Royally Exhausted

Yes, I got a case of royal wedding fever. I’m one of those crazies that watched the wedding in the middle of the night. I slept, don’t get me wrong. I was asleep by 10:30pm Pacific Daylight Time, and woke up at 1:30am to watch the festivities. I stayed awake until 5:30am, when they kissed then promptly fell back asleep. Another alarm was supposed to wake me up for work, but I kept hitting the snooze button and ended up being 20 minutes late for work. My boss is cool, though, and since I wasn’t majorly disruptive and got all my work done, all was good.

Like most women, as a little girl I dreamed of being a princess. For me, it was about the gowns, carriages, and the formality. So, like most women, I was most eager to see The Dress. While waiting for that, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Silly Hat Parade while swigging Diet Coke. Most amusing was Princess Beatrice of York, who mistakenly thought she was at the Insanely Crazy Hat Parade known as Royal Ascot:

Source: vanityfair.com via Candi on Pinterest



The birds were a freebie lovingly provided by Mother Nature.

After the Silly Hat Parade, the world finally caught a glimpse of The Dress, and immediately the world drew comparisons to Grace Kelly’s dress:


And it had sleeves! Soon, brides will be able to find their dream wedding dress at David’s Bridal without feeling naked, which is how I feel in strapless designs – like I’ve left the house without a shirt on. Also, while her bouquet was very pretty, I thought it could have been a bit more … more.

Despite the beautiful dress, I do have to say that I liked Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding dress more. Maybe it’s just the Swede in me, but I like simpler designs without so much lace:


So the wedding was great fun to watch. It’s not every day that one gets to view a royal wedding, and since these sort of things don’t happen too often (at least, not the ones that are broadcast live to the entire planet), I think I can safely say that I’ll be watching the next big royal wedding, whenever that may be.

For an excellent wedding wrap-up, read this story in the Daily Mail.

The T-Shirt

Mister likes to wear t-shirts around the house. He has a huge collection of these shirts, nearly 40 of them in his favorite color – black. He also has dozens in other colors that he rarely, if ever, wears, so we won’t talk about those here today. I want to talk about the black ones.

Since Mister is so fond of his t-shirts, they’re pretty much all he wears unless he’s leaving the house. As a result, some of them have started wearing a bit thin in places. I’d even go so far as to say that a few of his shirts are air-conditioned. Observe:

T-shirt before

This kinda drives me nuts a little bit because he has so many shirts yet he can’t just toss the holey ones and work his way down the pile. He just keeps wearing the same holey shirts over and over and over again. Finally, I’d had enough. Inspired by the fine folks at this DIY blog, I decided that I was going to do what a good wife does and fix his shirt.

I took myself to the fabric store and found the perfect fabric to patch his shirt with. Since I wanted to surprise Mister, I took the shirt, new fabric, needle and thread to work and did this during lunch. Then I snuck the finished shirt back into the house, carefully folded it and put it back in the pile.

It wasn’t until Saturday morning that he got the shirt out of the pile. I was just waking up when Mister got a shirt out of the closet and went into the office. I waited in bed for a few minutes to see if he had any reaction to it, but since I didn’t hear anything I got up and went into the office with him. I saw that he did indeed have the new and improved shirt on and didn’t seem to notice that I had fixed it. So I said, “Nice shirt.”

“What the…?”

He saw the thread that I used to fix the small holes in the front and on the pocket corners. Then I told him that I patched the armpit holes too. He was laughing pretty hard by this point, but pulled the shirt off and saw the colorful patches I put on the armpits. Yes, colorful. On a black shirt. You see, Mister isn’t exactly a fan of hippies, so I – well, see for yourself:

Tee shirt after

Tie-dye smiley face fabric! And hot pink thread on the smaller holes! Let me tell you, I was giggling the whole time I was sewing this.

While all this is going on, Mister ordered himself a new copy of his national history honor society certificate. He also bought something else for himself – when he mentioned this, I figured it would be a pin or something. The conversation went something like this:

Him: So I ordered my certificate today.
Me: OK
Him: I also bought myself a little something.
Me: That’s fine.
Him: I got myself a t-shirt to wear around the house.
Me: (blank look)
Me: You’re kidding, right?
Him: And I’ve decided that I’ll let you pick ONE t-shirt from my pile to get rid of.
Me, thinking to myself: Oh, honey, you have NO idea what you’re in for!

So I threw one t-shirt away. He thought I was going to pick one with bigger holes in it, but I told him that I picked from what was in the laundry and didn’t want to pick from the closet because I’d end up picking one pile of shirts and didn’t want to make him mad. Little does he know that his t-shirt pile would be getting smaller anyway.

Also while I had his shirt hidden in my desk at work along with my needles and thread, Mister started asking me if we have a sewing kit. I had to lie and say no because I didn’t want to reveal why I had a sewing kit with no needles or black thread, so I bought a small kit at the store. He had something else he wanted to fix, and it took every ounce of strength I had to keep quiet about my plans.

The new and improved t-shirt is now in the trash, though I’m not sure why Mister wouldn’t be proud of my handiwork. I’m such a good wife to be mending his clothes!

Or, as Mister says, “You know this means war!”

Encyclopedia of Me – L is for Love

Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary. I’ve been trying to figure out how to continue my Encyclopedia of Me series, so I posted a question on Twitter and Facebook for suggestions. Only one person responded, but it was a great suggestion. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it myself.

So back to my anniversary. As you may or may not know (if you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you’ll have an idea), the past year and a half has not been easy. Mister is unemployed through no fault of his own, and it’s been stressful. Stress puts strains on relationships, and the domino effect it’s had on ours is no different. But we’re still here. I love my husband more than anyone else in the world, and now I’d like to tell the world the reasons why I love him so much.

  • I love that no matter what’s going on, he takes the time out to tell me how much he loves me.
  • I love that he’s so perceptive, I can’t hide when I’m sad or upset, and he always talks me to a better place.
  • I love that we both have a similar sense of humor and can laugh at the same stupid stuff.
  • I love that he is constantly challenging me to push myself and grow as a person.
  • I love that he knows when I need a break from it all and lets me be a mental zombie.
  • I love that we never go a day without hugs, kisses, and telling each other, “I love you.”
  • I love that even though I kinda suck at cooking, and he’s way better at cooking than I am, he always tries to encourage me and never spits out the food I cook.
  • I love that he puts up with me when I have wicked PMS.
  • I love all the other things that I neglected to mention here because there’s just not coming to mind as I write this. But I’m sure Mister will remind me.

To my wicked super awesome husband – Happy Anniversary. I love you far more than I can ever express here.

He’s Not Old!

Mister keeps complaining that he’s old. He recently got bifocals, which cemented his belief that he’s getting much too old for his liking. Never mind that as much as he complains about needing bifocals, he’s been wearing them all the time because guess what? He can actually see things! Who would have thought?

I’ve been trying to convince Mister that he needs to get a Twitter and Facebook account. He sees no use for FB, and thinks Twitter is nothing but a bunch of gossip, but he’s realizing that there are quite a few chefs from Food Network that he likes, and other pop culture things that have twitter accounts, and he’s thinking that maybe he should check this stuff out. He’s not quite sure what he could say that people might find interesting, but I’m sure he’ll find something. So help me in convincing Mister that he’s not old, and will feel even younger if he gets himself on some social networking sites.

First Anniversary

Mister and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary today! Woo hoo! One year ago today, we got married. Since then, there’s been a lot of stuff that would tear lesser people apart, but I think we’re closer today than we’ve ever been. I’m just amazed at how much more I fall in love with him every day.

We’ve been having a big celebration amongst ourselves to mark the occasion. Friday night, we exchanged gifts and cards. The traditional first anniversary gift is supposed to be paper. I got Mister some paper – tickets to see Penn & Teller on Tuesday night. He got me a replacement for paper – a new ginormous computer monitor. He has a huge one, and just got himself a bigger one that has the sharpest display I’ve ever seen. So rather than watch me “deal with” his hand-me-down, he got me the same model. Mister also ordered a single tier version of our wedding cake, but instead of the white fondant with the black design sprayed on, it has a chocolate ganache with the design piped on in white frosting. Here’s a picture:

1st Anniversary cake

Isn’t it purdy? It’s the same inside as our wedding cake, which was red velvet. Of course it’s not good for the diet, but this is a very special occasion. Except for the cake, I’ve been trying really hard to make good food choices this weekend. For example, yesterday we went to Don Antonio’s for a late lunch/early dinner as part of our celebration. That’s the same restaurant we had our reception at. Instead of my usual heavy fettuccine alfredo that I like to get, I got the Don Veggie Pasta, which is fettuccine sauteed in garlic and olive oil, with some chicken broth for added flavor and less fat. It has broccoli and spinach in it, and I also got it with shrimp for some added protein. And we skipped dessert since we were both pretty full and had cake at home.

So there you have the extended anniversary celebrations. I love being married so much more than I ever thought I would. I am married to a man who understands me better than I do, and he really is my bestest friend in the whole wide world. I love you, MisterL4W!