A Few Of My Favorite Things

Almost 1 Year...

We are quickly approaching our one year anniversary. It's pretty exciting! I will officially be able to say that the first year of marriage is no sweat. :) (at least...when you're married to Jono, it isn't.)

We are trying to decide on what to do for our anniversary. The practical, FPU-attending part of us thinks we should save money. Yet, another part of us thinks that this only comes once and we could treat ourselves.

Another part of the equation is that we are going to spend a week in Virginia with my family this summer, taking up all of Jono's vacation time from work and a good chunk of mine. If we went anywhere for the anniversary he would be taking time without pay.

All that said, we cannot decide where we might like to go. I've always wanted to go to Disney World (I don't care how commercialized it is. I want to go once in my life!). But we would also enjoy lots of other things.

Also, staying in the country is mandatory as I haven't updated my passport and don't think I have time to do that before the big day.

I would love to hear some ideas from you all! If you had about 4-5 days to work with (we're talking over the weekend plus 2 or 3 days off), what would you do? Would you fly? Drive? Go fishing? I'll take any advice you can give!

Clown Car

I had a truly wonderful weekend! I hope you all did, too. I will post a little about that soon.

But first, I need to go back to last weekend, when we decided to invite some wonderful cousins over to our house. Most of them had not yet seen Wall-E, and we happen to have it on Blu Ray (deliciousness), so we gave them a ring.

Now, this was an interesting event because of two things:

1) Our living room is very small (as you will soon see).

2) My aunt and uncle have 10 boys, bringing the grand total of Wall-E watchers to 14.

It was wonderful to have them over, and despite the tight space we all had a great time.

This is why you should never, ever limit your time with people based on the space you have available to you. :)

I Also Ride The Air-O-Plane

One of my dear friends posted this today. We have been discussing our different opinions of airports, so I decided to post my side of the story.

If there were such a thing as purgatory, I think it would be like an airport.

Let me give some history.

I have flown a fair number of times for someone who doesn't exactly live the most exciting life. I have flown to Chicago 5 or 6 times, I've flown to California, I've flown to Virginia and Maryland. I've flown to Florida, and then to Haiti a couple of times. I'm probably forgetting a few things, but that's the gist. During those flights I have encountered a number of unfortunate experiences.

When flying, you are at the mercy of both the weather and the airline. I personally find the latter to be much more terrifying. You have no control of when your plane takes off, how long you will be forced to wait, and how much money you will be forced to spend if you are unfortunate to be there long enough to need food.

I once spent the night in the airport in Atlanta. They lost our luggage, so we had to venture outside the terminal to discuss this problem with the powers that be. Once we found out that our luggage was in Miami, we wanted to go back to the terminal.

NO DICE!

The check in counters were closed for the night, and we spent part of the night (I kid you not) outside on the sidewalk. We then moved to the floors in front of the check-in. Overall, it was 13 hours of pain and 28 hours without sleep.

When I was flying home from Haiti once our airline had apparently over booked. They asked 5 people to get off the plane and wait for a later flight. No one was moving, so I went with my friend to wait. My poor family had to wait until the wee hours of the morning for me at the airport.

Last time I visited my family in Virginia our return flight was delayed. This wasn't as painful as other times, but the annoyance factor is huge. We spend this time in limbo, essentially, unable to be with our family and unable to be in our beds at home. Those are wasted hours of my life.

So, airports are just places between you and the place you are oh-so-anxious to be. You have no control whatsoever...so you just hope that those friends of yours back on Earth are praying their little hearts out to get you into Heaven.

Or something.

I will never love you, airport. Never. But, as you are still more convenient than driving, I will be forced to face you again and again.

I think this is the pessimist rising again...

I Heart Netflix

I really do. And I love it even more since it doesn't cost me, personally, a thing. My sweet dad gave us a year-long subscription for Christmas.

Jono and I love to relax, eat dinner, and watch a movie from the comfort of home. It has become more fun to stay there and watch a movie than to go out (even to the cheap-o theater).

Also, I love watching stuff in Netflix Instant. You can catch up on tv shows and waste all kinds of time. :)

Sometimes, though, Netflix bites you in the butt. And I think that's what's going to happen to me tomorrow night.

In keeping with our tradition of watching bad, bad movies, Kristin is coming over and we are going to watch this. Elena, perhaps you should be praising the fact that you will be out of town and unable to subject yourself to the pain that is before us.

Did I mention it was filmed in 12 days?

At least we will have some bad drinks to help salvage the evening... ;)

Advice

At church some girls (1st grade, I think) were giving me some serious advice.

Girl 1: Never, ever drink. It's BAD!
Me: You have to drink SOME things to survive.
Girl 1: No, I mean BAD drinks.
Me: What's a bad drink?
Girl 1: Like, you know. Drinks at a bar.
Me: What kind of drinks are bad at a bar?
Girl 1: I don't know.
Me: Well how can you tell if you're drinking a bad drink?
Girl 1: You read it.
Me: What does it say to make you know it's bad?
Girl 1: I don't know. You just can tell.
Me: What if it LOOKS like a good drink, but it's really a bad drink?
Girl 1: If it looks like water, but it's fizzy, that means it's Sprite.
Girl 2: She's talking about beer. Beer is the bad drink.
Me: Ooooh. I understand now.

As they start to walk away, Girl 1 turns and says, "Oh. And don't eat or drink or...whatever you do to marijuana. That's what Michael Phelps did."

Bad drinks. They are so tasty. :)

Reason #459 To Be Married

As our one year anniversary is approaching, I've been thinking about the wedding, honeymoon, etc...and mostly wishing we could go on a honeymoon like that every year.

Anyway, I realized that I didn't really post anything about either of those things here. And as I am often being prompted to update this pathetic little blog, I decided to use this opportunity to tell a little story.

We went to the Ozarks for our honeymoon. It was a great choice, because all we wanted to do was hide. For a while we were staying outside of Eureka Springs in a cabin (being bothered by nothing and nobody). One day when we had ventured outside to walk around I had a special interaction.

Jono was inside a convenience store and I was sitting outside on a bench enjoying the weather. A guy came out (probably about 50 years old) and asked if the seat next to me was taken.

Me: No, go ahead
Guy sits in silence for a moment
Guy: So, do you need a ride or something?
Guy places his arm behind me on the bench
Me: No, actually. I'm just waiting for my husband. He's inside right now.
Guy removes arm suddenly
Guy: Oh.
We both sit in silence for another moment
Guy: Well, do you both need a ride?
Me: No, we have a car.
Guy: Oh, cool. I had to sell my car. I just take the trolly in a loop-de-loop, loop-de-loop.
Me: Ok.

Jono comes out and we leave.

At that moment I realized how much I like being able to say "my husband."

Also, there is nothing like being offered a ride by someone who doesn't have a car. :)

I am a pessimist.

I have used that phrase at least 6 times over the last couple days, so it must be becoming increasingly true.

What are you?