Oh, the in-laws ...

What makes it so universally frustrating/annoying/difficult to spend time with people who you didn't grow up with, but who suddenly became your family all because you signed a legal document forever binding you to a person who did grow up with said group?

If I lost you there, I'm talking about in-laws. And if you still haven't caught up yet, well, mine visited this weekend. And they drove me freakin' crazy.

K's brother Bill (get it? BIL?) is 16 years older than him. That puts him at just 5 years younger than my dad, and only 2 years younger than my mom!

K and Bill are pretty different. K is married; Bill is divorced (as of 3 or 4 years ago). K has been in the Army for 13 years; Bill is in a good, but unstable and dangerous job (that he might quit this week and start with a new company next week). K loves gadgets; Bill loves toys in general -- his guns, his four-wheeler, his motorcycle, his drum set, his camera and lenses (he has more lenses than I do, and he's not even into photography like I am!) ...

At 48 years old, it's hard for me to understand how Bill can constantly talk in cartoon voices, drum incessantly, and burp out loud at the dinner table. My dad and brother weren't big belchers (thank God! I even hate that word), so it's just not something I'm used to hearing. It's repulsive. And following it up with "excuse me" doesn't make it any less rude that you just burped out loud at the dinner table!

Bill is also a billboard reader. Actually, he comments on everything in the car: license plates, billboards, stickers on cars, types of cars ... I think he just likes to think out loud. It drives me crazy!

Over the course of the in-laws' visit, K and I found ourselves in places I've never been before -- the army surplus store and a Harley Davidson store. Not exactly our scene. And all this was on a beautiful, sunny day, when all K and I wanted to do was go to the beach or the pool.

I felt bad for being a bit frustrated, but K admitted he felt that way too. I shot him secret, horrified glances over dinner last night as his 14-year-old nephew followed in his dad's footsteps, burping loudly and immediately excusing himself. Bill followed with his own, and his son one-upped. K finally said, "Come on!" to them to get them to stop.

All this just makes me ready for this weekend, when we head back to OK for my family reunion.

Where, instead of burping at the table, there will be sounds I'm more used to: farting. (I kid you not, my dad would fart in front of the president. Which might be why I don't mind that K is more of a farter than a burper.)

Where, instead of discussing guns and impersonating cartoon voices (which I am eternally grateful that K doesn't do), the men in my family will talk about car races. And instead of the army surplus store and the Harley store, we may find ourselves at the local dirt track race, where my brother will help on the pit crew for a family friend or two.

Where we spend most of our time sitting at my dad's store, chatting with my grandparents and dad and any regular customer who stops in, has been coming in since I was 12, and hasn't seen me in a few years. Where, instead of nonstop chatter, my family members respond to entire conversations with a thoughtful, if not distracted, "Hmm." And at home, my dad may just fall asleep in the middle of a conversation, but I will know it's because he's been up since 6 a.m. and on his feet the majority of that time.

Where we'll stay the night at my dad's bachelor pad, where it's extremely difficult to take a shower, thanks to the spray nozzle that isn't connected to the wall (but to look on the bright side, would be really convenient for washing a dog, if my dad had one). But I know that my dad is excited to own this house, and after a long day on his feet, fixing a spray nozzle that isn't that inconvenient for a man with short hair doesn't top his to-do list.

Maybe to K, sitting inside that grocery store for hours on end is as brutal as standing inside an army surplus store for 30+ minutes while waiting for his nephew to decide to buy a flashlight was for me. But at the end of the day, I'm sure deep down he enjoys his time with his in-laws because, just like I was with his brother and nephew, he's glad to see them and knows how much I enjoy the visit.

But it's also why -- for both our sanity -- we make sure to keep visits with in-laws of either side pretty brief.

Good thing baking's my specialty!

K and I spent last weekend in PA visiting his family for Easter. I realized early last week that I wasn't at all excited about heading up there.

I guess it makes sense to not be gungho about driving so long (in one weekend) to spend the holidays with someone else's family, but they're my family too, even if they're not the family I grew up spending holidays with.

K's family definitely has different traditions than mine. Since they're Italian, pasta is pretty much always on the menu for holidays. That and antipasto. Both are delicious. Those are the staples, and all the others vary. Most of them, I haven't heard of.

It's very different from my family. With my family, there's always a ton of meat on the menu -- part of being a butcher's family. And my grandma and great-aunt make sure to keep us full with everything else. There are veggies, salad, iced tea (sweet, of course), and delicious rolls (though those aren't always homemade).

But the part I look forward to most is the dessert. The fruit salad in the red Jell-o (with nuts and other goodies) and the pies and the cookies (and fudge at Christmas!) that my grandma makes from scratch. They're all delicious, but the best one of all? Her peach cobbler. It's to-DIE-for delicious.

The dessert table at my grandma's house last Christmas. Everything here is made from scratch. And it doesn't even show her homemade fudge! (There's more!)

K's family, though, has no dessert table. When I spent Christmas with them last year, I couldn't wait to see what they had for dessert at the end of the meal. (Who doesn't look forward to Christmas dessert?)

Only there was none. There were only two tiny plates of tiny cookies. One looked like chocolate, though, and the other looked like some sort of cookie rolled in powdered sugar (my guess was a pecan cookie or something). I could handle those. Except that when I ate the cookies, the "chocolate" one was a pepper cookie, and the pecan powdered sugar cookie was something that tasted like black licorice (yuck!).

Last week, as I remembered that disappointment, I realized what my purpose was at K's family gatherings: to make dessert!

Obviously, I was going to go straight for the big guns: grandma's recipes. I could try her delicious peach cobbler, or go for her famous Italian cream cake. I let K make the decision, and he chose Italian cream.

I'd only made it once, and that was with Grandma when I went back home after Christmas in 2010 -- over a year ago.

It's one thing to bake with Grandma. It's quite another to try to bake like her ... and without her help.

So I did what I always do in this situation: Start baking, and keep the phone handy. I called my mom a couple times to decipher Grandma's recipe (She doesn't give all the instructions, and the recipe was in a weird order, since she had rattled it off to me off the top of her head.), and I called Grandma for the big stuff (Why can't I get my egg whites to look like meringue? How long do I have to wait to assemble the cake after it's done baking? [Can I wait a couple hours?] Will it be safe to store the cake in the garage when it's 50 degrees outside, since the refrigerator is full?).

In true MLIB style, I managed to make a pretty serious cosmetic error -- I was so worried about properly "folding in" my egg whites (now in proper consistency, thanks to my stand mixer and the super-duper high setting) to the rest of the batter that I forgot to fold in the pecans and coconut along with the egg whites. And I didn't realize it until I had already divided the cake batter evenly among the three cake pans.

My mom had stressed to me how important it is to properly fold the final ingredients. If you do it wrong, it evidently makes a pretty big difference. Do it right, and your cake is fluffy and fabulous.

So I sprinkled the coconut and pecans on top of the batter in each of the pans. I folded them into one of the pans, but I felt like it looked a bit flat. I just left the others and hoped they would somehow fall in as the cake baked.

And for extra measure, I added some pecans and coconut in the icing between the layers.

I was nervous the next day when it came time to cut into the cake and give it a try. K's family knew it was my first attempt at the cake and that I'd made the whole thing from scratch (including the icing).

The verdict?

Delicious. In fact, my FIL couldn't believe I'd never baked a cake (from scratch) before.

From now on, I'll never have to ask what I can bring for the holidays with K's family!

Why K and I will never be in a jewelry commercial

Have you seen that chocolate diamonds commercial -- the one for K@y? I swear, every time I see it, it makes me laugh because that couple is nothing like K and I.

For starters, no matter why or how long I've been up, I do not look like that at 2 a.m.

And then, when the husband explains he's up at 2 a.m. because it's 2 a.m. on Christmas ... for their first Christmas as a family, I'd definitely have to make fake vomiting noises.

He hands her a chocolate diamond ring. The practical side of me would immediately wonder just how much overboard that ring was for a Christmas gift. And I'd feel like a loser for just getting him a Blu-Ray, a stupid sweater, and whatever gadget I could get him to admit he was slightly interested in.

As if that weren't enough, as the commercial closes, the husband asks if his wife thinks their baby will remember that first Christmas. She gives the sugary sweet, cheesy answer, "I know I will."

My sarcastic response would be something along the lines of: "No, dumbass! She's 6 months old!"

No, we're definitely no jewelry store commercial couple.

We're way cooler than that.

What the f*cking f*ck?!

I don't know why this occurred to me on this particular morning on this particular day, but for some reason, I realized I could probably look at my mom's FB profile, scroll through her friends list, and find the FB profile of a scumbag I wanted to rip a new one in 2005.

The scumbag I heard about the day after Christmas, when my dad accidentally told me at my favorite restaurant in my hometown that my mom had had an affair years before (I say "accidentally" because he thought I already knew. My mom had told him that she'd already told me).

So I did it. And sure enough, there he was.

There he was, smiling like the player asshole I suspected he was. A 50-something wearing a collared white shirt, unbuttoned somewhere below the cropping of the picture so his sleazy, selfish chest peaks out for the world and his poor college-aged daughter to see.

And of course he's single. And of course he's looking for friendship, dating, and a relationship. (Evidently the bastard is always looking for that. He was married when he cheated with my mom.)

I wanted to send him a message. Short, simple, but totally not sweet. Subject: "Merry Christmas." Body of messsage: "I know who you are. Just wanted to tell you I think you're a selfish, asshole scumbag."

Oh, how badly I wanted to write that message. From the moment I looked at his profile -- his sleazy, nasty profile -- I felt the blood in my heart boil. I felt the adrenaline rushing through my body with a fire I didn't realize was there. I could imagine this asshole logging on -- probably to look at trashy porn -- and seeing this message. See the color drain from his disgusting face and his bare chest. Oh, would that be nice.

Except then he'd message my mom. And then there'd be this whole dramatic spiral. My mom knows that I know because I have strongly hinted at her. We've talked about it, even. She knows exactly how I feel about it. I didn't mince any words, that's for sure.

I didn't send Mr. Sleaze a message. But I did look at his wall.

And there, in a few places sprinkled throughout his wall, was my mom. In a few places, she was actually flirting with him! (Nov 1-"So what exactly is this truth game. Didn't think you could handle the truth! lol") My mom has always been a playful person, oftentimes with members of the opposite sex. Not to say that she's slutty or a tease, but she just enjoys laughing and joking around with them. I don't think it's a bad thing in all circumstances, but this one is not in that group. You do not flirt with a man you once had an adulterous affair with. Especially since I'm pretty sure her current husband doesn't know about this affair -- or if he does, he has no idea he knows the person my mom had the affair with.

I started typing a message to my mom with the subject "Reprimand." The message was telling her I'd seen him on her friends list, that I'd clicked on his profile and seen her messages on his wall. That I thought it was dangerous territory and she should be careful.

But I deleted the message. I glared at his profile a little longer, and I typed this blog.

It's the drama-free route.

The boiling has lessened, but it's still there.

Taking the high road sure sucks sometimes.

Let the planning frustrations begin ...

K and I booked our flight back to TX yesterday. I'm so excited! I haven't been home since August, and even then, it was a quick, hectic trip to play maid of honor in that one wedding I didn't want to happen.

I got to see ER and meet her baby, but I didn't get to see any family members or many other friends. I haven't seen my dad, grandparents, or brother since July. I haven't seen ER or her baby (who is growing WAY too quickly!) since August. I haven't seen Heather since June.

The list of people I need to see far outnumbers the amount of days we'll be in OK & TX. So now begins the list -- who can we not leave without seeing? How can I maximize the time with my family, even though my dad and grandparents will be working the whole time?

When do I go to my mom's house (an hour from my dad's house)?

I emailed her this morning to see when my stepsisters were coming over, since one of them told me they'll be spending Christmas with their mom this year. My mom's response:
Not sure when the girls are coming. Didn't realize they were spending Christmas with their mom this year since they did last year. Seems like [husband] and I spend alot of Christmas' alone. Am thinking we might start going somewhere that week since it's just the two of us anyway. 

Groan. Let the guilt trip begin.

I'll be annoyed about it for now, but I'm sure as hell not letting it ruin my trip!

My dad is going to give me a heart attack

I typically talk to my dad two or three times a week. I'll call him some mornings on my way to work. We almost always talk during OU football games. But we rarely talk during my workday.

So on the rare occasion my dad calls while I'm working, I know it's not good.

Last time, it was to tell me the daughter of a family friend had been killed in a car wreck. The time before that, he told me that a very close family friend had only a few days to live (cue me crying at my desk). I could go on.

I've gotten to where seeing my Dad's number pop up on my phone during my workday makes my heart feel heavy and my pulse race at the same time. I answer with a variation of, "Who is it this time?" and listen intently to his first words for any clues about the closeness of whoever he's calling about, while repeating over and over in my head, Please let Grandma and Grandpa be OK.

Today, I went with, "Is everyone OK?" Dad's answer, of course, was no. He went on to name an aunt & uncle, and then he filtered down to their son. A 2nd cousin I didn't see much because they didn't come to our family reunions very often. He was 33, and he was killed in a car accident not long before the phone call.

I remember his sister much better because she was closer to my age. We message from time to time on FB. I learned of the accident before their grandmother, and before a lot of our other family because my grandpa has to spread the word.

I feel terrible for my cousin and for my other family members, especially his sister. I'd be devastated if anything happened to my brother.

I feel bad to say that I'm relieved it wasn't someone I'm closer to. But still, nearing an hour after Dad's phone call, I don't feel right yet. My heart is still heavy, and my anxiety level is still high.

I'm tempted to ask Dad to hold all phone calls until after work ...

One-track mind

I feel like I owe my Facebook friends an apology. My status updates are pretty often about running, or my knee, or something related to running. But as sick as they might be about reading about me running? I guarantee I'm more sick of doing the running.

I cannot wait for this marathon to come and go. (Just over a month left!)

I feel like our entire lives revolve around running, training, and training runs. It seriously affects everything: our diet, our schedules, our sleep, our weight lifting, our sex life, our weight, our house, my ass. Everything.

We have to particularly watch what we eat (and drink) on the nights before our long runs, which we typically do on Saturdays (and now that we're nearing the marathon, Wednesdays too). And we're always hungry; considering I've always been a snacker as it is, I pretty much eat all day every day.

We have to be careful how much we plan on weekends, because we have to get in a ridiculously long run at some point. We're always tired. We haven't been going to the gym as much (see previous sentence); my arms have lost a little definition (yay, sweater season).

As for the sex life, the desire is there, but the energy is not (dislike). Both K and I have noticed our weight is always fluctuating, probably due to the ridiculous water intake and then the sweating during the run. I've actually gained a few pounds through this whole ordeal, and I think K has too (it's actually common to gain weight during marathon training -- who knew?).

The house isn't as spic 'n' span as it usually is because, frankly, when we're not running, I kind of don't give a damn about cleaning. I made it around to the toilets and sinks last weekend, and K vacuumed. That's good enough for me right now, so the dust bunnies will remain.

But my ass? It's spectacular. And so are my legs. Just in time for the end of swimsuit season. Go figure, huh? And I know, K is the one who will get the most benefit out of this, and he gets to see them all the time. However, with all this time, effort, and energy, it would be nice to just parade around in a bikini on the beach and show it off. No such luck.

Now for blurbs, because it's been forever since I updated.

I'm a real runner now
(Guess I owe you guys an apology along with my FB friends ...) A week ago Saturday, K and I were 3 miles into our 16-mile training run when I realized I was going to have to make a pit stop. Then, I did something I've never done before in my life. And that milestone makes me feel like I can finally say that I'm a real runner: I shit in the woods.

Hey, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go. Thankfully, K had found himself in that situation a week or two before, so he made sure to bring toilet paper from then on. Thank goodness!

But imagine our surprise when we emerged from the woods, rounded a corner, and saw two portapotties on the side of the road. Evidently there was a fundraiser walk of sorts going on, so as we continued on our route, we continued to pass portapotties every few miles.

Oh well. The woods made me feel much more like a badass.


Work
Still here. Gonna stick with it, obviously. I've kind of learned to not let it get to me so much anymore. There's only so much I can do, right?

Actually, I have so much to do that I've been assigned a volunteer to help me. This woman has an MBA from Boston Un!versity. She has held management positions. And I am making her help me with piddly tasks I don't have time to get to.

It's nice to have the help, but I don't like being in charge of someone. It makes me uncomfortable.


Mom's visit
It went well, but I was glad when it was done. I'm a lot less patient with my mom. Things my dad or anyone else would get away with fine somehow annoy the holy hell out of me when my mom does them. And she's terrible at following directions. Terrible. At one point I experienced a little déjà vu from her failed Dallas trip to go wedding dress shopping with me (that fight resulted in us not talking for over a year). The woman drives me f*ing insane sometimes, really.

The first couple nights I was driving home, I just felt completely stressed out. Anxious. And I didn't know why. I talked to K, and he told me he wasn't surprised that way. That I was probably on eggshells because my mom was there, and he could understand that. I talked to ER. She listened to me vent for a bit when I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store.

But the times actually spent with my mom and her husband were all good.

Well, except for the part where we toured the White House. See, my mom had scheduled a tour for her and her husband, K, and me. We were supposed to get a private 2-hour tour. Only something came up that day, and they had to move our tour to the following day. K and I adjusted our out-of-office days at work, and we headed up to D.C. for the tour. What we didn't realize was that because our date got moved, we no longer had a private tour. In an effort to get two days' worth of people through the White House in one day, we'd get the standard walk-yourself-through tour. Hugest waste ever. We were done in 20 minutes.

I don't ever want to look at the White House again.

(For the record, if you're already in D.C. and plan to take the tour, it's perfectly fine. But do not travel to D.C. specifically and solely for the tour. Trust me, you'll be pissed. And your feet will hurt because you thought you were supposed to dress up, but there were punkwads touring the White House !!! in baggy jeans, flip flops, and hats.)

Whoops!

So I just scrolled through this little blog, and I realized that 4 of my last 6 posts were talking about our crazy lives, how we need to slow down, and how I need sleep.

I think you get it.

So you know what you also get now? Pictures. Not because I loaded them, but because I stole them off of Facebook from less-tired people -- or those who are cool enough to suck it up, load the pictures, and sleep tomorrow.

Meeting ER's adorable (and tiny!) baby! I've seriously never been so excited to meet a baby before.

K, who (praise the Lord!) is a natural with kids. ER's baby is an absolute angel, though, and hardly ever cries! Also, this picture is awesome because it shows exactly what was going on in the rare moments that I wasn't holding the baby. :)

It's our standard pose! And we continued our tie tradition as well. K and me at Rachel's reception.

Happy times after kickball! In case you haven't noticed, when my weight fluctuates the tiniest bit (I'm talking like 3 lbs. here, people), the first first first place you see it is my face. Always. This picture made me realize that when my mom visits in a couple weeks, she's totally going to tell me I'm too skinny.

And yes, you read that right. Mom. Here. Two weeks.

Bring on the guests!

This is our first week to have the house to ourselves in a month! 

We had a friend (and his unbelievably, patience-testing, neurotic dog) stay with us for about two-and-a-half weeks. Then, my stepsisters came to visit us last Monday through Saturday. The girls were actually our first non-East Coast visitors! 

I know things are tough and money is tight for pretty much everyone right now, but we've had so many friends say to us, "We're going to come visit you for [spring break/our anniversary/our vacation]." I know that just because people say that doesn't mean they're coming, but when they start asking me about airports and average temperatures, I think, Well, I guess they are coming!

But the girls were the first ones to follow through. When it feels like we're constantly traveling to see everyone else, it was nice to get to play tour guide to some of our friends!

The girls had a great trip, and my mom said they can't stop talking about how fun it was. Unfortunately, K and I had to work the whole week, but we were able to spend evenings with them. I got to have lunch with them and show them around the area I work.

So fun! They were wonderful visitors. Maybe their tales of their fantastic trip will inspire a couple more to come our way!

A glimpse of the person I don't want to be

A lot of things about my mom bug me enormously. Whenever I feel myself doing anything like her -- using a phrase she likes to use, making a face I've seen her make, adding the types of overexaggerated mockery in stories like she does (even if it does add a little color to the story) -- I am painfully aware of it. Always.

I can see her or hear her doing whatever it is that I've just done or said, and a piece of me shutters inside. Part of me feels disgusted; part of me feels scared.

I don't want to be like my mom. But for some reason, she is exactly who I was acting like this morning.

My alarm went off at 6 a.m. K and I had gone to bed a little before midnight, but a few late nights in a row had caught up to me. I knew we needed to get up and run (we've got a 10K this Saturday, and I haven't run since our 10-miler almost two weeks ago). I knew we needed to vacuum and dust. But K didn't move, even after I asked if he was going to get up. The window was open, so our room was nice and cold, and the bed was nice and cozy, so I stayed put.

At 6:30, I finally dragged myself to the bathroom to put my contacts in. When I came out with my robe on, ready to get started cleaning, K asked, "Are we not running?"

"No!" He must have missed the disgust and frustration I put into that word because he didn't follow it up with the sarcastic response he usually gives (understandably so) at that tone. I headed downstairs to vacuum, and several minutes later he was asking me what I wanted him to do. I was cranky, and I don't even remember how it started, but we both wound up snipping at each other. We were both tired, both wanting to be in bed, both knowing we had needed the run, and both knowing the run wasn't going to happen.

We picked at each other. The picking turned into shouting. At one point, I finally screamed at K. Literally. I knew I was being unreasonable, but I also knew that I just needed him to leave me alone and start vacuuming upstairs. All he seemed to want to do was keep following me and bitching at me.

As we always do, once we'd had time to ourselves to cool off, we were fine. But in that cooling off period, I was thinking about my mom.

The reason we were up vacuuming and dusting the house at 6:30 this morning is because we have two friends coming tonight to stay the weekend with us. One of them has visited many times, but the other has never been to our house. When I was growing up, only the people who had been in our house several times could see it at anything less than its best. I'm afraid that's something I took with me.

All I could think about as I vacuumed and dusted was that if someone comes over to our house, whatever they think is going to be reflected at me. To most people, if a house is badly decorated, it's because the wife is a bad decorator. If it's not decorated, it's because the wife is lazy. If it's dirty, it's because the family is messy and the lady of the house hasn't taken control of it. If there was a clump of black Piper hair at the top of the stairs, it would be because I hadn't vacuumed it.

I was stressing over something so stupid. Especially since both the friends visiting us are guys. The chances that either of them would see any speck of dirt were very slim; the chances they'd care were even slimmer. Not that that mattered to me. I was stuck in a torturous place between rational thought and irrational behavior.

But all the floors got vacuumed, and all the furniture got dusted.The house still isn't spotless, but it's plenty clean for now.

Before he left for work, K and I hugged for a long time and apologized to each other. We're both stubborn, and we can both have our moments of crankiness, so this was a move we've done before. It was good to know that even though we'd started our day screaming at each other, we were at peace with each other before we left for work ...

... Although I can't say I'm at peace with myself. It was only a 30-minute lapse (if that) -- and my cooling-off period was a fraction of the time of my mom's -- but I'm extremely disappointed with myself. I've felt like crying all morning.

When one of your biggest fears is becoming like your mother, lapses like this morning -- no matter how brief -- are scary enough to shake you up for the rest of your day.

Two posts in one: Two great things for two of my favorite guys

Remember all that traveling I did from Dec. 23 through Jan. 18? No? Well, there was a lot. So much that in 4 weeks' time, I was only home 6 days. SIX DAYS -- and all of those were 2 days at a time.

Ugh. Let's not do that again!

I listed some things I needed to tell you about, and I've only knocked the first one off the list. So now I'm going to kill two birds with one stone.

Since my last post was about a relationship I'm less than thrilled about, what better follow-up than to tell you about one that I'm SUPER thrilled about?!

Yay, Little Brother

My brother has met the woman he's going to marry. He actually met Bridget back in August when he was back in OK for a visit. When he got back to North Carolina, he and Bridget talked on the phone quite a bit. They saw each other in November when my brother was in Texas for the N@SCAR race (he works for them, remember?). Bridget flew out to NC to visit my brother after Thanksgiving.

We saw him just before the visit, and from the way he talked about her, I had my suspicions that she was The One. When he went back to OK for Christmas, they spent a good amount of time together. He met her parents. It went well.

Unfortunately, my brother left to go back to NC just two days before I arrived in OK. But I still got to meet Bridget! This girl actually drove 20 miles through warnings of icy roads to meet my dad and me -- my dad and me -- for dinner. She came over to the house the next night for dinner again, and a few days later, she came with us to my grandparents' house for dinner, where she met my aunt, my cousin and her husband, and my grandparents!

She's gorgeous, and she's so sweet. She seems pretty low-maintenance, and she's completely open to moving to NC someday. We actually have a lot in common, including a love for our cowboy boots.

My favorite part about her? She adores my brother. The first time she saw him, she actually told her friend (who's married to one of my brother's best friends), "That's my future husband."

Since they're long distance, it's funny how similar the beginning of their relationship is to the beginning of mine and K's. My brother was a little worried in the beginning about how it would work and what would have to change in his life for him to be in a relationship, especially a long-distance one. It came in handy that I've been through that experience, so I was able to answer any questions he had about what he called "the rules" of long-distance dating.

Anyway, so that's exciting! They'll have a little more of a challenge than K and I did in that they won't be able to see each other each weekend. I worry that could get to them, but I really think they're a good pair. As long as they don't rely to heavily on that and forget to put effort into it, they'll be just fine! Yay, little brother!

Yay, K!

The second thing in this double-post is a props to K. He got promoted last month, and I actually got to take part in the ceremony! A two-star general conducted the ceremony. It was impressive how much he had memorized about K in preparing for the ceremony!

When the general talked about how K started off in ROTC in college in PA, he said under his breath, "Probably a Penn State fan." I was standing up front alongside K. I started shaking my head, and one of the guys in the room called me out on it. The general said, "Oooh, that's right. His wife, [my name], is from Oklahoma and from what I understand, a die-hard Sooner fan."

"Die-hard!" I chimed in. The general added that K has become a Sooner as well (or as I like to say, he's seen the light).

So that's how I corrected a two-star general. I don't think I'll make a habit of doing that, but in this case, it had to be done.

Congratulations, K!

(By the way, please excuse the poor blurring job in these photos.)

Standing at attention while the promotion orders were being read.

The general ripping off K's rank so I could attach his new one.

Me with my Major stud!

The father-in-law

K's dad is a special guy. They don't make many like him anymore. He's not Italian (it's K's mom's side that's Italian), but K commented this week that his dad is probably more Italian than his mom was. He loves to talk to you like he's got some kind of contraband that he wants to share with you: "Hey, come here a sec." He motions with his head, then says quietly, "Do you like corn? They had it down at the market for 30 cents a pound. I bought a ton. You want some?"

Don't forget that my FIL is actually a year older than my grandparents. Either K's selective hearing is genetic (quite possible), my FIL is a terrible listener, or he just plain can't hear a word we're saying (maybe it's a combo of all three), but many times when I'm in the middle of a sentence, he'll interrupt me with that old man version of, "Huh?" which somehow winds up sounding more like, "Haaah?"

The man gets up every day at 4:30. What he does in that time is beyond me. But that early rise causes him to want to eat dinner at 5:00 every night. And he also wants to cook for us. We convince him to wait until 5:30, but I always wind up hungry again at 8:00.

He buys things in bulk, and he likes to label things with a special lettering code so he knows when he bought things. Why it's important that he's the only one who knows that he started using that country-sized roll of foil back in 2003, I don't know. He buys five jars of peanut butter at a time. He buys two of everything else as well. When he opens something at home, he buys a new one so there's a replacement ready and waiting for when the open container is used up in 3 months. (I, too, hate running out of things, but I just buy another when there's about a third left. That seems to work for me.)

As much as my FIL likes to buy things in bulk, he really doesn't like replacing things before he has to. So the shower curtain liner, while completely intact, is a bit moldy at the bottom. And the "fitted" sheet on the bed in K's room (where we've slept this past week) is probably older than me, so the elastic was probably shot at least 10 years ago. Now, it's just nonexistent. Every morning -- and even sometimes in the night -- we wind up having to fix the sheet so it covers the mattress again.

What's funny is that K's dad has gotten into trying to pare down some of the things in the house. And he needs to. He could have the garage sale of the century! He's got sleds (yes, that's plural), a humidifier, a microwave, a refrigerator, ski gear, books, books, an encyclopedia set (I didn't even know people had those anymore!), and many jars of peanut butter. He's got an entire enclosed porch full of who knows what. What I do know is there is a small path in the items that allows you to get to the back door; otherwise, it would be a complete war zone (which my FIL would probably be able to survive thanks to everything inside the room).

My FIL's method of getting rid of the excess items is by adding to everyone else's clutter. At random times of the day, he'll ask us, "Hey, do you guys need dishes? How 'bout pots and pans? I got a leaf blower. Ya need a leaf blower? Haaah?"

Merry Christmas!

Go figure: I've spent every Christmas of my life until this year in Oklahoma. I've never seen a white Christmas.

This year, I'm in Pennsylvania with K and his family. There's snow on the ground, but it's all left over from last weekend.

And Oklahoma gets a ridiculous blizzard. My hometown got 10 inches of snow.

My family actually had to postpone Christmas until Sunday, since the weather was so bad. All the highways in OK were actually shut down yesterday evening, so my uncle was stuck in Kansas, and my aunt & uncle & cousins couldn't make the hour-and-a-half drive to my hometown to be with my dad, brother & grandparents.

I think it might make it a little easier on me that my family Christmas isn't taking place today. So while I'm spending time with my new family, I won't be missing out on my family's Christmas (well, I will, but it just won't happen today).

It also proves that Christmas really is just another day on the calendar. True, it's a very important date as far as religion goes, but what most of us look forward to most is celebrating the joy of the season with our families. When I go to Oklahoma in January, most of my family who will gather this Sunday will be able to join me then. There won't be a Christmas tree, prime rib (which became our preferred Christmas meal after my dad, mom, brother, grandparents & I couldn't take the thought of looking at another turkey or ham after all the ones we saw at my dad's store), or Christmas movies on TV, but the part that counts most -- my family members -- will be.

So today, I'll be counting my blessings. My family members are healthy and happy. My friends are well. My husband is home.

And although it may not be fresh snow, I've technically got myself my first white Christmas!

A less fun first

Although K and I have been together for 4 Christmases, we've never spent Christmas Day together. K was in Pennsylvania for the first two and Iraq for the last two. Naturally, since it's been a while, K will be spending Christmas with his family ... and so will I.

This will be my first Christmas away from my family. I've known it would be this way for several months, but it's really started hitting me lately. I've felt myself becoming more and more anxious, and I'm dreading leaving for PA.

Today is my last day of work (yay, I'm done here!). When I get off, I have to rush home to finish packing, and we'll head north. It'll be a long drive, surely full of lots of traffic, and I'm not looking forward to any of it.

As I started thinking about all of it this morning -- particularly about being away from my family for the holiday -- I actually started crying. At work.

I didn't realize it would hit me like this. I've already warned K and asked him to be patient with me. With PMS, my first Christmas away from home, and spending several days with K's dad (which always leaves both K and me ready to rip our hair out) all coming at the same time, it could be an emotional week for me.

I just have to keep remembering the important things: I'm blessed. I'm with K. It's Christmastime.

And I will get to see my family in two weeks.

You did NOT see this post

This has been a hectic week! K and I went to PA last weekend, and we chose this week to begin 5:30 a.m. workouts. It's been nice to have the evenings free to do nothing (without feeling like a bum for it), but it's also meant I've been a little more tired and haven't been on the computer so much. This too shall pass. :)

So we were in PA last weekend for a nice family tradition of K's. It was actually his first time to participate and mine.

K's grandmother came over from Italy as a teenager. She died when K was stationed in Korea in 2000 or 2001, so a few years before I came along. I've heard lots of stories about her, though, and most of them have been about how amazing of a cook she was. She did it all with her hands; she used no measuring cups or measuring spoons. Her food was authentic Italian, and its legend lives on in the family.

K's mom continued making her mother's recipes. The one she stuck with most was her mother's ravioli. When K's mom passed away in 2006, her sister and her husband (K's aunt & uncle) carried on the recipe. It was just the two of them the first year, but the next year, K's other aunt & uncle joined, along with K's dad. It's grown each year since. And so has the amount of ravioli they've made.

This was the first year K wasn't deployed during the ravioli fest, so we were excited to join in on the fun.

We made 1,124 individual raviolis.

The pictures I'm sharing now were met with quite a bit of protest from K's uncle. Since this is a family recipe, we have to make sure the secrets aren't compromised. I assured him that these photos wouldn't give away what goes into the composition of the ingredients. Only the assembly is shown here.

The most sauce I've ever seen at one time, and the biggest bowls and pots I've ever seen. They don't mess around!

Getting set up. We had two tables, with 4 people working at each. The other 2 people were cranking out dough as we turned it into ravioli.

Let the assembly begin!

The finished product! (Well, almost. We still had to cook it.) :)

We enjoyed homemade red wine while we made the ravioli. After a couple of glasses, I was feeling a bit tired and laid down. I wound up taking a quick nap, which meant I got teased quite a bit for falling down on the job. I assured the family that I was just using my time wisely while we were waiting on more dough. I told them I'd put so much energy and passion into the ravioli I'd made that I needed to rest to continue. Hopefully I didn't manage to get myself removed from future invitations!

After we had used up all the filling, we took a nice break to enjoy the snowfall that had started while we cooked. Piper had a blast playing in it with K's aunt & uncle's labradoodle!

Most of the ravioli went into bags and then to the freezer. After it froze, we divided up the bags among those of us who had made it so we can enjoy it throughout the year. (We already cooked some this week!)

But before we all left, of course we had to enjoy the fruits, er, pasta of our labor. Delicious!

A question for the moms -- and the experienced "aunt"s!

My cousin is pregnant, and she's due Feb. 2. She went into labor last Thursday night. Now, she's in the hospital, and she has to stay there until the baby arrives. The doctors are doing all they can to delay the birth, and for now, it's working.

My cousin seems to be handling it pretty well. Her facebook updates are upbeat and positive. She's way tougher than I would be!

Since she'll likely be in the hospital on Thanksgiving, I think it would be nice to send her a little treat. I'm planning on making some pumpkin cream cheese muffins tonight for us to have this week and on Thanksgiving morning. I think those would be a nice, delicious Thanksgiving surprise to send to my cousin ... but I don't have much experience with pregnancy. Do you moms (and those of you who know more about this!) think that would be OK to send, or is it too unhealthy for mom and baby? (If it helps, I'm pretty sure my cousin isn't a big health nut.)

In addition to your advice, prayers for my cousin and her baby would be appreciated. I'm eager to see her baby pictures, but I want her baby to be as healthy as possible when he or she makes the big entrance!

This news made my day

ER called me tonight. "I have a little bit of news for you," she said. She told me she'd dreamed last night that she told me, and I reacted the way I did when Rachel told me she had gotten married.

(Haven't blogged about that one yet. Rachel married a douchebag in a secret ceremony, which she told me about four days later. When I called her. More on that crap later.)

Anyway, I was pretty sure I could guess ER's news, but I kept quiet, just in case.

"I'm pregnant."

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" I started tearing up. SO excited for her. It happened fast! She just told me in August that they were going to start trying. Her husband thought it would be fun to be able to tell everyone at Christmas. "You guys better get crackin'!" I told her.

She just got the official word from her doctor yesterday, and they told her she's five weeks along. Right now, they're putting the due date somewhere near July 20.

I'm so unbelievably excited. I can't wait to see ER in maternity clothes, to watch her belly grow, and to pick out tons and tons of gifts for her and the baby.

The only people they've told are ER's parents, her sister and BIL, and me. They want to tell her in-laws in person at Thanksgiving, and then her husband can start telling his friends (since he has to tell his parents first!). Not long after we got off the phone, I texted ER: "You guys are champs for being able to keep this quiet. I'm so excited I want to tell everyone, and I'm not even the one who's pregnant!"

I feel like I'm going to be an aunt!

If you're a vegetarian, you might wanna skip this one

Our trip to OK and TX was great, but super-fast, as usual. We spent a LOT of time in the car.

We landed in Dallas in time to meet Miss Heather and B for dinner. K and I were so excited to get REAL Mexican food again (and to see Heather and B, of course)! We tortured our friends by ordering Sangria swirl margaritas, which apparently no one in North Carolina or VA is aware exists. (If you haven't had one, you're seriously missing out!)

After lunch, we went straight for OK to see my family. (Well, with a quick stop on the side of the road so I could show my home state how excited I was to be back.)

My dad made us his delicious steak for dinner. Since he's a butcher, it's his job to know how to make the best steak in the world. And he's very good at that job.

Not too long after dinner, K and I headed up to Norman so we'd be there for all the game day festivities the next day. ER drove up to come to the game with us. She also brought us some delicious cupcakes that were every bit as good as they looked.

For the "game day festivities," we met up with a few friends and walked around Campus Corner. We enjoyed pizza at one of our favorite pizza places to visit (even if it did originate in Stillwater).

K and I were sure to wear the jerseys I had made for us! (I blurred out our last name, since I'm pretty sure everyone who has it is related to K.)

The game? A little scary in the first half, but that's to be expected when your QB has been out for the entire season. I'm just glad he's back! I was also glad to have my new camera with me to capture some great pictures of the action.

I even got a cool shot of the mascot crowd-surfing. Here's a semi-fun fact for you: Many Sooners call these mascots (there are two) the horse-pig, since they look like half-horse, half-pig. The mascots are a new addition to the University of Oklahoma. They came along in the fall of 2005, just a couple months after I graduated. Our real mascot -- the fabulous two-horse-drawn Sooner Schooner -- isn't able to travel to all the away games, and some programs won't even allow the schooner on their field. The horse-pigs were someone's solution to that problem. I must say I'm not a fan of the mascots either, since everyone knows all football fans stick to tradition. This move did knock them up a couple notches in my book, though.

Since ER, her sister (who was also at the game) and I are all former OU band members, we watched the post-game concert. When they "gave the go-go" (Sooner band translation: started playing the drum intro to "Boomer Sooner"), we were all super excited to get to give the longhorns-down, as opposed to the No. 1 finger. See, the end of the game marked the beginning of OU-texas week, which all college football fans know about. (And if you were reading my blog this time last year, you might remember that I've even accidentally sacrificed my car due to my love of this week in football.)

After the game, I convinced my friends to eat dessert before dinner. See, one of the things I'd missed most about Norman is my favorite dessert. It's an amazing custard place that was started by an OU grad just 5 years ago. In October and November, they have their special seasonal pumpkin pie custard that is Ah.Maze.Ing. When I realized our visit to Norman would coincide with the appearance of this delicious treat, I was almost as excited as I was when we booked our trip to begin with. My pumpkin pie custard was every bit as yummy (if not more) than I remembered it to be.

Sunday morning, we headed back to my hometown for more time with my family ... and more meat (oh, the life of a butcher's daughter). Mmm, pork chops!

Monday, we headed back to the Dallas airport, but not before stopping for lunch at Potbelly to fulfill another food fix we can't take care of in VA.

This was a fast trip, but we'll head back in December or January. With so much delicious food that we can only get in OK and TX, we may have to get a one-way ticket and jog our way back to VA!

Oh. My. Gosh

Facebook just suggested a new friend to me: my mother.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice suitcase

Before we headed up to Virginia, K talked about visiting his family in Pennsylvania. He wanted to spend a week here. "A week?" I asked incredulously. There was no way either of us would make it through that sane. We're always ready to leave PA by day 4. K's dad & brother are sweet, and I really do love them, but I can only handle them in small doses.

K told me he wanted to travel around PA. We'd visit his friend first in one part of the state, then his dad & brother, and then his aunts & uncles. I told him a week tops. We had too much to do to spend more than a week in PA, especially if it would make us both crazy. After all, we only spent two days with my dad! And since we live so much closer to PA now, we can drive there to visit whenever.

We left for PA last Thursday afternoon so we could catch K's best friend while he was in town. That night, when FIL was asking how long we'd be here, K told him until the next Sunday. SERIOUSLY? That's 9 fucking days! Why didn't I know this?!

Today, we're on day 7 of this trip. It hasn't been bad, really. There have been times I've been frustrated or annoyed, of course. Take yesterday, when K's dad whipped into a handicapped space yesterday at lunch. I said to him, "All of us in this car are able-bodied." He placed his blue decal on the dash and got out of the car. (Grr!)

K and I are leaving his dad's house tomorrow to go to southern PA to visit some of K's aunts, uncles, & cousins. I'm looking forward to seeing them, but at the same time, I WANT TO GO HOME!

Here we are with this great house, and we've hardly been in it! We were in Dallas for not even 4 days for ER's wedding, and we were ready to go home. We'll have been gone for 9 days before we get home again this time.

We're supposed to get home Sunday night. There's a technician coming to the house on Monday morning. Sometime after that (not sure if it'll be Monday or Tuesday), we're supposed to leave for the honeymoon we've never had. We talked about going either to Chincoteague, VA, or Outer Banks, NC. We don't need anything fancy -- just a nice, relaxing getaway for the two of us.

However, I feel like we've had enough of a getaway, even if it hasn't been completely relaxing or just the two of us. I told K today that I really don't care to go somewhere next week -- that I just want to be home. He looked at me like I'd hurt his feelings and said we'd talk about it later. I'm just ready to be settled!

On June 14, K and his buddies left my apartment with my bed, my furniture, and most of my belongings. I slept on an air mattress in an empty apartment for 10 days. Then, once we headed to VA, we slept in a hotel room cluttered with the things that had been in my car, K's car, and a small U-Haul (all the things we needed or didn't want to trust movers with). On July 5, we got our house. On July 13, we got our stuff. Yet I'm still living out of a suitcase.

I want to be in OUR home surrounded by OUR things on OUR bed ... not living out of a suitcase!!!