Five years

Seven and a half years ago, in early November, my college roommate dragged me upstairs to meet a former dining service coworker of hers. She thought we’d be perfect together. I thought she was being a little pushy and being set up was too awkward. But she convinced me to go to his room (only one floor up from ours!). She stayed 10 or 15 minutes, then conveniently remembered she had to go do something vague. We ended up watching a movie and staying up talking until around 2 am. I call it our first date, even though it wasn’t really a date, per se. By Christmas break, we were inseparable and didn’t know how we’d survive 3 weeks apart.

A year and a half later, over summer break, he blindfolded me and drove me to campus (telling me we were going somewhere else and taking a roundabout route), then led me to a bench and proposed. We got married the next year, two weeks after I graduated from college, on May 18th, 2007.

I can't believe I almost didn't go meet this guy.


2006

2007



2008 (this is the only picture I found in the entire year of 2008 with both of us in it!)

2009

2010

2011

2012

Please tell me you've done this, too

I have been watching Friends for years. YEARS. I've seen The One With the Fake Monica dozens of times. Maybe a hundred. The only context I had for Joey Tribbiani's stage names in that episode is Joseph Stalin, so I'd always assumed Joey Heatherton and Holden McGroin were serial killers I'd never heard of (probably because I was pretty sure they weren't dictators and Joey says something about Stalin being a murderer). I figured since I was 10 when the episode aired the names were just a part of early nineties culture I wasn't familiar with.

I finally realized today Holden McGroin is a joke. A joke! That I totally didn't get for all these years!

Holden McGroin = Holdin' my groin
Mind = Blown
IQ = Questionable

As you were.

(P.S. I guess Joey Heatherton is an actress and singer. Sorry for assuming you were a serial killer, Joey!)

I didn’t tell her I’m treasurer of my Friday morning mommies group

Oh, you guys. Everyone knows all children are different, but it helps so much to have the internet to show you all sorts of different kids so you don’t get cocky. We all know an un-potty-trained 3 ½-year-old boy is not uncommon, right? Also, the ease at which potty training is accomplished has little to do with parenting skills, yes?

I saw someone today who, when she found out (by asking) Meg was potty trained at 2 ½, went on a rant about how her 3 ½-year-old nephew still isn’t potty trained. In HER DAY, as a working-full-time-AND-getting-her-degree single mom, she absolutely had to have her son potty trained by age 3 per daycare rules and she DID IT. Because no matter how much else was going on, it had to get done. It wasn’t even that hard! But her sister-in-law (the lazy bum) stays home and “just must not have enough motivation.” “Seriously, what’s the point of staying home if you’re not going to do your job as a mother? What else is she doing all day?”

It was so absurd it was hard to keep a straight face. I realize things were hard for her in a way I can’t begin to understand, but geez, that doesn’t mean her sister-in-law’s life is bon-bons and soap operas.

The kicker, though, was when she said snidely “I guess she’s just too busy with her mommies’ group on Fridays.”

Better late than never

Yesterday was Thomas' birthday. I meant to get this post up then, but we had a busy day. For his birthday, all he wanted was to go out with friends, since we don't get to see them much anymore. We rented a suite downtown and invited everybody to go out to dinner with us and stay overnight (we took the kids swimming in the hotel pool, then sent them to Grandma's for the night). We had a great time, though we discovered we're depressingly old when we got back to the room at what seemed the middle of the night, but was actually not yet midnight, and everyone fell asleep. Sitting up. With the TV on. WOO, PARTY!

Happy Birthday to my favorite guy in the whole world!

First steps

Paul just took his first steps. I was in the house, but I missed it.

I realize it was always a long shot I’d get to see his first steps. Though we do spend a lot of time together, the majority of the time we’re not in the same room, whether it’s because I’m at work or just doing chores. Honestly, though, I guess I just expected it to either be while I’m at work or while I was right there watching. I didn’t think I’d be SO CLOSE and still miss it. For some reason, it hurts more this way. Probably because I was having a bad day to begin with and this was just the last straw. (Also, because I missed it while downstairs hanging the cloth diapers I’ve come to hate. But that’s another story.)

Whatever the reason, I snapped and am having a ‘why do I pour all my time and energy into this kid just so he can scream at me all night long and do the fun stuff when I’m not around’ hissy fit.

Seriously, child. Maybe you should work on sleeping through the night before worrying about walking.

(The funniest part is, I can’t even remember if I saw Meg’s first steps. Obviously, it doesn’t matter.)

So. 10 months, 16 days. At least I managed to write it down! Also, while I’m writing things down, I should mention yesterday morning when I was leaving for work he waved and said bye-bye for the first time. It was very sweet.

Pro tip

It can be lonely to travel for work. Especially if you're an auditor and auditees aren't always thrilled to see you. That's why I find it comforting to bring along a shelf full of cat knick-knacks. Don't forget to bring some for the hotel, too.


(OK, this isn't actually my stuff. This is the office I was put in to work last week while out of town. Good thing I'm not a dog person!)

My worst customer service experience

This week there was a Food Lush post on tipping and I found it fascinating. Most people said they leave 15% even if the service is horrible, which made me think of the one time we left no tip. Last month, when we went to St. Louis, we ate breakfast at the hotel one morning (there was no free breakfast). We walked into the restaurant around 9 and it was pretty dead. After a second, a waitress came over and started to seat us. While she was grabbing a high chair for Paul, another waitress came over and – right in front of us – said “It’s MY turn!” The first said “No, you got the last table!” “But you have that big table over there!” “You have the two tables over there!” They argued (in quiet-ish whispers) until the first waitress gave up.

The second waitress lead us to a table, took our order, and proceeded to ignore us for the rest of the meal. Thomas got the buffet, so all she had to bring to the table was my omelet. She never refilled our water, even though my glass was empty by the time the omelet came. She didn’t mention the buffet came with a free drink (we overheard the other waitress tell a different table when we were almost done). She spent almost every second with her eyes on the door, trying to grab more tables. The first waitress got the table after us, but the stealer took the two after that. I spent most of the meal with absolutely astonished at her unprofessionality.

I did try to rationalize her behavior in my mind: what if she’s a single mom trying to support her family on the tips from this almost-empty restaurant? (Though it hadn’t been empty earlier in the morning.) Still, would that justify stealing from the other waitress? Maybe SHE needed the money, too.

It took a while to flag her down to get the check. At that point we saw no reason to tip her – she’d given us horrible service and the other waitress should have been the one getting the tip anyway. Also, whether she desperately needs the income or not, why should she get a tip for being so unprofessional? I still feel rather guilty, though. Plus, we swore we’d go straight to the manager, but chickened out.

Should we have tipped her regardless? Is it only OK to not tip if you do go to the manager and explain why? Should we have gone to someone and asked how to tip the buffet restocker only? It's not fair whomever that was didn't get a tip because the waitress was so bad. We were just so stunned by her behavior we weren't thinking of things like that.