Two years and counting

Two years ago today Mike and I got all dressed up to tell each other, and a large number of guests, that we promised to faithfully love each other and spend the rest of our lives together. The last two years have just flown by. I think we've been very blessed. I've always heard that marriages take work and that if you don't work at it then it won't be successful. Or I was told before I got married that I would have to remind myself why I married Mike. I'm sure that we work at our marriage, but it just doesn't feel like it. Being married to Mike has been very easy and each day I love him more. Not a day goes by that I've ever doubted our decision to get married or had to remember why I married Mike. Even though he's only been a part of my life for three and a half years, it's impossible for me to imagine life without him.
Recently I was told though that we should start writing down what we did for our honeymoon and what we do on our anniversaries. My great-aunts told us that even though we think we'll never forget that our memory won't be nearly as good when we're almost 90. So we've taken their suggestion and started writing down memorable dates and our anniversaries. I think it will be a great record to have, especially since it's hard for us to go on anniversary trips right on our anniversary. June 30 is the end of the first half of the sales year and so we usually need to take our vacations in July. Last year we went to Mexico and this year we're going to a great Bed and Breakfast in New Orleans. Some day I'd like to get back to where we went in Jamaica for our honeymoon.
In honor of the day here's one of our engagement photos and some of our wedding photos.

Busyness

I got this written but never posted a while back. Life's been very busy.

A few weekends ago we celebrated my Mom's birthday. She turned 60 and was gone on her actual birthday so we celebrated a few days late. Dad made yummy fish tacos and as always, he made the cheesecake. Our family's cheesecake recipe is the best I've ever had. Mom wanted a smoker for her birthday. Our family is weird in that we like getting big cooking appliance type things as gifts. We get to ooh and ahh over the new toy and figure out new recipes and what we're going to make. Since mom has every kitchen tool imaginable for indoors I guess she decided to branch out to outdoor cooking appliances. And of course it made the guys happy too. Bryan got the whole thing assembled and Mom's already used it once. She sent smoked chicken home for Mike who pronounced it good. Mike was even willing to share a few scraps with Apollo who then started dancing around the kitchen whenever he saw Mike pull the chicken out of the fridge. So the chicken must be good and our dog is spoiled.

That same weekend we went out with our friends Lyndsay and Alan for dinner. There's a backstory to this dinner. A few weeks ago Mike and I were home and had Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on. We like to watch the show and always wish the restaurants would be closer to us. Well, the first place up was located in East Dallas and was a burger joint. As we watched them make these burgers and everything that went in them, Mike's eyes got big and I think he started to drool. And we just knew our friend Alan would love a place like that. We got online and found they had veggie burgers and a new location opened up closer to us. So the four of us went on Saturday evening to the Twisted Root Burger Co. Sure enough, as we walked in Alan told us that he had just found his new home. Mike got the Western Burger and Alan got something that was a combo of buffalo and venison. Lyndsay had the cheese burger and I got the veggie burger (what a surprise!). The food was good and the decorations were a riot. We loved all the bumper stickers and various signs around the place. Such as the one requesting that we not steal their condiments, then informing us that stealing in general is bad and then suggesting that the government already steals enough. There were also plenty of "graffiti" style notes up in the bathroom. My favorite was the one pointing to the emergency alarm (the type with flashing lights) that said "if this is flashing then you may want to stop peeing and run". Since it's not every day that we get to go someplace featured on Guy's show, we decided to take pictures.

Home makeover

We've been very busy over the last couple of years giving the house a "makeover" and now we're nearly finished. We still have a few details to take care of but all the major projects are through. Yay! We completely tore out all the groundcover and holly bushes and redid the yard, leveled out the back and laid sod. There are new flower beds with new brick work and the sprinkler system. All the plants are in and look great (and survive thanks to the sprinkler system). We had the outside of the house painted and last weekend Mike finished the front door.
The front door was quite a project and I'm really proud of Mike. He had to take it down, sand off all the old pain (which took most of the morning) and then stain it. It took three coats of stain because the wood was so dry that it just sucked up the first coat. He got all that done Saturday and was able to put the urethane coats on Sunday in time for it to dry and get hung back up. So we were only doorless for two days. And the door looks great! So unless Mike gets the wild idea again about finishing the kitchen cabinetry - I think all our big projects are done. We still have small projects to do. We need to replace the cushion stuff that blocks air leaks in the doorways (I have no idea what it's called). And with the house settling and moving after we had the foundation repairs there are some cracks now around the windows that we need to fill and seal. But given that I don't think you're ever truly "done" working on a house and there always seems to be something the do, I think this is the closest we're going to get with our house to being done. I think we're going to just sit around for a while and be proud of ourselves (and nap).
I haven't gotten pictures of the door yet (or the outside bench that Mike refinished). I'll take some later and post them.

passports and the car

Two accomplishments last weekend. First, we found that passports. We discovered they were missing back in February when Mike needed to copy his for employment records at his new job. I thought they were hidden in the armoir. Mike thought they were hidden in one of two other locations. They weren't in any of the three. We both remembered a conversation about where to put them. I remember not like Mike's idea and him not liking mine. So we could remember all that. However, we couldn't remember where they finally ended up after we got home from Mexico last summer. At random points we would search places in the house looking for them with no luck. This weekend I went to pull a shirt off the closet shelf that I had put there because the strap needed to be sewn back on and I thought I could do it at my grandmother's. When I pulled the shirt a travel bag fell down and the thud seemed pretty heavy for an empty bag. There were our passports! Along with other miscellaneous things from our Mexico trip. Right after we got back from Mexico we were busy with details for a friend's wedding and then out-of-town friends stayed with us that same weekend. We're guessing that even though we had the conversation about where to keep the passports that we ended up just putting the bag on the shelf in a rush to clean up without actually putting them away. Glad to have them again though. It's very difficult to flee the country on short notice without them.

The other exciting thing was that we got the clean title to the Camry. It's all paid off and now it's all ours. We're really excited to not have a car payment anymore. When we bought the car a year and half ago we had really good interest rates on our savings account and got a really low interest rate on the car loan. So it made more sense to have the loan. Then the economy changed and the rates on our CD savings went down. We decided to hurry up and get the loan paid off until Mike got news that IBM was going to lay him off. So the car loan got paid off a little later than planned. But now it's done and we're really excited to be rid of it. Yippe.

Pet therapy

Mike and I had a really nice visit to see DG this weekend. We would have liked to stay longer with her and had originally planned to go up on Memorial Day weekend so we could. But that was when I thought Memorial Day weekend was this weekend rather than last weekend. And we couldn't go on Memorial Day weekend. Instead we drove up after work on Friday and came back Sunday morning. So it ended up being shorter than I wanted. We did get to have dinner with the twins and Ed though and it was great to see them. Earlier Ed had been sick enough that people were worried he might not get better, but by the time we came to visit he was looking about as well as he usually looks. I was very happy to see that and glad he's decided to stick around a while longer.

We took Apollo with us again this weekend. DG's really not a fan of dogs or pets, but she tolerates Apollo and will let us bring him. We decided that it was time for him to start earning his keep while he was there though. Since he's such a friendly, cuddly, and usually well-behaved dog, we offered to take him around the facility for some unofficial "pet therapy". DG thought this was a great idea and wanted to come along too. We took him down to meet some of her friends in the assisted living/nursing care wing. He sat and let several people pet him and gave them kisses and was, as always, very happy to meet everyone. Since he's not a licensed pet therapy dog he couldn't go into the memory care unit. So we just saw a few people. We also went over and saw one of DG's friends in the independent living apartments who had to give up her own dog a while ago. So he got to make quite a few new friends. And his "parents" were very pleased that he behaved himself so well and enjoyed all the compliments we got on how handsome he is.

In my mind I had ideas of Apollo sitting for a long time with someone while they petted him and how that would make them feel better. And I was actually a little disappointed that each visit was fairly brief, no more than about 5 minutes. After we got back to the apartment though one of DG's friends called to thank us for thinking to bring the dog to her and taking the time from our day to come see her. It made me think that perhaps part of what helps people who benefit from pet therapy is not just the dog, but also the fact that someone thought they were important enough to think about, schedule time for, pack up the dog, and come visit. Although everyone liked meeting Apollo what I heard frequently was gratitude that we even thought about them and took the time to come by. It actually makes me sad that they're alone so much that us bringing our dog by would matter that much to them. It certainly made me glad to do it. It was a good reminder for me of how a really small effort, just to remember someone and make them feel important, can have such a huge impact on someone's day. I really would like to get Apollo licensed as a pet therapy dog. He's a cuddly dog and would enjoy it. Unfortunately there's a bunch of classes you have to get through and we've never even had time to take Apollo to basic obedience training. Even though we won't be able to bring the dog, I do think Mike and I need to make more time to visit some of the local places around us. It wouldn't take much of our time and it would mean a lot to people who feel the world is starting to forget about them. It also reminds me that Mike needs to call his grandmother.

Randomness

The problem with staying up late to write is that I get very tired and random thoughts start arriving in my head that are not relate to child disclosure, secrecy, lying or delinquency. I'm acutally quite random on a regular basis. It's just that during the day I can tell the random thoughts to my husband and get them out of my head. Except he's asleep right now. I can't imagine why. It's only 1:30 in the morning. So here are my random thoughts. They're mostly related to Apollo because he decided to stay up with me.

• Apollo decided to eat his dinner at 1 this morning. It's a good thing for him that I'm still up writing or he'd be sitting in his crate a hungry dog.
• We have a large couch. I sit in the center with the laptop on my lap. I put the papers I'm using to one side and the other is empty. Why does Apollo always jump up on the side that has the papers? I'll move them for him and then a little while later he'll jump up on the side that I moved the papers to.
• Why does Apollo eat his hair when we brush him? All the pieces of hair that decorate my floor during the week he ignores. As soon as we start brushing him out and it's in large clumps he wants to eat it. We can't imagine that it taste good and it's not like he's starving. That dog gets plenty to eat.
• I've had several late nights in the last few weeks and have noticed a difference between now and college. In college late nights were always accompanied by large quantities of diet coke. Late nights now usually mean a diet coke in the evening and just water the rest of the night. I would have thought as I got older I would need even more diet coke to keep me going. Maybe I'm just old enough now to know that staying up late and gallons of diet coke are both unhealthy and so limit it to just one.
• In college and with grad classes there are deadlines to have your work done and turned in. The problem now is that I don't really truly have deadlines. Instead I make self-imposed deadlines so that I actually get work done. Hence the reason for being up late writing. The problem with not having a real deadline though is that it means I can keep working on something even after my self-made deadline. That's a serious problem for a perfectionist who never feels that something is good enough. I miss having deadlines that force me to give something up and move on. However, after a full week solid of writing and two very late nights I'm beginning to think that sleep deprivation may beat out the perfectionist and force me to call it quits. I'll come back for revisions after my adviser has looked at it.
• My wonderful husband thinks I've been working really hard this week and wanted to be sweet so he bought me flowers today. They're pretty and bright yellow. Looking at them helps wake me up when I'm tired at 2 in the morning.
  

Vineyard

I remember standing in a breezeway at Trinity my first year looking at a flier announcing a band named Jackopierce was playing it's last concert ever at the White Rabbit and wondering who Jackopierce was. Sadly I didn't go see them but the following year my roommate Deborah moved in and put Jackopierce's signature star up all over the wall and started playing their music (she owened every CD) and after that I was hooked. I loved their sound and their style. They're the CDs that even though I may put them away for a few months, I always pull them back out. I was disappointed that they had broken up and I wasn't going to get to see them perform and they wouldn't be putting out any new music.
Every year Richardson puts on a music festival called WildFlower. It's the whole weekend and a number of different big acts come in as well as the opportunity for smaller, local bands to get some publicity. It's always a lot of fun and really inexpensive. Mike and I go at least one night with my parents. This year we pulled up the lineup to see which night we wanted to go and there on Friday night's lineup was Jackopierce - back together, performing, and with new music. So on Friday night Mike and I got to watch Jackopierce perform for over an hour. They played a lot of their old favorites and some new stuff. I enjoyed their new songs enough to buy the new CD. In fact I've had the chorous of one of their new songs stuck in my head all weekend. And of course, they finished with Vineyard. It was a great time and a great show.