Lucy's Guest Blog~

Quick update on Lucy's blog - it will show up eventually...I think. In typical Lucy (and teenagers all over the world) fashion - it is lost. Yup. She wrote it, showed it to me, it was awesome....and then she threw it somewhere in the black hole that is her bedroom and it has yet to reappear. So you are forced to wait until her room spits it back out or she rewrites it - whichever comes first.

And Jack Continues~

I haven’t blogged overly much about Jack – partly because I wanted to savor it all to myself, but mostly because I didn’t want to jinx myself or get your (my) hopes up over something that would probably eventually burn itself out. To be honest, that is what I thought would happen in the beginning. I thought it likely that Jack was just fascinated with the girl next door now that she is all grown up and has breasts and knows how to use them – and that fascination would fade over time once he realized that I am really that exact same girl next door with a bit of polish and life experience shining me up all pretty at first glance.

Instead…three months later…I find myself fascinated – with him, and with us, and with how smooth this is going. It is something that is so completely unexpected that at odd moments it still catches me by surprise. Jack? Really? I am dating….Jack? The same Jack that I had a crazy school girl crush on through the majority of my teenage years is now cuddled up on the couch rubbing my back? Where did this come from? It is slightly surreal….but very nice.

The very coolest thing about dating Jack (besides the fact that he is hot) is that I feel like everything is easy when we are together. Life is simple….no drama, no crazy, no worry. We grew up in very similar ways and sometimes when I walk into his house I feel like I have re-entered my childhood – except of course that we get to be the adults. But I immediately recognize that this is a world I am familiar with – I am comfortable and know where I fit and I have nothing to worry or stress over. Because I know his background, I already know he is someone that I am safe with – and safe is a very sexy word to a jaded divorcee. It's like I get all the exciting, butterfly-inducing feelings of falling in love with someone new combined with all the additional solid, comfortable feelings of knowing someone forever. Nice.

So life with Jack is good, very good. And although I am sure he is still fascinated that I have breasts, I am no longer worried that fascination is going to fade anytime soon or that his fascination is solely focused there. There is depth here and hopefully I will have many more Jack stories to share down the road.
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Coming Next…..the youngest member of my clan, Lucy, takes on a guest blog…tune in soon for words of wisdom from the teenage version of me!

Illness and Other Items~

I have been a bad blogger. You are all out there probably starving for news of my ultra exciting thirtysomething life….and I have failed you for the last two weeks straight. Here is what you missed:

I have been sick. In multiple, varied ways. Every time I thought I couldn’t possibly be sick another day – I was. Nausea, phlegm, sore throat, dizziness, headaches, and now….now I am left with this crazy cough that lingers like an unwelcome guest. None of it was so awful that I couldn’t function, but it was all just enough to make me consistently miserable. So for two weeks I have done the bare minimum. No extra cleaning, no extra socializing, no shopping or dinner dates or mosh pits. Every time I go to Jack’s house I fall asleep on the couch after whining that my head hurts. He probably is thinking in his head that he picked a defective girlfriend and is wondering if he should trade me in or if this is just a random one-time event. (For the record I am actually always whiny when I am sick – see? Aren’t you glad I didn’t blog through it? I saved you from myself.) However, I haven’t caught him rolling his eyes at my whining once yet – and he continues to feed me chocolate and pets my hair while I doze and he channel surfs, so I am thinking that I am going to have to keep him.

I bought a new phone even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with my old phone. However, Lucy needed a new phone so it did serve a purpose. (Lucy killed her phone when she jumped into the lake with it in her pocket – who knew you couldn’t do that?) So Lola, Lucy, and I did some switcheroo-ing and now everyone has a new phone….and I got my Droid X. I love everything about it – except texting on a touch screen keyboard which is taking a little bit of adjustment. I love it so much that I was staring at it happily as I rear-ended a mini SUV last week. Whoops.

Daylight savings time has motivated me to be healthier. This is simply because it gets dark so freaking early that I am likely to spend more evenings at home now than when there was pretty sunshine to run around in. So now my elliptical machine and I will become closer frenemies than we have been in a while. The goal is to let it abuse me six days a week. Stop laughing. You are supposed to be encouraging in the beginning. You can laugh at me later when I whine about my second stomach because I continue to ignore exercise and embrace all the Halloween candy I can find.

So that pretty much sums up the last two weeks: I have been sick, ate a lot of Halloween candy, hit some guy while mooning over my new phone, and continued to get cozy with Jack on his couch and watch a lot of TV. Consider yourself caught up and I will be back soon….right after I go find my hidden stash of Snicker bars.

Wedding Day...and Night~

So Lola's wedding was amazing, awesome, fantastic, and a bunch of other synonyms for 'great'. After all the insanity, everything wasn't perfect, but no one cared. We all let go of the stress and the worry the night before. I can tell you the exact moment it happened. After rehearsal dinner, my Mom and Lola and myself were driving home and Lucy called. My mom told her to hurry up and take a shower before bed. Lucy paused a moment and then said, "ok, but it IS my third shower today." We all busted out laughing like idiots and maybe just realized how crazy we were trying to manage everything - that Lucy was going to just take a third shower to avoid arguing with us. From that moment on, the weekend just rocked on forward with no real insanity.

My family is all truly happy to welcome The Cowboy officially to our family - and it was wonderful to see him and Lola exchange vows while trying not to cry. I like to see tears at weddings. Call me strange, but it makes me happy to see someone so in love that they can't physically hold it all in. I can't possibly tell the story of them, but when she gets back from her honeymoon, I will cajole Lola into telling her side of how she met The Cowboy and their wedding day fun.

For now, I will tell you my stories. I spent the majority of the evening dancing and socializing, with a healthy dose of drinking and cake eating thrown in. I did not trip once on my dress or over my heels, even after the drinking. I have fantastic pictures of all my family and friends. I hid behind the wedding cake because I did not want to be one of like three single adult females amidst a gaggle of children. (Lola thankfully only screamed my name a few times before giving up.) I had a drink spilled on me by someone that I didn't know who was so drunk that she was caught in the bathroom later washing an article of clothing in the sink. I slow danced with babies, did the polka with my mom and my aunts, and line danced to "Boot Scoot Boogie" with the bride. All in all a lovely, lovely evening. So lovely that when it was over I was too geared up to go home....thus beginning the second half of my story.

After the band said goodnight and Leah and I took care of our bridesmaid duties, we went to the pub with our dates and Stella. We both had zero shame in wearing our floor length gowns into the bar and a very happy DJ actually dedicated the song "Crazy Bitch" to the crazy dancing bridesmaid - in a good way of course. Leah decided to take the guys home after a short while because they were pretty drunk. Stella and I decided to stay and party on for a while. In the bar was a man that I have known almost my entire life. We had seen him when we were out on the sidewalk earlier in the evening and at some point in the evening, Stella and I ended up at the bar drinking and chatting with him and his friend. Now I have known him forever, but we were friends when we were kids. And by kids, I mean little kids. I haven't had a serious conversation with him in over a decade. It is a little surreal to have a heart to heart with someone that knows all your background, but none of your recent history. And I think I told him that about fifty times that night. So Stella starts chatting up his friend and we eventually hit up another bar with them and then go back to his house for munchies and rum. We were up until five in the morning- which I am sure contributed to my next day hangover. I think it likely that I will see him again, but have learned over time to never have expectations in this department, so time will tell. However it works out, I had an amazing, amazing wedding weekend with everyone. I have the best friends and family in the world and it was fantastic to be able to cut loose with all of them and to see Lola so freaking happy. Congratulations Lola baby! I love you and am so happy you snagged your Cowboy.

Lola and The Cowboy: Prelude

Congratulations to Lola and The Cowboy! They are officially hitched and happy! Yesterday was the wedding and subsequent bash and it was a seriously amazing day for all of us involved. I have a TON of stories that will not nearly fit into one blog. Also, I am honestly hungover today which makes me want to make this short and save the heavy lifting for a day when my eyes aren't crossed. Wedding hangovers sneak up on you because they are all day events. You don't keep track quite as well of what number you are on and all you have to do is walk past the bar and grab a new one. My problem was mixing. There was bubbly to toast with, lemonade drinks on the bus, shots when we entered the hall, wine with dinner, and whiskey....well, because it's whiskey. When I mix, I get sick. So today is recovery day. Which means you get just a few teases to keep you checking for the real thing. Tune in a few days from now for details of how someone was doing laundry in the bathroom, how Lucy ended up super clean, and how I ended up getting out of my bridesmaid dress....