37 posts tagged “dave”

Just some random musings on a beautiful Friday morning:

A good way to make the county of clerks chuckle at you while you apply for your marriage license is to argue semantics with your attorney fiance in front of her. Nice work.

I haven't had Starbucks in who knows how long, and on the two block walk back to our cars we stopped at one on the way.  I may have to start going to Starbucks regularly because this is the best coffee ever and its sugar and fat-free!

We had a really great trip to Maine last weekend.  It was beautiful, relaxing, and fun.  It was a blast to spend time with Dave's acapella friends, and they decided they must initiate us into the world of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" which is happening in a marathon session tomorow.  I hear there's going to be pizza involved and I can't wait.  Finally! I will know wtf they're talking about.

It's been a perfect morning.  The weather outside is gorgeous, and it was great to spend the morning with Dave - every day should start like this one.

Our wedding is in just 29 days.  Thats like, soon and stuff. Hm.

What a weekend!  My bridesmaids threw me a FABULOUS bridal shower this weekend.  What a wonderful time!  Family and friends were so generous, I have so many great things to fix up our home and start our new life together.  Part of the decorations for the shower were baby pictures of me and Dave.  Dave is the cutest little baby, and I really hope that someday when we have babies they look just like him.  One of my bridesmaids asked him what he thought our babies would be like and he responded, very simply with "Tall and inattentive."  The frightening part is just how true that is!  For a glimpse of one of my baby photo favors made by my very talented best friend see here.

With all the fuss over the shower I totally forgot that yesterday was my birthday.  I'm 27 now, and boy does that seem old.  The odd numbers always seem older, I don't know why.  My Daddy is taking me to see Batman on Thursday and I can't wait.  Oh Christian Bale, how I swoon over you.  Happy Birthday to me, indeed.

Finally, with all this talk of baby photos, in other non-related baby news congrats to Brian and Paige who are pregnant with their second child!  What wonderful news!

I really hope that this blog post isn't over-sharing, but I really feel compelled to share this because it totally changed my perspective on a lot of things. I hope that you can relate.

In the last 6 months of frantic travel, work, schoolwork (currently at 40+ hours a week), and wedding planning life has been crazier for Dave and I than it has ever been.  I think when people get that busy with so many juggling priorities relationships get less attention than they normally do.  And thats not to say they're ignored or that there are major problems of any kind but simply that they fall somewhere in the top 5 of things going on on your life instead of the top 2.  As a result, I've been - we've been, feeling a little distanced from each other.  Let me be clear: we're not falling apart at the seams, we're just not spending the kind of quality time simply being with each other relaxing that we would normally like.

And last night, after I got back some exam scores that were good grades - no doubt they were good grades - but not what I had hoped for or expected based on the amount of time I'd invested in the courses I started to freak. out.  Dave was at acapella, and I was just trying to slowly take one task at a time and get over being a little upset. I figured - let's make myself some dinner and just put homework aside for an hour.  I started to pull out some meat for dinner - simple, right?  WRONG.  Its frozen into the ice cube tray. I patiently took everything out of the freezer and carefully removed the ziploc bag from being frozen into the ice tray only to spray ice all over the kitchen trying to put the tray back into the freezer.  Okay! Not freaking out. Going to poor myself a drink. I pulled out my pitcher of lemonade and just swirled it to mix it up and somehow it sprayed all over me and the kitchen. Okay! Not freaking out. I cleaned it up and took a glass from the cabinet and dropped it on the floor.  Okay! Still, not freaking out.  I can't even make myself a freaking drink without it causing a huge debacle, but I'm not going to freak out.  I open the freezer to get an ice cube and somehow half the freezer came crashing down.  Now I'm freaking out. FREAKING. OUT.  My life is in shambles, I have no time to myself or my friends or my fiance and on top of that none of it is paying off in my grades.

So I did what I normally never do.  I called Dave to ask him to come home.  I needed him to come home, and just be there with me and hold my shit together for me, because I could no longer do it myself.  There must have been something in my voice, because as soon as I called him the first sentence out of his mouth was "I'm coming home."  I immediately felt stupid.  I spilled ice for crying out loud. You don't need to come home, its just ice. Also, I'm losing my brain.  Allow me to demonstrate this through incoherent flipping out about school, wedding, work, and life.  Dave stayed on the phone with me his entire drive all the way until he opened the door and walked into the kitchen.  I have no idea what Dave showing up did - he didn't actively do anything. He didn't clean up the kitchen, he didn't do my homework for me he just showed up.  And told me that he would always show up, and thats when I realized something.

Thats part of what this marriage thing is going to be all about.  When I can't hold my shit together, when I'm losing my brain I know that I can count on Dave to drop everything to keep me together on my behalf, and to talk me down from the ledge.  Its a very rare thing for me to throw my hands up in the air and say '"I can't do this. I need you here."  That Dave could walk into my kitchen and just follow me around for 3 hours so I could get it together was amazing to me.  Its not an easy thing to be able to talk to someone when they're irrational and emotional in the exact way that they need you to talk to them and this is just one of the many things that Dave does that lets me know that he's my perfect match.

I don't feel bad that I freaked out - I'm glad I finally lost my cool over the insanity that is happening right now.  It demonstrated to me that when I'm at my wit's end, its all still going to be okay.  And it closed that distance between us in an instant.  I can't get through any of this alone, I can only get through it all with Dave following me as I walk in circles around the kitchen and living room venting about school.  I know this won't be the only time that things are hard, but I do know that we'll always be able to at least be together.

What happened to Spring? How come we don't get a Spring anymore? We go straight from 40 degree weather to 98 degree weather, and Mother Nature - I veto this plan.  I'm sort of okay that Summer is so quickly upon us, mostly because I'm extremely ready for it to be over.  The start, means the beginning of the end.  There will be some work changes for me over the next two months and I'm really looking forward to them.  They can't happen soon enough in my mind, but I will be patient.

Plus, lots of good things happen at the end of the summer - I get to go to Geneva (whoo hoo!), and then its Fall and holy shit I get married in the Fall.  Like MARRIED, married. With a husband.  I'm really excited for our wedding, I'm so glad all our loved ones are going out of their way to be here for us and celebrate with us.  I think its going to be a great party, and lots of fun.  I'm genuinely looking forward to it.

As for wedding planning, I think I'm the laziest bride ever.  The lady at our venue site freaked out when I called her a couple of weeks ago asking if there was, like, you know, something I was supposed to be doing.  "OHMYGOD. YOU HAVE TO GET IN HERE! THERE ARE DECISIONS!" oh. uh, okay!  Listen here people, I've never done this before..so I'm happy to decide any thing you'd like but I didn't think there were that many decisions.  Food? Check. Music? Check. Clothes? Check.  What else is there?  Oh the details of those things, you say?  Hm. Okay, I guess I should get to work on that stuff.

We actually made some good decisions about the bridesmaids gowns, and the groomsmens tuxes, and other attire.  I'm also super excited to have our rehearsal dinner at Iron Hill Brewery, and our next steps are to figure out the flowers (did you know they have a design? Really! They have a design!)  and cake. Mmm, CAKE.  I can't wait to do the cake part.  I'm still working on my wedding band, I'm just struggling to find something I really love.  I had been thinking about getting a ring with sapphires in it, but they're all either way too expensive or not what I'm really looking for.  I may just be getting a simple platinum band, which I also really like too.  So I think I've made some good progress, but there's still lots to do.  

I just can't wait to spend time with my girlfriends getting ready, and celebrating all night.  I'm looking forward to being surrounded by all the people who love us - what an honor that people would do that for us.  I've been very blown away by how excited and supportive our friends and family are, and we just feel so loved.  So, thank you to everyone who has been so kind and helpful for us over the last 6 months (can you believe its been that much time?!) and we can't wait to see you 4 months from now!

I think the goofy things I do while training are funny, but sometimes its hard to describe the hilarity.  Whenever I tell Dave about the bizarre thing I did or that happened that I thought was cool or hysterical the conversation goes something like this:

"And then, I did a bench press but like..backwards sorta, with like my arms over here and my legs, see my legs go over there. And it was awesome! And funny!"

*Blank Stare*  "Uh. yeah, thats hysterical dear."

So, I'm sorry if thats your reaction to this next story about my bench presses, but I think its mildly entertaining.

Last week I was doing dumbbell bench presses and on my last rep of my last set my left arm made it about halfway and then just..died.  My trainer eventually pulled on the weight and helped me finish the rep.  The second he let go the weight plummeted straight down, I apparently had no strength left.  And so the tongue lashing from the trainer began:

"Underwear! What the hell?! I'd prefer it if my clients didn't drop weights on their faces!"

"Dude. I had no idea it was going to do that. I promise I would have told you. But seriously - it didn't go to my face, it went to the SIDE of my face."

"It missed your ear by like a milimeter."

"Okay, okay! But I agree with you - I'd rather not hit myself in the face with the weights.  My arm just said..'fuck you, I'm out.' I couldn't help it!  Is that what 'muscle failure' feels like?"

"SIGH. Yes. Yes, thats what muscle failure feels like.  And warn me next time so I can at least TRY to catch it."

Right. Next time my muscle spontaneously gives up on me I'll send you a memo.

Today we were doing barbell bench presses.  He had racked itty bitty 'baby' weights as I called them and we did a high rep set (high reps = 15).  Seeing as how I called them 'baby' weights when I started means he added manual resistance on my last rep, pushing on the bar.  Last rep, last set again and this time I got halfway and he STOPPED me and made me push there and when he let go I couldn't move it any higher.  And worse, the weight started to come back DOWN.

"I'm soorrrrrrr-ry!"

Laughing. The bar is now SITTING on my chest. "What are you doing?"

"I can't lift it! I can't move it at all!"

More laughing.  He assisted the bar up and said "I think my favorite part was when you APOLOGIZED as the bar came rushing towards your neck."

I love weight lifting.

I know I've been talking about how busy I am - busy, ridiculously busy.  And I was thinking to myself, "Whatever, stop being such a whiner. Everyone's busy."

I just noticed 12 days after I got paid, that my paycheck was 30% lower than it should have been for some reason.  I sent an email to the HR department, I'm sure there's some good reason, but seriously - shouldn't I have noticed something like that oh, I don't know 12 DAYS AGO?

I suppose I could credit my very good budgeting skills, saying I saw the lower amount in my account and just adjusted my spending over the last 12 days. But honestly, I've just been too busy to really analyze my accounts like I normally do.  Scary, huh?

Speaking of accounts - we just started the process of opening our, dun dun dun dun...JOINT account.  I know I agreed to marry him - but share my money? When did I agree to that?

I recently saw Paige, and she suggested I start a wedding blog, like this one from Holly.  And I thought to myself, "Self, thats a good idea!" and self responded "Or you could just write on the blog you already have."  Or I could do that.  So if you have no desire to hear about my wedding planning adventures, just move along and stop back another time when I'm telling a very boring story about how funny my cat is.

At dinner the other night, Dave and I were talking about the readings for the wedding.  One side of my family is Jewish, and I thought it would be nice to do the Seven Blessings, but in a slightly more modern version.  For example, the third blessing in original text is:

"Let the barren city be jubilantly happy and joyful at her joyous reunion with her children.  You are blessed, Lord, who makes Zion rejoice with her children."

Uh. Zion might be a little much for us.  We were thinking something more like this:

"May you encourage each other in whatever you set out to achieve. May you share each other's dreams and meet life's challenges together."

The neat thing about it, is that a different person can read each one - so we can include lots of people in a brief reading.  Dave thought we should balance this with a Christian/Catholic reading that maybe our siblings can read together.  He suggested the "Love is patient" reading thats very popular.  But when Dave described it to me, it went something like this - and I had to write it down as soon as he said it, because its just classic Dave:

"You know that Love thing.  Love is always kind, love is never angry and it closes the door when the bathroom is smelly and has a mohawk - you know..all that stuff thats in the Bible."

Yes, that "Love has a mohawk" passage from the Bible. Let's do that one.  Maybe Grammy can read it for us.

This week has been ridiculously exhausting.   For starters the 3 hour time difference is just bizarre - when I wake up its already 9am on the East Coast.  By the time I get home from dinner after work, its nearly midnight there!  Communicating with The Fiancee has not been easy. The nature of my work here is extremely exhausting, and the days are long.  I have no down time to unload all that work stress before I am talking to Dave at night and I can't say I've been very pleasant to him.  It doesn't help that the only thing I have to look forward to after I get off the phone with him is a few hours of studying for my classes that start next week.  He's been extremely patient and supportive with me and there's no possible way I could cope with everything here without him.  Good thing I'm making him promise to do that crap for forever.  And don't think I'm not still wedding planning across time zones - I totally am.

There are a lot of changes taking place in the "Miss Understood" household, and needless to say there's a lot of stress.  I leave on Sunday for a week of work in San Francisco, followed immediately by my first week of graduate school at Thunderbird Graduate School of Management.  After the smackdown I laid on the GMAT, Thunderbird offered me a scholarship to start in January instead of September.  They told me that three weeks ago, and by the way you have to be in Arizona for a week for Orientation and 3 credits worth of classes.

Now, lets add the holidays, wedding planning, and some serious ramp up of projects at work and I am offically stressed.  Not helping was some disappointing show of friendship in the last few weeks from some people we really expected to step up to the plate and do the right thing.  Its not fair to talk about what happened, or to name names on the internet but I do want to talk about what friendship means to me.  I have a very strong sense of what 'being a friend' means and its a devastating blow to me when someone I know and love and consider to be a friend doesn't treat me the same way that I would treat them. 

I've been trying to find a way to talk about my feelings appropriately because this is a public forum and not a personal journal where I'm free to write whatever I feel like.  I came across this website today of the author's "50 things I've learned in 50 years" and a few of his points really hit home to me.  I encourage you to check out the entire list, but a few things really stood out to me:

2.  Promptness shows respect

6.  The most valuable thing to have is a good reputation, and it’s neither hard nor expensive to acquire one: Be fair. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be generous. Respect others.

15.  It may not feel like it, but it’s good luck when you have people at home and at work who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong.

20.  Wounds heal faster under bandages than they do in the open air.

38.  In crisis or conflict, always think and act strategically. Take time to figure out what the “winning” outcome is for you, then work toward it.

"I see we found the twine again."

"Yes, it was in that drawer, just like I told you."

"I looked in there and didn't see it."

"I know.  Just like you looked in that closet and didn't see those two shirts you were looking for either."

"Yeah, well I looked in my underwear drawer and found a huge freaking diamond."

"You win."