Snippets of Summer

Hello friends (and grandmothers). It's been a while, huh.

Matt and I were talking at dinner the other night. (We are adults now, and I've been pushing for sitting at the dining room table, now that our house is set up enough to get to it [oh right! we moved this summer. to a house two blocks over from our last place, our first standalone house of our married lives!]. It's kind of nice, having conversations instead of watching TV while we eat.) Over bowls of cauliflower chili, he mentioned that he kind of wished he'd kept a journal or something during his grad school years, so he could remember what his headspace was like, instead of looking back and realizing he had no idea what he was thinking during some parts of life. And I thought, this blog has been a record of my life for so long, and yet I've lost the drive to write on a regular basis.

I have lots of things I'd like to say, of course, but the thought of putting (figuratively) pen to paper, and figuring out what is worth sharing sounds more tiring than I'd like it to be.

But here's the thing. The more I choose not to write, the easier it is to keep not writing. I've got a whole, unwritten summer just behind me. The more I choose not to pour out my memories, the more I realize that I have forgotten the details, that I don't remember as well as I thought I would. Life stays full-to-bursting even when I choose not to write. And when I choose not to write, the good (as well as the mundane and bad and boring) is lost. And later, Matt will ask me, hey remember when we were/did/saw XYZ, and I will not remember the specific thing he's mentioning, and I'll worry again if my memory is shorting out a little earlier than it should.

From Summer 2016: I want to remember the wedding with the grits bar, and laughing as we sipped our drinks awkwardly on the lawn, and how happy we were on the dance floor. I want to remember hugs and walks and tears and Zumba and time spent quiet with close friends. I want to remember the sweet, puckering taste of that lemon cocktail at the fancy restaurant we went to for our anniversary, to celebrate FIVE YEARS, as my dad would say, and how Matt kept calling me "raven" because I'd had my hair dyed a bright, dark shade of purple that morning.

I want to remember the feeling of panic I first felt before I got my bearings when my mom and I went indoor skydiving over Memorial Day weekend, and watching cheesy '70s game shows in the little studio we stayed at in Boston when we road-tripped up through New England. And what about the creaminess of that long-awaited lobstah roll, and the dog on the field of Fenway! What about appreciating whiskey for the first time? And squeezing through the rocks in Georgia, and chatting on the patio in Chattanooga?

The visits from our parents, and the surprise 29th birthday party that I wish I'd gotten some photos of, because I was not expecting it at all (he lied about looking for a lawn mower!) and all my Virginia friends in one place at one time. The car breaking down in Dallas, and how we laughed when we thought we might miss the concert because of the absurdity of the whole thing, and the pool party with all my relatives. Being so excited to see Matt's cousin's performance in North Carolina, since we never made it up to Broadway.

I realize how much I will lose if I don't write. And so I'll try harder to find words for all this fullness.

"For you, in my respect, are all the world."

"Then how can it be said I am alone // When all the world is here to look on me?"
- A Midsummer Night's Dream

I just finished taking an online Shakespeare class. It was through Coursera, and was a free four-week massive open course in which we read four Shakespeare plays and discussed them, and watched clips from the movies that have been made about them.

Video "lecture." This format is pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed the class. I had read two of the plays before (Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream), but I hadn't picked up any Shakespeare since high school, so it was like re-discovering something and seeing it with whole new eyes. The other two plays were The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing, and I was especially looking forward to the latter, as it had been on my to-read list for quite some time. (I didn't end up liking The Tempest much. It was really confusing to me, but I really liked Much Ado. And then I watched the Emma Thompson/Denzel Washington version of the movie, and it was also really good, and Matt even enjoyed it once he figured out what was happening.)

Though can I tell you something about A Midsummer Night's Dream? I think it was my sophomore year of high school, our theater department put on that play. I've looked for photographic evidence, but unfortunately I found none.

Before I started re-reading the play, I could not for the life of me remember the name of the character I played, nor what the play was actually about.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is about a wedding, and actors that are to perform a play during the wedding festivities, and a terrible love triangle (square?) in which a woman, Hermia is engaged to a man named Demetrius, though she's in love with another man, Lysander, and her best friend Helena is in love with Demetrius but he thinks that Helena is horrible. It makes for some very amusing poetry.

Reading it brought back so many memories from high school. I was cast as Hermia, and I was horrified when this boy that I thought was icky (no idea why, now) was cast as Lysander. Though I never had to, I was terrified that I might have to kiss him. (I had never kissed anyone, and didn't want Ickface to be my first.) Especially because I was totally head over heels for this guy that lived down the street from me, who was also in the play. Creepily enough, he got cast as Hermia's dad, Egeus, but it was like, the highlight of my life at the time to get to spend rehearsals with him, though nothing ever happened between us. (High School Allie pretty much only had unrequited crushes, until she went to Homecoming with High School Matt senior year.)

Your turn: tell me about your high school self! What were you involved in? Who did you have a massive crush on? (Or, if you'd rather, have you read Shakespeare? What is your favorite play?)

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!

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

Things I Believed That Were Crazy

1.

In the 10th grade, I had a science teacher that informed us that when almonds go bad, they contain cyanide, and if you eat a bad almond it can kill you. And I thought, "I like almonds. I don't want to die. How do you know if an almond is going to kill you?" As far as I knew, I had never encountered a bad one, because I wasn't dead. But from then on, the act of eating almonds was almost like a rebellion.

I was a big worrywart. I have no idea if it's true or not that almonds contain cyanide, or if this is just the result of me thinking about it for years and skewing the story in my head. But the other day, I found a bad almond in my trail mix. And let me tell you: YOU KNOW. It TASTES like death. I spent a lot of years worrying about accidental death only to find out you'd have to be incredibly stupid to actually want to finish eating a bad almond once you'd bit into it.

2. 

When my sister and I were very young, my dad would tuck us into bed each night. Rachel and I shared a room and had twin mattresses on the floor next to each other, and as young children do, we had a tendency to roll out of our beds and wind up on the floor. In order to trick us into not rolling off our beds, my dad would tell us to put our arms by our sides, and he would tuck our blankets around us, wrapping us into cocoons so only our heads and our toes were visible out the ends of the blankets. He told us that if we stayed in our cocoons all night, we'd wake up as butterflies. We REALLY wanted to be butterflies. But every morning we would wake up, disappointed to find we'd wriggled our way out of the cocoons in our sleep, and were still just us.

Human Allie, Age 4

3.

When I first moved to College Station five years ago, I believed that I was never going to let Texas A&M get to me. People here say "Howdy!" a lot. I refused to say "howdy" back, instead dispensing a "hey" or a "hi" whenever people greeted me. And Matt would just shake his head and kind of laugh, as if he knew that someday I would break and that it was funny that I fought so hard against it.

I went to a charity event on Saturday night (which I'll tell you about another time), and to get everyone's attention, the emcee shouted "Howdy!" into the microphone — a common occurrence at events, because everyone shouts "Howdy!" back in response and then the room is quiet enough for the emcee or host to speak. Without thinking, I shouted a hearty howdy right back. It was a big room, a big event, and the emcee had to shout "Howdy!" a few times before everyone settled down. And I just kept answering that call and response until about the third time in a row when I realized what the heck I was doing and my Sooner spirit died of shame.

Congratulations, Aggieland. You have finally broken me. 

What weird things did you believe when you were younger? Anything you still carry with you?

The Rules for Garbage

When Matt was a little kid, he and his family used to play this card game called "Garbage" with his grandma. It's basically a mash-up of a whole bunch of other card (and not-card) games, and I had the privilege of learning how to play it when we were visiting his aunt and uncle in Chicago.

Now, apparently they had written the rules down once upon a time, but couldn't remember all of them until we were in the middle of playing the game, so I wanted to write them down for posterity, and also in case any of ya'll want to have a crazy game night. :) While they were trying to remember the rules, we found that there are a lot of different versions of this game online, but this is the one Matt grew up with. Garbage probably works best with at least three or four players.

What you need:
Two decks of cards
Poker chips (pennies would also work)
At least three or four players

Two Years!

This week, Matt and I are celebrating our second anniversary! Geezums. Sometimes it feels like we've only been married for half a minute, and other times it feels like we've already been married for decades. In a good way, of course. :)

I'll be picking up some cupcakes in our wedding cake flavors (cake is a must every year!) and at some point, we'll watch our wedding video too!

We most likely won't exchange gifts this year to fit with the traditional "cotton" theme. Instead, we're thinking of replacing the linens on our bed, since we found a MASSIVE rip on the fitted sheet the other day and we only have the one set. Not super romantic, but hey, neither are we. Practicality is romantic!

In the meantime, I'm popping back up on Weddingbee to share a "snapshot" of our wedding day and look back at some of my favorite photos. Head on over and check it out!

Vignettes

I had an epiphany the other day. Over the last few weeks, I have been absolutely itching to get out of town, go do something new, see something different. Adventure, I need adventure! But it didn't happen, and this week, I felt so tired that I was content to stay home and relax at the end of the day. That's when adventure found me.

But in trying to describe it, I realized that maybe some of the best adventures aren't ones that can be described, at least not in a compelling way. Because from the outside, maybe not all adventures are that noteworthy or exciting. But sometimes having friends show up at your door unannounced, the lure of not knowing where you're going, having no plans and the promise of ice cream, those are sometimes the best adventures. Even if it doesn't involve leaving town or doing something totally new.

—————

When I was in high school, I used to show up at friend's houses unannounced all the time. Never during dinner time, and usually bearing some kind of gift; I liked the spontaneity of it. The idea that friends could be home and ready to go do something, or even that they wouldn't be home, because they were already out on their own adventures. I don't know why I stopped doing that, but it happened way less in college, and finally I just stopped altogether.

It became a lot harder to drop in on people unexpectedly once all our friends started having kids.

—————

Matt and I went to Sonic the other day. He really wanted a snow cone, but the place was already closed, and so we hit our second choice. Matt asked if I remembered the summer after high school, when a whole bunch of us would go to one particular Sonic in our hometown every Wednesday night, just to hang out before we all scattered. Of course I remembered. I don't remember particulars, but I remember the people that were always there. I'm not often nostalgic about high school, but that made me think about those friends I haven't talked to in years. Because sometimes you just lose touch and it's hard to pick up again where you left off.

—————

What's been on your mind this week?

Instrumental

In case you hadn't heard of it, there's a website called LifeScouts, which is basically like Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts in that you can "collect" badges for various cool things you've done in your life. (Of course, you can literally collect them if you want, because they actually do produce the badges, but for me it's more of a fun thing to just see what I've accomplished.)

For the month of April, LifeScouts has been creating badges based on musical instruments and talents, and the other day, a flute badge appeared. I've mentioned before that once upon a time, I played the flute.

When I was in the fourth grade, I went to an elementary school where there was no band class, just orchestra. You could choose your instrument (violin, viola, cello, bass) and begin taking classes in either the fifth or sixth grade, I don't remember which. I wanted to play the violin.

But the summer before fifth grade, my family moved, and my new school only offered band classes, starting in the sixth grade. So the summer before sixth grade, they had a day where you could go in and test some of the instruments and determine what you would like to play. I thought the saxophone sounded like fun.

My parents said no. My aunt had been in band when she was in high school, and was the first-chair flute player. So we already had a flute in the family, and my parents decided that a free instrument was better than one you had to pay for, so I was going to play the flute. (Not fair: my sister got to play the French horn even though we didn't already own one.)

I never particularly liked playing the flute. The best I ever got was second chair, for a few brief weeks, and I was ridiculously proud of that. The thing I liked about being in band was that all my friends were also in band. That made it a hard decision for me to quit my freshman year of high school, but my parents didn't want to keep paying for it if I wasn't going to practice, ever. Playing an instrument just wasn't my thing.

Did you play a musical instrument in school? Was it the one you wanted?

(You can click through to the LifeScouts website for other people's flute stories too!)

Beyond My Years

When I was four, my mom worked at a toy store. My sister and I would go to the store with her all the time, playing with the toys that were set out on the tables to distract young children while their parents shopped.

I distinctly remember one time, a woman came into the store and asked me how old I was. I lied and told her I was six.

Most of my early childhood, I felt like I needed to be older than I actually was. Not that I was in a hurry to grow up or anything, but it always felt like the older you were, the more likely you were to be taken seriously. And I always felt more mature than a lot of people my age anyway. And it's just a number, so what does it hurt?

Actual age six (the date on the pic is wrong). My dad knocked the mirror off his Firebird while backing out of the garage, and he thought it would be hilarious to make it look like I did it.

As an adult, I still find myself wanting to lie about my age. But while most adults seem to want to be younger than they are ... more often than not, I find myself lying and saying I'm older than I am. In my experience, people don't want to hear how young you are. And I still feel like — especially in business — that the older you are, the more your opinions and suggestions are taken seriously. Almost as if you're worthy of more respect because of something completely beyond your control.

So I think I need to start telling people I'm 56.

Do you ever lie about your age? What is your motivation?

How Time Flies!

How on earth have we already been married for an entire year?

It is completely unreal to me that it was a year ago that we stood in front of the church and promised the rest of our lives to each other. It seems like just yesterday I stepped into my wedding dress and danced with my new husband and laughed with everyone we love.

At the same time, it's kind of unreal that it has only been a year, because it's been such a whirlwind of a year. We've been busy with things like grad school, career changes, taking trips when we could and spending time with our families and friends. It's been a fantastic first year!

We're celebrating our anniversary tonight, with paper-themed gifts and a nice dinner and, obviously, CAKE!

If you're not married yet, what are you looking forward to most in your first year of marriage? Or if you are, what do you think is the best part of being married?

all photos by Danny Boyle Photography

Friday Flashback: The Blue Wall

My senior year of high school, I decided that my bedroom was really boring. It had taupe walls that I didn't really like at the time, and I thought it needed to be way more awesome. So I decided to paint a blue accent wall.

I recruited my best friends and had a painting party, and we sponge-painted that wall to beautiful perfection.

See that really big dark blob at the top of the wall? That was where I messed up. Then, so there wouldn't just be one big obvious screw-up blob, I had to add more blobs in random places.

I loved it so much!

Check out those rockin' tube lights!

The second I moved off to college, my parents painted the wall back to its original color. This room is now my dad's office. The dresser is in my mom's classroom and serves as a bookshelf.

I still love me a good accent wall though. We have two in our current house: a brown wall in the living room and a muted medium green one in the kitchen.

How did you decorate your high school bedroom?