The Joys of Aging

I am the spitting image of my dad - always have been.  I am 5'9, slender,blonde hair, fair skin.  My dad is 6'2, slender, strawberry hair, and fair Irish complexion.  Because of my height and my "hummingbird metabolism," as my mom likes to call it, I have always been able to pretty much eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight.  Well.  Let's just say when I hit thirty, that all changed.  When did this roll of fat develop aound my mid-section?  I swear I could jump in a pool and it would keep me afloat LOL.  And what is this loose skin that I have noticed on the back of the top of my arms?  Did that happen overnight?  I swear every day I notice a tiny line somewhere on my face that wasn't there the last time I looked.  I have gotten spider veins on my legs, and  my once perky breasts, well, AREN'T!  A while back a good friend of mine (who also does my hair), pointed out that she found a grey!  A grey!!!!  "Well pull it out!"  I said. What is it about aging that it just seems to happen overnight?  Is this what I have to look forward to?  I am only 31 years old and have already spent a small fortune on anti-aging creams, fine line erasers, lotions that claims to "improve the appearance of cellulite," under-eye serums, etc, etc.  What is that they say about "growing old gracefully?"  Oh, my, I can already tell I am going to have a HARD time with that one LOL!!!

Hard Times, Continued

As you may have read in a previous entry (Hard Times), Brent's parents informed us the day we got back from our honeymoon that they were divorcing after 34 years of marriage.  To say the least, Brent was floored by the news.  They have lived in Jacksonville for the past eight years (we are in Atlanta), so he had absolutely NO idea anything was wrong.  Sadly, however, neither did his mother.  Let's just say there was another woman involved.  Well this just brought a WHOLE lot of my past back to me.  My parents were divorced when I was sixteen years old, under the same circumstances, another woman.  My parents were always (seemingly) very happy, never fought, and very family oriented. My mother nearly had a nervous breakdown, my little sister was only ten years old at the time and didn't understand, and I was a wild sixteen year old that chose to deal with it by drinking and using drugs (thank God I survived and outgrew that phase).  Getting over it though, well, I guess you really never truly get over having your family destroyed.  And in my heart I knew Brent felt the same way, even at 31 years old. I have never thought that the hurt was any less for him just because he is an adult. So between these two situations, Brent and I had ALOT to overcome as a newly married couple.  My past trust issues came crashing back on me, and he has alot of anger that he has not dealt with.  So I guess it should come as no surpirse that we are now both on antidepressants and seeing a counselor.  Three nights ago, we had a HORRIBLE fight.  I am now spending the week with my mom.  Part of me thinks it is wrong to walk out like that, but we both agreed that when we get that angry, we need to step back, give each other some space, and start over.  We both have a very bad habit of getting very verbally hateful, and I feel like that will slowly break down the respect in our marriage.  Needless to say, today is NOT a good day for me.  I took my lunch break at work to go and drive around and sob.  I love him so much, I miss him so terribly, but I know we both need this time apart.  Marriage is NEVER easy under great circumstances, and we have had some pretty serious blows dealt to us during our short marriage.  I think about the vows I made to him (through good times and bad), and try to remind myself that this is yetanother storm we will weather and good times are ahead ofus.  But right now, all I can do is cry.

Southern Cooking

As I said in my previous entry, I LOVE good old-fashioned Southern cooking.I started thinking about this after reading an entry by  Nelishia, WISHING AND HOPING, and her inability to find any food like this in Colorado -haha!  Before my stepfather died, my mom would often cook a big Sunday dinner for anybody to stop by and eat.  Since he died, she really has stopped doing that, and I miss it.  She and my grandmother and the other women in my family have ALWAYS cooked up a big Southern dinner for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and any other excuse to get the family together.  Here are some of my favorites:  I love fried okra, squash casserole, turnip greeens with pepper sauce, deviled eggs, creamed corn, greenbeans fresh out of the garden cooked slow with ham, homemade potato salad, marinated vidalia onions and cucumbers. I love pinto beans topped with my mom's homemade sweet hot pepper relish, mashed potatoes, brown sugar glazed baby carrots; my mother's pot roast with gravy over brown n serve rolls, my grandmother's turkey with cornbread and sage dressing, my great aunt's ham with ham gravy over her homemade yeast rolls, my other grandmother's marinated coleslaw.  My husband doesn't do too bad, either; he can make the best grilled cheese sandwich on Earth, and ANYTHING he cooks on the grill is awesome (from ribs to pork tenderloin).  And ALL of this is best served with a cold glass of sweet iced tea!!  I know to some of you who weren't born and raised in the south, some of these may not sound very good to you.  What are some other favorites from other parts of the country?  I am always interested in what foods people love to cook and eat!!

Monday Ramblings

Well, I guess we are getting the remnants of Hurricane Rita here in Georgia this Monday.  It is dreary, cool, windy, and rainy, with no hopes of tomorrow looking any better.  Brent was up very early this morning to finish drawing a map for a client (he is a soil scientist).  Just about the time I was waking up, he climbed back into the bed and went sound asleep.  You don't even know how bad I wanted to call in sick to work and spend the day curled up in bed with a good book!  Nothing like a rainy day in bed!  But my logic won out, I reminded myself that the bills must be paid, and off to work  I went.

I have a really bad habit of stopping at the grocery store every day.  I usually try to go every Saturday, and buy what we need for the week.  By Tuesday or Wednesday, however, I find myself changing my mind about what I want to cook for dinner, and going  to the grocery to pick up an item or two.  The disadvantage to this is I end up spending thirty or forty dollas every time I go in - which adds up to ALOT of money by the end of the month. Sooo, my goal for this week is to cook (this week) only what I bought Saturday, and not go back to the store until next weekend.  My menu for the week is as follows:

Monday - (Tennessee-LSU game on tonight)  Bought some Boars' Head corned beef and saurkraut for homemade Ruben sandwiches - easy and yummy!

Tuesday - going to a friend's to watch NipTuck

Wednesday - Grilled pork tenderloin, wild rice, lima beans, salad

Thursday-Meatloaf with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, peas

Friday-Baked ziti, garlic toast, caesar salad

As you may can tell, I LOVE to cook (and LOVE to eat).  However, working full time, I normally do not have the time to cook the food  I LOVE the most - that is good old-fashioned Southern cooking.  I come from a long line of Southern cooks -mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and many great aunts.  Nelishisa, from WISHING AND HOPING, has an entry in her journal about the Southern foods she misses and craves being a Southern girl transplanted to Colorado (I believe it is the very first entry in her journal.)  More about that later.......

Alcohol

Has anyone ever heard that song"Alcohol" by Brad Paisley?  I was returning from the bank a little while ago, and just heard that song.  "I got you in trouble in high school.  College that was a blast."  Listening to those words reminded me of a funny story about Brent (though it is not one he is all too proud of now - hehe). 

Flashback somewhere around 1993.  Brent is living in the fraternity house in Athens, University of Georgia.  One typical Friday night, he and all of his hoodlum friends are partying at another fraternity house.  I am sure there was lots of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Crown Royal, you name it.  After a long night of partying, Brent somehow makes his way back to his frat house and crashes in bed.  The next morning, with a hangover from hell, he gets up craving some Waffle House.  The only thing holding him up from a healthy breakfast (haha) of hashbrowns smothered and covered, fried eggs, and bacon is the fact that he can't find his car keys.  After searching his pockets, his bed, the floor, and every other possible place the keys may have ended up (after coming home in a drunken stupor) , he gives up and heads outside, thinking he probably left them in the car.  Uh-oh.  Something is terribly wrong.  The car is nowhere to be seen.  He heads back inside and tells his buddies what is going on, and they decide the car must have been stolen.  Phone call number one goes to his father.  Phone call number two goes to the Clark County police, who promptly come out to make a report.  Monday morning, his father makes the six hour trip up from Jacksonville, Florida. They spend the day looking at cars and dealing with the insurance company, deciding to wait until they receive the check for the stolen car before purchasing another one.  A couple of weeks go by, and his dad calls that the check has arrived from the insurance company.  They make plans for his dad to come back up the following weekend.  A day or so later, Brent is in his room studying and someone calls him to the phone.  Here is how that phone call goes:

"Hello?"

"Dude, I was just wondering if you wereever gonna come get your car?"

"My car?"

"Yeah, it's been sitting in my driveway."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, from a couple of weeks ago - that party we were at.  I was ready to leave and you said 'Here, take my car.' "

CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE THE LOOK ON HIS FACE?

lol lol lol

Chocolate martinis and Itchy sweaters

Some Things I Like...

soul food (southern cooking), compassion, being snuggled in bed during a thunderstorm, long conversations with my momma, Julian McMahon from NipTuck, swimming, cool, Fall Saturday mornings, schnauzers, Dr. Pepper, the smell of freshly cut grass, sitting on the porch at the lakehouse with a glass of wine and a magazine, gratitude, pedicures, watching my husband sleep, writing, stargazer lilies, cooking, starburst candy, a clean house, chocolate martinis, my chenille blanket on my couch, the Golden Girls, olives

 

Some Things I Don't Like...

arrogance, humdidity, listening to my husband snore, tomatoes, people that stare, superficiality, itchy sweaters, fruit flavored water, sitting still for long periods of time, debt, mayonnaise, driving in traffic, bad hair days, feeling rushed, divorces, golf, bad manners, cats that make my eyes itch, having an argument with my momma, clocks that tick, licorice flavored anything, getting up early

 

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

 

Mean people

Have any of you ever encountered people that were mean just for the sake of being mean?  Is it fueled by low self-esteem and just a means to an end to make themselves feel better about themselves?  I have encountered people like this in my life, and it takes alot of work on my part to keep them from bringing me down.  I have now learned to let these kinds of people and this kind of behavior be a reminder to me to "check" myself and MY behavior and treatment towards other people. These days, one of the most important things for me in my life is to live my life each day hoping I will have nothing to apologize about tomorrow.  It has taken me a long time to get to this point in my life, but I have realized that I am much happier and at peace if I keep this goal in mind each day.  There will always be people that will try and bring you down, but YOU are in control of how you react and let these people affect you.  I realize I am going off on a tangent and ranting and raving like a madwoman, but it is just something I needed to get out.  And, hey, isn't that what my journal is for?

Nip Tuck cont'd

Oh, Lisa Jo, who do you think the carver is going to be?  You know it's going to be the end of this season before we find out!!

Nip Tuck

Does anyone watch NipTuck?  The season premier is tonight at 10:00 (EST).  Julian McMahon has got to be the hottest man on Earth (next to my hubby, of course )LOL

 

Oh, and thanks to everyone for commenting on my newly started journal - I can tell this is going to be a wonderful community to be a part of.  I hope everyone enjoys reading mine as much as I have enjoyed reading everyone elses.  Have a good day!

Hard times

Brent and I got engaged in August of 2004.  My stepfather, who I loved dearly (and who I credit for saving my mother after going through an extremely painful breakup and divorce from my father when I was sixteen years old) was diagnosed with liver disease several months earlier.  Our engagement was quite bittersweet, because it was very difficult to plan a happy occasion knowing that he may not be alive to attend.  My mother was wonderful, teaching  school full time, taking care of him at home (he was 17 years older than my mom), and still making the time to help me plan my wedding.  My thirty-first birthday was coming on November 29 of 2004.  Brent planned a trip for us to Lake Tahoe, and I was soooooo excited.  Being born and raised in the deep south, any opportunity to actually witness and experience real snow sent me into a childlike tailspin- hehe.  One week before we were to leave for Tahoe, my sister called me about 11:00 pm and told me my stepfather had fallen trying to get in bed, and he and my mom were on their way to the hospital in an ambulance.  He never came home.  Brent cancelled our trip,losing the plane tickets (as we all know, Delta's main priority is NOT compassion for it's passengers).  I begged him to go ahead and make the trip with the couple that was going to join us, but he refused to leave my side.  My stepfather died 5 days later, on Thanksgiving morning.  My wedding was planned for April 16th, and I went on with the planning, though with a sad and heavy heart.  Brent and I had started building our own home around the time we got engaged, but something else loomed over our heads.  I owned (and lived in) a condominium that I was having absolutaely NO luck selling.  What was bad about this?  We could not afford the new house AND my condo, and the prospect of trying to pay for both gave us both an ulcer.  Poor planning, you say. But, unfortunately, that is us -hehe. About three weeks before we married, I found a buyer -although she put me through TOTAL hell with her list of demands.  And being desperate, I had to comply.  A month before the wedding, we closed on our new house.  Brent moved into the house.  I packed up my condo.  We got married, honeymooned in St. Lucia for six days, returned home.  I closed on my condo two days after we returned from our honeymoon, and spent the entire day moving in the POURING down rain. But finally (sigh)!  Things were starting to fall into place.  Then we got the call.  Brent's parents, married for thirty-five years,were divorcing.  Were the stars lined up against us?

 

Something I am Pondering....

Just a question I have been mulling over since starting my journal (earlier today LOL). Just wondering how many people share their journals with their friends and families, and how many keep it "to themselves" so to speak (with only other J-landers reading it).  I want this to be a place where I can write about everything from my bad day at work to my deepest feelings, and I am not quite sure if I want to make it available to people who know me.  How do most people handle this?  Just curious and would appreciate some feedback!

A Prince, a Princess, and an Uncooperative Ring Bearer

I should have known when we first met with the wedding director and she remarked "I don't normally recommend any member of the wedding party being under the age of four."  However, as I basked in my wedding-planning-bliss, I let this little comment go right over my head.  Fast forward several weeks later, I am in the bridal suite of the beautiful Victorian bed-and breakfast.  I had agonized for days, weeks, about the weather.  Was mother nature going to cooperate with me and let me play my fairy tale wedding out in the beautiful blooming garden right at dusk like I had painstakingly planned for so many months?  Well, it appeared mother nature was bestowing her blessings on me.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  The winds were calm, the sun was shining, and the humdidity was low (that in itself is something to be thankful for in Atlanta in the springtime LOL).  For weeks I had researched the flowers I had in mind of carrying down the aisle.  My beautiful bouquets of red roses and orange lilies were in perfect order, freshly out of the the florist's refrigerator, and awaited me downstairs.  I had awakened many nights gripped with the fear that the caterer would let me down - would there be enough food?  Would it be fit to eat?  I could smell the wonderful aroma of the food creeping up the stairs, and I could tell by the continuous stream of workers carrying in tray after tray that it was, indeed, going to be a plentiful and delicious feast.  6:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes to go.  My girlfriend clipped in and adjusted my veil atop the hairstyle that I had worried so frantically "just wasn't going to look right."  It had turned out beautifully, thanks to the hour the stylist spent combing, teasing, pinning, and spraying.  All of a sudden, my father opens the door to see if I am ready.  The tuxedo my fiance had so diligently selected for the men to wear?  What had gone so terribly wrong?  From underneath the crisp black jacket peeked a brightly colored (i.e tacky) Hawaiian shirt.  He was also decked out in a tophat and carrying a cane.  "Dad," I shrieked.  "What, you don't like it?" he replied.  A split second before I burst into tears,he said "I'm just kidding - laugha little!"  OMG - Is he crazy?  As if I weren't nervous enough, he has to choose this moment to be a practical joker?  Somebody pass me the valium and champagne!!!  I gathered myself together and headed down the stairs, my dad laughing behind me.  

 Fast forward ten minutes.  I stood at the outer edge of the gardens, 120 guests patiently seated before me.  The wedding music starts to play.  My little two year old cousin is decked out in his adorable little beige Eton suit, ring pillow in hand.  All of a sudden, his lip puckers, he lets out a scream, and sits down on the ground.  Uh oh - his mind is definitely made up, and there is no changing it.  He is NOT going down that aisle.  The guests are turning around to see what all of the fuss is.  My aunt scoops him up and scurries away with him to the adjoining parking lot behind the gardens.  However, that is not QUITE far enough away.  As I walk down the aisle, I see my "prince" awaiting me and the little smirk on his face with that look seeming to say to me " I knew something was gonna happen."  We said our vows, lit our candles, exchanged our rings, and he kissed the bride, all with the music of little Alex, the uncooperative ring bearer screaming and crying in the background.

The first marriage lesson I learned?  Life is what happens while you are busy making plans LOL LOL