Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The married life.

Perhaps the most exciting part of getting married, other than actually being married, is the presents. My goodness, there are a lot of presents. We are soso thankful that so very many people were kind enough to help us out and give us things to start our lives together and make our little creaky antique-ish apartment a home.

You can barely walk through the apartment. There are gifts and empty boxes and tissue paper (and clothes....our version of unpacking is emptying our suitcases on the floor) everywhere. And they're still coming. Yesterday we came home to a giant Bed Bath and Beyond box sitting on the front step. It was a set of stainless steel pots and pans and cookware. You should've seen how excited we were about it. It was the last thing we really needed but hadn't gotten yet. The mac'n'cheese I made for dinner the previous night had black flecks of Teflon all throughout it. Our old cookware had seen better days. Sterling got to unwrapping all the pots and pans, while I made homemade (well, semi homemade--I put together things Sterling's mom sent us) soup ASAP. It was heaven-sent.

Sterling's favorite present was by-far the automatic hot chocolate maker. He had hot chocolate three times yesterday. It would've been four, but he didn't have a Thermos to take some to the library with us last night. So, of course, we stopped and bought him a Thermos on the way home so that this problem would be avoided in the future. He's a happy boy. Now if he could only learn to clean up after himself when making said hot chocolate.

While we're on the topic, I must share a little story, incriminating that husband of mine. This morning, I was sitting in the Commons on campus, studying before class. I see Sterling in the little convenience store about 15 feet away. I call him, but he doesn't feel his phone vibrate. He calls me back a few minutes later and informs me of this 'new cinnabun drink' in that store.

The poor, cute guy doesn't know that those convenience store cappuccino makers serve only flavors of cappuccino, unless it clearly states 'Hot Cocoa'. "But it doesn't taste like coffee!" Yeah, they never do, honey. Yes, it was an accident, but I couldn't help being irritated that I am 8 months free of coffee after drinking it multiple times a day for the last seven years, and he, who grew up living the Word of Wisdom, couldn't stay away from it.

I guess that's what I get for not rolling out of bed to make him a Thermos of hot chocolate to take to school. Oh, I just love him. Even if our sheets are stained with hot chocolate spills and the kitchen counters always have that sugary powder on them and I fall into the toilet because he always leaves the seat up.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Wedding: Part 1.

I haven't blogged for two weeks. I guess that's what happens when you get married and go crazy and go to Vegas and have Thanksgiving and life happens. So here is the first of probably many posts about all the festivities.

So, we're married. And it's wonderful. It was crazy stressful and I cried plenty of times and my face is still very broken out from the stress (nice, right?) and few things went as planned, but it was still wonderful. At the end of the day, it was our wedding and we're husband and wife and we couldn't be happier. It was perfect in that messy way of perfection that probably only a wedding could be described as.

Of course, there was a giant blizzard the day before our wedding, which pretty much paralyzed my Californian family with fear, which in turn freaked me out. But I think they eventually realized that cars still drive, weddings still happen, and life goes on normally when it snows in Idaho. There are a number of people who swear they will never visit me again in Idaho, regardless of the circumstances, unless it's August, but that's okay. Sterling already agreed to drive to Californian every Christmas, so it all works out. Let's just hope I never have a baby or surgery or any life-changing event during the months of September-June.

The wedding ceremony was perfect, which helped me relax a ton. Sterling was crying as I walked down the aisle, which was by far my favorite part of the whole wedding. I can't even describe how that feels. Then after that there was a blur of hugging people, and pictures, and glitter everywhere (that's what happens when your bouquet is wrapped in glittery gold ribbon...oops.).

To be continued...

Monday, November 14, 2011

Bridezilla?

The super anxious weekend is over. I made it through. Now there's one anatomy exam, a few hours of work, an anatomy lab, a couple wedding crafts, and a whole bunch of packing left until our trip, which will mark the start of the wedding festivities. Oh, goodness.

I still don't even know if I'm going to wear a veil, or what my father-daughter dance song will be, or which vehicle we're driving down.

I finally showed Sterling his ring this morning. I love that he's so excited to wear it. I need to get mine cleaned so that it's super sparkly for the big day. Why didn't I remember to buy some cleaner on one of my million WalMart trips?

This weekend I discovered that half of our gold pumpkins for the centerpieces are rotten. Minor freakout. Raced to Safeway, bought 20 more, and now my refrigerator is stuffed with, oh say, 40 mini pumpkins.

What if our flowers don't look good? Or arrive dead or broken or something? What if nobody shows up to the wedding? What if I end up offending someone at my bridal shower because I told my friends that it's okay to buy me lingerie? What if we don't have enough time on Friday to do everything we need to do? What if my hair looks like crap?

Um...yeah...I think that whole panicky-bride thing is starting to kick in.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

I don't do well with waiting.

How could I pass up the opportunity to blog about how we're getting married a week from today? I couldn't. We'll be in glorious Southeast Idaho in four days. Reunited with some of my favorite people in 5. We'll be married in 7. Vegas in 8. Stuffing ourselves with delicious Thanksgiving food at the Stoddard residence in 12.

I think we're ready. I mean, event-wise. I think we have everything for this big she-bang of a wedding. There's no question whether we're ready to be married or not. We've got that one figured out at least.

As expected, I'm super anxious. I've been jamming in last-minute wedding crafts to keep myself busy and sane. We got a rolling pin in the mail as a wedding present the other day, so I bought stuff to make my first entirely homemade pie. That's my plan for today. Yesterday we said goodbye to RedBox and hello to Hastings, so we rented Atlas Shrugged, 2 episodes of Big Love, and 6 episodes of Friends last night. And finished them all. Must go rent more today. Keeping busy, keeping busy.

Is it too early to start packing?

I don't know how I'm going to make it through the next four days. I'm foreseeing a lot of baking involved. Did someone say baklava? Popovers? Homemade bread? Yes, let's put on 10 pounds before our wedding. Brilliant idea, Kelli.

Save me.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

thoughts.

I am one of the least patient people there are. We have 6 days until we get to drive to our beloved Southeast Idaho and be reunited with our families and friends and start all this wedding chaos. I still have a number of wedding craft projects to do before then. But I want these dang six days to hurry up and go by. Waiting is driving me absolutely crazy.

These anatomy and chemistry classes I'm killing myself with this semester are pretty much useless toward my new major if I transfer to ISU next year, as hopefully planned.

All week I've felt like I'm coming down with something, yet it hasn't entirely struck yet. I'm still praying it's just sleep deprivation that can be fixed this weekend. No way in hell will I be sick for my wedding, honeymoon, and Thanksgiving.

I feel like I need a new wardrobe. All I ever wear are jeans or leggings and cardigans or sweatshirts. And boots. Boots everyday. I love boots. But still. I want to be one of those girls that look like they've spent actual time planning an outfit. Not just thrown on whatever clean and warm thing in her closet. I bought a cute hat today (don't tell Sterling I'm spending money on clothes again), in hopes of making myself look and feel trendier. The only hats I've ever worn were baseball hats during my softball-playing days.

This is my first day off of work after 10 days straight. Hallelujah.

Yesterday, I wrote a post in my online Sports Nutrition class discussion about how vitamins and supplements do nothing for you except give you really expensive pee. I thought it sounded pretty witty and intelligent, but nobody has replied. My ego is a little bruised :(

Today should be a good day, but I'm just in a funk. I don't want to be at school, I don't want to go to my chem lab, I don't want Sterling to have their guys night tonight. I want this semester to be over, I want to be lying in bed, unwrapping wedding presents that UPS keeps dropping off, I want to be watching crappy reality TV shows, I want to be eating things I shouldn't be.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Ladies, please.

 I just plain do not understand women these days. I don't. I feel like an old grandma sometimes, wanting to run around throwing big sweaters around half-naked girls. I mean, I saw some strange outfits in California. SCC, my old college, had a wide assortment of people. It was positioned smack-dab between Broadway, neighborhoods of nice old people, and the ghetto. I saw real, legitimate prostitutes on multiple occasions, I'm fairly certain. Goodness, my high school even was pretty extreme! We had people doing hardcore drugs in the bathroom and making babies on the football field!

So why am I seeing more skanky girls here in IDAHO?! It's like the most unexpected culture shock. I expected hicks and Mormons. Not naked girls around every turn. There's a layer of ice on my windshield, and girls are walking around campus in miniskirts. Not even normal miniskirts, even. You usually can't even tell if they're actually wearing a skirt, or if their shirt is just an inch or two longer than normal.

Here's a hint, ladies: if I can tell, just by walking ten feet behind you, exactly what kind of underwear you are wearing, or hoochier yet, that you're not wearing underwear, I think perhaps you should cover up. And maybe put your V away. Just an idea.

It's a scary world we live in.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

birth control?

I have to start this off by saying that we're getting married in TWO weeks! So crazy. I can't wait. I can't wait to be in SE Idaho, to have that studly guy be my husband, to see all my family and friends, to go to Vegas, and to have Thanksgiving with my wonderful in-laws. I want it all to start happening now. Alright, I'm done with the wedding rant.

In other news, I'm no longer dying to make a cute baby. I'm okay with waiting until I'm 35 now. Taking care of 7-year-old twins 24 hours a day has quieted my aching womb. They're a handful.

Yesterday, as I picked them up from school, the first thing I had to deal with was a tantrum (ON THE CLASSROOM FLOOR) over three homework problems. The rest of the night was full of tantrums and fights over everything I asked her to do or said no to. No, you cannot play the Wii. Tantrum. No, we can't have dinner yet, the pizza hasn't been delivered yet. Tantrum. Eat your dinner. Tantrum. Brush your teeth. Tantrum.Go to the bathroom before bed. Tantrum. Bedtime. Tantrum. Really?

This morning was full of tantrums, fighting, and lying. My patience was pretty much gone. Then we had ice hockey practice to go to. Um, do you know how much gear is involved with that sport? Confusing gear, might I add. My kids are never playing hockey. So trying to get all this said gear on a 7 year old in the middle of a tantrum while her brother is sneaking around, doing things I specifically told him not to do, while distracting his sister, making my job even harder? No thanks. Then once we finally got to the ice rink, she asked where her hockey stick was. Um....at home. So I race back to the house and grab all the kid-sized sticks I can find and shove them into my car, only to get back to the rink and see that someone lent her a stick already.

And now I'm letting them watch TV so I can get a break, which I probably shouldn't be doing. My mom has always told me that my own kids won't be so difficult, because they'll be mine. And I'll have raised them on my terms. She always assures me it's not the same as taking care of other peoples children. I sure hope she's right. I don't think I want to find out for sure for a long time though.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Irrational.

Fact: I just took the most paranoid shower of my life. I'm pretty paranoid in general tonight, actually.

The parents of the kids I babysit are both out of town, so I'm staying with the kids all weekend long. The kids go to bed at 7:30pm. I don't. So the remainder of hours are spent with me being startled by every single little noise, checking to make sure all four doors are locked every 20 minutes, and darting around, being sure to check behind me when I walk and fully scope out every room I enter. And my shower? Uh, yeah...it was spent wiping the steam off of the shower door every five seconds so that I could keep an eye on the (locked) door, making sure no burglar or murderer or whatever snuck in. I even convinced myself that the pizza delivery guy must have known that it's just me here, so he's going to break in and kidnap me or kill me or whatever things bad people do.

Sterling is supposed to come keep me company for awhile, but he's playing Settlers of Catan at a friends house, and it's taking forever. And I know I shouldn't be, but I'm getting pretty angry. Shouldn't he be protecting me? Or, if nothing else, protecting my sanity?

I'm not good at this alone thing. At least, not alone in other peoples big houses. I'm perfectly fine in my own apartment usually, because it's inside a building and has more than one little lock on the door, and it's on the second floor, so I'm not worried about looking out the window to see someone staring back at me. Oh gosh, that terrifies me.

Yes, I know I'm being ridiculous. But it's really hard to stop.

So in the meantime, I'm going to lay in  bed, continuing to jump at every noise and being mad at my fiance.

divorce.

This talk by Dallin H. Oaks popped up into my Twitter newsfeed this morning. I like it.

http://lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/divorce?lang=eng

Divorce scares me. It probably scares most people, actually. Whenever Sterling and I watch movies that show a couple in a really bad relationship, I get sad and Sterling knows that's his cue to hug me and assure me that we'll never end up like that.

I love my parents. They're amazing people. Things were definitely rocky though when I was growing up. Not all the time, but there were distinct bad periods. I remember that I sometimes used to wish my parents would get divorced. Not that I necessarily wanted them apart, but I wanted the fighting and the hard times to stop. I know they considered getting one many times. At the worst point, they even separated for awhile. But they worked through it, and I can see now that they're better now than they used to be. They handle their problems differently.

I'm glad they stayed together. Besides the obvious reasons, I believe it benefited me in how I will handle my marriage. I pray that Sterling & I will never have to go through all the problems my parents did, of course. But I learned what commitment truly is. It was instilled in me that you don't just leave someone because you have problems. I know how marriage is supposed to work. If my parents were able to get through all the struggles they did, then we can deal with arguing over things like how loud I eat or Sterling being messy or how much money we spend.

This is cake.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Diet is a dirty word in our house.

Last night, Sterling and I decided we were going on a 'diet' for these last two weeks until our wedding. We just want to feel the best possible on November 19th. I refuse to actually call it a diet though, because I'm morally against dieting. Diet=deprivation, which is never healthy. I know, too many nutrition classes have made me like this. But still, I whole-heartedly believe diets are essentially bad and will speak out against them whenever possible.

Sterling, knowing this, treaded lightly when approaching the topic last night. "If it's only for two weeks, it really can't do any harm" and "Tuna and sriracha and edamame and veggies! That's totally healthy!" were some of his points. However, eating only the foods he mentioned is not exactly an ideal picture of health. So we agreed to just eat really healthy for the next two weeks. Sterling thinks this means cutting out all sugar. And starches. And pretty much everything but tuna and veggies.

He doesn't quite believe me when I say that cutting out things entirely will make him crave them even more, and make it very likely for him to fall off of his 'diet' wagon. But I think that these rules will loosen up a bit in a day or two, and we can just eat the healthy foods I buy and decide we should eat. I figure if we cut out desserts and the mac and cheese I've been making for lunch lately, we should be fine and see improvements. I've been too busy to cook lately, and that's been a little detrimental to us. However, busy has meant I've been eating less in general, which is good, but I should really incorporate some food of actual substance.

Today, I picked up some almonds for us to snack on in the library between classes. I also bought a chocolate milk for myself. The little bottles of milk they sell in convenience stores are almost always lowfat. It's hard to find full-fat milk in anything but the half-gallons and such at grocery stores. Even restaurants and coffee shops and the like use lowfat milk as their standard. Which is why I assumed this milk would also be lowfat. And it had 'No High-Frutose Corn Syrup' on the label. Seems like a safe, healthy bet, right?

So, so wrong. There was 540 calories in a 16oz bottle. It was whole milk. And though there was indeed no high fructose corn syrup in it, the 2nd ingredient on the label is regular corn syrup. Um, I don't care if it's high fructose or not--I don't want syrup in my milk at all, thank you.

So I talked Sterling into helping me drink the milk. It was against his no-sugar rule, but the nice boy did it for me. And I hope that nice boy can help me with this whole 'diet'-willpower thing, because ever since he reminded me this morning that we're eating healthy, I've been craving nothing but tortellini and Starbucks' hot chocolate. See? I'm the perfect example of why diets are evil.