So last week was my 7 year, dating anniversary with Joe. We met on April Fool's Day. I am not quite sure who the joke is on :) For our anniversary we went out to dinner at the place of our first date http://www.oldebryaninn.com/ it wasn't as rustic or as romantic as I had remembered it, but seeing as it's been 7 years since we've been there, my memory may be a bit selective. The service was great and the company was even better. I brought my camera, but forgot to take pictures, so there will be no commemorative photo; however, I did find these which were the pictures (that his parents took) of our first day 7 years ago...
Good times. This anniversary (of all of them) was the most meaningful and we both couldn't figure out why. Maybe it's because it's now turned into celebrating the anniversary of the day we met the person we'd spend the rest of our lives with and each others' best friend? It's like it took on a whole new meaning this year and we both felt that, but could only figure it had to do with being married.
For those that don't know the story behind my infamous signature mat guestbook from my wedding, here's the 30 second version. My deceased uncle/godfather's best friend (for over 30 years) basically told Joe (jokingly) to go fuck himself in very large (drunken) letters across the mat sometime over the course of the night. It was meant as an homage to my uncle, much to my mother-in-laws chagrin (both because she bought me the guestbook as a gift and because she loathes the word fuck). My wonderful husband had a new mat cut, replaced the plexi-glass with real glass and blew up the photo I had intended for the frame as my gift. It was very unexpected, very thoughtful and very appreciated. I love it.
Other things going on. Hmmm...Went to Philly this past weekend to visit my cousin and the baby, wherein I realized two things. 1. My cousin's husband is very condescending and 2. We will never live in Pennsylvania. At this point we have seen the whole state and really aren't impressed. Next state for persual: Illinois.
So far New York's still a keeper.
I am looking for a therapist, for myself, because it's been 8 weeks since I've spoken to my mom and that's eating at me. But I don't think I should do anything to correct our relationship without outside guidance and support. I have a lot of anger and built up hostility and I find that it holds me back, both from our relationship and in life, in general. I have never sought out a therapist for anything, so I don't really know where to begin and while recommendations would be great, it's kind of hard to ask people if they know of a good shrink (for obvious reasons). So that's sort of been a weird quandry I'm in.
We've decided to forego working with an interior designer and we're doing our renovations directly with a general contractor. We have two appointments for estimates this week and so far with the stuff we've already recieved estimates for (i.e. tile, granite, cabinetry, etc.) I've been really surprised at how much things will cost. We waaaay overestimated the cost of this project. For example, I thought that the tile in the kitchen and the bathroom would be around $2500, and the actual cost was $580. Now, that doesn't include installation, but still, it was WAY lower than I had prepared for. So that's good. I am eager to see what the contractors come up with (of course, I will add 15% for a margin of error).
Joe and I are getting ready to go on vacation in May and I am really excited about that. We're going to San Francisco. It started out as me joining him on a business trip and ended up being us flying out 4 days before his conference starts and making a whole vacation out of it. I am really excited. We found a tour that will take us to Yosemite for the day (it's like a 15 hour day in total, but so worth it and right up our alley). We're also going to head out to Sausalito, Napa Valley and Muir Woods on subsequent days. I've been to SF once before, when I was around 11ish, Joe's never been, so it should be awesome. I have never planned a vacation inside the US before and it's really exciting to go and explore other places that are easy to get to and pretty inexpensive. I didn't expect to be so eager for this trip.
Other than that not much else is new, work is work. It's not the best and it's not awful. I'm growing my hair back out a little longer, not because I don't like it, but because having it this short is too high maintenance. It doesn't take any time to do my hair in the morning, but I have to go and get it trimmed/cut every two weeks or I look shaggy and that's too much effort for me. I figure if it's a little longer then it will be easier to maintain. Here's a photo of what it looks like, well here it's a bit long still. Sorry it's blurry; I'm not used to taking myspace-esgue self-portraits.
Okay, back to work. I'm leaving this popsicle stand in an hour so that I can drive the 30 minutes to take a body pump class. I've started lifting 3 days a week and the gym by me doesn't offer body pump classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I drive 60 minutes round trip and take a 60 minute class. It's very nonsensical, but I love it...
