The Closest Thing to Skydiving

I love having adventures, making a point to do new and cool things. My mom is always telling me that I have such an exciting life, and that hers is boring. I tell her it's all about saying yes to things, but she gets nervous and doesn't always like trying new things unless someone is doing it with her.

So two years ago, for Christmas, I bought her a gift card to iFly. It's one of those indoor skydiving places, where you're basically just hanging out in a giant wind tunnel, floating over a huge fan. We had driven past the place several times over the years, and she always mentioned that it sounded like so much fun (and to be honest, it's the closest thing to real skydiving that either of us would ever do), but I knew that she wouldn't go out of her way to do it on her own.

Well, a whole year passed, another Christmas come and gone, and we still hadn't put that gift card to use, so we figured we had to make a plan or it wouldn't happen. Matt and I were in Texas over Memorial Day weekend, and mom and I booked a session to go iFlying in advance, so we'd finally get her that adventure!

So that Monday, the two of us (plus Matt and my dad for support) drove out to Plano, signed our lives away and got scheduled for a class! There's a 10 minute or so training class you do before they suit you up and get you into the tunnel, since it's super loud in there and they have to make sure you understand the four hand signals that they will use to give you directions. (The signals are: bend your legs, straighten your legs, chin up, and relax. Spoiler alert: Mom and I are bad at relaxing.)

We got our gear (suits, earplugs and helmets), and filed into the tunnel. There was a booth where someone was controlling the tunnel, filming the sessions and controlling the clock so the instructor would know when it was time to switch us out, and a narrow seating area where all us flyers sat waiting for our turn. We each got two flights, one to get our bearings and figure out how our bodies should be held, and then another where we got to try cool moves, like floating way up high in the tunnel!

Mom in flight!

It was kind of nerve-wracking at first! When you get into the tunnel, you're hit with this massive wall of air coming up from below, and the instructor is telling you to keep your chin up, and I'm like, "but I can't breathe with all this air rushing up my nose!" There was a moment of panic when I was like, crap I've gotta figure out how to not die while I'm in here! But thankfully that passed within a few seconds, breathing was totally possible, but Mom later told me that I looked super freaked out for the first little bit!

Meeee!

After we'd all gotten our turns, the instructor got to show off some moves also, like shooting up high really fast, doing loops around the tunnel and flipping around!

Our instructor, Dominic, was really awesome, and very helpful. We got certificates at the end where they noted all the moves we accomplished (things like "flew in a stable body position," "turned 360 degrees left and right," and "flew in the tunnel with minimal assistance"), so that's pretty cool. :) He also told us that we were the stiffest people he'd ever worked with, so ...

It was an awesome experience, and Mom said she had so much fun, and I'm so glad we got to do it together!

My Sister's Married!

It was beautiful. She was beautiful. The groom cried. I cried. I made a toast and cried some more. I made a Friends reference in my toast.

It is a love about having, and giving, and sharing, and receiving.

(Honeymoon portrait by the photographer on their cruise. Rachel hasn't gotten all the official wedding photos back yet.)

But let's be honest. What you really want to see is how her dress turned out. You may recall that Rachel went to school to study fashion design. And that she had planned to design and sew her own wedding dress.

She said she spent over 260 hours hand-beading the dress. And she looked like a million bucks.

All photos by me or via Facebook unless otherwise specified

From her bridal portrait session by Tyson Pough, pulled from Facebook. 

(It's the best photo I have of the detail, sorry if I'm not supposed to steal it, Rachel!)

I'm so impressed. Every time anyone asks me how the wedding went, I have to whip out my phone and show them her work. I keep telling her she needs to start her own business.

With our beautiful mom. Rachel didn't carry a bouquet; instead she won this dramatic bridal cuff.

I did a good job as Best Person of Awesomeness, if I do say so myself. I confiscated her phone pretty much immediately and fielded all the potential drama away from her. I did ridiculous things to try to keep her laughing. We watched/quoted the Friends episode with Monica and Chandler's wedding, because that's what Rachel wanted to do, and we probably destroyed my cousin's data plan with the Netflix usage.

Waiting around inside. It was cold and incredibly windy out.

Bridesmaid selfies! 

With my pretty cousin! 

The flowers were really beautiful. It's a shame I couldn't take them home, because Elliott likes to eat flowers.

The wedding was lovely, and the food was excellent. I ate a lot of dinner rolls and penne pasta, among other things, and Matt ate a lot of cake. We danced to Big Band-era music, with the occasional "Cha-Cha Slide" and "Cupid Shuffle" thrown in. My parents danced together quite a few times (!!!), and my mom was out on the dance floor almost the whole night!

I don't have any photos of Rachel's car, but we decorated it too, for the sendoff. (Matt thought of that. In that regard, I failed as Best Person of Awesomeness.) We got it done just in time for them to walk out among golden ribbon wands, and Matt threw some snacks and beers and waters in the backseat for them to consume later (since they left a lot of their dinner and cake plates on the sweetheart table, uneaten, FOR SHAME).

And once the wedding was over, we went back to my parents' house with some of our family members where I learned that my dad had bought not one, but THREE enormous bottles of moscato! (Regular moscato, pink moscato and red moscato! He's not a wine drinker, and I guess I didn't make myself clear when I requested red wine…) Surprise, they all tasted basically the same.

I'm so glad we had time to spend with the family and that everything turned out so beautifully. :)

Summer in Texas, in Virginia

It used to be that every summer, Matt's family would all get together for a long weekend (or a long week) at Inks Lake in Burnet, Texas. It hasn't happened in several years, and that makes me kind of sad.

It was only a few short months after Matt and I started dating. We were sitting in a hammock together, heads on opposite ends, feet propped up. I was reading The Other Boleyn Girl for the first of many times. He was doing math puzzles.

I looked over at him, smiling. I thought, "If we're still doing this in 50 years, I will be happy."

Ten years have passed.

Matt wasn't having a very good day, as far as I could tell. My car was in the shop, so he had to come pick me up at work. He must have been tired, or at least deep in thought, because we didn't talk much. Work has been stressful for both of us lately. We let "the grind" grind us down, and we try to come up with ways to take the stress off each other.

I suggested we get Starbucks on the way home, a rare treat for us. By poor circumstance, we missed the entrance to the main Starbucks, and I suggested we go to the one in Target a few blocks up. Matt had the better idea, suggesting the 'Bux in Barnes and Noble. He won.

We browsed for a few minutes. He snagged a book of math and logic puzzles. I found the newest book in a series I'd loved that I had yet to read. And we got our drinks and sat across from each other at a little table in the café.

Matt got up to get a napkin, and then promptly did number problems all over it. I powered through the first 60 pages of my book.

I looked at him and smiled as he went for more napkins, having run out of room on the first.

Past Allie was so right.

I am so happy with this life.

Take My Advice: Don't Throw Long-Distance Parties

Back in June, I threw a bridal shower for my sister. In my head, it was going to be perfect! I had made a big grocery list and had asked my dad to pick up ingredients. I was going to make a beautiful brunch spread, with baked brie and hash browns and fruit dip and blintzes. I would have plenty of time, since I was flying in at a reasonable time the night before!

So why on earth did my dad and I end up at Panera Bread 45 minutes before the start of the shower?

I was all set to arrive in Texas around 8 p.m. We were at cruising altitude, we would be landing in Dallas in about 20 minutes when the pilot announced that DFW airport was not accepting any flights due to a lightining storm. Instead we would be re-routed to Houston, and would head to Dallas when it was safe to do so.

(As a fun little aside, I should probably add that at the time, I hadn't seen Matt in about a week. He was in Dallas for a conference, and I had stayed in Virginia. I texted him to let him know I was going to Houston. Turns out he was at the same Houston airport waiting for his own connection! And I couldn't even get off the plane to say hi!)

Anyway, so by the time I landed in Dallas and managed to get to a different terminal so that I could get transportation out of the airport, it was 10:30 or 11 at night. Too late to do much besides mix fruit dip and prep things for the next morning.

So the morning of the shower, I delegated like a champ. I had my mom on the blintzes station, Rachel making deviled eggs, and I got the brie and fruit and hash browns going. When there was a spare 10 minutes, I took the world's fastest shower and got dressed, only to come downstairs and realize that I had forgotten to put the brie in a ramekin, and so it had melted all over the baking sheet. The crepes for the blintzes were sticking to the pan and tearing, so we couldn't put filling in them. The hash browns were not frying up like they were supposed to. We were going to have no food at this shower, besides the croissants and pies my dad had picked up at Costco! (But thankfully, I guess, there would be mimosas, so maybe people would forget their hunger?)

He said we should suck it up and order some pizzas, but the invitations had said it was going to be an elegant brunch, and I'm stubborn. So we rushed out to Panera Bread, leaving the kitchen a disaster, and ordered a whole bunch of breakfast sandwiches sliced into quarters. We arrived at my aunt's house — with the few remaining food items we'd been able to make work — with barely any time to set up, but my aunt and cousin are awesome and helped me get everything done at the absolute eleventh hour.

The mimosas helped too.

And the party was really fun! No one was the wiser about the disastrous morning. Because Rachel and her friends studied fashion design in school, we played the toilet-paper wedding dress game, and I had asked her fiancé some cute questions about their relationship so we could play the Newlywed Game. I got to see a lot of family members whom I don't see often enough, and had a great time.

Yes, this is what my aunt's house looks like all year round. Complete with terrifying Christmas butler statue.

In my thank-you card, Rachel told me it was perfect just the way it was. :)

But I've learned my lesson. Next time I throw a party, I'm having it catered!

What are some lessons you've learned while party planning?

Dear Spa Castle, You're Awesome

In general, I have a hard time splurging on myself. I don't particularly like spending money, especially on something that I deem frivolous, which is most everything. A few months ago, my sister basically had to talk me into spending money on myself for something I really wanted (Versace Eros Pour Femme perfume. It's lovely, but I hate how expensive fragrant water is!). I always ask Matt for massage gift certificates for my birthday each year, and that is the only time I end up going to day spas.

So when my sister's other Maid of Honor, Christina, announced that Rachel's bachelorette party would be at Spa Castle in Carrollton, Texas (suburb of Dallas), I was SO excited. A built-in excuse to splurge and unwind!

I mean, a night in a nice hotel and two days where the sole purpose is relaxing? Uh, THERE. (And uh, also a chance to see my sister…)

It was SUCH a nice experience. There were pools with swim-up bars and massaging jets, saunas of varying face-melting temperatures (up to 186 degrees! plus one "ice" sauna that was like, 59 degrees), heated relaxation rooms, and hot tubs all over the place. And that was before we even got to the actual spa services!

For all my typical high-strung-itude, I don't know that I had ever felt so chill. We hung out in the various pools and hot tubs. We explored all the warm rooms and struggled to breathe normally for two minutes inside some of the hotter ones. I got a 30-minute Korean "chair" massage that was actually on a table, and it was delicious. (I thought my sister had booked my Swedish massage, and she thought I had booked my own, so the 30-minute one was the only one they had that was at the same time as both Rachel's and my cousin Autumn's 60-minute massages.) Plus, awkward, but it turns out butt massages are like, really awesome?!

After we'd spent sufficient time in the spa, we went to find our hotel room, which Christina had decorated and loaded with candy, games and a veil and crown for Rachel! Plus, we got robes and slippers to relax in for later!

We got dressed up and went out for dinner at BJ's Brewhouse before heading back to the room to hang out and play bachelorette games.

Pretty bridesmaids and friends!

Me, Rachel and Autumn. You can't really tell, but I'm wearing my beautiful yellow heels.

(Also, the Spa Castle hotel room was awesome. All seven of us crammed into this two-room suite, with blow-up mattresses in addition to the beds the room had. Rachel and Autumn and I all ended up sharing this giant memory-foam bed, and I slept like a rock. In the morning, once both of them were awake, I tried jumping on the bed to see if they noticed, like in the commercials! And they said they barely felt any movement!)

We did go back to the spa right before it closed at midnight, and then again the next morning for pedicures. That's when we decided that we needed to come back here the day or two before Rachel's wedding to make sure she relaxes! We might try to drag my mother, who would probably hate it because she doesn't like nudity (a lot of naked people hanging around the changing rooms and ladies-only saunas) or massages (because she doesn't want people she doesn't know to touch her). Plus we basically had to drag her for a manicure a few Christmases ago.

But yeah, I pretty much can't wait to go back. Why did I never know this place existed when I was, you know, LIVING IN DFW?!

What is the best bachelorette party you've been to? How do you like to relax? And what was the last thing you did to splurge on yourself?

Lighting Bugs and Screaming Bridge

I have no idea if this is a true story or not. It might have just been something my dad made up when we were kids because he was sick of me and Rachel fighting in the backseat when he was driving.

My dad once told us as we were driving over a bridge in Arlington (Texas), that the bridge we were on was called Screaming Bridge. According to him, legend had it that one dark night, while the bridge over the Trinity River was out, a car full of teenage girls speeding down the road plunged over the edge into the river.

(I just looked it up. Turns out Screaming Bridge is a bit of an urban legend/ghost story in Texas. But you never know. My dad made up all sorts of weird stories when we were kids.)

—————

My grandparents live on a golf course. Right around the time my dad told us about Screaming Bridge, we went to my grandparents' house for some event, and we tried to convince my Paw-Paw to take us for a ride on his golf cart. As dusk was approaching, my Nana told us she'd take us for a ride over the course, which had several bridges over the little fingers of the creek, if I'm remembering it correctly. We told her about Screaming Bridge, and she said there was a Woman Screaming Bridge on the golf course. It was the biggest, narrowest, steepest bridge on the course. Rachel and I screamed as Nana drove over it.

It was dark and creepy under the trees as the sun disappeared, but lightning bugs glowed between them every now and then. I love lightning bugs. They're so pretty to watch. I would never have tried to capture any of them.

—————

Matt was attending a conference at Virginia Tech the other week. He came home around dusk one evening and told me that on his way home, he'd seen a whole bunch of lightning bugs. I said we should go for a walk to see if we could find some. They glowed neon all over our neighborhood. The warmer it gets, the more I see them flitting in the dark. It's beautiful.

Does your city have any local urban legends? Do you like lightning bugs?

Matt's Gonna Run a Half-Marathon!

Every year on Thanksgiving, Matt and his sister and his dad go into downtown Austin early in the morning and run the Turkey Trot. It's a five-mile course through downtown.

I never run the Turkey Trot. His extended family has its own "Turkey Trot" at the same time in which we all go trotting around their neighborhood, with no particular distance specified, and then eat breakfast together afterwards. I participate in the walking and the eating. It's a good way to feel better about the massive quantities of food we'll likely consume later in the day.

But what surprises me is that Matt rarely trains for the Turkey Trot. He'll occasionally run a mile or two in the days beforehand, but last year I'm fairly certain he did not run at all in preparation for it. He pulls a Barney Stinson, says running is easy, and then just does it.

Barney Stinson: How To Run A Marathon from Basri Haitam on Vimeo.

A few months back, Matt sent me a text message over lunch.

Yes, we text in complete sentences, with proper punctuation.

He has fallen into the same pit of grown-up-hood that has previously befallen the rest of us: now that he is done with grad school, he had nothing to work toward. He needed a new goal. 

He fully admits it will probably be painful. Especially because running in Virginia is nothing like running in Texas, because Virginia is very hilly. But he's been starting to train, running three or four or seven miles a few times a week. I'm really proud of him, and I'm really glad I won't be running. (We have a friend from Texas that loves running half-marathons, and she might get to come up and run the race with him, and that would be pretty cool. We'll see.)

The good news is, he won't even have to worry about training for the Turkey Trot this year?

Have you run any races? Do you have any advice for him? And what should I write on the giant poster I'm going to make to cheer him on from the sidelines? :)

On This, The Tenth Year

On our one-month dating anniversary, we went to prom together. I wore my hair up and a pink princess dress. We rode in a black limo with glowing lights on the ceiling, and we held hands and imagined they were stars.

On our two-year dating anniversary, we got all dressed up and went to dinner. Our waiter gave us a lily from one of their floral arrangements, and then we drove out to the lake like we used to in high school. Just to lay in the back of the truck bed and eat peppermint patties and gummi bears, and look at the real stars.

On our third dating anniversary, you bought me a huge bouquet of pink and yellow lilies. I took them back to Oklahoma with me, and they lived on my dresser for weeks, and looking at them made me smile and miss you at the same time. It feels like some other lifetime that we spent so long so far apart.

A few months before our fifth dating anniversary, you dropped to one knee in the middle of my living room. We decided to savor that moment for ourselves for a few hours, before we called everyone we loved. Elliott kept trying to eat my engagement flowers.

Just after our sixth dating anniversary, I peeked. I held your hand around the wall of the church, but I needed to see you before I walked down the aisle, and so I peeked and didn't say anything. You got choked up when you said your vows, but I couldn't stop smiling at you as you held my hands in yours.

On our second wedding anniversary, we got cupcakes from the bakery that made our wedding cakes, and went back to the bed and breakfast we went to after our wedding. We sat on the floor with our plates resting on the cooler we'd brought from home, and cut those enormous cupcakes in half so we could share both flavors as French music twinkled in the background.

And as our fourth wedding anniversary comes closer, I think about this: that today, I've been yours for 10 years. That I hope for ten … no, fifty … no, A HUNDRED more years of laughing with you, being silly with you, holding you and having the most wonderful life with you.

To many more!

Sports Sports Sports

Every year during March Madness, Matt starts a family bracket pool, and the two of us plus his dad, his sister and our brother-in-law compete for the "Get Outta There" trophy that currently resides on my husband's dresser.

I spend exactly no time watching basketball unless Matt and I go to a game together (so … I've seen approximately five or six games in the past 10 years, and one of those was the Harlem Globetrotters). I know very few of the teams or who is any good, so I normally just pick whichever team I've heard of before for my bracket, and I always pick Oklahoma to go far (BOOMER).

(This worked out well for me one year, since none of our family had faith in OU and then the Sooners made it far and I was the only one who had picked them to win. But most of the time, I am in last or second-to-last place.)

Anyway, on Saturday morning Matt was checking up on the tournament scores, and as usual, told me I was losing by A LOT. What else is new.

Then he said, "Your tie-breaker score is awfully low for a basketball game too. You don't see many basketball games where the teams only get 30 points."

And I started laughing maniacally because — NO SHAME — I had forgotten, whilst filling out my bracket, that this was for a basketball tournament and had picked my tie-breaker score based on what a good football tie-breaker score might be.

Are you participating in any March Madness pools?

Coffee Date

Hi friends! I didn't mean to fall off the face of the earth like that. Just stress and work and everyday life, you know?

But! A lot of that went away for a little while because last week we took a long weekend and flew back to Texas to surprise Matt's sister for her birthday! We also went to visit my grandparents, and stopped in College Station for a few hours to see a few friends. We managed to eat tacos for a lot of our meals. And got in some Blue Bell too. Ahh, food and family. This trip really cemented that Texas > Virginia in all the ways that matter. :)

Happy early birthday sister-in-law! We got beers and went bowling, and I learned that I bowl better left-handed. But still pretty badly.

What makes you and your partner laugh really, really hard? I'm not sure if it was because of the sleep deprivation or because it was really that funny, but as Matt and I were driving home from the airport at three in the morning — note to self, don't fly into an airport that's more than an hour away if it's going to land after midnight on a work night — we popped in a Taylor Swift CD and started singing all the songs in super deep old-man voices, and it cracked us up so much that it made the last half-hour of that exhausting drive fly by.

I am basically dying for a lay-around-do-nothing vacation. Did you know that Carnival has some cruises that leave from the Virginia coast, that basically just go out in the ocean for a day and then turn around and come back? They call it "the cruise to nowhere," and that makes us laugh. But we're saving up our vacation days for my sister's wedding, and hopefully we'll get to go on a real vacation next year. In the meantime, I'm hoping to get some more fun day trips in. There are so many states nearby that I haven't been to! And so many things I'd like to see in Virginia! What places are near you that you're dying to try?

I went to a wine-tasting with some friends the other week at this gourmet-cooking store, and I got really distracted by this wall that had all these beautiful canisters of tea. I've never been much of a tea drinker — my college roommate loved the stuff and believed it could cure everything, and I thought she was wrong and that tea was gross except in the cases of sore throats and so I avoided it forever for reasons I'm no longer sure of — but I'm finally feeling like I should give tea a fair shake. Or maybe the pretty wall of tea just hypnotized me into thinking this is a good idea? What's your favorite type?

Do you need a new thing to listen to while Serial is on break? May I recommend the podcast Grownups Read Stuff They Wrote As Kids? It's exactly what it sounds like: adults reading their childhood diary entries and angsty teenage poetry in front of a live audience. It. Is. Hilarious. Isn't life so much better now that we're not teenagers anymore? :)

What are your goals right now? I have a few things I want to accomplish in the next few months, but I'm thinking about letting go of some other small goals I've been working on that have lost their appeal, that I'm no longer doing to benefit myself, but still feel obligated to slog through. I read on Ali's blog that sometimes you have to let go of some things in order to make room for things you really want, and that's been resonating with me lately. I'd like to stop putting so much pressure on myself.

But enough about me. What's going on with you? What have I missed these few weeks? (I'm super behind on both writing and reading blogs. Feedly tells me I have an overwhelming number of unread posts waiting for me. I'll get to them eventually.)

When His Career Comes First

Today, I want to talk about something serious. I want to talk about what it means to follow a spouse in the pursuit of their career over yours.

I've done it. Some of you have done it too. So can we be honest with each other?

Most of the time, when I think about the career I could have had, I'm kind of bitter.

This is the life I chose. I didn't have to choose it, but I did. I have a fantastic life.

I know that if I'd chosen not to move, not to marry, not to tie my raft to his, I would have regretted it every day for the rest of my life.

But most of the time, when I really think about the sacrifices I've made in my career in order to allow Matt to pursue his, I don't have a very good attitude about it.

This is something I've known and felt for years. I keep pushing it down, because it's not Matt's fault, and it's not productive to dwell on it. But I got a text message from Matt's sister the other day, and I felt I finally had to deal with my feelings about it head on.

Her husband, my brother-in-law, plans to start grad school soon. He had an on-site interview with one of the schools he applied to last week, and I texted her to find out how it went. It apparently went well, and I congratulated them. Regardless of which school he chooses, the two of them would be moving away from Texas themselves.

She said she didn't quite know what she's going to do yet, wherever they go, but that she knew I could sympathize.

I didn't respond to that message. I started to type a sarcastic comment, and then stopped. Why, WHY does this make me so unhappy?

I've chosen to move twice for Matt's schooling and Matt's career, but the places we go don't have many career options for me. I find myself settling for jobs that are good enough, but that will never be what I had envisioned for myself. I find myself struggling to be positive when I think about the opportunities I've given up, the dream I've set aside, the life I could have had.

It's a terrible feeling to have. That negativity is draining, and unhelpful, but it's there. I can't pretend it's not.

I'm not sure what to say. I don't want my sister-in-law to feel this way. And I don't want to feel this way anymore either. I want to be able to be positive, to not have regrets, to be accepting of what is, to be an encouragement to someone who's jumping in my boat for the first time.

What would you tell her? How can we, together, you and me, take steps to stop begrudging our spouses for the choices we've made? If you've made your peace, how did you do it?

Let's Look at Pretty Dresses!

While we were in town over Christmas, my sister had scheduled two appointments back to back: one for her to try on wedding dresses, and another for my cousin Autumn and myself to try on bridesmaid dresses.

Now, because my sister is a fashion designer, she already had plans to design and sew her own wedding dress. She already had a box of fabric delivered to my parents' house and everything, but she wanted to try on a few dresses just to make sure she was 100 percent sold on the color she wanted (champagne) and the cut of the dress (strapless with an illusion-netting-and-lace neckline).

But for convenience's sake, the bridesmaids' dresses are coming from David's Bridal, so we trooped down to the mall with my mom, my aunt, my cousin, and the mother-of-the-groom. Before the appointment, Rachel had texted me photos of her two other bridesmaids who had tried on this dress, and as a decent-sized-chested lady, I had immediate concerns.

I mean, if Model McNoBoobs has a cleavage line…

Tell Me Your First Christmas Memory

On Christmas Day, we were sitting around Matt's aunt and uncle's house with tummies that had consumed too much dessert, and his uncle posed an interesting question: At what age do you remember your first memory?

There were about five of us sitting together in a little cluster, and our group's answers ranged from age three to five. He moved on to another group to ask the same question, and we started telling each other what our first memories actually were.

My sister and I are small (I am probably three or four), and my mom babysits a little girl named Lacey, and the three of us play together sometimes. I am at a party at Lacey's house — maybe her birthday party, or maybe a New Year's party her parents are throwing. I can't remember anything specific about the party, but the room is kind of blue-tinted and dark and gold-sparkly.

As we were wrapping up this discussion, Matt's uncle called the entire room's attention. He said that since it was Christmas, he'd like us to go around the room and share our first Christmas memories, and also our most memorable Christmases. Because if you don't share those things, maybe those memories of your siblings and parents and loved ones will eventually be lost without you ever having learned what your family holds dear.

It was a beautiful sentiment, and in a room full of 30-40 people, there were some really wonderful moments that we got to share. Memories about relatives that are no longer with us, and new children being welcomed unexpectedly early, and the toys or gifts — both given and received — that made an enormous impact.

My sister and I are sitting on the fireplace. I am crying because I know Santa isn't going to bring me anything this year, because I have been bossy and mean all year. We are wearing matching pink floral nightgowns. My sister tells me that she'll share her presents with me.

My sister and I are in a Christmas play. It's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and we are angels. It's A Christmas Carol, and we are children shopping with our mother, who is not played by our real mother. It's Babes in Toyland and my mom is a toy soldier, I am a fairy, and I know my sister was in it too, but I can't remember what character she played because the only photo I have of her from that show is her in full stage makeup and her street clothes, enormous glasses, playing on the barre of the theater's dance studio.

I have no Christmas memories that don't begin with "my sister." And I didn't realize how profound and important that was to me until someone asked.

My sister and me going to see The Nutcracker this year.

Tell me about your Christmas memories. What is your first? What is your favorite?

Life List: I Get to Be Best Person of Awesomeness!

Matt has been in like, millions of weddings. (Okay, I think it's actually 9 or 10.) Almost every friend of his that has gotten married has invited him to be a groomsman. In fact, one of my best friends even asked him to be an usher at her wedding, and I wasn't even in the bridal party. (No worries though, I will forever be immortalized as The Girl Who Gave The Bride Her Bra.)

I have never been a bridesmaid at anyone's wedding. (I was the ring bearer at my aunt's wedding, but I was six at the time.) I have lots of good friends, but I'm not anyone's BEST friend. I'm okay with that, but it bummed me out that I'm not likely to be anyone's bridesmaid.

But my little sister got engaged in October! To Matteo! And Rachel asked me if I'd be her matron of honor!

And I said, "Matron of honor! Okay! But I hate the word 'matron.' It makes me sound old, and like I should have a bun and a yardstick. I should be the best person of awesomeness!" And she laughed, and  I dropped it, figuring she didn't take me seriously because it was kind of ridiculous.

But then I got the sweetest card in the mail this week.

She told me the Etsy designer she bought it from didn't have "Best Person of Awesomeness" as an option, but wrote on the back that it could be my title anyway. I have the best sister.

Have you been a bridesmaid before? What's the most ridiculous thing you've ever done for a friend?

Things I've Done That Don't Get Separate Posts

I'm a super awful wife.

Matt sometimes has a hard time getting rid of things he no longer uses or needs, including old clothing. As of last year, he had dozens of T-shirts in a plastic container under our bed: T-shirts from high school drumline, college tees he got for various undergrad events, shirts from every performance of the percussion organization he was in through all four years of undergrad and three years of grad school. So last fall, I decided to be an AWESOME wife and turn some of his college and high school percussion shirts into a quilt, so they could be useful. (I'm sometimes horribly unsentimental, but I understand that other people are not unsentimental, and therefore, he and I agreed that this was a good solution.) I decided that this would be his Christmas gift, and it would be so thoughtful of me.

Except that I had never quilted before. I basically had to ask my friend Jess to hold my hand through every single step of the process. Christmas came and went. Then January came and went. Matt's graduation came and went. AND STILL THAT DAMNED QUILT WAS NOT DONE.

But gosh dang it, I finally finished it last weekend. Merry Christmas, Matt. I'm never quilting again.

The day before Quilt Finishing Day, I took a trip to Farm Patch. A friend had told me that they sell basil and tons of other herb plants for $2.50, and since that's how much a little packet of basil costs at the grocery store, I decided that perhaps it was time to start my own tiny herb garden. So I bought a pot of basil and a pot of cilantro, and came home excited to try my hand at actually keeping plants alive and harvesting edible things from them.

Then Matt got super into the idea and came home with a Mexibell pepper plant after a trip to Lowe's.

After some discussion about whether we should plant them in the ground (in the tiny space we have in the flowerbed) or whether it'd be easier/better to re-pot them, we wound up getting some decent-sized pots and Matt "built" this cinderblock stand for them, so that it'd be harder for Elliott to go right up to the plants and chomp on them the second she runs out the back door. He drilled holes in the wood so the pots can drain properly, and so hopefully I can avoid drowing the plants.

(I think I accidentally once drowned a succulent. It looked sad, so I watered it, and then it looked sadder, so I watered it more. #fail)

It's been nine days and the plants are still alive. I'm sure it's too early to call success, but I am inclined to celebrate anyway.

I was informed that cilantro doesn't need a lot of space, so it got a small pot I already had.

L to R: Basil, cilantro and tiny Mexibell buds! (Mexibell is a mild bell pepper/jalapeño hybrid.)

This actually happened on the trip back up from Mexico, but do you remember when we first decided we wanted to try all the places along the Texas Kolache Trail? And how we managed to hit two of the places on the south route, but the Original Kountry Bakery was closed on Sundays?

Well, it is NOT closed on Mondays! And on the drive back home, we passed through Schulenberg right around lunch time. We stopped for lunch — the egg-salad sandwich was NOM, and Matt said his burger was good too — and picked up a few kolaches for later.

We got lemon, cherry and apple fillings (Matt didn't want to get meat ones since we still had a ways to drive), and I'm glad we finally got to try the last place on my south-route list! The lemon one was amazing, but I wasn't convinced the apple one actually was apple — the filling tasted like it had something peachy in it, but Matt thinks I'm wrong. I wouldn't say these were my favorite of the kolache places or anything, but they were still pretty tasty.

Clockwise from left: Apple, lemon, cherry.

What little "everyday" adventures have you gotten up to lately?

Three Years

This week, Matt and I celebrated our three-year anniversary. Three years! How did that happen??

Of course he decided to get sick the day before, because this is our life. He was a bit sniffly and congested, but we had big plans to go out to a nice dinner and a little sickness was not going to stop us.

We went to The Republic, a local steakhouse that I hadn't been to before. I had some amazing salmon with perfect garlic asparagus and rosemary potatoes. Matt got a giant steak, and it came with four types of sauce. We had fun sampling the chimichurri, bearnaise, horseradish sauce and a more traditional steak sauce. The first two were my favorites. I didn't sample the horseradish one because blech.

It's been a tradition to watch our wedding video every year on our anniversary (along with getting cupcakes from our wedding bakery, WHICH WE FORGOT, for SHAME), so when we got home after dinner, we popped the video into the DVD player. And while we were watching friends and family we hadn't seen in a long time enjoying themselves at our wedding, I had this sudden urge to call up every single friend and tell them I miss them and how I am so glad they were there, and that it was so much fun to watch them and relive those memories.

We had a nice, relaxing, low-key anniversary, and I'm looking forward to many more years of laughing together. :)

Photos by Danny Boyle Photography

Two Graduations

Last Friday was a crazy day. As I mentioned before, both my sister and husband were scheduled to graduate from their respective universities on the same day, and it was really important to everyone (ahem, certain family members) that I pick sides and choose just one of them to attend. But I refused; neither one was more important than the other, and it was important to me that I be there for both.

Because I hate myself and love sitting through multiple, multi-hour graduation ceremonies Because I love my sister and I love my husband, I bought a plane ticket to get from Dallas to College Station between the two ceremonies. It's normally about a four-hour drive, and the ceremonies were spaced six hours apart, but without being able to account for Friday rush-hour, college town traffic (both coming and going), or the timeliness of either ceremony, I figured the 32-minute flight was the better option. And dagnabbit, I made it to both.

Rachel's graduation was first, and since I knew I was going to have to leave the ceremony as soon as her name was called to get to the airport, we made sure to take pictures the night before. I love that she painted her mortarboard hot pink. It definitely made her easy to spot in the crowd.

So proud of her!

I got to watch her walk and receive her diploma, and then my dad and I were super awkward as we tried to edge out of the bleachers and escape the basketball arena in front of everyone's flashing cameras. I felt bad because we literally had the worst seats ever for a quick and inconspicious departure, and I hope we didn't mess up anyone else's experience.

(Apparently it's been a really long time since I've flown anywhere, because this trip was my first experience with those full-body scanner thingies. I don't know that I see what the big deal is. Also, it's been long enough since I've flown that my Dramamine had expired. Risk it? Risk it.)

My sister- and brother-in-law picked me up from the airport and we made it to Matt's ceremony with 10 minutes to spare, though the processional was so enormous that it could have spared us a few minutes if necessary. All of the Ph.D. candidates walked near the beginning of the ceremony, and Matt had a huge smile on his face as his advisor placed the hood around his shoulders.

Dr. Hubby!

We also left his graduation early, a much easier feat in A&M's giant basketball arena. The ceremony was more than three hours long (1000+ engineering undergrads), and I hadn't eaten anything all day besides a peanut butter sandwich and some Pop Tarts I picked up at the airport. Sustenance was necessary. (As was, apparently, a nap, since I kind of fell asleep in our living room while Matt's family and I were waiting for Matt to get home.)

Once he arrived, we celebrated with hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream. His family is having a bigger, official party for him in a couple of weeks. And we might have a third party too, for his grad school friends, because we like parties. :)

I'm really glad I was able to be there for both graduations, but the downside was that I didn't exactly get to spend any time with either Matt's or my own extended family since I was running around so much. I wish I'd gotten to spend more quality time with everyone.

Etheria: The Fashion Show

Remember when we went to my sister's fashion show last year? Well, her senior show was last week, and this year she had her own entire collection to send down the runway!

She had five looks total in the show — four in her wedding gown/bridesmaid dress collection, and one separate look (a red jacket and skirt suit) that walked separately, during one of the previous six sections of the show.

I Never Thought This Day Would Come

You guys, it literally just hit me. Matt picked up his tickets for graduation yesterday. He is graduating with his Ph.D. in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS.

He has been at this university for like, eleventy jillion years. (Okay, nine. But still. NINE YEARS.) And in two weeks, he'll never have to go to school again.

I mean, let's be realistic. He'll probably still be working at a school, if all goes as we'd like it to. But he'll never have to do another professor's bidding!

… Okay, that's not true either. Especially if he winds up getting a post-doc after this.

So basically, life will not change at all.

But it's a huge not-changing-at-all.

I'd Like You to Meet Someone

This is Dr. Matt. Yeah, that's right. I got me a husband with a Ph.D. :)

He is a badass that did a fantastic job on his dissertation defense, and passed with flying colors. His committee didn't even have any content changes to his 153-page paper! Which is pretty much a miracle.

Obviously, things have been a little crazy over the last few weeks, and posting is likely to continue to be sporadic since so many of our plans are still up in the air and I'm barely holding my ish together. But I'm really proud of Matt, and wanted to share such a big accomplishment.

(I feel like I haven't talked to ya'll in forever. What have you been up to?)