My Two Weddings: A Comparison.

So, I've married the same man twice.

Yep, it's true.

I'm afraid that I don't have enough time, or energy, or desire to discuss how that all came to be, but I would like to take this opportunity to do something of a formal comparison of the two weddings that we have had.

Here goes:

PARTICIPANTS:

Wedding one: Me and Bobby

Wedding two: Ditto.

OFFICIALS:
Wedding one: A justice of the peace whose name was Deathridge. Really.
Wedding two: I can't remember his name. He was nice, though.


SETTING:
Wedding one: Said JOP's living room. There was MTV on for ambiance, and a rather large rebel flag hanging over the mantle.
Wedding two: A lovely balcony overlooking a waterfall.


DATE:
Wedding one: Sometime in May, 1994. The fact that I couldn't ever remember the date did not exactly bode well for the longevity of the marriage.
Wedding two: June 3, 2004. Almost exactly 10 years after the first one.


ATTIRE:
Wedding one: He wore khakis, I wore a dress with a floral pattern. I also wore sensible shoes, as I was late for work and had to hurry to get there (For additional information on this, see HONEYMOON).
Wedding two: He wore shorts. I wore a skirt of some kind, and I believe it was black.

ATTENDANTS:
Wedding one: His best friend from high school and his college roommate. I didn't invite anyone, because no one else knew that we were getting married.
Wedding two: No one but us and the official. Some nice lady acted as our other witness for the low, low price of $50.


HONEYMOON:
Wedding one: As mentioned above, I was late for work, so immediately following the wedding I rushed to get to my 10 hour shift at Wendy's. Bobby and the attendants went to Chi-Chi's and got really drink on $.99 margaritas.
Wedding two: A lovely cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. However, mere seconds after the ceremony, the skies opened up and in rained and hailed for several minutes. For those of you who are familiar with the literary term foreshadowing, this would seem to be some sort of sign, wouldn't it?

OFFICIAL WEDDING PHOTO:
Wedding one: Didn't happen. I was too busy trying to get my Wendy's uniform on.
Wedding two: I don't believe this really needs an explanation, now does it?

OUTLOOK:
Wedding one: Poor. We lasted somewhere around five years the first go around.
Wedding two: Better. We now have a shared mortgage, a shared retirement fund, and a shared Kid. It's likely he would be harder to get rid of this time.



Till next time,

My secret fetish.

Ok, I'm ready to own up to it. I have a secret fetish that has followed me from my childhood and into my adult life. I'm not proud, but I'm willing to to come forward. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step.

So here goes. I'm addicted to school supplies. There, I said it. I feel better already.

See, I told you so. This is a view of the top drawer of my filing cabinet. These are the writing implements currently in use. There are more.

If I remember correctly, it started very,very early in my school career. I remember getting my new box of crayons, and cracking them open for the first time. There were so many possibilities in that new box. So many pictures to color, so many things that could happen, so much...potential. Even today, the smell of new crayons is sort of like... possibilities.

Once, when I was six or seven, my big sister (yep Barb, I'm going to tell this story, so just brace yourself) was helping me color with my BRAND NEW BOX OF 64 - my first one ever. And she broke one of my crayons. Not on purpose, but that doesn't matter. The damage was done just the same. I remember it was the white one. She remembers it too, because I remind her of it every chance I get. It falls somewhere in the top three injustices she did to me as a kid, right before cutting my hair and right after dropping a can of corn on my pinkie toenail so hard that it fell off and has never been the same shape since. But I digress.

She broke my new white crayon in half. Then tried to fix it with - I'm not making this up, I promise - duct tape. So not only was one of my new crayons broken, it was rednecked up to the point of unusability. A few years ago at Christmas she tried to make it up to me with this:

I'll admit that I thought it was a nice gesture. At least I did until I opened the box up and saw this:

Ahhh, family.

Anyway, back to me.

I remember the absolute pleasure when Mama agreed that the Trapper Keeper with kittens on it would NOT do for 5th grade, even though it was still in good condition. I was in 5TH GRADE, for goodness sake, and I wanted, no I NEEDED, the blue one.

This fetish, or addiction, or whatever you want to call it, has followed me into adulthood. I have very specific needs when it comes to my pencils (.7 lead, 3-4 inches long), my pens (rollerball, black ink), and my legal pads (small in size, white only). The manager of my local Staples believes me to be in love with him, and truth be told, I can see his appeal. That employee discount... lord have mercy, that's hot.

I've always heard that confession is good for the soul, so I've put this out there for all the world to see and to judge. But now it's time to sign off. I need to refill my stapler.

When I grow up, I want to be...

Pretty much everyone I know, myself included, is at least a little bit unhappy with his or her job. It's not that I hate it exactly, but trying to solve everyone else's problems all day long can be a touch, well, challenging at times.

So I decided to sit down and take a good, realistic inventory of my strengths and then try to figure out what type of job I might be suited for. Here goes:

I LOVE TO COOK.

If you've read any of my past posts, you know that I make Best Damn Spinach Artichoke Dip In The World, and I have other talents in the kitchen as well. I make excellent potato salad, fried chicken, authentic Vietnamese Spring Rolls, and my liquor laced cakes and cupcakes are to die for. Or at least pass out to. A couple current creations of note are my Blueberry White Chocolate cake and my Chocolate Covered Cherry cupcakes. Yum!

I LIKE TO ORGANIZE THINGS.

Drawers, closets, pantries, folding, sorting... I LOVE IT. Get over it. I know it's not normal. I've learned to deal with it, and so should you.



I LOVE TO GARDEN.

Flowers, vegetables, you name it. If it allows me to dig in the dirt, I will try to grow it. However, I will be the first to admit that my herbs are a little, well, lacking this year. The cilantro is an especially fetching shade of brown, don't you think?

If I'm being completely honest with myself, I also enjoy cleaning my hardwood floors to a highly sheened gloss (Again, you're going to have to just deal with it), playing with The Kid, sewing and quilting, doing home improvement projects, and just generally puttering around the house. Oh, and drinking beer. But that's maybe not completely relevant here.

So, when you add all those things together, I am basically jonesing to be a housewife. I believe the current politically correct term is SAHM, but whatever. You and I both know a housewife is a housewife, PC or not.

Now if I can just figure out how to take care of a few little things, like say, the mortgage, while still pursuing my career of choice, I should be able to find true happiness.

It's always good to have something to aim for, right?

Till next time...

My Secret Blog...REVEALED!

So for a while now, I have been living something of a secret life. I mainly blog at Keeping Up With Zackie, which is an action packed, fun filled blog that chronicles the days of my two year old Kid, from his own perspective. However, a few months ago, I started this blog, in the hopes of... well, I'm not really sure. I have journalled on and off pretty much my entire life, and I though this would be a good extension of that.



It's not.



See, when I journal, it's for me and me only. Things that are funny in my head are also funny to me when I write them down. Oh, and I don't have to censor anything. And everything that's private stays that way. So when I thought about starting this blog, that's pretty much what I had in mind.



But when I realized that other people could read this, I sort of clammed up. Apparently, I have a lot of really important things to say - to myself.



So I've kept this blog up only sporadically. Oh, and by the way, I haven't told anyone about it. But today, in my normal drive home from work and talk on the phone date with my friend Natalie, she outed me. It went a little something like this:



Nat: "Blah blah pool, blah blah work, blah blah trip."

Me: "Blah blah work, blah blah Kid, blah blah blah."

Nat: "Oh, by the way, I found your secret blog last night."



You did, huh? So how exactly did that happen? Did you Google "My Friend MJ's Secret Blog" and this just happened to appear? I'm not completely sure what that might have looked like, but in any case, hello world, here I am:). Anyway, it's got me thinking about this blog again, and how (or if) I want to go forward with it.



Really, the thing that I have struggled with my entire life is finding my own voice. So maybe, just maybe, I can use this as a forum for that. How that might happen remains to be seen.



Till next time...

Things I never thought I'd have to say (before I had a two year old).

"Please stop picking your butt."

"Fishing poles are for outside."

"Thank you for not hitting Mommy."

"Where are your shoes? In the oven? Good job."

"Let's blow the boogers out of both sides of your nose, ok?"

"Please stop picking your nose."

"Please stop picking your scab."

"Please stop picking (insert body part here.)"