Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

This will be one of those sentimental posts - you are forewarned!

For today's trip down memory lane, I started thumbing through my photos which are all crammed in boxes in chronological order (there are a LOT of them hence the need for a serious scrapbooking offensive this year). I saw this one and it made me smile so I thought I'd use it.

Most of us are lucky enough to have grandparents, and I was lucky enough as a child to have both sets of grandparents and even two sets of great-grandparents. This is me and my Grandma D. He was one of those fun grandpas because he was very active and always up to something, working in the yard or garden, fiddling in the garage or burning leaves which was my FAVORITE chore to help with. Just like gramps I loved to burn things! I remember that when he quit smoking he started chewing tobacco, Red Man in a pouch to be specific. After seeing him put that in his mouth time and time again, I finally asked it I could try some. He let me take a pinch of that nasty looking stuff and try it ... needless to say I am NOT a tobacco chewer to this day.

As for me and the army hat?? Apparently that had been my older brother's, but it became my favorite thing to wear. There are MANY pictures of me as a toddler in the army helmet , but sadly most of them would be considered kiddie porn as I'm only wearing my underwear (hey we lived on a farm and had no air conditioning!) The best are of me with the army hat and giving the black power salute - my Mom still can't explain those.

Grandpa D passed away three years ago and until he went downhill with his Alzheimer's, he still had all of his hair styled almost exactly like this picture, was in great shape, and still let us help with burning things!! We all still miss him but have great memories!

And though I don't think that Alzheimer's or dementia are any thing to laugh about, I think sometimes you have no choice but to find some humor in a situation. Now Grandpa was one to say what he thought and he was a big believer in staying fit and active, for example while in a crowd of people and seeing a heavier woman.... "Maaaan, look at that heifer over there!" Bearing this in mind, I'll never forget when we were at a family gathering and he stared at me and said "you know you've got a mustache there" and pointed to my upper lip. I immediately went to the bathroom and confirmed that like all mammals I do in fact have a slight fuzzy covering on all of my face including my upper lip, but thankfully no mustache!

One, two, three, four I declare a slipper War!

Houston we have a problem

Here I thought I was blissfully happy, without a care in the world, having found the man of my dreams, preparing to spend the rest of my life with bluebirds of happiness chirping at my ear
And then .....

I was shocked out of my fairy tale by the appearance of

THE SLIPPERS






I can't recall the first time I saw them, I know it was before we moved into the new house and I think I saw them on a closet floor. I don't think it registered with me what they were or who they belonged to - perhaps an elderly lady who died in the house long ago left them there?

I do remember, however, the sheer abject, cringing horror that I felt in the pit of my stomach the first time I saw him wearing them. My first thought was NOOOOO my perfect husband-to-be can NOT wear these. It was a very visceral reaction of disgust. I believe my exact words were "If you ever want me to bear your child you MUST remove those."

He protested, "but my feet are cold."
To which I replied, "surely there's a better option"

The slipper war was quickly forgotten given that the weather has been so unseasonably warm and cold feet have not been a concern. It has been mentioned a time or two, generally when I see slippers at a store and think, hmmm I might actually be interested in procreating with my fiancee if he wore those.

Tonight, he again brought out the slippers much to my disgust. He honestly has no clue how absolutely hideous and ridiculous they are. With my next paycheck I'll have to buy the cute memory foam ones at The Sharper Image because $50 is worth saving our marriage and the future of the Jones line.

I welcome any and all comments - either tell me I'm being a complete witch or please for the love of all that is holy tell me that you agree that no hot 34 year old man should walk around in those!!

Random thoughts ...

First of all, my home state is NOT pronounced "Illi noise" - the "s" is silent!! I was just watching the local news and someone pronounced it wrong and it irritated me.

Second, GO TIGERS!! My Missouri Tigers are now ranked #1 after a resounding victory over Kansas! Hmmm, fried Jayhawk anyone?

BJ was very proud of me given that I watched the game AND actually understood a good portion of it. We did have to occasionally pause so he could point out what was going on around the line of scrimmage (you mean the offensive linemen and the defensive linemen are different players?!?!) and I learned a few new things like what the safety does and how overtimes work. I did fall asleep in the 4th quarter, but in my defense I had gotten off work at 7:30 a.m. and just slept a few hours that day.

Third random thought, I am so sick of credit card fraud. I had a really bad incident about 10 years ago when my wallet was pickpocketed out of my purse by someone I *thought* I had bumped into, and they charged over $10,000 on my cards at Best Buy and Circuit City within 2 hours. They had my driver's license and opened up accounts in my name at several stores and continued to try to buy things for several months. It was a flippin' mess! Earlier this year, someone used my Citibank card number to charge $300 of foreign purchases in Germany, and now this weekend apparently my debit card number was compromised. Of course in this case they used it to buy some things AND pay off a T-Mobile bill so I'm hoping the culprit is tracked down. At least when my wallet was stolen a decade ago, I KNEW that there was illicit activity going on. In both of my recent cases, the cards have been in my possession all along. I know that I'm not going to be responsible for paying, but somewhere, someone is having to eat these costs.

Fourth, I need to pass along a miraculous discovery! I'll never have to scrub a toilet again!!! Momma K works in the plumbing industry and she introduced us to the Sparkle and Clean device that you attach to your tank. Apparently those bleach tablets that you drop in the tank are BAD BAD BAD and they corrode out the flushing mechanism. This device adds the bleach to the water in the bowl only so it's not bad for your toilet. My toilet has sparkled this past week, it's the best thing ever!!! I can only comment on the bleach one (which my Mom uses as well) - don't know about the blue ones, but you can get them at any home improvement store.

Fifth, I had posted a while back that I wasn't sure about my wedding dress?? Well I tried it on for my Mom when she was here and we both LOVE it!! I think the purple rocks!! And since we're eloping and it won't be seen amongst our general acquaintance in person, the link here has a few sneak peeks!!

Last random thought, I have the cutest damn dogs in the world! BJ's Mom stayed over last night for a quick visit and the dogs thought it was the best thing ever. As she was leaving this morning, they sadly looked out the door....

Yes I love my Mom!

I had briefly mentioned before that Momma K was coming to town and she had the distinction of being our first house guest! Since I was working all during the Thanksgiving holiday, she came out early and we had our holiday a few days early. She's not much for driving and my home town is about 7 and 1/2 hours away, so she decided to Amtrak it. At about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning she arrived for her first trip to Little Rock! We did some of the obvious things like went downtown to the River Market, drove past the Clinton Library ("that looks like a big trailer" - Momma K), went out for catfish and fried pickles, headed to the river and the Big Dam Bridge, visited the local tea shop which is fabulous and got stuck in Razorback football traffic ... though that was an accident.

One of her favorite things was her visit to the Bath Junkie. It's a Fayetteville, AR based bath product company and they have the best salt scrubs I've EVER found. The best part is they mix it up individually when you buy it and you get to choose the scents AND the color. I knew Mom would love it and she used her scrub and spray on lotion (called Body Dessert) pretty much every day she was here.

I think BJ was most appreciative of her cooking lessons. I'm a little apprehensive when I'm in the kitchen because I just haven't spent much time there in the past. So we took the opportunity to cook several meals together and I FINALLY uncovered the secret to cooking eggs ... hint don't have the skillet so damn hot! When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, that's one area where I do have experience. I've hosted Thanksgiving on more than one occasion and can whip out a turkey, homemade stuffing, and mashed potatoes and gravy like nobody's business. I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie (I was thinking more of chocolate cheesecake) but BJ insisted and I made excellent use of my Uncle Dave's impossibly easy pumpkin pie recipe. Overall the meal turned out great and Mom and I had lots of bonding time in the kitchen ... albeit about two decades late since I had NO interest when I was growing up.

Momma K loved the house and quickly settled into our guest room and didn't complain a bit about the waterbed currently in there (it belonged to BJ and it was a condition of our living together .... NO WATERBED in our room!) The dogs always love it when "Grandma" visits and everyone was in good spirits. We were sad to see her go and sadly I haven't cooked since :(

Woo Pig Sooie!

I'm not a fan of football - never have been. I was raised in a town where the high school didn't have a football team so basketball was the major sport. I understand basketball, I was a cheerleader for basketball, I GET basketball. Now football is an entirely different animal. When I changed high schools I suddenly found myself in major football territory, as a matter of fact I would have been shocked if our men's basketball team could have beaten most of the women's teams in town. I spent four years in the marching band on the sidelines and in the half time shows at football games, but I never understood or cared what was going on. I cheered when others cheered, exclaimed in disgust when others did and basically just chatted with my girlfriends the whole time.

In college at Illinois State, football was not a big thing. I think I went to one or two games as part of a sorority/fraternity mixer but honestly I was in it for the tailgating and beer. In nursing school at Mizzou, I often had clinicals on the weekends as part of my program or I was working so again - no football, no care.

Now I find myself in the midst of football fanatics and apparently I'm marrying not only BJ, but his season tickets to the University of Arkansas Razorback games..... yippee for me ... NOT! Now before you give me grief, let me make it clear that I did NOT misrepresent myself in regards to sports. I am certain that we covered sports in our first lunch date which lasted 6 hours and my thoughts on football were not sugar coated. The only sport I enjoy watching is college basketball, if I'm plied with liquor I can watch hockey or go to a baseball game (I'd rather put my eyes out, however, than watch it on TV), when the Olympics come around I can sit and watch various sports for hours, but that's it. I have had many opportunities in my life to care about football - for example, my stepdad coaches my former high school team, my stepbrother played college ball for four years, I've been to more Super Bowl parties than I can count
and still I don't like football.

All of that clearly has to change now because I'm in love yada yada yada and marrying into a family that not only watches their own personal teams, but has to watch ESPN and see highlights of every other important game going on in the country - UGH! Since I do want my marriage to work, and I was told that nothing gets a guy hotter than seeing his main squeeze dressed up in his team's colors and loudly disputing a crappy call, I boldly went to my first Razorback game this weekend.
Let me be clear that I still don't really understand football, though I was making a concerted effort to make some sense of the madness on the field. I'm a pretty sharp gal so once I actually *sigh* started to pay attention and care, the downs, yards, penalties and strategy were starting to make some sense.

For those who don't know Razorback football, let me just say that these people are nuts! Grown women and men were passionately cheering for this team, booing the opponents, exclaiming loudly at the "unfair" penalty calls. I seriously would have feared for my life if at a quiet point in the game I decided to shout, "I think the Razorbacks suck ass!"

Another distinctly Arkansas tradition is to call the hogs. This is done prior to the team taking the field and as a type of cheer at all of the kick offs and other special moments. It had been demonstrated to me half- heatedly by BJ once and very enthusiastically by my future brother-in-law prior to the game (who interestingly enough is an Auburn fan). After seeing what it means to call the hogs, I told BJ outright that I was NOT going to do that, but I did compromise and wear a ball cap with the "hog call" on it.

So picture this, tens of thousands of men, women and children at the beginning of the game .... standing up wiggling their hands in the air "spirit finger" style yelling "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO PIG SOOIE!" Seriously the first time I saw it, I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pee. This video clip gives you an idea ... seriously the ENTIRE stadium was participating!

In the end, the football game was not a horribly painful experience, by the end of it I felt like i had some vague understanding of what was going on. I wouldn't mind going two or three times a season but I don't know if and when I would ever feel so moved as to want to call the hogs.

One other fun part of the weekend was getting to meet BJ's sister and her husband for the first time. She's a dyed in the wool Mizzou and Georgia fan while he can be found wandering around aimlessly shouting "War Eagle!" (click here for reference) They flew in for the game to sit in the Auburn section and we all had a rousing weekend of football together - and thankfully there was plenty of beer to dull the pain for Jenn!!

It's raining men!

OK, not *really* - but it IS raining! This is the first rain we've had since I moved to Arkansas and it's a doozy! It occurred to me that BJ hasn't had to mow the crunchy, former shell of a lawn since we moved here therefore I've been denied the vision of a sweaty, shirtless BJ out in the yard doing man stuff. I mean I'm completely capable of mowing a lawn (though my former neighbors in Columbia might disagree) but if there's someone else stepping up to the plate to do it, then I'm all for that!!

The only downside of the aforementioned rain is my need to run. I don't know if I've ever fully disclosed on this blog that I am a complete klutz therefore running on wet pavement always makes me a wee bit nervous. I'm determined, however, to train faithfully for my next race. If for no other reason than to have a strong showing against BJ who is shaping up to be quite the runner. And BTW future mother-in-law, no - it's not funny at all that BJ is faster than me. It's a cruel knife in my adult onset athlete side that someone who just started running earlier this summer can already kick my ass. As a matter of fact, my future sister-in-law and brother-and-law are also doing the infamous Couch to 5K program and I'm sure it's only a matter of weeks before they're beating me too. If only I was marrying into a family of really obese and lazy people, THEN I could be the fast one. If only I had thought of that before ....
But does anyone really think I could be that shallow??
[Hint, yes I really could be :) ]

Well I'll just have to content myself with being the better looking runner of this marriage. With my cute running skirts, waterproof mascara, and full makeup - at least I'll be the one looking pretty at the finish line.

Running the race ... it's a family thing!

Since I have nothing good to report about my own athletic endeavors, it's time to praise some other adult onset athletes in my life!! I've mentioned my kick-ass ultrarunner cousin more than once, but now there are others jumping on the bandwagon. Despite my complete lack of serious training this summer, I managed to inspire BJ to start running!! Like I did a year and a half ago, he is following the Cool Running Couch to 5K program which has made runners out of many people. Since he was nearing the end of his program, we looked at the local racing calendar to find a 5K to race. He hadn't run the full distance as of yet, but I had confidence in his ability to make it though :) He ended up running the Rollin' on the River 5K this past Saturday in North Little Rock and finished in a very respectable time of 31:50!! (I'm trying very hard not to feel jealous given that I was 3 & 1/2 minutes slower in my first race) I waited at the end to cheer for him and he looked great, just like a real runner! Like many before him, the thrill of racing has ignited a competitive drive and he's already looking for a longer distance to shoot for - we're tentatively planning the Route 66 half marathon in Tulsa for both of us.

The other big cheer goes out to my Momma and my Auntie K who race walked their first 10K yesterday! My Momma has always been one of those fast walkers, you know the type, always walks as if she's the white rabbit running late for an important date. She finally channeled that energy into a training program with Abe's Army, a local group in Springfield, IL that trains folks for the Abe's Amble 10K. She and her sister Auntie K signed up and have been racking up the miles all summer and I'm so proud of both of them! Momma finished in just over 1 hour 31 minutes which is very respectable for such a hilly course and Auntie K was right behind her!! Who knew that there could be so many athletes among us?!?!

and since I didn't have a photo of Momma from her race, I grabbed the only "racing" photo that I have .... her at the Tomorrowland Speedway at Disney World :)

Wedding Reconnaisance and Sibling Rivalries

This weekend marked my first *real* visit to BJ's childhood home in Fayetteville, AR. His parents were kind enough to watch his dog while he was escorting me across Kansas so we all -and by "all" I mean the two humans and my two dog children - loaded up the car and headed up the highway to Razorback territory. I had been there briefly once before for a quick brunch, but never had the chance to really hang out and bond. The "bonding" is important in my opinion because I would prefer to have "in-laws" as opposed to "outlaws" which is how one of my uncles referred to his wife's parents.

So picture this, it's a nice balmy day in Arkansas with a temp of around 103 - perfect weather for visiting! I arrive with my two adorable dogs, I mean seriously they're adorable and it can't just be a mother's love blinding her right?? We let them frolic outdoors in the yard and introduce BJ's dog who has met my kids before, and his parent's dog who has not met lots of dogs and perhaps might want to eat my terrier. It went well for the first 3 minutes until my spaniel Oakley who is 35 pounds soaking wet, decided to attack both BJ's dog and his parents' dog both of whom are dalmatians that could easily kick his ass if they wanted to. Unfortunately both of the dalmatians are well trained to not eat smaller dogs, so they kindof cowered which just egged Oakley on even more. At first I thought perhaps Oakley was just feeling cornered or something like that, you know being defensive, but upon observation saw that Oakley was clearly being aggressive. Great! My beautiful child is the proverbial bully on the playground!! I was so distressed because he's never acted this way at the dog park and he's normally so sweet! He was so bad that we ended up having to take turns all weekend crating the dogs so that they weren't all in the house or outdoors at the same time. Tosca my terrier got along with the big dogs and her new grandma fabulously, but Oakley was just a jerk to his new "sister" and "cousin." BJ's mom was very gracious (far better than I would have reacted if some strange dog was trying to beat up on my children) and I was mortified. Apparently the merging of families and children can be just as difficult for single parents of dog children as for human children.

In other news, we headed up to Eureka Springs which is where we plan on getting married. It's a quaint little Victorian style tourist trap of a town in the mountains of NW Arkansas. I'd never been there before but by its descriptions knew it would be my kind of place, lots of B&Bs, artists, and welcoming to gay people and bikers which are two of my favorite kinds of people!! One innkeeper we met described it as, "if the Ozarks are the Bible Belt, then Eureka is the hole the buckle goes through." I just wish it hadn't been 120 degrees so that we could have walked around more and enjoyed the place.

The purpose of the trip was to scope out wedding sites. For a small town, they actually do a pretty large wedding business, mainly in the elopement style, intimate affair of which we're envisioning. I had done lots of research online and then contacted about 6 places that seemed interesting and made appointments with the three who responded. One was a bed and breakfast, another was a wedding chapel, the third a historic hotel.

We loved the B&B owner, he was very laid back and cool but the parlor there just didn't fit the vision either of us had. We'll probably stay there at some time in the future because the suites were nice and not overly girly in that Victorian style that makes me puke a little in the back of my throat. The historic hotel wasn't what I had in mind either, but had a very cool restaurant that would be perfect for a candlelight dinner after the ceremony! It has a super small dining room that's a part of the open air kitchen and the people there seemed happy to accommodate us and even mentioned how "great of a couple" we make! (and it wasn't that patronizing we're trying to get your business tone, it seemed genuine) We're going to eat there at our next trip and make sure the food is tasty because I don't want food poisoning on my wedding night. The third place we visited was a wedding chapel that also does garden/gazebo weddings. The chapel was totally what I envisioned, really small, rock wall, candles everywhere, and the proprietors were very laid back. They do commitment ceremonies, handfastings, and non-denominational
weddings. Basically it will be easy to avoid a heavy-handed Baptist ceremony which I assume is prevalent in these parts because let's face it, I will NEVER agree to obey, or let my husband lead me or my future offspring in the path of righteousness etc. etc. . I've seen some of those vows and quite frankly they scare me!! Let's just go with richer, poorer till death do us part yada yada - I'm down with that. So anyway, barring any problems, it looks like we'll be doing the little chapel on a winter evening and then having a nice dinner afterwards. I'm also envisioning a hot-looking Jenn in a form fitting dress of some sort, a *real* wedding cake (not some Sam's Club creation) but smaller in scale, fancy crystal toasting goblets to use for the champagne and to save for future occasions, a buzzed bride and groom (yes, I'm a lush), a honeymoon in a cabin with hot tub, jacuzzi and fireplace, and a blissful week without any dog children. Ahhh, I can picture it now. If I can't have a Star Trek Vegas wedding, then I think this is a nice compromise.

Now if only our dog children can learn to love one another, and I can learn to shop for a dress, this whole marriage thing would be perfect!