Here comes the bride...?

So Markus proposed marriage, and I said yes.

Actually what I said was, "REALLY? really? Like, really? Re-ally? rrrreally? REALLY? really? wait, really? ...and I wish it stopped there. That story will have to wait for another time, it's much better shared as an oral history in fact, I keep threatening to have someone film me telling the story yet again, so I can just post the video online and be done with it.

So now I'm a bride. Or is it bride-to-be? Can you only be a bride on your wedding day? What are you while you're engaged? Just a fiancé, I suppose? I'm a fiancé - nope. 

[What?!?]

Just one month in to being engaged...

I realize couldn't have picked out a ring even if Markus had asked for my opinion.

I didn't even look around online, that's how little of an idea I had when people would ask what I thought I might like. I never wear rings. How'm I supposed to know what I'll like f-o-r-e-v-e-r? 

"Yellow Gold". That's all I could say. I knew I wanted yellow gold. Apparently the jeweler even questioned it, "you know, the girls these days tend to wear platinum or white gold..." Markus: I know what "they" are wearing. I'm telling you what she wants. 

I do remember an argument a discussion Markus and I shared over whether I should have a "say" in what type of ring I am expected to wear the rest of my life, or not. Clearly we went with "not", thank God. 

I know what I don't want in a wedding dress.

At least I don't have to wear the dress forever, right? Just one day. Phwef! And apparently Markus can't pick this one out for me, I have to do it, right? OKay.

My mother won't be home until June, and I leave about two weeks after my parents land in MS for work in London, so our time frame for doing the mother-daughter-trying-on-wedding-dresses is super short but I am determined to partake in this tradition. I decided it would be best for me to get a better idea of what I do/don't like prior to mom's arrival and our day, half day, couple of hours of trying on dresses. So I made an appointment at David's Bridal just one week after Markus proposed. I hate having a decision looming.

My attendant (I think that's what it's called?) was very knowledgable about the store's inventory and listened to my comments, both verbal and non-verbal. We got along swimmingly. This was a surprise to me because at first I thought we weren't compatible. Not because she wore her blush on her temples, but because she questioned my sanity when I shared my bra size. Side note: for anyone who has not had to go through this before, you have to wear their bras when you're trying on dresses, the corset kind that hook all the way up the back. 

"What bra size do you wear?"

"I wear a 30G, but I realize you won't have my size here in America, so I guess the closest would be a 34DD?"

Attendant looks down at my bosom, then looks up at me with a puzzled look that screams: this chick is delusional! "Ain't no way," she exclaimed.

"I know," I replied calmly clearly I get this often, "I don't look like it, but I assure you it's true. Would you like to see the tag on the bra I am wearing?"

Attendant still perplexed, looks to my sister and friends for some assistance, they are unwilling.

"Look," I say, "just because I don't wear them on the front of my chest, pushed up under my chin, doesn't mean they're not there."

I realize now this was how she wore hers that same day, but I'm not judging her for it, women wear their breasts in different positions, we don't always have a choice! "Mine start under my armpits, see?" Yes, I motioned. 

"Why don't you bring me what you think I wear, and we'll go from there?"

Two bras later we were trying on dresses, and I realized quickly that less of everything is more where my tastes are concerned.

Let's pretend this never happened...

You know those evenings when you just can't stand to be alone with yourself? With your own thoughts? This is one of those evenings.

So. Here we are.

[    ...]

I'm reading an excellent book at the moment why didn't  I think to just go put my nose in it instead of starting this blog post? When I say, "excellent book" what I do not mean is what you are probably thinking. Not The Great Gatsby or Madame Bovary or Shopaholic takes Manhattan. This book is raunchy, it is rude, it is honest, open, it is hilarious, shocking, blunt, it is how I would write a book if I put my life on paper one day. It is called "Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)" by Jenny Lawson.

Perhaps I purchased it at just the right time, in a moment when my psyche needed the author's sense of humor. Or maybe it's just THAT funny. I think it's just that funny. It had me laughing so hard on a recent airplane ride, I couldn't read the words on account of the tears forming. I sat there, crammed three people in, next to the window, and silently shook so violently that I thought the captain was going to turn on the seatbelt sign and announce "we hit a rough patch of turbulence, folks" over the intercom.

I've read excerpts to Markus and he laughs hard, people, even when the author uses words he usually grimaces at the sound of and he continues to ask, "are you sure Jenny Lawson isn't your pen name?"

Yes. But I envy her.

I've recently decided to start my own book club on account of this book as in just now, you just witnessed me in the act. I'm not accepting any new members, just yet, but I look forward to letting you how it all turns out.

Proud to be one of the first and finest.

Sometimes it surprises people to know I pledged a sorority in college. It sure surprised my high school friends when I went "home" to Abu Dhabi that first Christmas break after graduation.

Last weekend I found myself in Atlanta, GA for Alpha Delta Pi's District Leadership Conference. I haven't been to one in three years due to spending my spring semesters in France for work prior to this year. I attended the DLC in 2009, right after I finished traveling as a Senior Leadership Consultant for ADPi, and remember how much fun it was attending the conference as an advisor, but it was also bittersweet to realize my LC group would soon become a distant  memory.

Returning three years later, it was strange, strange, to be back.

Where am I?
What is this?
What am I doing here?
Did I bring the right outfits?
What does it all mean?
Who are these women, and why do they do these things?
I should have brought that other dress.
What is the purpose of all this?
Why are some chapter officers in matching outfits, really?
Where am I supposed to be and what should I be doing?
Maybe I'm too far removed from all this now...
Am I really making a difference in people's lives?
I wonder if anyone will remember me?
Why did I pack so light?
Why aren't my LC sisters here?
I wish me LC sisters were here. 
I hope I know what I'm expected to know...

Kimmy, a fellow advisor, asked if I was okay a few hours after we arrived.

"Yeah. Just a little out of sorts. This all feels very strange. I'm taking it in. Memories are flooding back. Good, bad, awkward, sad, happy, just memories..."

So many thoughts and questions. So much to reflect on.

Fast forward to the end of Saturday, the long day that started at 6:30am with my fourkickshalf-attempt-at-a-five-mile-run, and ended after 11:00pm.

Chapter Presidents are given ribbons
for various awards their chapters are
recognized for during the year.

I am so good at this!
Why would anyone choose not to be involved in this?
I wish I had money to spend at Sorority Spirit
Alpha Delta Pi is amazing
I wish I had brought that other dress...
I wonder when I'll be ready (and a position available) on a district team?
Wow, we provide so many opportunities for our members
Hey, I totally forgot there are resources for alumnae too!
I wonder if the Foundation has development officers? 
I want to be a stay-at-home wife and do ADPi all day.
I can't wait to be on Grand Council, I wonder who the youngest member-ever was?
Maybe Markus could work for the Foundation
Man, this chapter has no idea how good they have it.
I'm going to buy that badge ornament from Sorority Spirit
Man, this chapter still has a lot of work to do.
Holy smokes these officers are rocking this year
First. Finest. Forever. Since 1851

I bought the ornament...

When I moved to America for college, I decided to go through sorority recruitment for one reason: My parents would be able to move me in to the dorm. Because, at the time, Southern Miss held formal recruitment two weeks prior to school starting, freshmen got to move in to their permanent rooms on campus early.

I first learned about "rush" at the summer preview session I attended to register for classes and learn about student involvement, etc. Someone with a clipboard approached me and asked Have you signed up for formal recruitment yet? "What's that?" Oh, it's how you join a sorority. "Oh. Okay. What's that?"

Had I not gone through formal recruitment, I would have said bye to my parents at the Jackson airport and moved myself to Hattiesburg a few days prior to classes. Sure, aunts, uncles or grandparents would have surely helped, but I wasn't going to let my parents miss out on the opportunity to move their first-born-who-brought-joy-and-love-into-their-lives in to the residence hall. Read: I was incredibly terrified of being left in America, it's not like mom and dad were going to be a phone call away, they were 7-8 hours ahead of me always.

Had I not moved in the residence hall permanently, I wouldn't have had anything appropriate to wear for each day of this "formal recruitment" mumbo-jumbo. I was fully prepared to roll up to my "parties" in athletic shorts and a t-shirt. Don't American teenagers wear those things, too? Thankfully my room mate was up-to-speed on the appropriate dress for each day, and taught me to powder my hair when it looked greasy and to put on more makeup as the week progressed.

When you're an ADPi you find every
reason to identify a diamond.

I wasn't ever "released" from a chapter (back before the days of the release figure method), and I felt the most comfortable at one chapter all week, despite the negative stereotypes buzzing through Jones Hall. Every day I went back to Alpha Delta Pi and on Bid Day I wasn't at all surprised to find myself signing a bid card from the Eta Zeta Chapter. I didn't really know what it meant, and was certainly not in an emotional state about it like some of the women I'd met on my floor. Peers were crushed when they didn't receive a bid from the chapter they preferred. I would have been happy either way, I imagine, but sure am happy it turned out the way it did.

I went home for one last night with my parents before they left the country, and Dad found an Alpha Delta Pi window sticker as he was rummaging through my Bid Day bag loot. He proceeded to stick it on the back window of my car much to my protest, "I'm just not sure I'll stick with this sorority thing..."

"I have a feeling you will." he said. He was right. Who would have thought I'd end up working for Alpha Delta Pi sorority as an international Leadership Consultant, and then again as a Senior Leadership Consultant? And I'm thankful every day for it.

My five year plan...

A friend was telling me about her five year plan today (or lack thereof) and it made me wonder what mine would look like. So I've decided to write one:

• I'd like to successfully run the Rock'n'roll half marathon in Nashville in April (this year). 
• I'd like to be in a new role professionally in the next two years - whether that's a new position at Southern Miss or elsewhere is undeclared. And "elsewhere" can also be defined as back in school fulltime working towards another degree.
• I'd like to cook my way through Julia Child's cookbooks...

Okay so it turns out writing a 5-year plan isn't super easy to put out there. I keep thinking of things I need want to do around the house this year:

• I'd like to clean out my garage or hold Markus to his promise to do it for me 
• I'd like to finally donate those bags of clothes in the spare bedroom
• I'd like to finish whatever-it-is I'm going to do with my new piece of furniture starting with a piece of glass for the top
• I need to call the chimney-man to look at this mold-like stuff growing from the bricks in my living room
• I'd like to clean out my storage shed in the backyard
• I'd like to re-do the kitchen cabinets (but that's for sure a longer-term goal)
• I'd like to remove the carpet in the living room/foyer
• I'd like to build a pantry closet in the laundry room or continue to beg Dad to come do it one summer.
• I'd like to finally do something with the hundreds of letters my mom wrote my grandmother every day she was abroad during their first few years.

Maybe I should stick to a bucket list rather than a timeline of goals?

• I want to take another Asian vacation while my folks are still in Indonesia
• I want to live abroad full time and if this happened to be via the Peace corps I would be okay with that
• I'd like to be married and have kids notice that was plural
• I'd like to learn another language
• I'd like to take piano lessons again
• I'd like to take ballroom dance lessons and yes I realize this shouldn't be difficult considering Markus' folks own a dance studio in Madison
• I'd like to drive cross-country and visit all the kitschy tourist traps and the glorious ones like the Grand Canyon
•  I'd like to watch The Godfather (all of them), Rocky (all of them), and all the best picture winners since the beginning of time.

I'll come back to this...

Just 4 Kicks...

Those four ladies I mentioned recently - the ones I've committed to running a half marathon with - we decided to chronicle our training for those interested. I'll link back and forth where possible - or maybe there's a way to do that within this blogger software stuff #idon'thavetimetofigureitout.

Meet Jessica (me), Samatha, Staci and Toni, and follow our survival rate training at Just 4 Kicks.

I've started training for a half...

I've started training for a half marathon. I use the word training lightly as my three friends really started hard a week earlier than I, and I had to opt out the first week due to a swollen lymph-node situation that actually hasn't been resolved yet but we'll leave that for a different post. There are three of us, two of whom are experienced half-marathoners. The fact that two of our four would opt to run a half again made me think, ‘maybe this won’t be as awful as every inkling in my body is trying to tell me it will be’…

It all started when Staci joined Jack and I for a run on the trace a few weeks ago. When we don’t listen to our iPods we take turns talking about what's going on in our lives at the start of our runs. 

Me: hey, remember that time you ran a half marathon?

Staci: yeah, I do. Remember that time I tried to convince you to run one with me?

Me: racking my brain for conversations of the sort from over a year ago…No, you never tried to convince me to run anything like that with you…

Staci: yeah, that's because it's happening now. 

Me: I thought this was just a quick there-and-back 1.5 mile jog? Wait, what?

Staci: You, me, Sam, Toni, Nashville, in sixteen weeks. We'll take the Friday before off to drive up there and come home Sunday. And I have a coupon.

It must have been the thought of "saving money" you know I'm practicing living on a budget. Or maybe it was the endorphins my body released from that first mile before it started screaming 'what the freak are you doing? This is not fun! Stop running!’ Or maybe it was my intense focus on keeping up with Jack and acting like his pace was my normal pace while Staci didn't struggle at all. 

I said "okay, sure, I'll train with you.

Stay tuned…

Kudzu, the cat that likes to "get high".

For those of you who haven't met Kudzu, she is my room mate and she is a character. If you read Kudzu's first day of Rehab you'll have some background on her addiction to catnip. This entry takes her addiction to a higher level. 

Kudzu and I spend our evenings loving or fighting, most often a little of both. She lies about having been fed all the time, and she knows exactly how to get what she wants much like her mother. She has completely shredded the textured wallpaper in my red dining room, there are white marks from her claws about three feet up the wall along the entire room. She uses this space as her scratch-post whenever she REALLY needs attention. And don't misunderstand, she adores her actual made-for-cats scratch post, but as you know we oftentimes crave variety in our lives, whey should it be any different for sweet daemon Kudzu?

Most recently it has become extremely apparent that Kudzu likes to get high...

Kudzu has begun to dart out of the house to explore the world outside whenever I'm not paying attention. She is fascinated with the azalea bushes surrounding the house. Something is on them that she can't stay away from. When she darts out the door into my garage, it's fine, because the garage door is usually closed. When she darts out the front or back door, I have to lure her back with treats as I've been afraid she'll wander too far and there are some pretty nasty-looking cats in our neighborhood. 

The other night while it was raining (which, let's face it, has been every night the past few) I decided to keep the door to the backyard cracked during the downpour, knowing Kudzu wouldn't go too far. I've never seen a cat take such thrill to darting in and out over and over. She was drenched by the end of it. 

Last night while watching a movie with my men, Kudzu scratched and howled at the door to the backyard. I let her out. It wasn't raining. There's a bell on her necklace that lets me know where she is, and she's pretty good at coming to me when I call. So I set her free. 

I don't have any trees in either of my yards (well, I do but they're shorter than the house at this point) so I wasn't too fearful of her getting stuck in one. About 3 minutes in to the outside adventure, one of my men started to whine, and I'm not talking about Blackjack.  Markus began to worry, "you want me to go check on her?"

"She's fine. Do you need to go check on her?"I replied calmly as I made breakfast for dinner - my fave.

Five minutes in to operation: let-Kudzu-explore-the-outdoors-on-her-own, I walked outside to call for her, I could tell Markus wasn't going to stand for his darling daemon cat to be left frolicking in the cold and wet for long. He couldn't stay focused on the TV show we were watching, kept looking out the window, walking in and out of the kitchen stay out of my kitchen when I'm cooking, fidgeting, asking Jack if he needed to go outside, etc. 

Sure enough, Kudzu came when I called, she was SO PROUD of herself, all growed-up. I asked her, "boo-boo what are you doing up there?" and as the words left my mouth I saw Markus through the window hurriedly putting on his shoes. 

Like I said, she loves to get high and she made it to the highest place available: the roof. She was eyeing the chimney when I spotted her (thanks to the bell) and it was clear she wanted to come down, but couldn't quite figure out how. Markus was abhorred, "she could get stuck up there!"

Our "family outing" ended promptly when Markus climbed in the chair I had collected from the dining room and lured Kudzu off the roof. 

Next time she explores the outdoors I have a sneaking suspicion she'll find a way to come in through the chimney shoot!