contacted my father from his base in Texas to ask for Ryan's hand in marriage (I know, I know, outdated and patriarchial and insulting to women, blah blah blah, but it means a lot to my parents that all of their future son-in-laws do this, and in the end nobody's worse for the wear). Anyway, permission was granted, Ryan flew down to Texas for the weekend, and by 11:30 Sunday night she had spilled the marital beans. She also told me Jason's being transferred to Germany in two months and they needed to be married by then so she could go with him. Tonight, she said they've made plans to elope next weekend so she can get a head start on the mountain of paperwork required for her Big Move. Jason is slated to come home for a short visit mid-November, at which time there'll be some sort of celebratory gathering for the newlyweds. By Christmas, they'll both be gone. It's not even guaranteed that Ryan can meet her firstborn niece before she has to leave.

So, to sum up: Baby sister is getting MARRIED, OH MY GOD, moving to an overseas country far away from friends and family, and by the way, my new brother-in-law might get deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan next year.

It has also not escaped my attention that in mid-November I'll be thirty-six weeks pregnant and Chicago is a good four-hour drive from Indianapolis, what with all the construction taking place on both the tollroads and expressways. And that's just one way.

This is a lot of information for a highly strung, easily overwhelmed incubator to absorb in a forty-eight-hour timespan, but so far, I'm doing OK. If you're up to being helpful, though, I wouldn't mind suggestions regarding appropriate wedding presents for a bride and groom who have no practical use for coffee pots, toasters, or oven mitts. These gifts should also be readily available at most retail chains, seeing as Freka's shower this Saturday will also commemorate Ryan's last days as a single woman. I can't let her say "I do" without having at least a little something from me.

Ten out of twelve ain't bad

After checking my campus mailbox yesterday, I was a little sad to see I'd lost two students during last week's add/drop period. The class must've varied too far from their expectations, which I completely understand, but still, wah.

It's so different being on the other side of the academic fence; as an undergraduate, I never gave a thought to the personal feelings of my professors. They always came to class prepared to share some big-picture insights about the world around us, and for the most part, I trusted their direction. How odd to think they must've started out the way I am now, navigating through material I have yet to master, trying to create an atmosphere conducive to thoughtful participation, worrying about filling class time. Which I did, by the way, and let me tell you, the time between 6:00 and 8:30 literally flew by. I only glanced at the clock on my cell phone a few times, and at one point I actually questioned whether or not we'd make it through my entire lesson.

Of course, I'm still discovering the many ways in which I can improve my teaching style. This week, I prepared for class the way I might've in graduate school: read, read, read and take lots of notes, with some extra attention paid to forming possible discussion questions for each chapter. However, being a diligent note-taker does not an expert make, so sometimes I'd repeat a concept or definition several times until I found the wording that seemed to make the most sense to my students, and even then I sometimes realized that my understanding of an idea wasn't as rock-solid as I thought.

This week was probably a bigger challenge than most will or should be, seeing as we primarily focused on technical resources available to bloggers, and my acquired knowledge in that area is self-taught and fair at best. There was an awkward moment when a student asked to see an example of a TrackBack and I didn't have one to show him. Normally I'd just pull up a Web site that featured what we were talking about, but you so rarely see this function used in the blogosphere--at least on the blogs I read--that finding one on the spot wasn't an option. Next came the brilliant idea that oh! I'll just log in to my TypePad account and create an entry with a TrackBack right now! Only that didn't work out, either, because apparently I'm an idiot. I'll definitely become better acquainted with TypePad's stellar customer knowledge base before next Thursday, because by George, I WILL make the TrackBack my bitch.

Despite my rookie mistakes, I consider last night a success. Teaching this class is a wonderful way to keep my mind occupied as my stomach continues to grow at an alarming rate, and it's hard to believe that by the time we wrap things up, Luke and I will be one month away from meeting our baby.

Here is The Belly at 25 weeks. No, I'm not carrying twins, thank you so much for asking and making me feel like a big fat cow.

But wait! I have more graphic goodness to share.

This little guy is Roxy, one of two kittens recently adopted by my family. Our beautiful German shepherd, Styx, was put to sleep back in January (on my birthday, which I so appreciated), and since then my mother's been lonely for animal companionship; when they learned my grandfather's cat had recently given birth, my sister Ryan convinced my father to bring two of them home for her, which surprised us all, because for YEARS my mom's talked about how much she hates cats and they can't be trusted and let me tell you about the time when Samantha was a newborn and I found one sitting on her face.

Viewed in that light, I suppose her "distaste" was somewhat warranted.

As it turns out, my mother quite enjoys felines when they're not threatening to suffocate one of her children. The one above is her favorite, I think. She named him Church. As in, the resurrected cat from Pet Sematary. Because that's not disturbing at all.

P.S. Is nobody interested in summing up part two of TLF? The soundtrack you'd receive in turn would be totally awesome, I promise.

Sweet Home Chicago

At the time I sit down to publish this, there's still one minute left of Weight Loss Wednesday, but right now I don't care about Weight Loss Wednesday. If you think that's due to Frema gaining two pounds in one week, you're only partly right.

Luke's and my weekend extravaganza kicked off with the long-awaited Jerry Seinfeld show in downtown Indianapolis. Prior to our living together, I had no interest in Jerry Seinfeld, in his stand-up or his trivial, nothing little show, but the minute Luke's bags dropped at the front of my door step, all preconceived notions flew out the window and soon I was pissing my pants with the best of them over Jerry's housecleaning prostitute and "not that there's anything wrong with that" bit. On Friday night we hurried home from work, scarfed down a couple of bacon sandwiches (bacon sandwiches for me, at least, as in, no lettuce, and tomato on the side), and scurried out the door a good forty minutes before the seven o'clock start time. And if all we had to do was pull into the Murat Theatre parking lot, claim a space, and make our way to the ticket booth, I would've had plenty of time to relieve myself before finding our seats. However, coming from a city as ginormous as Chicago, I never in my wildest dreams imagined we'd actually have to deal with something as "big city" as parking issues and therefore allotted zero extra time to address the crowds.

The Murat lot was, of course, full, so our only option was to seek comfort in the arms of another, less sophisticated one, one with lower standards and no ability to accept credit card payments. This meant wasting ten minutes of pee time circling the block, rejoicing over the spotting of a bank and simultaneously cursing the fact that IT DID NOT HAVE AN ATM, WHAT THE HELL CENTURY ARE WE LIVING IN, PEOPLE, before victory was ours.

Once the car was secured in a no-tow zone, we flew up eight flights of stairs, during which I realized I paid seventy-seven dollars a ticket to squeeze my legs together, attempting to hold back the yellow flood, in the middle of the damn balcony. But we made it on time, seconds before the opening act, and twenty minutes later Jerry skidaddled onto the stage, and I actually shed a tear, so happy was I to see him. Urinate, schmurinate. What's another eighty minutes of holding it in for Jerry freaking Seinfeld?

The next morning, we saddled up for three glorious days in Chi-town. Luke was on assignment at a national housewares exhibit, and his room just happened to be at the W Lakeshore, one of BlogHer's own hotels of choice, and also the place where Molly and I and Isabel and Hollow Squirrel will be partying like it's 1999 this July. I felt it was my duty as a blogger to take two days off from work and test the waters.

I've just laid the framework for the perfect segue into hotel pictures, but first I have to tell you about this.

For the first time since my dad purchased his rad Harley motorcycle last summer, he took me for a ride around town. We zipped along on Archer Avenue, past our local Jewel, past the McDonald's that issued my first paycheck, past the abandoned lot behind the train station where my first boyfriend and I would make out like rabbits. There are condos there now. It's all very sad.

(I didn't tell my dad that, though. It was traumatizing enough for him to catch the two of us sucking face in the very alley you see above. I'm glad we're able to share such treasured memories surrounding my coming of age.)

OK, the hotel. This was without a doubt the most la-dee-da overnighter I've ever stayed in. The toiletries were provided by the spa housed below the main level, the convenience basket featured a ten-dollar pair of flip-flops, and there was a window (with shutters!) built into the wall of our bathroom. I scratched my head on that one for a good twenty-four hours, until I realized you could number two and still catch the results of that last DNA test on Judge Hatchett. Genius!

If the architects were smart enough to marry bowel movements and the boob tube, why could they not understand the importance of being able to cop a squat on the royal throne while your spouse is lathering up?

After Luke's Monday shift at McCormick Place, we moseyed on over to Navy Pier and took turns using our new digital camera. These shots were my feeble attempt at capturing the atmosphere.

I wonder how many first dates are staged here, how many first kisses? Over the summer they hold a fireworks display over Lake Michigan twice a week. It doesn't get more romantic than that.

The Pier is home to the nationally renowned Shakespeare Theatre, so one might think Luke is auditioning for an upcoming play here, but he's actually miming my intense dismay over the fact that Pretzelmaker is gone, my friends. GONE. The salted Parmesan cheese pretzel with garlic and I never even got to say good-bye. Sniff.

It also took my husband some time to absorb the shock. "Why, God, why?"

To be sure, it was a fantastic weekend, filled with family, friends, hair cuts (praise Jesus), my father's homemade barbequed ribs, and two issues of Marie Claire (which I absolutely love. Glamour's cookie-cutter opines pale in comparison. Thanks, Matt and Patty!). The memories I carried with me to work today just about made up for neglecting to factor in the time change when programming the VCR for 24. Dammit.

Life-Is-Good Wednesday

Seven days in and already I love March. The sun is out longer, there's less ice to scrape off the windshield of my car, and current temperatures are leveling out in respectable double digits.

When it comes to Weight Loss Wednesday, though, I much prefer negative numbers.

LAST WEEK'S WEIGHT: 135.6
CURRENT WEIGHT: 135.8
POUNDS TO GOAL WEIGHT: 10.8

OK, so I didn't lose the pound and a half I vowed to in last week's update, but I'm still impressed because, point-two pounds? Please. That's the (eight) handful(s) of M&Ms I scarfed down over the weekend. It's the fudge pop I had while watching The Departed last night. If I'd kept away from both, I'd be at 135 even. At least.

When it comes to eating, weekends at home are the epitome of temptation. Flipping through the pages of Marie Claire is more interesting with a package of Fig Newtons, and it's incredibly difficult to watch television without feasting on some sort of delectable treat, but I'm getting better. The biggest change in my habits this past week has been my recent befriending of the water bottle, which gives me something to grab on to when I don't know what to do with my hands and keeps the urinary tract sufficiently flushed as I strive to reduce the frequency of my UTIs. We go everywhere together, though his countless attempts to score during our trips to the bathroom have been unsuccessful. He's a fresh one, that bottle.

 

My new, sexually-aggressive BFF. I think I'll call him Wilson.

I'm ready for spring. I'm ready to hit the trails of our state parks and get moving after four months of sitting like a blob on the couch. Our annual pass has been purchased, the gym shoes moved to a more prominent position in the closet. It's time.

Since Weight Loss Wednesday and Ash Wednesday fell on the same day, this time of the week always seems most appropriate for filling you in on my Lenten commitments. Still AMC-free, though I did read yesterday's update in the paper and was surprised to learn Zach and Kendall have come face-to-face with Alexander Cambias, Senior, aka Zach's presumed-dead father, aka Pine Valley serial killer, and my first reaction was to rush to my desktop and pull up the soap's message board to get the full scoop. I didn't, but boy, did I want to. I'm still not sure what I'll do come Easter. I love my show, but I enjoy my newfound free time. Luke certainly doesn't miss it. We'll see.

The Bible reading continues to be one of the best parts of my day. It's a peaceful way to wind down before lights-out, and I'm constantly (re)inspired by Jesus's words and teachings. Challenging myself to put them into practice is another story, but at least I'm thinking about people and things in a way that I wasn't before, even going so far as to seriously contemplate repairing one of the family bridges that was burned a couple of years ago (even though the other person totally started it) (apparently the eight-year-old in me is not competely on board yet). Which raises a question: when you decide to forgive someone, do you have to let them know? I mean, I'm sure she isn't spending her waking hours gazing out the kitchen window, secretly wishing to be part of my life again. I don't even know if she's aware of how much she hurt me. Maybe it's enough to internally put those feelings in the past and plaster on a happy face the next time I see her, which might very well be years away.

On the other hand, I could've behaved more gracefully, and Jesus does talk about "making peace with your brother before offering your sacrifice."

What are your experiences with forgiveness? Have you ever had to forgive someone for your own peace of mind? Has anyone ever forgiven you when you didn't expect it? Or, when you didn't think there was anything to forgive?

This isn't how I imagined ending this post, but now I'm curious. Bring it on.

It's Important to Share Exquisite Pain with the Ones You Love

I don't think I'm cut out for this whole Cringe Book thing.

This morning I ditched the office again so I could continue to sift through journal entries documenting my tortured past and submit the most awkward ones for possible inclusion in a book that'll be publicized on a national level. And when I first pulled those books out, it was fun. I'd shriek with delight over each memory and eagerly shove a diary into Luke's hands so he could read passages aloud in his best little-Frema voice. Oh, the days when life's biggest problems included agonizing over which New Kid to pine for!

However, as I moved on to my pre-teen years and straight into full-blown adolescence, it became harder and harder to laugh.

I've written enough about Nick--The One Who Went For Three Weeks Without Calling, the boy who happily accepted my offer of virginity before I took off for college, the guy I obsessed over for FIVE YEARS--on this Web site that the following entries don't need much backstory. The first one was written on February 6, 1996, almost four months after we broke up for the first time.

See how "grade" I was doing? So what if I was afraid to leave the house in case I missed a potential phone call? Who cares I was creating elaborate schemes to make secret contact with the boy who plainly told me I needed to be with someone else, or that I included phrases like "exquisite pain" in my vocabulary?

We got back together that June, but by August we were fighting again. Break-up number two involved confessions of drug use, theft, and contact with another girl in a nearby suburb, with a big "Fuck you!" from me as he fled the scene as fast as his legs could carry him. By spring of my senior year, we were dancing around each other again. We went to prom. We did the Deed. And in between, there were missed phone calls, week-long absences, and awkward conversations about "where this is going." Just like before.

So when I read the entry below, written just days after admitting to my part in our Horizontal Tango (in such detail that I made myself blush, and I wrote the damn thing), I really do physically cringe.

Page 2:

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl! I can't believe how stupid. I was preparing to spend the rest of my life with someone who chipped away at my self-esteem time and time again just to rid myself of religious guilt. Because God would've much preferred me to commit to a man prematurely rather than just call a spade a spade and let him go. Classic flawed logic--like when I was debating sex in the first place and thought we shouldn't use a condom because the Catholic church is against artifical contraception. A+, Frema. Well done.

I read these entries and can't decide which is worse: that I let myself get so wrapped up in a relationship before I was ready to stand behind my beliefs or that one day I might have a daughter who feels the same way and I will have to watch her suffer the same way my parents watched me. I was so angry with them, especially my mother, who I often yelled at for not having enough trust in me to make good decisions, right before I ran to Nick's house and spent four hours on the smelly mattress in his bedroom pretending to watch Die Hard. I was in control! I knew when to stop! And when I finally gave in completely, I still believed I knew what I was doing. It was my body! My choice! Who was she to tell me what to do?

I think about having similar arguments with children of my own when they're that age and I'm petrified. I'm in awe my mother was able to restrain herself from popping me in the mouth.  I wonder how many nights my father had to comfort her to sleep because I was so quick to declare my independence, so cocky as I threw her teenage pregnancy in her face and informed her how much smarter I was, how I was determined to live a different life than the one she'd panned out for herself. I acted like her advice couldn't possibly have value because I didn't want to admit how self-destructive it was for me to insist on staying with Nick, refusing to "give up" even when he wanted me to. As wrong as he was for me, he wasn't a bad person. He gave me plenty of outs, and if I'd told him to stay the hell away from me, he would've done it. It was me who kept going back, enticing him to come back, making excuses for his behavior so I wouldn't have to think about life without him.

I'm glad I gave this Cringe Book a shot. I'm glad that I'm twenty-seven years old with a wonderful husband (who celebrates his thirty-third birthday today, Happy Birthday, sweetie!) and insanely understanding parents. I'm glad I wrote these entries because the act of putting my feelings to paper was sometimes the only way I could get a handle on my emotions. But I'll also be glad to pack these books up and retire them to my closet again. Refusing to share them out of context with a mass of strangers (I refuse to think of you guys as strangers) will be the Valentine's Day present I give to myself.

Office Space: No Longer Just A Category Heading

There are a million things I should be doing right now, like figuring out the Index feature in Adobe InDesign. However, since I work best under pressure and my deadline for turning in a fully revised clinical directory is still a whole twenty-four hours away, I figured I could give myself a well-deserved break and show you my office, at the request of Isabel, who was kind enough to photograph her own space earlier this week.

I've been in my current position for about a year and a half, and when I first started, I was in a cubicle in a corner of the administrative part of the building. It was freezing. There was a door behind my desk that allowed the renters next door to help themselves to our bathroom when their pipes froze. People would often forget I was there and turn the lights out promptly at five, and since I was too lazy to get up and turn the lights back on, I brought in my own lamp from Wal-Mart so that I wasn't hypnotized by the brightness of my computer screen.

Since that time, a ton of new employees have signed on, requiring the construction of several new offices scattered throughout the admin side of the lab. When that happened, my cubicle was taken apart to allow space for two new offices. Did I get one of those new offices? No. But I did get one on the opposite side of the building, much closer to the printer, PLUS I got my own window, so really it was all for the best.

Here it is, my humble corporate abode:

 

When I'm not scrambling to finish an article for the Web site or a layout for one of our company newsletters, this is what the surface of my desk normally looks like. Right now I'm working on the directory, so it's a little more top-heavy than I prefer, but I did organize my papers into managable little stacks before shooting the picture. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Let's break this down a bit.

That Christmas tree's been fully decked since November of 2005, when I first brought it to work. After the holidays were over, I could never muster up the energy to take all the little ornaments off, so I just moved the thing over to my filing cabinet until last Thanksgiving, when I positioned it on my window sill, where it remains to this day. The red bows and striped candy canes are perfect for Valentine's Day, don't you think? As for the snowflake cut-outs taped to the monitor, they're perfectly acceptable until the first day of spring, so I'll thank you very much to keep your nose out of my seasonal-decorating affairs.

You'll also notice the CD collection that's slowly making its way towards my cheapie Wal-Mart boom box. Current discs include such artists as Fiona Apple, Liz Phair, Norah Jones, the Carpenters, and a slew of cheesy love song CDs.

I'm showing you this picture because it includes the best planner in the whole universe: the AT-A-GLANCE Weekly Professional Appointment Book. I was introduced to it when I first started working at Saint Joe and will never use another model for as long as I live. Each work day is assigned its very own column, which accounts for every fifteen-minute increment between the hours of seven a.m. and nine p.m., and even the weekends have a little face time, so I can record my trips to the college for alumni board meetings and visits back home. Not only do I keep my appointments in here, I also scribble down notes from my day so I can remember how I spent major blocks of time. Just talking about it gives me a warm, tingly feeling.

You can also see that I love me some Post-Its.

See those beautifully colored stickies covering my dry-erase board? I receive them often from my darling husband, who knows paper products turn me on more than a bouquet of carnations ever could. I almost cried the day I ran out and tried in vain to request the exact same kind from my purchasing manager, because those fun Post-Its can really be kind of expensive, you know? But I ended up with the traditional (boring) yellow ones everyone else has instead. Blah.

Luckily, I have my pens to comfort me through such hard times.

My passion for writing utensils is nothing new. There are pens stashed throughout Luke's and my apartment--at both computer stations, on the night stand, in my craft box in the closet--in my coat pockets, in my purse, in the back pocket of my jeans. I'm a freak and I like it.

What I really love about this picture, though, is the box in which the pens are kept.

My sister Donna gave this school box to me when I was a freshman in college and she was four months shy of turning six. Next year it'll be ten years old. She used to make a lot of things for me to keep in my dorm room; my closet doors were covered with her drawings, and my book shelf at home still holds a rainbow-colored clay snowman person she created just for me. She was so young at the time, and it was really traumatic for her when I left for Saint Joe. Her eyes always filled with tears when my dad's Suburban pulled out of Halas Hall's parking lot, and I was required to wave at the car until it was just a tiny dot on the road, to call her the night I returned to Rensselaer after a weekend visit because she couldn't go to sleep without hearing my voice. Nowadays I'm lucky to see her for five minutes when I'm in the city because she's fourteen and has a full life that no longer includes waiting on the porch to see my car pull in behind the garage. But it wasn't always this way, and things like this box will always remind me of that.

These last two pictures are unrelated to my work space, but they do relate to work, and the incident in question just happened about an hour ago, so I couldn't NOT share.

One of my coworkers, who's quite lovable but also very quirky, collects hats. As in, if there's an abandoned baseball cap lying in the street, he'll pick it up, take it home, and run it through the wash until it's "good as new." Last year he gave me a hat he found on a park bench that reminded him of me. Today, it was one that's sure to be a collector's item. He can feel it.

Nothing shouts "money maker" like Mr. Pibb. God bless him.

I've Got A Food Attitude

For as long as I can remember, I've always been a picky eater. If a food possesses a smell, texture, or physical appearance that's not to my liking, it's blackballed from my palette and never thought of again. When I was a kid, this posed a lot of problems for my mother, who cooked the majority of our meals, because she often wanted to prepare something that wasn't chicken, spaghetti, tacos, or pizza, and I didn't want to eat anything other than chicken, spaghetti, tacos (on flour tortillas only), or pizza. There were a couple of times where her "You're not leaving until you eat that!" directive meant me sitting at the kitchen table for hours, staring at yellow paint and wooden panels, the antique knick-knacks perched on top of the cabinets, or updated school pictures fastened to the refrigerator because I was too stubborn to take even one bite of her refried beans and she was too stubborn to let a nine-year-old kid break her spirit. One morning she threatened bodily harm if I didn't just EAT THE DAMN SCRAMBLED EGGS, so eat them I did. And then promptly threw up.

We didn't struggle a lot over food after that.

As an adult, I've continued to sustain my body on a limited menu. I still love chicken, spaghetti, tacos (actually, most forms of beef), and pizza and eat 'em at least once a week. I love barbeque ribs and ham and bacon and cheeseburgers and potatoes in any form (read: french fries). I enjoy whole kernel corn, green beans, onions (required for Outback's Bloomin' Onion), sugarsnap peas, cheese, and various types of fruit. Dessert items rock my socks off.

The following foods will only find themselves on my plate if I'm dead:

• Seafood of any kind
• Eggs (Ah, memories)
• Macaroni and cheese (The smell is unlike anything I've ever experienced)
• Macaroni noodles (You know, because of the mac and cheese thing) and other "thick" pasta shapes
• Oatmeal (Tasty to-go bars don't count)
• Sauces with a non-tomato base
• Beans (Unless they're in chili, and even then I pick them out)
• Whole mushrooms (Chopped up on pizza is acceptable)
• Tuna (Except in tuna cassarole)
• Salami
• Burritos
• French toast
• Avocados
• Salad (Because I hate lettuce)
• Sour cream
• Mayonnaise (Except in my spinach dip receipe)
• Custard
• Cranberries
• Cottage cheese
• Tapioca (Thanks for reminding me, Bdogg!)
• Quiche
• Tiramisu
• Any sort of pot pie
• Omelets
• Indian food (Too afraid to try it)
• Most Chinese food (Though I do enjoy orange chicken)
• Most Japanese food (Unless it's beef fried rice, and I still pick out the egg chunks)
• Select meat-and-cheese combinations (Shredded cheese on tacos is delish; sausage-and-cheese croissants inspire my gagging reflex; meats with cheese stuffed inside of them are also gross. Cheese does not make everything better, people!)

I'm sure there are others, and there are a few exceptions, but them's the biggies. Any dishes outside of my love/hate radar are tolerable, I suppose, but why bother with them when I can get my taste on with something I one-hundred-percent enjoy?

My contentedness with not trying anything new never bothered anyone until I started dating, and it didn't bother ME until I started dating Luke. Our relationship has always embraced a liberal dining-out policy, meaning an oil change is reason enough to flock to the nearest Applebee's, so this topic comes up all the time. I usually go for American grill or Italian-style restaurants, while he's interested in trying out the little Thai place across the street from Wal-Mart. If I suggest a place, it's usually to satisfy a specific craving. Outback equals Bloomin' Onion. Ted's Montana Grill (my new favorite place) means a bison cheeseburger and fries. Don Pablo's? Steak quesadillas. (Another instance where I sanction the marriage of meat and cheese.) I'll go anywhere you want, but you can bet your mother's life I'll ask for a burger, ribs, or chicken strips, and that's after I guilt you into ordering the dip.

For Luke's sake, sometimes I want to throw caution to the wind and just try a crab leg already. I know he'd take greater pleasure in our meals out if I took a more open-minded approach towards food. He also gets sick of my wrinkled nose and "Oooh, I don't like that, how can you eat that?" comments every time he takes a bite of something that didn't originate from a cow.

But what if I don't like the crab leg? Am I going to shell out eleven ninety-five for another platter? Stare at my entree forlornly until it's time to pay the bill? My daredevilism could very well come back to bite me in the ass.

This evening, Luke and I are going to the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday. (Twenty-seven, thank you for asking!) It will actually be the culmination of a series of food-centric events held in the honor of my departure from my mother's uterus; the shenanigans started on Sunday, when we went to Ted's for dinner, and tonight Luke's making tacos, after which we'll visit the Factory for their to-die-for cheesecake. (I refused to try cheesecake until college because I thought it was literally a blend of cheese and cake. Like, American cheese. If that's not reason enough to loosen up, the only reason my passion for spinach dip exists is Luke's hankering for it on our first date and my unwillingness to rock the boat.) Our first visit was in December, when I feasted upon their brownie sundae concoction, a miracle because they also have banana cheesecake, and usually when I'm ordering a dessert I always go for the banana option. On that night, though, I could SEE the sigh in Luke's eyes as we considered our options, and I thought, "Oh, what the hell."

Because I subscribe to a strict "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy, I think I want the brownie sundae again. Or the banana. Or maybe I'll ask the Internets for their opinion.

Here is a link to the Factory's menu. While I wish I could say I'll go with the majority vote, I'll probably just do whatever I want. Nonetheless, feel free to de-lurk and offer a suggestion. I promise to think about it really, really hard.

Edited to add: I just re-read this entry and realized I listed my age as twenty-eight years old. I am only twenty-seven. Apparently "counting correctly" isn't on my list of ways to celebrate my birthday.

On the '06

My senior year in college, one of my professors said that with every choice you make, you become a little more free, as all the questions and doubts and fears once associated with that choice are now obsolete. This train of thought has always resonated with me but became even more meaningful the day I married Luke. Gone are the days where I wonder about our future, my ability to love another person both unconditionally and romantically, his ability to take all my idiosyncrasies in stride. This year we made the decision to love and honor and cherish each other for the rest of our lives, and doing so has enabled us to move forward and tackle new questions--harder questions, probably--but ones that acknowledge our past and honor our future. Instead of pestering Luke to move in with me and propose already, I get to nag him about making a baby and prepping ourselves for the responsibilities of home ownership. I'm definitely OK with the trade-off.

But getting married wasn't the only big thing that happened to me this past year. In reviewing the chain of events that occurred in 2006, I realize these last twelve months have shaped me into a different person: someone more independent, more emotionally adventurous, who isn't waiting for a family member or friend or Joe Schmoe on the street to validate her feelings.

I took a good, long look at my religious foundation and answered some hard questions about which aspects enriched my life and which ones I could've done without. I learned that pigeonholing God into limited definitions and avenues of grace doesn't help anyone, and his miracles aren't confined to a single denomination. At the same time, I learned how important the concept of community is in my faith and how deeply Luke and I want to pass that tradition on to our children. Nobody operates in a vaccuum, whether you're talking about religion, family, or society at large, and to live life ignoring your impact on all of those things seems naive. I severed a couple of once-important familial relationships last year, so even I don't measure up to my own standard of maturity, but who's perfect, right? I'm just proud of myself for not abandoning my convictions and refusing to sweep my hurt feelings under the rug. If that means I have to forgive others and myself for the results, so be it.

I finally grew the balls to say my online writing is important enough to take to the next level and I took it to the next level. I cursed and cried and beat my head against the PC monitor when I realized how much work it would take to meet my expectations, but I did it and now it's done and I'm so happy with the end product. I'm no longer disappointed in myself for admitting I don't want to write the next Great American Novel, that fiction isn't my bag, baby, and scribbling my thoughts and feelings on the Internet is the best use of my passion. I'm not ashamed that blogging is an insanely significant part of my creative identity; it forces me to put a name on my emotions and sort out my feelings, and it helps me connect with others without worrying if my new acquaintenance is paying more attention to my ideas or the zit that just started growing above my upper lip. I learned how to feel comfortable in my own Internet skin.

At the tail end of 2006, I also wet my pants in excitement over unique career opportunities. I've already been asked to conduct a one-hour workshop on blogging for a writing conference at Saint Joe this September, and if the stars align properly, I may even teach semester-long course in the fall. Blogging, it has been good to me, and I am so, so grateful.

While there was great joy in 2006, there were sad moments, too. One of my mother's sisters passed away after a long fight with brain cancer, and just when you think the grief can no longer touch you, you receive a Christmas card with three signatures, a Christmas card that once featured four, and you're reminded of the tangible effects of loss. My favorite aunt received a double whammy this spring as she was diagnosed with both breast cancer and brain cancer, a whammy that ushered her into chemotherapy and radiation and a horrible fear that she wouldn't live to see her eight-year-old daughter grow up. Today, she's almost cancer-free, something nobody in my family expected, but it's happened, and I'm grateful for that, too.

There's no way to predict the course of 2007, but there's no harm in working towards the following:

• Paying off our Cobalt three years ahead of schedule
• Finding a church to call our own
• Continuing to take our health and physical wellness more seriously
• Creating a financial situation that allows me to care for a child without the burden of a nine-to-five
• Counting our blessings, every one, every day

Happy New Year.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I start out the day with one goal: write a post honoring America's celebration of blood, guts, goblins, and the unknown. After reading Isabel's haunted house story, I'm inspired to share stories about the strange goings-on that've taken place in my own family's apartment building, specifically on the first floor, after its occupant, my grandmother, passed away in 2000. Only the thing is, those goings-on didn't happen to me but to my siblings, so I leave cryptic messages on Ryan's and Samantha's voice mails after work, soliciting their personal experiences for shameless exploitation and cheap thrills for all the Internet to see. I'm able to make contact with my brother Geo, who doesn't have any stories about Nana but is kind enough to remind me that a woman died in one of the first-floor bedrooms and a man killed himself in our garage via carbon monoxide poisoning. "You can blog about that," he says.

By this time it's seven o'clock, and two of our friends have arrived for a private showing of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a find I was quite proud of, a find that confirmed my suspicions that the desire to take in a respectable horror flick on Halloween must be regarded as a top priority not to be delegated to the last minute. (I painfully learned this lesson last year when Luke and I waited until the night of to check out a movie and were forced to succomb to the mediocrity that is The House of Wax.) We watch the movie, during which the phone rings twice, both return calls from each of my sisters wanting to scare the bejeezus out of me with tales of my grandmother running through the hallway of the first-floor apartment she occupied for sixteen years prior to her death at the same time I'm watching a college student gorge holes in the walls with her fingernails and spit out various names of The Devil in foreign tongues. I get ahold of Samantha after the movie and share with her my new fear that I'll wake up at three o'clock in the morning with visions of spiritual torture and reprimand. I tell her I still have one more movie to go and am now debating the intelligence of subjecting myself to Saw II. "Maybe you should, so you can get the nightmares over with all at once," she says.

Thanks, Sissy. Happy Halloween to you, too.

It's moments like this in which I find myself thankful for having What About Bob? in my possession. Much to Luke's chagrin.

Blog, Resurrected

Let me start by saying that I am so mad at myself for not blogging on Friday the 13th, mainly for two reasons, the first being that Luke and I had started talking about my favorite horror scenes at Steak 'N Shake last Wednesday and the timing couldn't have been better, and the second being it was exactly one week since my last post, and I do so enjoy having a method to my madness. Now this entry has to do quadruple-duty on topics that could've managed just fine without any additional help, thank you very much. But both of us are up to the challenge.

Remember back in June when I talked about returning to my natural hair color without the assistance of professional dye products? Here's how far I got before I wanted to poke my eyes out with a pretzel rod, just to avoid being subjected to the train wreck that was my head. I like to mentally refer to this picture as Das Root:

 

This was taken on October 14, a mere hours before my cut and color at Enve--yes, the Chicago salon; yes, I've abandoned all hope of finding reputable hair care in Indianapolis; yes, I no longer care about exposing potential fetuses to harmful chemicals and dyes; YES, I AM OK WITH THAT. (But not really on that last one, since a number of Internet mommies informed me the probability of that happening is next to zero.) However, I did go the more practical route in terms of selecting a dye color, one that brought a little sexy back but wouldn't rat me out if I spaced out the length between touch ups. Here is the final result, which I'm pretty happy with, except the cut is still too short thanks to Magda the Racist Hairdresser and her equally bigoted texturizing comb.

Things around here are relatively tame. Last week I helped my boss write a book chapter for some chemistry association, and now I'm focusing on design for our client newsletter. Seeing as I spend the majority of my time at work devouring threads on AMC's message board, this recent flow of activity is a welcome improvement. I've also been on the verge of coming down with some sore throat/primal hunger/hot flash extravaganza that part of me hopes is an early sign of pregnancy but intellectually realizes is just a bug. Our Chi-town visit was fun, as we celebrated my father's forty-sixth birthday and hopped around the neighborhood to visit family and friends.

(Us kids chipped in to present my father with a gift certificate to his favorite Harley store, because he now loves that bike more than life itself. The poor man was accosted this weekend by Geo, who coated the inside of his ear with blue frosting, and Ryan, our hairdresser in training, who couldn't keep from running her hands through his Fantastic Sam's haircut and lamenting the unevenness of his ends.)

Here I am with Brooke and little Michael, now four months old. Though he was busy preparing for his baptism, he was still gracious enough to bestow a series of gifts on my right shoulder. In reply, I smelled his head and Brooke's arms received a well-deserved rest. Everybody wins!

We also saw my Uncle Chuckie and cousins Kenny and Stacey, who are on the cusp of experiencing their first month without my Auntie Debbie. It seems like my family can't get a break on the cancer front: my Auntie Donna, my mother's youngest sister and one of my favorite people in the whole world, was diagnosed with both brain cancer and breast cancer in the spring and is about to undergo seven weeks of radiation, five days a week. I keep thinking I need to address these topics with some lengthy, meaningful observations, but that whole post could be summed up in two words. Be kind. To yourself, to each other, to this unpredictable world we live in. Please keep them all in your prayers.

Still with me? Cuz there's more!

I have decided my relationship with Blogger should meet a timely and not-soon-enough demise, allowing me to explore a more emotionally satisfying connection with its for-profit counterparts. However, I refuse to initiate a courtship with Typepad until I can register for an account using a domain name that I thought of and paid for all by my own damn self. Except not really, because after months of scribbling on old drafts of my lab's clinical directory, I have yet to be inspired by a site name that's smart but not cheesy, funny but not embarrassing, original but not long, and relates somehow to my online persona or blog title. Thus, I have no choice but to call upon your own creative juices to name. my. BLOG!

(Insert TV game show theme song of your choice here and tell me which one you went with in the comments.)

You're up for the challenge, aren't you? Not only because you're savvy and charming, but also because Frema will put together a winning care package featuring a plethora of interesting and not at all Goodwill-worthy items straight from What're you lookin' at?'s headquarters? If I could, I'd arrange for some type of Deal or No Deal format wherein I fly twenty-six of you to Indianapolis, each of you armed with a case that bears your obviously fabulous submission, and I pick one of the cases for my very own and narrow down the list that way, but I'm pretty broke to be shelling out a trillion dollars on airfare for people I've never met, and besides, I'm nowhere near as captivating as Howie Mandel, whose newly bald head alone earns him a spot on my top five. If I had I top five, that is, which of course I don't, I'm a married woman for cripe's sake.

I'm counting on you, Internet. You're my only hope.

Official rules to come later, preferably when it's not one-thirty in the morning.

Questions? What Questions?

Bet you thought I forgot about these, didn't you?

Isabel wonders:

What was your best family vacation, ever?

Vacations? Ha! While we took plenty of day trips to museums and the zoo and the park, the only time we ever went "away" was in the summer of 1995, when my father borrowed a camper from a guy at work and all seven of us spent two days on Lake Michigan, where my aunt and uncle have a cabin. (There were two reasons for my family's lack of travel, one being my mother is deathly afraid to ride in a moving vehicle for longer than eight minutes at a time, and two being that five children ranging in age from fifteen years to twenty-seven months can take a significant toll on the finances of a single-income unit.)

It was a nice time, but that was the first summer of Nick, The Boyfriend Who Went Three Weeks Without Calling, and playing in the sand or touring the lake via paddleboat couldn't compare to bawling my eyes out in the confines of our bathroom at home, wailing over life's injustices and what was wrong with me and why wasn't I prettier and why would he want to smoke pot when he could be making out with me and please just caaaaaall me already.

Obviously, I was a delight.

Which sibling do you get along with the best?

When I first read this question, I assumed this translated into "Which sibling are you closest to?" A hard question, to be sure, but it was on the second reading I realized it has more to do with the meshing of personalities. Truth of the matter is that I get along well with all of my siblings. I can spend forty minutes on the phone with each one of them and cover as many different conversations, without uncomfortable pauses or small talk about the weather.

I will say the age difference between Samantha and me is such that it allows us to have a unique relationship. We're so often in the same place, so often able to support each other on equal footing, without the mentoring aspect that sneaks into our relationships with Ryan, Geo, and Donna.

She's also the only one I can talk to about sex without feeling dirty.

The worst? And why?

This question is harder because it deals with the clashing of personalities. I end up rephrasing it as "Who do I have the worst arguments with?" and reflecting on my many faults as a sister.

With that in mind, I say Ryan, our middle child, the brave soul who abandoned traditional college this year to pursue her dream of attending cosmetology school. It has nothing to do with how close we are (because I think we are close) and everything to do with our individual cores. My core begged my parents to let me have a job when I was a sophomore in high school and join nine different clubs. It revels in maintaining categorized to-do lists and outlining bill schedules months in advance and thinking about Christmas budgets in September. Ryan's core is more exploratory and less concerned with details. Ryan's core liberated her enough to attend two different four-year colleges in two years. It doesn't worry about reading the full terms of her apartment lease or submitting her loan papers on time, even if it delays the receipt of her reimbursement check from August to November. And when she does get it, her core has no problems spending it on a week-long stint in the Bahamas.

Pair that with my mother-bear instinct to steer all cubs from harm's way and it's easy see where the source of our conflict lies. Why can't I shut my trap about the logistics of responsible lending and just be happy she enjoyed her freakin' spring break? Especially since I spent my own loan surpluses on Saint Joe sweatshirts and Pantene Pro-V. She actually made the better choice.

I'll wrap up with Lizzy's and Lost A Sock's questions in my next entry, and then we can all rejoice in the fact that it only took me A MONTH to put this damn meme to rest. I'm nothing if not punctual.

Ten years.

Last night, after ten years of treatment, my mother's sister, my Auntie Debbie, died from brain cancer. Arrangements are being made for this weekend, so I'll be in Chicago until Monday.

My aunt was diagnosed in 1996, when she was only thirty-nine years old. She is survived by her husband, a son who just graduated college, and a thirteen-year-old daughter. She had five sisters and several nieces and nephews who loved her very much.

Please keep her family in your prayers.

Eating the Joneses' Dust

The first time I moved into a house, I was working in Rensselaer, and I was twenty-three. Armed with a co-worker from Saint Joe to fill the role of Roommate, we found a two-bedroom house on a corner lot in town available for rent and signed our lease just three days later.

It was perfect, with two full bathrooms, bedrooms with hardwood floors, a utility room for laundry, and a one-car garage ideal for storing recycling bins filled to capacity with empty wine bottles; plus, with two adults splitting a six-hundred-dollar payment, it was refreshingly affordable. I lived there about eight months, and during that time I took great joy in raking leaves, eating smores on the back porch, entertaining friends with food and drink and games. It was the first time I'd lived anywhere that could be described as cozy, that radiated a sense of permanency, even though I was only renting and my roommate and I had no plans to live out a Will and Grace spin-off. It was with great sadness I decided to leave, but David wanted to live with his boyfriend and I took that as a sign from God to find my own pad. I stayed in that apartment for a year and a half, at which point I moved to Indianapolis, fast on the heels of a job that promised career advancement and a paycheck large enough to cover my student loans.

The experience of living in that house has stayed with me, and it rises to the surface every time Luke and I talk about buying our first home. Two weeks ago, we circled several local neighborhoods to solicit information about places currently on the market and determine where we might get the best bang for our buck. One Sunday, we stumbled upon an open house for a budding townhouse community on the outskirts of Indianapolis; Luke had brought up the idea of a townhouse several times, as they were rumored to be less expensive than traditional houses and provided their owners with handsome profits upon resale, so "just for fun," we decided to check it out.

What it is about hardwood flooring that ignites hot passion in my girly parts, I don't know, but the minute I saw it, I fell in love.

The sales rep explained that building within the community started about fourteen months ago, and the several remaining units were in the final stages of construction. There were two models available; this one, the Fenwick, had an upstairs, downstairs, and finished basement and was the cheaper of the two we saw. There were two bedrooms, one and a half baths, and an open space designed for an office.

The master bedroom. This picture only captures half of the room's square footage.

Sexy closet space. More drool.

What started out as a harmless walk-through turned into an hour of crunching numbers and exploring the possibility of an October closing. Just for fun.

We were left alone for a short periods of time while the sales rep visited with other customers, allowing Luke and I to review our potential mortgage payment that reflected zero money down and an offer on behalf of the builder to pay off our lease and all closing costs. Visions of breakfast nooks and creamy white carpets danced in my head. "We could totally afford this," I told Luke confidently. "Sure, it'd be a little tight, and I'll have to keep working, but if we have a kid, I can totally work from home. Totally."

"We'll see, honey," he said.

It wasn't until we left the premises that my head began to clear and I realized I had actually volunteered to chuck my SAHM dreams for hardwood floor panels.

In a time where our friends are buying property, starting businesses, and producing offspring, it's easy to feel like we're losing ground in the race to Adulthood. Dinner parties are out, unless our guests would enjoy eating their food off our coffee table, which is what we do every night because one of our chairs is parked in front of my computer and neither of us has the motivation to move it. There's no room for a dog or a filing cabinet or a home office. There's no counter space in the kitchen, so we have to clean as we go. We'll reap unmeasurable benefits from our new commitment to stay out of the buyer's market for another couple of years, but in the meantime, the idea of celebrating New Year's 2008 in our one-bedroom apartment isn't something we look forward to.

I suppose every family has their cross to bear. My parents have lived in apartments for their entire married life; they didn't buy the building my siblings and I grew up in until they were thirty, and they chose to stick with apartment living so my (now deceased) grandmother could tag along, allowing her to maintain her independence and have access to 'round-the-clock help, if/when it ever became a necessity. When we moved in, there were four kids, two per bedroom, and when Donna Lyn was born, Geo was promoted to his own quarters, leaving four girls to share one room. Sad as they were when I left for college, my parents didn't let their grief prevent them from breathing a sigh of relief that Donna's dresser no longer had to compete for hallway space with the vaccuum. The situation might not've measured up compared to the three-hundred-thousand-dollar house my aunt and uncle owned in a posh Illinois suburb, but my parents made it work. There was no other choice.

Luke and I could've bought that gorgeous townhouse without a down payment and hoped for the best. We could've staked our claim on the American dream at the cost of being house poor, knowing an accidental pregnancy would send us into a financial tailspin. Knowing a job loss or major medical expense would probably lead to foreclosure. But it wasn't a choice we could live with.

While lurking on message boards to learn more about today's mothering culture, I "heard" from a variety of women who were violent advocates of staying at home with their children no matter what, who lamented over the current society that labeled the one-income family a luxury instead of a necessity; women who were college-educated and admitted to having the potential to garner respectable salaries yet still registered for WIC to make ends meet. Obviously I'm all about women tending to their kids full-time; it's the very reason Luke and I are waiting to try. However, the idea of middle-class suburbanites utilizing benefits originally designed to keep single parents and poverty-stricken families out of homeless shelters leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But those women aren't worried about the opinions of a judgemental twenty-something who's never had a baby. They had to make a choice they could live with, too.

What hard decisions have you made for your family? Which are you most proud of? Which do you get the most flack for? What would you change if you could?

Because Enough With The Damn Shoes Already

I don't know what why, but ever since the wedding, I've had a hard time maintaining any semblance of consistency with this blog. I went from hourly posts in the days leading up to Luke's and my nuptials to semi-weekly paragraphs about whether or not to converse with coworkers when I pee. I love to write here. I want to write here. For some reason, though, it's hard to sit in front of the computer screen and arrange words in a way that best represent what I'm feeling. Thanks for continuing to bear with me.

So it's been one week. A lot has happened in just one week. For example, last Friday the two of us embarked on a three-day, two-night camping trip to Indiana Dunes State Park, part of the state's national lakeshore, with Samantha and Dan, where we hiked, smored, swam, and slept. Well, they slept. That first night I spotted two Daddy Long Legs at the foot of our sleeping bag and thought I would pass out from the fear that one of them would crawl into my mouth if I dared to shut my eyes. The next morning, I woke to find a spider tangled in my blanket. I actually shouted "Eeek!" loud enough to pull a few chuckles from the campers next to our site.

That night, I was so paranoid about letting in more of God's creatures that I refused to leave the tent, even to use the Port-A-Potty twenty feet away. The pain in my bladder was so strong that it thankfully knocked me out into uncomfortable slumber.

(On a side note, while everyone ELSE was snoozing away, I did manage to devour eighty pages of Not Without My Daughter, a paperback my sister likes to make out with every couple of years or so and I'm assuming keeps stashed in her Buick Park Avenue in case she's ever stuck in traffic as a passenger in her own car. I ended up taking the book home and finishing it by Monday night.)

In other "me" happenings, I've been reading a lot again, as evidenced by my devouring a four-hundred-and-twenty page book in the span of two days. I've read all the Christopher Pike books I found at the half-priced bookstore, a Sweet Valley High Christmas special, and on a lighter note, some thoughtful religious debate. Two Mondays ago I delved into another nonfiction piece, Morgan Spurlock's Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America, penned by the guy who digested one month's worth of "McFood" and lived to bring his tale to the big screen. The timing seemed about right, considering my latest attempts at healthy living, and when I checked out the book at the local library, I was feeling pretty confident about all things nuitritional.

Today I'm in the midst of chapter ten and pretty much want to throw up. A delightful excerpt follows:

Beef factories are models of waste-not want-not efficiency. Filthy, disgusting, and disease-ridden, maybe, but terribly efficient. Very little of one of these cows is discarded. Leftover bits and pieces are scooped up, ground together, and fed back to the cows. And then those cows are ground up and fed to you.

Other fun facts about the dangers of current American eating habits:

• By 1996, boys and girls consumed twice as much soda as milk. As of September 2004, nine million American kids between the ages of six and eighteen were obese.
• Obesity-related illnesses will kill around 400,000 Americans this year--almost the same as smoking.
• Diet and obesity have been linked to increased risk for breast, colon, endometrial, esophageal, and kidney cancer.

Read this book. It'll change your life. At the very least, you'll glean new insights into the case of the old woman who won a mega-bucks lawsuit against the Golden Arches by claiming her coffee was too hot. (Turns out it really was!)

Finally, I suppose there's one more piece of news you ought to know about. A piece of news that is about to change our lives. A piece of news that will eventually mean savings and houses and babies and maybe even a new Web site.

Luke has a new job. He starts next Wednesday.

He's not disclosing much detail on his own blog, so I'm going to respect his wishes and keep the jobspeak to a minimum. Know it's a very good job, full time, in his field, with room for advancement, and he actually had TWO positions to choose from because he's just that good. And this opportunity couldn't have come at a better time, as we were literally *thisclose* to charging next month's car insurance renewal to our Visa card.

It's been a long time coming, and he so deserves this. I'm so thankful God thinks we deserve this. Or maybe we don't. Maybe it's like what Lost A Sock said when revealing her own husband's new career move, "When your prayers begin to be answered you know that you must be damn lucky, because there are lots and lots of people with the same prayers and the same work ethic. And you have to keep yourself in check, and go above and beyond your norm to pay it forward, because experiencing good times comes with the responsibility of sharing."

Whether due to grace, grunt work, or chance, we're more than willing to share.

Another Anniversary

Today marks one year of cohabitation with my current company, and I'm not sure what to think about it. While the competitive wages, flexible hours, and one-hundred-percent vestment of employer 401(k) matches are to effing DIE for, they're not enough to make me happy about what I do. I'd like to blame this lack of fulfillment on the lab and the fact that my boss still doesn't know how to fully utilize my position, but the heart of the matter is I'm not sure where I belong in "the real world."

At the start of college I thought I'd be an executive powerhouse who took the subway to work and wore white tennis shoes over her tights while strutting my stuff to the office. My mom's older sister was a vice president for a national freight-train company, and she once told me about a disagreement with my uncle regarding whether or not to buy my younger cousin some insanely expensive toy for her birthday, and how she informed him that their daughter would get it no matter what. "I'll just take it from my checking account. He can't tell me what to do with my money," she said, and I was in awe. Any money my mother spent came straight from my father's paycheck. I remember wondering what would happen if my dad was killed on a firehouse run or they ever split up. How would she take care of five kids? Then and there I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I'd always be self-sufficient. No way would I allow my livelihood to be dictated by the financial generosity of my husband.

However, by the end of my first year in PR hell, I was ready to kiss off meetings; strategic plans; fundraising plans; action plans; pretentious corporate love-in plans; deadlines requiring two weeks of overtime and no fewer than eight bottles of Starbucks frappacinos to get through the nine-to-five grind. Let my aunt and other like-minded colleagues make the big bucks by working through dinner and answering e-mails before they released the first morning's pee. I had better things to do, like assume my future hubby would neither die nor leave me in the lurch and trust our combined salaries would be enough to keep us comfortable in middle class.

By that time, though, I was already halfway to completing a master's degree in writing, which, no worries, I'll just make enough moola to pay the loans off. That's the whole point of grad school, right?

But then I fell in loooove with a man who was smart and kind and funny and handsome and everything I was looking for. A man who happened to make less than me, which didn't matter until we started talking seriously about marriage and family and then I realized, holy crap, I don't want to work at all. I want to be a mother and I want to stay home, for reasons I've already stated here. And therein lies the problem.

Seeing as I've already committed the Frema-Useless Clutter household to a five-hundred-dollar monthly Sallie Mae payment for the next twenty-five years, my recent epiphany is a costly one, and I'm scared the education I've loved so much and been so proud of, the education that's not only made me a better writer but a better person, just might screw me out of accepting the only job that will ever really matter.

If I do have to work, I know there are options. I could go back to school and earn a teaching license, an idea I've tossed around since seeing my sister in action with her kindergarteners last year. I've also thought about high school guidance counseling and college admissions. (See a pattern here?) If I do have to work, there are certainly worse things in life than pursuing a career I could actually love.

But at what point does "have to" begin? If the ideal is for Luke to work while I raise our brood, what sense does it make to invest time and money into a career change, especially when we don't want to wait very long before trying for kids? On the other hand, who knows how long it'll take before we're successful? I've seen and heard tales from plenty of wonderful women who've struggled with infertility, and it's too early to tell whether or not we'll have issues of our own. If it takes years for me to have a baby, do I really want to spend that whole time in job limbo?

Which goal do I hang my hat on? What's the best way to balance living in the now and going after your dreams? And at what point do you realize it's time for plan B?

Anyone?

With Every Season, Turn, Turn And All That Jazz

My family is experiencing change.

A few of those changes are happily material. Take, for instance, my father's latest toy. With two daughters properly out of the house and married and Geo's high school commencement leaving just one more secondary education to fund, the man figured it was time for some fun. See all the fun?

Can I just say, how cute is my dad showing off his manly chicken legs and look-at-me-I'm-a-kid-in-a-candy-store grin? That smile is so contagious even my mother rides the darn thing, she who grips the interior door handle and slams the imaginary passenger brake while traveling to the local Jewel via Suburban. In return, my father graciously installed a sissy bar. The perfect picture of marital compromise.

Other transitions are also taking hold. Like, my mom's newfound desire for a tattoo bearing my father's name and Ryan's decision to leave Indiana University in order to pursue cosmetology at Mario Tricoci in Chicago. Her boyfriend, Jason, is also following suit but opting to join the Navy Seals instead. Samantha's husband, Dan, was offered a wonderful opportunity to teach at his old high school, the same place Geo just graduated from, with an equally wonderful pay raise. They plan on purchasing their first home next year.

As for me? I freaking just got married, people! If that's not enough for you, rejoice in the fact that Luke and I canoodled a partial refund from the gazebo to make up for the much lamented Mystery of the Missing Chairs, and Brenda's wrist has healed enough to allow her to resume her rightful place on Enve's cutting-room floor. My appointment is this Saturday, and if that doesn't add an extra skip in your step, I don't know what will.

On second thought, maybe I do--how 'bout sharing my decision to cease all hair coloring in the event a Mini Frema finds its way to my uterus? Not quite as earth-shattering as getting off the pill, but when you see pics of me sporting a crown o' brown in coming months, you'll know it relates more to protecting the health of my possibly unborn child and not so much questionable fashion endeavors. Seeing as I've gone ahead and surrendered my most precious, vain commodity, it only makes sense to stop drinking, too.

Already I'm the epitomy of motherhood.

Internet shout-out alert: Happy Birthday, Betty!

Twice The Drama Of An AMC Episode Minus All The Sex

So, after two glorious posts about wedding hoopla, I decided to drop off the face of the blogging earth. I've been reading your sites and commenting 'til the cows come home, but when it came to composing sentences for this here thing, I've been lost. Part of that's been due to Luke and I still working through "administrative" issues like bill paying, apartment cleaning, lease renewing, insurance subscribing, and name changing. However, it's also because this issue is once again plaguing my brain. And reading these entries--as well as the comments--have been wonderful signs that I'm not the only blogger confused as to how religion will function in my life.

What bothers me even more is WHY I've been so bothered: my "old-school Catholic" grandmother. Some of you might remember her as the one who scared me with Devil stories and sent my sister chastity literature for her 24th birthday. Now, she is also the woman who, according to reports from reliable sources (read: my sister Ryan), spread hurtful rumors that Luke and I were married in a pagan ceremony. As conservative Catholic as she is, though, I think her thoughtless comment has less to do with how we were married and more to do with not being invited to our wedding.

Some brief and possibly useless backstory: She and my parents had a falling out last year because she didn't believe in waiting to receive invitations for two-week visits from Arizona, and despite trying to keep the peace by sending her an invite to Samantha's wedding shower, I was still slammed with a three-page letter that tore my parents to shreds. If she was trying to get a rise out of us or instigate some sort of Family Hysteria, she picked the wrong granddaughter to air her dirty laundry to, because after relaying the letter's contents via phone to my parents, I did some shredding of my own. That's not the kind of heirloom you hope to pass along to your children, and anyway, I had more important things to worry about, like whether or not manicure sets were sassy enough prizes for Bridal Bingo and whose interests I was truly catering to when I selected the spinach dip appetizer.

After I had transformed her self-indulgent testimonial into a pile of confetti, I didn't give it another thought, except to think my grandmother was going out of her way to burn a lot of bridges, and the person really getting shortchanged in this scenario was Samantha, who'd had a great relationship with her until then, and maybe she would benefit from reacquainting herself with The Catechism of the Catholic Church, to search for the passage where it states writing hateful things about your son and daughter-in-law and sharing them with their oldest child via chicken scratch earned you free admission through God's pearly gates.

This year, when it came time to submit a guest list for my own shower, her name was purposefully absent. I had better things to do with my time then subject myself to more of The Crazy, and since she still hadn't contacted Samantha about her wedding, I figured she'd written us all off for good, anyway, so imagine my surprise when, a week before the shower, we heard my grandparents "just happened" to be in town. Curiouser and curiouser, as one Alice in Wonderland might say. But I refused to budge. For cripe's sake, her husband called Ryan on Christmas morning to send warm holiday greetings from her "ex-grandfather." I wasn't about to pretend all that $#@! and more never happened.

Seven days after writing about the big event, I received the following comment from an anonymous poster, probably my godmother, who told my father that if their mother wasn't invited to the wedding she would boycott it altogether, and who also played the starring role in that whole china incident:

Why was there a Grandmother leaving chicago, boarding an air plane in tears? Did it not seem odd that she just happened to be in chicago on this special day?

My answer somehow got lost in the deleting of "Anonymous's" post, kind of like the point of this entry, which was to originally talk about how badly my grandmother's remark hurt my feelings and how I've let her narrow beliefs color the plans Luke and I have for integrating our faith traditions in a way that'll provide a strong religious foundation for our family. However, I think it makes more sense to be honest with myself as to where these issues come from: my grandmother's and even the Catholic Church's viewpoint that worshipping God outside the perameters of Catholicism doesn't count--at least, not as long as you're Catholic--and my occasional, irrational fear they could possibly right. Luckily in those instances I recall the simple mantra our good pastor shared with us in our first premarital counseling session, "God can handle it," and remember that religion was created for God, and not vice versa. It's then that I experience peace.

I Can't Watch That Clip of Our Vows Without Crying A River.

Well, maybe not a river. But definitely a respectable puddle.

So, I'm back. And married! It only took twenty-six years.

As you can tell from the blogs of my nearest and dearest, the wedding day, it saw rain. Luke and I knew it was coming; at the rehearsal we were huddled together under the shelter of the gazebo, shivering, attempting to stay dry, giving up all hope that the sun would deem our firstborn child a worthy sacrifice for twelve minutes of cooperation. However, our wedding party was fantastic and agreed to proceed through the park as planned, so everyone could ooh and aah over their spiffy tuxes and dresses and I could savor the moment of walking down the aisle with my father. Equally fantastic was our paparazzi, who came armed with color-coordinated umbrellas for the ladies and a white sleeveless parka vest for me, the latter probably unintentional but they deserve the credit nonetheless. Mandy Meyers, if you haven't booked a photographer for your gig yet, call the Bellas. Really. Do it now. Just don't tell them Frema sent you, because they don't know who she is.

Seconds before this shot was taken, I was hissing in my father's ear, "They forgot to set up the chairs!" I'm currently torn over whether or not to call the park and complain. On one hand, since it was wet outside, I doubt our guests were expecting chairs, and even if they were set out, who would've wanted to sit in them? On the other hand, we paid two hundred and fifty-six dollars to rent the space, so dammit, gimme my effen chairs.

Despite all that, though, the ceremony was perfect; I felt it would be the minute my dad pulled into the parking lot. When I took my place on the bricks and spotted Luke for the first time, I knew with every fiber of my being that saying "yes" to this man was the best thing I'd ever done. And when I looked into his eyes as we exchanged our vows, I saw five years' worth of love fill his pupils and spill down his cheeks. He never looked more handsome.

Praying to God we make it past the first year.

There's nothing really poetic to say about the picture we took with our pastor; its primary purpose is to serve as a public service announcement to future brides who might assume stashing lip treatments in your dainty little bridal purse and leaving said purse in the back seat of your father's truck is sufficient, because when you're ushered from the ceremony straight into pictures with no lag time in between, you will think about your lipstick but ultimately be too chicken to put a halt to the festivities for five minutes to ask your dad to fetch it for you, as you can't stop imagining your guests tapping their feet and drumming their fingers in anticipation of your arrival with only a coffee bar to keep them company. Thus, you'll resort to coating your lips with the natural moisture of your tongue and hoping the photographer can Photoshop lip gloss. My recommendation? Chapstick in your bra, if not fastened to your wrist like a sassy charm bracelet. I guarantee you'll thank me.

Anyway.... The reception went just as well, even though the cake had pistachio icing instead of buttercream and people were too interested in the open bar to notice the pretty champagne fountain set up next to the entrance. Luke and I danced our first dance to "Someone Like You" by Van Morrisson, which I first fell in love with when I heard it in Prelude to a Kiss in the scene where Alec Baldwin is lamenting the sudden drastic change in his new wife and befriends a strange old man who strangely enough made a brief appearance at their wedding and also strangely enough knows the color of the undies Meg Ryan was wearing the night she left for a summerlong trip to Europe, or something, and Alec realizes that Meg is trapped in the decrepit body of one Archie Bunker. Those less cultured in Meg Ryan cinema may recognize it from the better-known Bridget Jones's Diary, when Mark Darcy tells Bridget he likes her just the way she is.

My father and I danced to "What a Wonderful World," during which he told me how beautiful I looked and what a great family I married into. Then he said it really was a wonderful world, held me tight, and started to cry. At the end he held up my hands and shouted, tears still streaming down his face, "This is my daughter!" It was the most magical moment I've ever had with my dad.

And now I'm verklempt. More to come later.

P.S. Thanks so much for all the lovely comments and e-mails this last week. If it weren't illegal, I'd marry each and every one of you.

Random Photos, Take Two: Branches

Random Photos, Take One: Roots

Now You Know Where My Witty Sense of Humor Comes From

OK, so it's been a few days since I've posted, but between deciding which table is worthy of getting Jason Chambers at the reception and going back and forth with Luke as to whether a wedding party dance is really necessary and explaining to my brother that "Blow Job Betty" is not so much an appropriate song choice, there's been NO. FREAKIN'. TIME. A fabulous entry is planned for tomorrow, an entry I've already started on, but in the meantime I leave you with a joke my mom told me last night and requested I share with all of you. ("You can put jokes on blogs, right?")

A lady goes to the doctor to get her annual mammogram, and when it's through, she comes home all excited. "Honey, honey, honey," she says to her husband, "The doctor checked me out and said everything's fine. I have the boobs of an eighteen-year-old."

And the husband says, "What did he say about your fifty-year-old ass?"

"Well," she replies, "We really didn't talk that much about you."

My mother, ladies and gentlemen.

An Easter First

I didn't go home.

Originally that was the idea, even though Luke and I hadn't figured out how it was going to work, because this was also the first time we've been together for Easter. Before he moved in, our roles in each other's lives during the holidays were constantly being negotiated. The first year we dated, I was a senior in college, and I remember us saying our good-byes as I prepared to leave town for my week-long Thanksgiving break. There he was, holding me, telling me he loved me, and then suddenly wishing me a wonderful gobble gobble with my folks back home. I remember standing with my arms around his shoulders, trying to blink my tears away before he had a chance to see they even existed. I was hurt because I'd assumed we'd be together, even if only for part of the day. Same thing that winter. It was Christmas Eve morning and I was moping at the kitchen table, trudging through the first Harry Potter and not feeling particularly impressed (anyone else agree that one kinda dragged?) when Luke called to talk about his activities for the next couple of days. Only after my shrill "Aren't we going to SEE each other?" was any kind of game plan established. The early days of a relationship are so hard, when you're with someone but have no real claim on his time. You've made a commitment, but it's delicate, one with lots of love but no track record, one that has yet to prove itself worthy of superseding all others.

As we became more serious it became more important to work our relationship in on major calendar boxes, but it was still difficult, as my roots were in Chicago, and his in Merrillville, a good forty-five minutes away. Plus, I worked for a Catholic college that was very generous with its vacation schedule, which included "soft" holidays like the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Good Friday AND Easter Monday (and I left why exactly?). Luke was a reporter and thus had to be at work more times than not, so while he could get away for an afternoon with his parents, anything more than that wasn't doable. I often left family functions early to see him in Indiana and then drive back to enjoy the last few hours of the day with him at his apartment.

Once he moved in with me, everything changed. Holidays were no longer about fitting into a greater familial whole; rather, it was about re-evaluating whether or not our individual traditions were conducive to the new life we were making for ourselves. This year, we were all gung-ho about making the drive up north for Easter, even though Luke was tired from working nights and I was tired from going to bed at twelve-thirty because he was working nights. By Thursday night, we were both ready to drop and decided it might be better to simply stay put. It's a big step for any couple, to say what you have in each other is all that's necessary for a successful holiday. I'm proud we were brave enough to make it.

But the weekend wasn't family-free. My sister Ryan and her boyfriend, Jason, stopped in on their way to Chicago and slept over to avoid the rain and hail that seemed to remain about ten miles ahead of them. They also brought along some special guests.

Meet Bunny, Whose Official Name Is Sox But Is Only Referred To As Such. Ryan fell in love with him as he was hopping around her apartment but tried to tell my mother, who was afraid of catching Rabies or other stray-animal diseases, that she rescued him from Bloomington's National Wildlife Society. On Friday night she explained that she attempted to pass him off to a local animal shelter but was informed Bunny had been away from his mother too long to survive on his own. She's taken that as her free ticket to indulge him in carrots, lettuce, and Cheerios.

Spades, our second non-human houseguest, is Jason's dog and was actually adopted three days before he was scheduled to be euthanized. As you can tell from this picture, he's a frisky fella, and fond of the biting, but neither Jason nor his wrist seemed to mind. I also feared he might be fond of Sox, but Spades was content munching on the pepperoni slices from our late-night pizza.

Saturday and today passed by in a sort of peaceful blur. There was breakfast at my favorite pancake house, a trip to the zoo, two mediocre movies (the latter redeemed only slightly by the two glasses of wine), a walk on our favorite Indy trail, and an Easter service at a nearby Episcopal church, which laid the foundation for another first: receiving communion outside the perameters of Catholicism. Standing in line waiting to partake, I felt like a virgin all over again, only it wasn't my sexual innocence I was losing. It was something less tangible, less able to be defined as right or wrong. I knew Protestants invited all baptized Christians to take the Eucharist and Catholicism restricted it to those baptized within its church. But what about "away games"? Were Catholics allowed to participate with other churches? And did these rules even apply to me, a heathen who dared to think salvation could exist for a Catholic in the walls of an Anglican church? Was my soul clean enough to receive the host at all?

The closer we got to the altar, the harder it was to keep my legs from shaking. But I couldn't turn back. I can't explain it any better except to say this was the only way to validate my recent choices and revelations regarding spirituality. How could I say all denominations were equal in the eyes of God but refuse an invitation to his table because I was afraid of being chastized by a religion I didn't fully embrace?

I'm glad I did it. I cried from the minute I left the altar to the moment my knees bent to pray, but I'm still glad. It freed me in a way my Idiots' Guide to Christianity never could. For the first time, I was taking my relationship with God into my own hands.

I may not have gone home, but in that moment, home came to me.

Shower The People You Love With Teenage Literary Drama Actually Geared Towards Pre-Pubescent Girls

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for: the reveal of those individuals who fought long and hard for their chance to receive a small piece of Heaven that is Sweet Valley High. Number Twelve, Isabel, Lauren R., and Fraulein N., pull out your bangle bracelets, roll up the cuffs of your jeans, and prepare to be amused by the delightful antics of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield as they learn about life and love with their crazy gang of bookworms, playboys, cheerleaders, and jocks.

Choosing a winner was really hard, not only because every woman is worthy of the wisdom SVH can bring, but also because only four people expressed any interest in receiving one, and how could I deem one gal's reason as more valid than another? I mean, would you be able to choose between a first-time mother about to go into labor versus a stressed out bride-to-be versus a working mom looking to make peace with the gaping hole in her teenage existence versus a woman who wants to reconnect with the series that introduced her to Linda Ronstadt? Cuz I sure couldn't. Also, I'm a little bit in love with all of you for leaving such great comments when you visit, so the idea of strengthening the Internet bond I feel we now share by declaring everyone a winner is really the best way to go. So, if I don't have your address already, be sure to send it to my gmail so we can get on with the sharing as soon as possible.

In other news, in case you couldn't tell by these blogs, Luke and I were given a totally awesome wedding shower by my sister and my parents. There was spiked punch, Frema's landslide winning of The Toilet Paper Game, and the congregation of blog readers and writers alike.

 

Lost A Sock, Number Twelve, and me.

Auntie Betty, Ryan, and Brooke. Unlike her digital-photo companions, Ryan is not a faithful reader of this blog, but I didn't remember to get a picture of Betty and Brooke together, so there you go.

Our towel cake. I have never heard of such things being used outside of weddings in my family, but apparently to someone they are a traditional element of bridal showers, and my mother has taken it upon herself to carry this tradition on with us. Yes, my momma made that, with her own two, carpel tunnel-ridden hands, no less. Talk about having a kick-@$$ heirloom to pass on to your kids.

Edited to add: OMG, I can't believe I forgot to showcase the coolest readers of all. Our families! Here we are with Luke's parents, Daddy D. and MJD. Don't be surprised if both sides ostracize me for making such a fatal error in judgement.

Samantha and me. She's been the best matron of honor a girl could ever ask for.

Sunday was the day we met with our pastor for the first of two premarital counseling sessions, which took place in Joe's Crab Shack after the late-morning service. A man of many opinions but few words, Pastor Tim's message to us was simple: remember what brought the two of you to this point and never lose sight of it, no matter what. Be aware of what your partner loves most about you and work hard to nurture that part of yourself. And finally, "Take a good, long look at the person sitting next to you, because that's all you need to make your marriage successful. Each of you will serve as an anchor for the other."

It was a new experience, sitting in front of a person who didn't know the details of our relationship and yet listening to the best advice on marriage I'd ever heard. And explaining to him what it is about Luke that I love so much moved me in a way I didn't expect. It was as if I was looking at him in a new light. Luke is prepared to love me for the rest of my life. He'll be by my side through new jobs and the birth of our babies and the loss of my parents and the purchase of our first home (though hopefully not in that order). We'll celebrate second honeymoons and golden anniversaries and the beauty of compounding interest with our 401(k)s. And one day, after we've retired and our children are grown, we'll be like those sweet little couples I see walking hand-in-hand down the street, shuffling along at a snail's pace, barely talking, happy enough just to be in the presence of the other. Thinking about it chokes me up inside, because I know how lucky I am to have crossed paths with a man of Luke's caliber; I know some people go through their whole existence never being part of such a happy accident, never knowing what it feels like to be loved so intimately and so completely by another human being. That feeling is the best reason I have to bow my head and give thanks to God.

On that note, I leave you with the most unique gifts we received on Saturday, courtesy of our beloved Number Twelve:

Brenda's Ability To Do Good Hair: Denied!

By now, everyone who reads this site knows I heart Brenda, my Chicago hairdresser, because apparently stylists in Naptown can only shape and color celebrity styles for the likes of Eighties Madonna and Severus Snape. One of the first things I did when Luke and I got engaged was to make salon appointments for my bridesmaids, flower girl, and me, so there was no chance in hell that Brenda wouldn't NOT do my hair. I was on it like flies on that stick-paper thing my parents leave in the basement because, well, they don't like flies.

Guess what? Brenda's not doing my hair.

It's tragic, actually. On Friday the 13th, she broke two bones in her right hand, her magic hand, the hand that gives me bouncy layers and the side bangs I love so much. She's at work but limited to answering phones and sweeping up hair for the next four to six weeks. It's like having Mariah Carey pre-Charm Bracelet wipe spittle from Hilary Duff's microphone at the Grammys.

I called the salon yesterday and transferred my upcoming Saturday morning appointment to Kasia, a stylist with a great reputation for updos, and the other person scheduled to help Brenda with my wedding party, and there's still at least a slight chance she'll be in tip-top shape come May 12th, so all should be well. But I'd like to take this opportunity to brag about Gina, one of my very awesome bridesmaids, because she is the only reason I discovered this potentially life-changing information. Seeing as I discovered Enve through her seven years ago, she became aware of the situation at her own cut-and-color and immediately contacted me so alternate arrangements could be made. It's in instances like these that a wife-to-be truly needs her bridesmaids. Don't fuss over silly things like bachelorette parties or finding something blue. Just let me know if my hairdresser ends up in the ER.

This weekend will be a busy one, as tomorrow Samantha and my family are throwing Luke and me what is sure to be a beautiful wedding shower, and Sunday we have our first pre-marital counseling session with the pastor who will marry us. One of the subjects will be religion, which I really am feeling much better about these days, as Luke and I continue to talk openly about what kind of church life we want with and for our children. I also broached the subject with my mom last night, something I was pretty nervous about because I never want my parents to think that I'm unhappy with the way they brought me up. I didn't want them to become defensive of their choices, especially since they made some really great choices, and to be totally honest, I was also afraid they'd think I was ruining my chance at Eternal Salvation by even considering converting to a Protestant denomination. For better or worse, whether I get it or not, I will always seek their approval.

The conversation I had with my mother proved (once again) how little credit I give my parents sometimes. She reminded me about the similar faith journey she took around my age that brought her to Catholicism, years after she and my father got married. She said Luke and I are going to do the best thing for our family, and as long as we believe in God, everything will be fine. Well, that and infant baptism, which we do, so it's all good. For the first time in months, I'm at peace.

Note: the SVH contest will run through the weekend, because I'm leaving for Chicago today and don't want to make such a difficult decision in such a short time frame. So if you want a book, it's not too late to beg for one. And I promise not to give Luke any special consideration. Really. It's anybody's game.

Frema's Life in Pictures: Part One of ?

Luke normally sends me a link to his blog whenever he's added a new post, and upon seeing the title for this entry, my first thought was that he stole my idea to shamelessly display our family photographs online. But he didn't, so then I felt dumb, and also remembered that I didn't invent posting photographs on the Internet.

Anyway, without further adieu, I bring you Frema: The Early Years.

I was born on January 9, 1980. My mother was barely nineteen when she gave birth to me. At that age I was chasing shots of ten-dollar vodka with Hershey's syrup and being seduced with adult films like Hindfeld by small-town boys eager to show me their glow-in-the-dark pictures. What do you mean, there's no glow-in-the-dark picture? If there's no observing of the glow-in-the-dark picture, what on Earth do you want us to do?

Oh.

This is my first school picture, which puts me in kindergarten, possibly the only grade where children can pull off wearing cherries on their dress collar without bearing some sort of "dork" label. On my first day, my mother said I was inconsolable because we showed up for the morning session and my group was slated for the afternoon.

Notice how sleek and straight and shiny my hair is here? How the light hits the brown and gives it the illusion of exotic jet-blackness? Soak it up, my pretties. Soak it up.

The first thing you'll notice is the hair, because most of it's gone. This is partly due to lice and partly due to my scissor-happy grandma. The elementary school I attended had a terrible lice problem; at one point, my parents were receiving notices from administration every other day about how "a recent case" had been reported and what lice was and how to look for it and what to do when you found it. In the beginning, my mother was very diligent and spent hours checking every strand on our heads for signs of them before subjecting us and the house to a thorough purification with products like this and scalding hot water. However, it didn't take long before the mere sight of a typed letter was enough to send her stuffing our Wuzzles into garbage bags (where the bugs would die a slow and painful death via suffocation) and lathering our scalps with twelve-dollar shampoo that BURNED. My hair was the worst because my shade of brown was almost identical to the color of their shells, and it was very thick, so thick it took an entire bottle to de-lice me. My mom finally decided enough was enough and sent me to my dad's mother for a hair cut. Cut it she did. And I wept.

(You know, the only book I remember even mentioning lice was Starring Sally J. Freeman as Herself. Judy Blume deserves mad props, because if anybody in my class or Samantha's class had it, they never let on, and we were so embarassed, but someone had to have it or else why'd we keep getting those damn letters? It's not too late, people. Break the silence!)

The second thing long-time readers might notice is the necklace, because I hate necklaces so much I can barely tolerate seeing them on other people, let alone myself, but my mother thought my outfit needed "a little bit of color." We fought for fifteen minutes, and she won, and I wept yet again. The humanity! The pained smile! Just further proof of my defeat.

The day before Easter, 1989, coloring eggs and decorating my cousin Kenny's forehead with awesome star stickers. The Necklace Torture had escalated to unthinkable heights, as I was forced to wear a gold cross my great-grandmother had chosen especially for me in honor of my First Communion. The woman was seventy-five and only knew about twenty words of English, so she couldn't be expected to remember that the very thought of precious metal sent shivers of horror down my spine. However, Parental Management decided my wearing it was the polite thing to do, so I wore the necklace.

I hated wearing that necklace. The chain always tangled in the shower and pulled out chunks of the little hair I had left when I slept. There were no tears when the clasp broke three months later.

I think this picture was taken on the day my parents closed on the purchase of this apartment building; we lived on the second floor and my mom's mom and my auntie Donna took the first. Now, though, my gram has since passed away and my auntie Donna started her own family so now the remaining members have found ways to monopolize the entire space. There are pool rooms and ping-pong table rooms and personal offices and separate bedrooms for each kid. MTV should feature it on an episode of Cribs.

My dad's the one with baby Geo. My mom's lovin' her Reebok high-tops, I'm sporting Simpleton glasses and a questionable hot pink/beige color scheme, and Samantha's rocking the casbah in her neon green shorts and purple headbead. All while Ryan tackles daring experiments in skirt length and Auntie Donna guards my pre-pubescent, negative size-A breasts from the exploitive nature of the camera. All of us trendsetters WAY before our time.

Same day. I'm only including this so you can fully appreciate the Simpletonness of my spectacles. Vision problems didn't show up until third grade, so this was my first pair of glasses. My dad thought I was mature enough to pick my own frames. And really, after seeing the results, don't you agree?

It gets worse:

For some reason my eleven-year-old mind must have equated frame size with frame coolness; there's no other explanation as to why I would intentionally seek out lenses that swallowed both my cheekbones. My mother held back the urge to ask "WTF?" when she saw my latest fashion accessory but did request that I remove them for Picture Day. Whoops. Not helping matters is the red bow clip that seems to be hanging on only by grace of the Lord Himself.

This black-and-white dress (complete with trendy plastic belt!) is the same one I wore to my auntie Diane's wedding earlier that September, on a day that started out with me deciding there was no harm in yanking off the lid of a can of Purina when the can opener failed to make a clean cut. Turns out there was harm. And lots of blood. A five-hour trip to the emergency room and stitches for my left index finger and thumb. And yet I still made it to the wedding, because the last reception I went to had these really cool drinks called Kiddie Cocktails, and no way was I missing my chance to have some more of that, because even though it tasted just like 7 Up it came with a decorative cherry and little red mixing straw, and holy crap did I feel Adult ordering my drink from the bar like everyone else.

No Early Years photo essay would be complete without at least one picture of Donna Lyn, the youngest of us five, born to my mother at the age of thirty-two. This was about a week after her first and last C-section, and she let me skip school on the account of officially Becoming a Woman that very morning, and the cramps, woman, my God, the CRAMPS! Actually, it was less about the cramping and more about the attention I wanted to shower on my latest sister, and my mom didn't mind the extra help because in her midst was a brand-spankin' newborn and a four-year-old boy waiting patiently for his invitation to join the world's Most Fearsome Fighting Team. It's likely that the root of my Baby Fever is traceable to this very moment. See how natural Donna looks in my arms? Why I didn't become a teenage mother I'll never know.

I'm only one year older than I was in the last picture, but already my hair has taken a turn for the worse: thick, frizzy bangs and a layer that crowned around the top of my earlobes, a layer I thought I could cleverly disguise by pushing it back with a headband. But I also thought pink glasses were cool, so is anyone surprised my middle-school nickname was Shredder?

I didn't think so.

Resolution With China

The plate you see above has served as the answer to my china-resistant prayers. Turns out that Luke's grandma had earmarked her darling twelve-piece collection to him months ago, before the two of us were even engaged. I called my aunt tonight to give her the wonderful news, and she said that's wonderful, and isn't it nice that we're inheriting a wonderful family heirloom, and she would buy us something else equally wonderful. Everybody wins.

In a perfect world, after the wedding, Luke and I could store this china ourselves. Having room for delicate serving ware would mean that we've moved into our first house, a house boasting of spacious closets and a basement for storage and a backyard. It'd mean we worked extremely hard to save for a twenty-percent down payment and a few nice things to make the place ours. We'd have the proper accommodations for a dog. We'd have room for a baby.

But right now, we live in a one-bedroom apartment. Our only storage facility is adjacent to our balcony and already filled to the brim with tupperware containers stuffed with holiday decorations, photo albums, movies we don't have the appropriate shelving to display, and our modest little barbeque grill. My home office is the space behind the TV, and our kitchen table is about five feet to the right of that. And it's going to stay this way until June 30th, at which time my lease on this place ends and we'll have made a decision on where to live next. It might be a neighborhood in which we contemplate buying property; it might be a trendy hot spot that will help us celebrate our last child-free hurrah.

The only thing we know for sure is it won't be a house. As it is, we're stretching ourselves to afford this wedding, and now I can't believe I spent the last few weeks telling everyone and their mother that our goal was to move right into a house, when really it was my goal, because dammit, I want a sense of permanency and a real home office and a place for this beautiful china and my God, I want room for a baby.

It's when stuck in such self-manifested crises that I most appreciate my husband-to-be, because Luke has calmly brought me back to Earth with the realization that life will not end if we spend another year in an apartment. After taking a minute to absorb that life-altering pearl, I decided it'd be kinda nice to spend the next twelve months just settling in and enjoying our new marital status. I want to get a new pair of shoes from Baker's without feeling guilty that I'm spending our mortgage money. I want to see a movie at the show more than once a season, and I want grab the good contact lens solution at Target. Besides, if we can hoard several thousand dollars in five months for a wedding, imagine if we took double that to save for the house that will symbolize our first step towards making a family.

In other words, I'm chilling the eff out. My brain feels much more awake. And that? Feels refreshingly nice.

To Plate Or Not to Plate

While trying to fudge with the margins of a balance sheet I'd just pasted into PowerPoint at work, I received a phone call from my aunt, my father's sister, who also happens to be my godmother. It had been a few months since we last talked, so she asked about my job, offered congratulations on Luke's and my engagement, and wished me a happy birthday. We were on the phone no longer than five minutes before she got down to business.

"I want to buy your china," she said.

"Oh?"

"I'm looking at the catalog for Carson's, and they've got like seven patterns on sale for fifty percent off. I wanted to get you white, you know, so that they could go with everything, and they have different trim colors. Do you want blue, silver, or gold?"

"Oh!"

"If you don't get it now, you're never going to get it, you know? I figured that since you're a professional, you'll need it, you know, to entertain."

"Yeah.... Thanks, Auntie. I really appreciate you wanting to do this for us."

"So which one do you want?"

"Can I talk to Luke first?"

"Sure, sure. I wanted to get you something special, honey, since I'm your godmother. I want to do this for you."

"I know, and I appreciate it. But.... Auntie? I don't have people from work over for dinner. And we kind of weren't even thinking of china right now. We were just going to look some regular dishes--ones we could use every day."

"Well, I'm not sure how long this sale is going on...." (Flip, flip says the pages of a Carson Pierre Scott catalog, because my aunt believes that Carson's is the Greatest Store on Earth.)

"It's really nice of you to want to do this for us. But I don't even know where we'd put stuff like that right now. We don't even know where we're going to live afterwards."

"I have a girlfriend who got into a house with almost zero down. You could do that, couldn't you?"

"Yeah, but...."

And so on and so on.

I have no doubt that her intentions were sincere. Throughout the years, she's made a conscious effort to remember my birthday, buy me gifts at Christmastime, and generally establish a relationship that better mirrors one that's shared between girlfriends. And I'm grateful for that.

But that's not the point. The point is this whole china thing. I don't want china. Luke doesn't want china. Luke and I don't want china! We eat soup out of bowls from the Dollar Store that have been disfigured by the microwave and spaghetti off of plates that bear rust stains on the rim. We're simple folk, really, and have no need for plates that cost more than ten bucks apiece and/or could inspire the makings of a family feud years after our death.

"I want Momma Frema's white gold china with the blue trim she and Daddy got from Carson's!"

See? No good for anybody.

But I couldn't make my aunt see that. It makes me wonder if the gift is about me having the china or my aunt being able to say that she bought me the china. I couldn't have been any nicer about not wanting the china, any more appreciative about appreciating the sentiment but not appreciating the china. Yet still, it's all about the china.

China, china, china! And while we're at it, Appreciate!

I suppose this was to be expected. When my sister got married last summer, HER godmother was also insistent about purchasing fancy plates and went so far as to tell her to register for a nice pattern at Marshall Field's. Samantha didn't need the china, either, but she didn't want to appear ungrateful, so she went downtown at the height of the Wedding Crazy and picked something out. A few days later, the godmother, the person who asked Samantha to register for the dishes in the first place, called her back and suggested that maybe she would consider a lesser pattern at Sears?

Samantha said a paper shredder would do just fine, thank you very much.

Her godmother bought the china. One setting, to be exact, as in one cup, one plate, one bowl. Samantha returned them all and got her very first Coach purse. This is quite distressing, as I am the oldest sister and I don't even have a Coach purse.

Maybe I should reconsider my aunt's offer after all.

The Best of 2005, The Worst of 2005

When I was a teenager, every December 31st I compiled a list of highlights from the last twelve months. The list featured top songs, favorite reads, and significant milestones I'd experienced relating to school, love, friendships, and personal goals. This year's tally won't include Ace of Base, Ann M. Martin, or my first French, but no one said life was fair.

School
I graduated college for the second (and possibly last) time of my life. This is still weird for me, as the Intellectual part of myself still has longings for textbooks, classrooms, and blue-book final exams. But I'm the first family member to hold a master's degree, and I can suffix "MA" after my last name. Some people with fewer diplomas listed on their resume wrongly believe this makes me smarter. It doesn't. I'm just more in debt than they are.

I also have mixed feelings about pursuing my writing degree immediately after wrapping up undergrad. When I first began talks with my current boss about taking a job with the lab, he stressed that his interest in me had less to do with my credentials and more about the job experience I'd gained in my position at Saint Joe. Knowing this three and a half years ago would have saved me forty thousand dollars in loans, a couple of hundred bucks in ink cartridges, and precious VHS tape that can never be recovered. I'd have an extra five hundred smackers each month for paying off my car. Financing my wedding. Purchasing my first house. There are hard compromises to make when taking on such a huge financial commitment.

But I also have a sense of accomplishment for managing my time so efficiently (or at least enough to get by). I have something tangible that helps me to hold my own in the presence of older peers who think they can treat me like a little girl on her first day of kindergarten. And did I mention I can add a suffix after my last name? Total coolness.

Love
I moved away from my boyfriend. I moved in with my boyfriend. I became engaged to my boyfriend. Wee for me!

I also learned it's not the end of the world to make decisions loved ones don't agree with. Living In Sin was not on my original list of things to do this year, nor was it an unfulfilled dream held by Mom and Dad on my behalf, but it turned out to be the best decision Luke and I could have made. That doesn't mean I think every couple and/or Mary Beth in Cincinnati and/or even you should do it. But I do think it's OK that it worked out for me.

Friendships
A tricky subject, as the majority of my relationships are maintained long-distance, and I haven't had an "everyday" gal pal for a long time. I miss that. There are certain things you can only do with a girlfriend. Eat ice cream in your sweatpants while watching Father of the Bride. Crochet blankets you'll never finish. Have your dinner covered by the restaurant's bus boys. You know, real bonding moments that weave together your very souls. In that respect, I truly feel a loss.

However, I've had wonderful, wonderful conversations courtesy of SBC, and I've been introduced to a number of fabulous individuals through the Internet. I've laughed and cried for women I may never meet in person, and I've seen new layers of those I've known for years. Amen for the world of personal publishing!

Personal Goals
On the surface, I've done great things. There was the landing a new job with great pay and even greater potential. Publishing an article about pee in a national magazine. Affording Prada (read: Pra.da.!) glasses, for cripe's sake. And yet, I'm still not passionate about what I do. It's the same problem I had at Saint Joe. I loved elements of my job, but I didn't love my job. I envy people like Samantha and Number Twelve, who make their living in fields perfectly suited for them. I sure as hell don't love sitting through weekly production meetings, filling out requisition forms, and hauling my @$$ out the door at ten to eight every morning. I'm also not crazy about being in a work environment for six months without making one real friend. Surely a change is in order. I just don't know what that change should be.

But I'll figure out. After all, I did survive scary car accidents, several bouts of Baby Fever, and countless incidents of sporting food on my person. That has to count for something.

Anyway, may your 2006 be filled with wine, spinach dip, a great support system, and endless good cheer. And possibly even suffixes.

Recovering

Four Christmases. Three nights spent away from home. Two very excited families. One very tired couple.

The festivities began on Friday night, when Luke and I traveled to Chicago to have Christmas with my mother's side of the family and participate in our new tradition of The Ornament Exchange--cheaper than buying actual gifts but just as much fun. We spent the night by Dan and Samantha's and left for Merrillville the next day, where Luke's parents were waiting for us. It was relatively low-key; a little church-going here, a little gift-giving there, and my much-anticipated viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. The next morning, it was time to pack up and head back to Chicago to see my family. Monday we came back home to see Luke's brother's family. By the end of the night, we were both ready to drop.

Which is why I can't believe that yesterday I actually fulfilled my last shift for the museum's Lord of the Rings exhibit. Most of the night was spent pacing the floor by the green-screen interactive station, although I did get to fold tee-shirts with a man who appeared to be the offspring of Peter Jackson and Kevin Smith, if ever such a thing were possible, and was very proud of his open marriage with his wife.

I had a wonderful holiday, but now I'm ready to move on. This weekend we'll be traveling north again for my mother's birthday and also to get some more details finalized for the wedding. We have appointments with photographers, a bakery, and a tuxedo place, and there might be visits with two DJ services. I'm not freaking out yet, but suddenly everything seems very overwhelming. Luke and I are seriously considering coming back to Indy on New Year's Eve and bringing in 2006 together, just the two of us, in an apartment that desparately needs a dust and vaccuum.

Not that I've regretted our frequent trips home. I love seeing our families and knowing that we're not letting our relationships slide simply because we're a few hundred miles away. And I hate when people complain about their social plans, because if you don't want to go, DON'T FREAKIN' GO. The universe will not explode into a billion pieces if you don't attend that birthday party, and though you might like to think so, the day won't be veiled in a blanket of sadness because of your absence. In our case, people would certainly understand if we didn't make every major event on the calendar; they'd miss us, but they'd get over it. Actually, when I lived in Rensselaer, I attended fewer functions than I do now. There's something about living farther away that instills in you a greater love for those you don't see all the time.

Meanwhile, I have to go to the bank this morning, because I've been charged ISF fees on four separate occasions in the last six months. I've never been one to balance my checkbook against my bank statement, but I've always been very good at recording my receipts, and I went for three years without any problems, so now I'm all like, "WTF? I accounted for that check two weeks ago!" At this point, my plan is to open up a brand-new account and start fresh. I wanted to avoid this since my name will be changing relatively soon, thereby wasting about a half-box's worth of checks, but we can't afford these thirty-three-dollar dings any longer.

I'm going to miss my last name.

My writing sounds just as tired as I am.

Quiz Show

Today is significant because:

a) It's pay day.

b) The January issue of Glamour arrived in the mail.

c) I participated in an all-you-can-eat spinach dip contest.

d) It's exactly five months to the day Luke and I say "I do"

And the answer is... D, for Dammit, It's About Freaking Time!

On the night I returned home from my trip to Minnesota, the Red Sea parted and the angels in Heaven sang a chorus of "Hallelujah" as Luke got on bended knee and asked me to be his wife. With me in sweat pants and a blubbery mess of tears. Then it was Ramen noodle soup and off to bed, because it was eleven o'clock and we were both tired and apparently we now resemble senior citizens who get pooped after a round of Bingo and an episode of Wheel of Fortune.

I have to say, thus far, our journey to the altar has been anything but traditional. The shenanigans began in mid-November, when we started talking about having a May wedding, and wouldn't it be nice to have a May wedding?

Then came the day after Thanksgiving, when the two of us not only picked out my engagement ring, but Luke had "The Talk" with my dad.

Saturday, December 3: Luke picks up the ring, which I refuse to lay eyes on again until it's slipped on my finger. I worry all the good May dates will be taken. We nail the hall for Friday, May 12, 2006, in Merrillville.

Sunday, December 4: Secure the pastor. (Yes, pastor. However, the race isn't over until the Fat Lady baptizes someone. The Catholics still have a chance!)

Monday, December 5: Book a gazebo for the ceremony.

Wednesday, December 7: Officially become engaged (read: I'm finally wearing the ring that keeps me from looking like a fool for making plans without having the goods to back them up).

This weekend was The Telling Of The Families, which means it's now OK to share our happiness with the entire Internet, which I have been dying to do since Black Friday. So now you know why my entries have been somewhat sporadic. Suppressing the information that has just about taken over my entire being was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was worth it, though, to see everyone's faces when we sprung the news. The scene at my parents' house was like one comprehensive episode of The Brady Bunch, with Marcia and Greg building the house of cards in one corner, Bobby weeping over the disappearance of Tiger in another, and Jan yakking it up with George Glass. I finally shouted, "Everyonebequietwehavesomethingtotellyou!" Then I held up my left hand and cried, "We're engaged!"

Imagine much hugging and crying and the perusing of many, many bridal magazines.

This moment in our lives has been four and a half years in the making, originally conceived one April night when I was brave enough to bounce a check.

We're so happy.

Note: I am fully aware that the publishing date of this entry says Monday, December 12, but that the actual publishing date is Tuesday, December 13. However, if I were to officially acknowledge this by changing the date, my whole quiz gimmick would go to pot and I would have to kill Luke for being too tired to blog and thus foiling our plan to update our blogs within minutes of each other so neither could accuse the other of stealing the wedding thunder. See how well that worked out?

Checklist for the Ghetto Fabulous

An e-mail forwawrd courtesy of Donna Lyn, my twelve-year-old sister, the only sibling who can say things like "holla atcha gurl" without appearing whiter than a slice of Wonder Bread.

You Know You're Ghetto...

1. If you've ever used an album cover for a dustpan.
2. If you've ever run a race barefoot in the middle of the street.
3. If you had a candy lady in your neighborhood.
4. If you ever had to pick your own switch or belt.
5. If you have ever had to walk to school or walked home from school.
6. If you have ever used dishwashing liquid for bubble bath.
7. If you ever mixed Kool-Aid one glass at a time because you got tired of other people drinking up the Kool-Aid you just made.
8. If you have ever played any of the following games: Hide and Seek, Freeze, Tag, Momma May I? or Red Light Green Light.
9. If your neighborhood had an ice-cream man.
10. If you refer to "Now and Later" candies as "Nighladers."
11. If you've ever run from the police on foot.
12. If you've ever had reusable bacon grease in a container on your stove.
13. If the batteries in your remote control ever been held in by a piece of tape.
14. If you have ever worn any of the following: Brute, Hai Karate, Jean Nate, Old Spice, Chloe, English Leather, Stetson, Charlie, or Faberge.
15. If you've ever used Tussy.
16. If you've never been to the dentist.
17. If you have a friend or family member whose nickname is one word said twice: dee-dee, man-man, kay-kay, lee- lee, ree-ree, ray-ray, nay-nay, etc.
18. If you have ever paged yourself for any reason.
19. If you've ever worn house shoes outside of the house.
20. If you add "ED" or "T" to the end of words already in the past tense (for example,Tooked, Light-Skinneded, kilt, ruint, etc)
21. If you use 'n'em to describe a certain group of people (for example Craig'n'em or Momma 'n'em)
22. If you've ever driven on a donut more than two weeks after your flat.
23. If your child drops his/her pacifier and you sanitize it by sucking it.
24. If you have ever slept in a chair to avoid messing up your hair.
25. If you've ever left a social gathering with a plate.
26. If you can't hold a glass because of the length of your nails.
27. If the gold teeth in your mouth spell words.
28. If you don't have your own place but your child had a leather coat and a pair of Jordan's.
29. If you constantly hit *69 and ask, "Did you just call here?"
30. If you think Tupac is still alive.

What I find most disturbing about this forward is the fact that participating in childhood pastimes like Hide and Seek is just as ghetto as having a lack of pride in your dental hygiene. Other thoughts: Do pre-teens even know what albums are? Who says "Nighladers?" And since when did the simple act of walking become synonymous with pimphood?

I feel old.

Entry With Everything On It

During the four days in which there was no blogging at all, some interesting things have happened, things that in and of themselves could have made for well-versed and comedically peppered posts, things that I will instead talk about in lazy, fragmented sentences categorized by day:

Thursday
Worked my second of six volunteer shifts for the Lord of the Rings exhibit at the Indiana State Museum. Folded tee-shirts in the exhibit gift shop and received guidance from two high schoolers who will probably never score a date and resort to becoming pizza delivery boys and quoting dialogue from The Family Guy on their days off. Saw Dakota Fanning, as the museum hosted a special showing of her new movie at the IMAX theater. Briefly wished that Luke and I had rented Hide and Seek instead of Birth last weekend.

Friday
Spent seven hours talking with Number Twelve about whether the cover for my lab's testing directory should be run through a four-color process with a spot color to nail our logo's specific Pantone shade of blue or just go with the four-color process and an educated guess as to which CMYK combination will produce 287C. Briefly wished I was a pizza delivery boy and had no need to discuss the intricacies of offset printing.

Saturday
Wanted to get to first base with my hair dresser after my well-worth-the-wait-and-one-hundred-and-forty-dollars-plus-tip cut and color in Chi-town. Did not have the heart to tell her I planned on scouring Indianapolis for salons, so instead I made another appointment, this time for an updo for a Chicago wedding this Friday. Pretended my baby sister wasn't wearing a shirt that read "You Don't Know My Name But Your Boyfriend Does." Briefly wished I lived in Chicago.

Sunday
Left Chicago after a fabulous two days of hanging out with my family. Saw my mom crying after I went back upstairs to grab my keys. Hugged her for two full minutes. Cried. Wished I lived in Chicago so that I could see my wonderful parents and siblings every day, and also have a better chance of securing the seventeen-year-old copy of Ninja Gaiden for Nintendo that was promised to me MONTHS ago.

Somewhere in there I managed to pick up Harry Potter again, and now I am fewer than 100 pages and four chapters away from being finished. Am deathly afraid that I will finish the book on my lunch hour at work and sob like a little girl. It makes my heart hurt.

My head hurts, too. Time for bed.

Temperature Spike

Like a volcano, it lay dormant for months, patiently waiting to attack the vessel that is Frema. But the Baby Fever, it can no longer be contained.

I was doing so well, too. Since I moved to Indianapolis in May, I've paid regular visits to Matt, Patty, and their newest addition, thus curbing my desire to be a full-time mom. However, in the last week, there's been the birth of Noah, three baby-sitting shifts with Anna, and this shocking revelation. For cripe's sake, I thought the man was infertile. How much more is a girl who's already named her children supposed to take?

I know it's coming. Luke and I are doing great, and though we're not officially engaged yet, there's already been discussion about having our wedding next summer. And still, I'm ten steps ahead of myself. How long will Luke and I wait before we start trying? What if we have trouble? How would I feel about never being pregnant? What if I CAN get pregnant but need a C-section? If I decide not to breastfeed, would my love for my baby appear less than unconditional? How many children can we afford on one income? How would I feel placing my kids in day care?

Makes your head hurt, doesn't it?

This last picture was taken yesterday night and is the epitome of what I believe motherhood to be. Yes, I know it's not all sunshine and roses; I grew up the oldest of five children and experienced plenty of number-two diapers, spit-up clumping in my hair, and incidents that tempted me to scotchtape my siblings' lips together, therefore denying them of their right to cry. But, on the good days, I also experienced plenty of this. How lucky I was.

I know that in good time, babies will come, and I need to be patient. But until that day, I fully reserve the right to cry at the sight of them.

[Edited 12/9/06 to add: Some photos removed.]

A Wedding Wedgie

I can't believe I forgot to write about this the other day--it consumed my entire being for three-fourths of the ceremony. As it's not considered classy to pick underwear out of your tush when you're standing in front of 120 people in God's house, I kept my hands to myself, but it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Which made it even more painful to hear Father Off-the-Subject ramble about Notre Dame and his upcoming fiftieth anniversary with the priesthood and his praise of Samantha's Italian heritage. Please note that the only Italian in Samantha's background is the occasional spaghetti dinner and her devout love for pizza. The cause for celebration is questionable.

Anyway, I've got a better handle on my emotions and am slowly making peace with the fact that not everyone will jump for joy at the moving-in-together news. And that's OK. Luke and I were not asking for permission, or approval, or even for advice when we spilled the beans. Those who think this is a mistake are certainly entitled to their opinion. However, we reserve the right to feel excited and happy, so for those of you who are actually on board, much love.

To prepare for Moving Day, which has yet to be determined, we are each taking inventory of our respective things and mulling over what can stay and what must go. I am also preparing to lament over the loss of my fabulous closet space. Right now the left side is reserved for casual clothes and the right for work clothes, with both divided by season. The shelving unit holds almost all of my gazillion shoes, and my purses are nestled comfortably on top. I think I can live with everything else, but this will take the most getting used to.

I also asked whether or not we would keep any CD duplicates, but Luke assures me there are more important matters to dwell on. Besides, who COULDN'T use two copies of Liz Phair's Whitechocolatespaceegg?

A Wedding Story

Well, she did it! On August 19, my little sister, the girl who sucked her thumb until the age of nine, became a wife.

She was amazing. No apprehension, no worries, just full of eagerness to get to the church and start her life with Dan. I held it together pretty well until she and my father made their way down the aisle. Mad props to Maybelline's Full 'n Soft waterproof mascara in Very Black.

Here I am, showing off a sleek blow-out, an air-tan, and the red lipstick that only comes out when I'm feeling particularly adult. Also, scandulous cleavage. It could not be contained.

There were a few surprises with the tan, the biggest one being that an "air technician" applied it to me personally instead of an automatic sprayer. Which basically means that I got to first base with a Keira Knightly look-alike who saw me and my flabby flab in all its naked glory. I was also given disposable underwear to don, but for all the coverage it provided, I could have just put on a maxi-pad and connected it with a string around my waist. I put the smackdown on that and refused to take off my briefs. I do have some pride. And for all that trouble, it had all but faded from my face by Thursday night. Bronzer to the rescue, with mixed success.

Here are The Cleavage and I, keeping Samantha's wedding dress from hitting the pavement. Apparently this very act is the sole reason for having a maid of honor. Even the priest (who took a brief hiatus from his homily to talk about Notre Dame's football team) was telling me to pick up her train. Very, very important.

The reception was a lot of fun. The only glitch was that the air conditioning konked out from a brown-out the night before, turning the hall into a giant sweat box. My sister was so hot in her dress I thought she was going to faint, so she ended up ditching her slip after pictures, a slip I had to cut her out of with a steak knife. I blame my mother and her affection for the double knot.

Now it is Tuesday, and life is still filled with The Crazy. We moved Ryan into her Bloomington apartment on Sunday so that she could start transfer orientation at IU. Luke and I also made the big decision to move in together by the end of September, whether or not he had another job lined up. He gave his two weeks' notice at the newspaper yesterday, and we both broke the news last night to our parents. His are very supportive; mine are more skeptical. My mother thinks it's a way to avoid marriage, despite my telling her that we want to get married soon, and they both wonder why four and a half years have passed without it already happening. I haven't made a move that they haven't been proud of for almost four years now, and when you have the emotional sensitivity of a kindergartener, it hits you pretty hard. I understand where they're coming from, but it hurts just the same.

As if THAT joy wasn't enough, I found out that I filled out the wrong consolidation forms and now owe a four-hundred-dollar bill to The-Evil-Student-Loan-Company-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in three weeks, half of which is overdue. It'll take about a week to sort out, so in the meantime I get to fantasize about where to find four hundred dollars if this bill actually needs to get paid. God forbid they CALL me and TELL me about the screw-up. It's not the end of the world; I know I can get the money. It's just one more thing to keep me from paying down my Visa bill. Grrrrrr.

And I still haven't finished Harry Potter. At this point I'm tempted to use the last precious vacation day I have just to BE DONE WITH IT already. And I still have to model in that post-Labor Day fashion show. In case you can't tell, I am not in a very model-y mood. If all else fails, I can bust out with The Cleavage. No pun intended.

Memories of Sissy

The picture on the right is not meant to indicate my sister's state of mind but is rather my own attempt to bring humor to a site that has, recently, been junked with body-image woes, self-pity parties over a three-hour drive, and the loss of "real" TV. No more, I say! In two days, Samantha will marry a truly wonderful man, and I will be sporting an air tan, manicure, pedicure, and a great blow-out. Everybody wins!

Last night, I was combing through family pictures, searching for inspiration for my maid-of-honor toast, and recalled favorite memories of my sister and me...

- sharing the toilet because we were both to stubborn to let the other one go first

- making trips to the corner store, her chasing me with fallen tree branches and yelling, "I'm going to get you with my horny horns!" (Don't turn that into anything dirty, this is a special childhood memory, for cripe's sake)

- inventing "Friend," a game involving a neverending conversation between stick women boasting of long hair and flowy dresses. Wasting tons of our mother's precious notebook paper and our back-to-school Crayola markers, we would each speak for our respective stick woman and carry them through the joys and pitfalls of life. We occupied ourselves for hours with this game. HOURS. When there was no paper, we drew inside the covers of my Archie comic books.

- giving manicures to our Barbie dolls (read: biting the tips of their hands so that they extended an extra forty feet)

- playing in our swimming pool, which usually included solo performances, interpretive dances, and Dramatic Death Scenes, me floating on the top, eyes closed, while she sobbed over my too-brief existence

- having late-night talks on school nights as teenagers, her smoking by the window and trying desperately to push the smoke out the window at the sound of our mother's knock

And now she's going to be somebody's wife. Holy crap. I'm a jumble of emotions, emotions that seem to best manifest themselves through crying and peeing. I may have to wear Depends on The Big Day. Meanwhile, it's time to search for some serious waterproof mascara.

But before I go, here's a song that has special meaning to Samantha and me.

A Friend to Me
(Garth Brooks)

Well you and I
We're buddies
And we've been since we first met
Me and you
Well we've sure been through
Our share of laughter and regret
Lord knows we've had our bad days
And more than once we've disagreed
But you've always been a friend to me

You can be so stubborn
There's times I think you just like to fight
And I hope and pray I live to see a day
When you say I might be right
And there's times I'd rather kill you
Than listen to your honesty
But you've always been a friend to me

You've always been
Time and again
The one to take my hand
And show me it's okay to be
Just the way I am
With no apology

Oh you've always been
And you will 'til God knows when
Yes you've always been a friend to me

I love you, Sissy.