She Has Been Weighed.....

She has been measured.....

And she has been found.......... Not so lacking.

Which is so not cool.

I met the Assistant this weekend, at F's Company Christmas Party. Worse yet? I LIKE her. She reminds me of CBF. We could be friends. She's not super skinny, in fact, poor thing has really large calves, and not in the pretty "I'm a mountain climber" kind of way either. And she made the mistake of encasing them in black tights. Made me think of sausage. But she's not ugly. I could see there being an issue. I could see them being a might too friendly. She's single. She lives at home, for now.


F said to me, "When I first saw her, I thought she was cute." She is.


The only thing I could think to deflect him from her?
"Is she GAY????" I asked. He looked taken aback. F is old school on the homosexual issue, it's a NO-NO.


I felt better.


But not relieved.

Trust Me

I trust F. I know he wouldn’t cheat on me. He’s not that kind of person. As I told my brother, whom I asked to be my eyes and ears and the judge of good taste at F’s bachelor party, (14 months in advance) it’s not F I don’t trust, it’s his friends I don’t trust.

So when F comes home last week and tells me he has an assistant, fresh out of college, and oh yeah, it’s a female, you’d think I’d be cool as a cucumber, right? Yeah, not so much. At first, I was fine. He couldn’t remember her name, how threatening could she be right? He’s since learned her name. “R graduated from University A.” “R worked at ABC before she came here.” “R asked a lot of questions. Not that I mind, it makes me think how to explain it to her. She asks a lot of questions.” “R is really smart. She’s picking things up quickly.”
But the one that bothers me the most? How impressed he is with her eating. F is a VERY fast eater. I’m always telling him to slow down. I’m still preparing my food and he’s wiping his plate clean. Twice now he’s made a point of telling me, “That R. She’s really different. She out ate me! I couldn’t believe it!” “We went to the taco place for lunch today. R? She out ate me! AGAIN!!! It’s the weirdest thing.” Said with a sense of wonder, and PRIDE.

She eats like a boy, is young and probably thin, and speaks his work language. I am none of these things. They spend all day together. She doesn’t tell him pick up his dirty clothes, she doesn’t sigh and roll her eyes because he left the bread open AGAIN, she doesn’t get upset when he uses her bath towel or doesn’t pick up the step-out towel. It puts me on edge a bit.

Bring on The Crazy.

Huh?

The last few days I've been listening to one of those "All Christmas, All the Time!!" music stations. They just played "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." And one line just happened to catch my ear:

There'll be parties for hosting

Marshmallows for toasting

And caroling out in the snow

There'll be scary ghost stories

And tales of the glories of

Christmases long, long ago

Ghost stories? Really? And Scary at that? During who's Christmas
does this happen? Cause, I'm thinkin, I don't want to meet these people. Are they referring to A Christmas Carol? Because it wasn't really scary. Although my favorite verison is the one with George C. Scott as Scrooge. And, who can forgot the Muppet's verison? I mean, really, it's not Christmas without Scrooge, but I wouldn't say it's a scary story we tell each other every year. I just find it to be a really weird reference. In a song about Christmas.

Figgie Pudding

I know the saying goes, “Make your our traditions when you get married.” However, I’m finding that hard to do when it appears F has no traditions from which to draw. They don’t appear to have any traditional food when it comes to the holidays. Most people know ham for Easter( I think I was served baked chicken), Turkey for Thanksgiving(which they do, but use some kind of pasta as stuffing instead of bread.) Ham or Turkey for Christmas (I think we had chicken and maybe some sort of beef.). When I ask him what they usually have I get an “I don’t know.” My family was very big on the food aspect of every holiday. Ham for Easter, Turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving, I think we had Turkey for Christmas as well or maybe even steak. The other night as I was finishing decorating the tree, F was downstairs doing laundry. Really? Laundry instead of Christmas music and colored lights? When I asked him what they did at Christmas time he said his mom did all the decorating and baking, that they really didn’t have any traditional things that they did. In my family? We did everything together for the holidays. Especially at Christmas. Dad would set up the tree, string the lights, very preciously, and then we would all put the ornaments on the tree. When it came time to bake, again, everyone was involved, except maybe dad. And there were certain cookies that got made every year. I love my family traditions. And I would love to add something to them for “our” family such as it is right now. If he has bad memories about the holidays, I wish he’d tell me so I’d stop asking or pushing for things to do. He always seems to back away when I ask about such things. From what he has told me, I don’t think his childhood was very childlike. At least not once they moved to the U.S.
How did/do you handle the combining of traditions with your squeeze?







So this weekend? I am forcing him to help me make Christmas cookies. Something I’ve never done by myself. And next weekend? He is helping make the traditional food item we usually only had at Easter, but now that we are all adults, we make for almost all holidays. A food item from my ethnic background, which I plan to introduce to HIS family.






Pray for me.

Who?

Tis the Season!
F and I got our first Christmas card. From my Aunt. Which included an invite to the family Christmas party. Addressed? To F. With me as a misspelled after thought. She's known me for 33 yrs, my name has NEVER changed, and yet, F, who has a decidedly non-Anglican name, she gets right. First and last. She can't get my first name right, and she didn't even bother to put my last name.
This has always been a sore subject for me. And because of it, I've always taken extra care to spell people's names correctly. I double check names on e-mails, letters, anything they may have put their name. Spelled the way THEY want it spelled, not the way other people think it should be spelled. And when we get married? I'm adding F's name to mine. I've been me forever, that's not gonna change.
I can only imagine how the tag on our wedding present will be addressed, probably just to F.

Things I love........

About F......

1. His willingness to pump my gas, in the rain, or in the winter wind even when he’s sick too.
2. When he caresses my hair.
3. When he smiles.
4. When he peers at me from the other room and then comes and sits with me because I’m crying about something tragic that happened on Gray’s.
5. When he makes dinner, even though he leaves the kitchen in a huge mess.
6. When he does the laundry, even though his sorting process is kinda odd; and spreads itself out over the entire basement floor.
7. The simple fact that 2 weeks before his company Christmas party he asked me what I was going to wear. And knew exactly what I was talking about when I said, “The Dress.”
8. When I was sick and he and his puppy dog eyes said to me, “I just want to cuddle you because you are sick, but I can’t, because you are sick.”(I don't like to be touched when I'm sick. Just let me veg in front of the TV with a box of Kleenex.)
9. That he'll back my car into the garage so I can just pull out in the morning.
10. When it's cold, he offers to go out and warm up my car, even though it's been in the garage all night.
11. After it snowed the other morning he came in and told me to take extra time to get to work, just like my mom does.
12. When he calls me his wife, even though I’m not yet.

Days

Yesterday the high winds knocked out our power at the office. Everyone was sent home early. Today, we have power, but nothing to power, for we have no internet! We can’t even connect to our local network, which means, I. have. absolutely. nothing. to. do. I’ve been here less than an hour and already have thought, Oh I can, Google, Yahoo, watch last night’s episode of Samantha Who? At least 20 times. And yet, I can do none of that. I’ve already cleaned out the office pile of news papers, from a week ago, so there is nothing to read. I am FREAKING OUT. Filing? I have none. Copies to be made? Nope. I have nothing to do to waste time. No surfing for bridesmaid’s dresses. No surfing for wedding dresses. No surfing for invitations. I can write in Word, mess around in Excel, put together a Power Point, but I have no need for any of these items, except Word, which I’m using to compose this Blog post. Which I can’t actually post until we have internet access. I can’t even call F and waste time chatting to him because he is out of the office on business! Maybe I’ll play the games that come with the computer. This is insane.


I just played a few hands of solitaire. I almost fell asleep. I wonder how long we have to wait before they decide to send us home.

We did not get to go home. We sat. And waited. And chatted. And played multiple hands of solitaire. And FINALLY 2 hrs before it was time to go home, we got our system back!

Yay internet!

Don’t ever leave me for that long again!

Needed.........4...Received.......15

While back East, I questioned MIL (mother-in-law) about having something from The Homeland incorporated into the wedding. She wasn’t very forthcoming. Her first answer was food, which F and I had pretty much ruled out. There really isn’t anything that is uniquely “Homeland”, so I’m still not sure what we are going to do, besides dancing, she did mention some sort of dance. The one thing she DID grip onto like a dog and a bone was the gift registry. She wants me registered, like the day after we got engaged. To me? That is one of the LAST things on my list. I don’t need people sending me shit (gifts) for the next 12 months that I have to keep track of. (I sound bitchy, I know, but really, F and I do not, DO NOT need any more stuff in the house. He FREAKS every time I bring something new in.)Apparently though, people are already questioning her. Or so I thought, at first. She kept telling me things that I needed to put on the registry. An electric tea pot so I can hot water for hours when company comes over. (No one comes over. And unless I’m birthing someone’s baby, they can wait 5 minutes for the water to heat on the stove.) An electric roaster just like the one F’s SIL (sister-in-law) has. The biggest I could find online was this 18 quart one. It cooks a 22 lb turkey. I swear the one she had was bigger, like 30 quarts, but whatever, when would I need that? Seriously? My aunt has one, I’ll borrow hers. Which is what I said to MIL, and she said, “You don’t want to be borrowing that forever, do you? Have one of your own.” The only thing I said we’d need was our good china. OMG, did her eyes light up! I missed the “WARNING! WARNING! DANGER! Will Robinson!” that came with those blazing eyes. As I was home sick recovering from Bronchitis caused by “it’s just an ear infection” pneumonia, MIL called. She was at Macy’s, who was having a sale, and she “found this china set on sale, Did I want it? I could look at it online to see if I liked it!”

Did I not predict this? She’s picking out our good china!?!?!!?!?

“No, NO, NOOOOOO!!!!! “ is what I said to F.

“I told her no. I said you’d go looking with her when we come back next month.”

“WHAT!!!! No NO NOOOOO!!!! I’m not ready to go looking! Jesus! I want to go looking with MY OWN MOTHER!”

He was silent, taken aback by my strong reaction. All my life I listened to my mother complain about her MIL and how often she crossed the line with butting into our lives, telling her how to raise us and what-not. Then as I got older and my friends started to get married I started hearing their horror stories about their MILs butting in and I decided, that if I ever got married, that my MIL would know there would be NO line crossing. My domain is mine, not hers. Stay out!
When we packed the car to come back home we left with a comforter, a frying pan big enough to fry a small child, a cake stand without a lid (“What good is it without a lid?” said Eldest sister when I told her.) a metal fruit dish and 2 sets of bath towels for “company”.

As MIL is loading me up with all these “goodies” she informs me that she buys everything in twos, one for SIL and one, for me.

I wonder how much it would cost to drive a U-Haul over 500 miles?

God Bless the Mid-West

Things FIL (father-in-law) said during our visit back East…..

1. To F’s mother: “Why is the baby still sleeping? .....Why can’t I wake him up?”
2. To F’s mother after coming home from work: “Do you have any food? I’m hungry!” (no hi honey, no, I’m home! Nothing pleasant at all.)
3. To me while discussing the eating issues caused by not having a gall bladder (with F’s mother, NOT FIL) “You can’t eat fat! Didn’t they tell you not to eat FAT!?!?!?!”
4. To F’s mother about taking the sick baby shopping with us: “You’re going to take the baby out with you in the cold? He’s sick!” “You’re taking too long to get ready. You’re going to be late picking up C from day care. You’d better not be late!” (Notice, no offer to watch the sick baby, OR to pick up C from daycare. Needless to say, we took a sick 1yr old and a hungry, tired 6yr old shopping at the mall with us.)
5. To all of us while we were sitting at the dinner table waiting for him: “I’ll sit down when the food is on the table!”
6. To F when F tried to serve him by putting food on his plate(we were doing ‘pass your plate’ to make sure everyone got HOT food) “NO! I’ll fill my OWN plate with food. THANK YOU!!!!”
7. And the best for last. To F while discussing their side of the wedding list: “…..I don’t care how much it costs you!! $50, $60, $70 or $80!!!!! WHAT makes YOU think ANYONE wants to come to YOUR DAMN WEDDING ANYWAY?!?!?!?!?!?”

And people wonder why I always get sick when after we've been there. This time? Bronchitis.

The baby had Pneumonia or as MIL(mother-in-law) told us, "No no, it's not pneumonia, it's just an ear infection." as the baby coughed that wet nasty mucusy cough.

Um, yeah.

Back East.....Back Seat

We are going back east to visit F’s family and his friend who is home on leave. This is the first visit back since we got ENGAGED, and honestly? I am PETRIFIED. I’m afraid that there’s going to be a “last minute” engagement party sprung on us, at his church, and that? So not cool. And in more than a “OMG, this is sooooo the wrong outfit for an engagement party!!!!” stand point. When I broached the topic with him, about this maybe happening? Yeah, it didn’t help that his answer was, “No, that’s not going to happen. *pause* But if there are Homeland People at the Birthday party, do not, DO NOT answer them if they ask what our living arrangement is. Just pretend you didn’t hear them.”

Um? Sorry? Really? People I don’t know from Adam (yes I sometimes talk like a 90yr old) would actually ask me if I’m living in sin? And you want me to PRETEND I didn’t hear them? Surely, you jest? So of course, all this morning I’ve been running in my head things I could say that would let them know they are crossing the line with the American Girl. And of course, I’ve also been practicing the tone of voice in which to say it as well. Because as my mother always told me, “It’s not WHAT you say. It’s HOW you say it.” And really, ladies, we all know this, right? (insert your ME-OW here).

1. Polite smile, slightly condescending tone, “Why do you ask?”
2. Puzzled look, bewildered tone, “Who are you?” Their answer. Another bewildered tone, “Hmmmmmm, well I don’t really see how that is any of your business?”
3. Polite smile, pat on the arm, slightly condescending tone, “In this matter, you need not concern yourself.”
   

Or am I going about this completely wrong? Should I follow his advice and ignore them? And what happens if they go even further and start asking when we’ll be having kids?

1. Horrified look, “Don’t you think we should get MARRIED First? I mean, that’s how it works where I come from!”
2. Polite smile, “Well, we’re not planning on having any kids until those that keep asking us are willing to be financially responsible for them. How much can I put you down for?”
3. Puzzled look, “Are you asking me about my ovulation cycle?”
4. Completely serious look, “Not until we can find a proper surrogate. I don’t need to be bothered with all that pregnancy stuff.” Look them up and down, “Are you offering us your uterus?”

What do you think? How would you/have you handled these situations?

Huh?

The lady with the Crocs has dyed her hair, Purple. Ok, maybe more plum, but still. She’s in her sixties. She works in an office. She’s been wearing her slippers around the office lately. Her hair is plum. Last week, in front of a large group of people she comments rather loudly to another co-worker,

“WHOA GIRL!!!! You sure are GRAY around here!!!!” while flicking her finger back and forth along her forehead hair line.

This isn’t the first time she’s called attention to something like that. She’s done it to me too, when I was going through my red phase. She told me my hair looked plum, like hers. She's also pointed at a PMS induced breakout on my face and said in front of people, at a meeting, "What's that???" She’s also asked a co-worker if she would jump if she pinched her butt. She’s also the one in this story, about walkers and common stall "#2"ers.
This is what I spend my days with. And F wonders why I drink.

Losing My Mind

I’m losing my mind people. I have one co-worker who keeps telling me that ever since F came into my life, I’ve not been the same DH. Ever since he’s asked me to marry him, I’ve been stressed out. Most times I don’t even realize it. But sometimes it’s blatantly clear. Forgetting that we are getting married. Being unable to put together a simple little announcement e-mail. Zoning out of conversations at almost every turn. Forgetting to do simple steps in my job. Burning dinner. The list goes on, probably on to stuff that I don’t even realize. And when I feel the stress, I feel it full on. I feel dazed and confused. Tired. Drained. I just don’t know how to combat it. More sleep? I try. Eating better? Well, not so much, because I am a stress eater. Most days I just want to curl up with F and sleep the world away.
That’s not going to happen anytime soon. Especially with the trip back East to contend with soon. How can I sleep knowing his mother is in the kitchen, making us breakfast? Talking about me in the Homeland language? His father’s dislike of me speaking volumes, while he actually says nothing to me, at all. How can I not be stressed? I’m taking an extra day off to recover from it all. I need a drink just thinking about it.

On a brighter note my Eldest sister and her husband have finally gotten it through their heads that F and I are trying to do the wedding on a tight budget. They offered to pay for the cake.
I’m speechless.
But still stressed out.

I'm A DARK Blond

I am a blond, but I'm what the hair people call a Dark Blond. So dark in fact that sometimes I say I have very light brown hair. This apparently however doesn't stop me from having blond moments.
Last night as F and I were passing out candy there was lull in the kids, so we were chatting about different things.

He turns to me and says, "Next year we probably won't be here to pass out candy."

"What? Why not?!?!?!?"

He just stared at me for a good 2 minutes before it dawned on me, "OOOOOOOOH! Yeah, right!!!"

He rolled his eyes as I giggled and made him kiss me.

In case you're as clueless as I am, we'll be on our HONEYMOON. Because we'll have just gotten, MARRIED. 7 days before. Yeah. Right. DUH.

All I ask for is your Support

My sister-in-law is being very helpful when it comes to wedding suggestions. She brings me favors from other people's weddings, pictures of their dresses, a website to a photographer who she thought was cool, and several other things. Recently she told me of the idea of having a smaller version of the cake you want and then having a sheet cake served to guest as a way to cut cost. I told her that I had heard about that and a few other ideas I'd been thinking about. One was having a fake cake, with a real piece for the cutting and the rest would be Styrofoam or whatever, and everyone would be served sheet cake. My Eldest sister called me "a red necked hill billie" while her husband told me that idea was "cheap". Be that as it may, I think they could have expressed their feelings in a different manor. Then my B-i-L says to me, "You only get married once. Have a REAL cake." To which I responded, "Yes, but I don't want to be paying for it for the rest of my life either." They just don't seem to get it, F and I do not have a lot of money. I have some serious credit card debt that is holding me back, and I don't know, a MORTGAGE. They seem to think the money is free flowing. I feel that every time I bring up something about the wedding, they gang up on me, telling me I'm being "cheap".
Is it so much to ask that my family support me? Seriously, is it? I don't want my memories of my family's involvement of my wedding to be a bad one, and so far, that's all I've got.

Things I Worry About

• That I don’t have any real friends, even though I know I do.
• That my mom will pass away or get really sick just before the wedding.
• That F’s mom or dad will pass away or get really sick just before the wedding.
• That I will be in credit card debt til the day I die.
• That my nagging about picking up after himself will make F hate and resent me.
• That we’ll never sell my house.
• That I’ll get sick on our Honeymoon.
• That I’ll not have Bridal Body 2008 for the wedding.
• That I’ll tell F’s dad off for being a racist bigot.
• That I’ll never find a wedding dress.
• That if I do find THE DRESS, my sister will be angry with me for not letting her make it.
• That F will want to raise the kids in his religion that I think is horribly sexiest.
• That we won’t be able to have kids.
• That there will be something wrong with our kids.
• That I’ll keep messing up dinner in someway every night for the rest of our married life. I seriously think this would change if we had a different stove!
• That The Crazy will be unbearable for poor F when I have whacked out pregnant hormones.
• That the global warming is as bad as they say it is and our kids will be doomed.
• That F will get a job far-far-away and I’ll have to move away from my family.
• That my sister’s cancer will come back.
• That I’ll lose my job.
• That I wouldn’t be able to find a new job.
• That you’ll all think I’m crazy because of what I worry about.

365

Today is officially one year to the day that I will become Mrs F. Actually Ms. D. H-F. I'm keeping my last name and adding his. He's ok with it. 365 days, let the nightmares begin. Or continue as the case may be. Last night I dreamt it was THE DAY and I had nothing, NOTHING done. As I stood in what I presume in my dream to have been the basement bathroom of our church, with pink tile and yellow sink and poor lighting( i don't even know if our church has a basement, let alone a basement with a pink and yellow bathroom in it), I stared in the mirror horrified that they wanted to do my hair which I hadn't washed yet. "I can't get married with greasy hair! I just can't! " Somehow I managed to shower? In the church basement bathroom? Anyway, with fresh hair I prepared to have my hair done, only to look down at the old rusty curling iron, as it slide into the sink of water. "Is is broken??!!? Won't I be electrocuted if we use it while it's wet?!?!"
All the while trying to tell myself that the things that hadn't been finished wouldn't matter, no one would notice. I don't even know what the things were that I hadn't finished. I just had an overwhelming feeling that they were all major wedding things that should have been done months before hand.
364 more weird, stress inducing dreams to go.

Things I’ve Done in the Last 24 hrs

1. O.D.ed on allergy meds which had F sending me promptly to bed. I was in a haze the rest of the day. To the point I didn’t hear my neighbor say Hi to me when I was sitting out in the yard.

2. Made a slightly raw dinner. F really needs to speak up on these things.

Me: "Hmmm this is kinda raw.”
F: “Yeah.” (after he had finished it all)
Me: “Why didn’t you say
anything?”
F: “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Me: “That’s nice, but I don’t want you eating raw food!”

3. Dyed my hair to cover up the gray.

F: “Did you color your hair a different color?”
Me: “I used a different brand. Why? Does it look darker?”
F Nods his head and wrinkles his nose in dislike.

4. Slept in the guest room because apparently coming down from an Allergy med high makes me restless and cranky.

5. Packed, and then forgot my lunch on the table.

6. Touched up the polish on my toes. Yes, I do keep it in my draw at work. O.P.I.(Chicago Champagne Toast) is the best polish around, and is extremely expensive. It is totally the brand I hope to use for The Wedding.

7. Ate lunch outside and debated not coming back into the office.

8. Checked out Say Yes to the Dress website after watching it on TLC this weekend and crying because my mom may not get to go dress shopping with me. And gagging on the fact that these girls’ DRESS budget is my WEDDING budget.

9. Was disgusted that on website above the dress they said is right for my body type is akin to the T.P roll cover my grandma knitted for us. Can you say, Gone with the Wind?

10. Chatted with co-workers about various un-work related topics.

11. Wrote this post.

PMS makes me Bitchy

Every girl knows, every man dredges it. It's PMS. Sometimes it hits early, sometimes it hits late. Sometimes I'm an emotional tornado, other times I'm fine.
F, and just about everybody, is extra irritating at this time. The littlest things set me off.
For instance. F wants to go to this event and invite Second Eldest and her Man. He's been talking about it for over a week. However, did F do any of the research needed in aiding the decision to attend the event? Why no. So what follows is the conversation we had:

"Can you look it up?"

"You didn't look into it?"

"No. So will you look it up? After all, you just sit at a computer all day." (that trips my trigger every time.)

"You've been talking about this all week, why didn't you look into it?"(I'm starting to steam.)

"I don't know. Just look it up, I can hear you typing at your computer now." (It's called multi-tasking, you should try it sometime!)

"No, look it up when you get home."

"Fine."

"Fine."

So tell me, is this a guy thing? Every time I see an event that I want to attend I look into. Cost, time, location. I print stuff out, map it, whatever.

When he sees an event he wants us to attend? He asks me to do all the leg work. While at work. Even though we have the Internet, at home.

GRRRRRRRR.

You're a Jackass, and You? You're Disgusting.

• To the Jackass with the big fancy expensive car, the off ramp has two lanes in it. If you'd taken a moment to notice, the cars were lining up either on the right or the left, to make their turns. You however, decided to plop your fancy butt smack dab in the middle of the lanes, hence blocking those of us who were making a right turn. You also failed to notice that the cars were lining up behind you, in 2 very distinct lines.
  You're a Jackass.

• To the other Jackass who took lessons from the first Jackass, again, there are 2 left turn lanes onto the one way street. If you pull into the far right left turn lane, it means you are turning into the far right lane. Thank you so much for pulling into the far right left turn lane only to cut me off by turning to the left lane. Hence making a diagonal turn, that if I'd turned at the same time, which is the point in having 2 turn lanes, for traffic flow; you would have hit me smack in the middle of my passenger's side. Effectively caving in the entire side of my car with your SUV.
  You're a Jackass.
  
• To the Dude standing on the corner holding the "CELL PHONES! TWO BLOCKS WEST!!!!" Sign for some random cell phone store, I don't mind you b-bopping(yes, I said b-bopping) to the music you hear in your head, and I'm glad you have an honest job and aren't out there being a criminal. However, it IS criminal to be standing on a busy street corner, with a hard on, calling attention to yourself.
  You"re Disgusting.

Some Happy, Some not so Happy

Some Happy

• Last night after I’d just crawled into bed with a snoring F, my phone rang. I ran to the other room having recognized my Second Eldest sister’s boyfriend’s ring tone. She called to wish F a belated birthday. As we were chatting she says, “Well I also have to tell you, G(her bf) proposed.” Stated most matter of factly, without a hint of the glee I had when I teared up when I told them F and I were engaged. I could, however, hear the smile in her voice.
  
  

“OMG!!!!” That is so awesome! What did you say?” (Honestly, I doubt she would’ve called to say she said No. Would any of us engaged people have made the calls to tell people we said No? And yet, everyone asks anyway.)

“I’m not certain.”

“WHAT? You’re not certain what you said, or you said you weren’t certain?!?!?”
She laughs, “I said, Are you serious????” (In the retelling to F, he comments at this point, Must be a family thing.)

“HAHAHA, I said something similar to F. So it’s not just you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. So?”

“ I told him I wasn’t use to the idea, and to ask me again in a half hour.”

“Second Eldest!!!!!!”

“I know! I know! But it just took me completely by surprise. So he waited and asked me again.”

“And! So? Am I getting a new B-i-L???????!!!!”

“YES!”(Actually she dragged out the telling a little longer than that, she loves to get people all riled up, I was totally on the edge of my seat.)
At this point I’m so giddy, we both are. Everyone in the family has been waiting for them to get married. He’s really great. WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than her other 2 ex-husbands. Yeah, 3rd time? Total Charmer!!! So this is so totally awesome!

Some Not so Happy

• I’m totally jealous of the fact that they got engaged, in Maui. On.The.Beach.In.Maui.
  I’m also feeling a little of my bridal thunder being silenced. Yes, I am a little selfish, it’s my wedding next year, not hers! She’s done this already. Twice. I’m a horrid person.
  
  

Some Happy

• Now we can plan and look at some stuff together! She’s not going whole hog this time, but still, FUN FUN!!!
  

Some Not so Happy

• When I e-mailed my mother to get a time frame for when she’d be back from down south, where she winters, Thanksgiving or Christmas? She told me that since her BF’s cancer is back, she may not be coming home for the holidays in order to stay down there and help care for him.
  I wanted to go wedding dress shopping while she was home during that time.
  When I got home, I cried. F said I could go with my sisters.
  I told him it just wasn’t the same.
  *Sigh*
  
  

Some Happy

• I get to go Wedding Dress Shopping!!! Hell, I’ve already got the shoes all picked out! hehehe