Reader Questions - Part 3

Welcome to your questions - the light hearted edition!!


Jen - What about a bucket list - have you made one and what's on it?

I’ve made one – and completed it!!

1) See a game at Yankee Stadium
2) See Brett Favre play at Lambeau
3) Get married

I’m working on a new list, which includes completing my half this fall and running a full marathon…sometime.

Amy – Who’s your favorite band/singer?

Third Day. I was fortunate enough to see them in concert a couple of weeks ago and Mac Powell’s voice is just as strong/amazing live as it is in their recordings. I love that they are a real Christian rock bad. Not the kind that are ambiguous and try to pass off a love song as a song for God.

My favorite of their songs, Can’t Take the Pain, makes me cry every time I hear it. At first listening, I kept thinking “Wow, he’s got me nailed. I am that wavering in my faith.” Then when it got to the end…wow, that’s not me.

That’s Peter.

And I can only pray that I over come my fears the way Peter did.

So much for light hearted. Moving right along...

Lora - I'm ordering pizza for us. What toppings do you choose?

Green pepper and onion. I use to be a pepperoni girl, but my MIL introduced me to the heaven that is a veggiesaurus pizza

Lora - Describe your favorite pair of shoes

My black sketchers flip flops. In the summer I wear them with everything. It was hard parting with $20 for a pair of flops, but I’ve worn them several summers now and they are still holding up great!

I also have to say my running shoes, but for a different reason. I’ve never spent over $100 on any clothing item outside of my wedding dress and high school prom dress, so that was a tough purchase too.

In my head, they were my validation though. No longer was I the girl that just grabbed a pair of tennies at TJ Maxx to occasionally run in. I was the runner, who went to the running store. They watched me run and chose what type of support I needed. Sounds official huh? Yeah, that’s how they made me feel. Not to mention they feel heavenly on my feet.

Our Wedding Day - Part 1

Jay and I are away in California right now celebrating our first anniversary.  I thought I'd repost the Wedding day events for you to enjoy.  Check back in next Monday for part 2.

Since the whole family was a part of the wedding party, the morning started out pretty hectic. My mother had made biscuits and gravy the day before so that we’d all have a hearty breakfast that would stick with us through the morning. My brother-in-law and nephew (groomsman and ring bearer) had to be at the church at 12:30 with Jay and the rest of the guys.


Parking in the National Park is at a premium, so we had to have a plan to get everyone to the church in as few cars as possible. Jay's mom had the first hair appointment of the day since she had to be at the church with the guys. BIL and the little man went to the hair salon with my sister and I to catch a ride to the church with the rest of the groom’s peeps.

Once the stylist (who’s also my cousin) finished with the Mother of the Groom, she started on my hair. Originally I wanted to keep it very simple. I contemplated doing my own hair, and just doing a low ponytail. Every time I did a test run, I found something wrong with it. I’m a perfectionist and wisely decided that I wouldn’t be able to suit myself. I didn’t need that kind of pressure on my wedding day.











I’m so glad I made that choice. She did a great job of keeping my hair simple, like I wanted, but still very elegant. While my sister was getting her hair done, I did my makeup. 10:30 and the day was drama free…but not for long.

My parents and my niece (the princess) met us at the salon in my sister’s minivan and we were going to carpool to the church. I had taken my makeup bag and veil into the salon, my parents had my dress, and my shoes were in the car my sister and I had driven. I asked for the keys to get them out and transfer them to the van. Only my sister had no clue where they were. She looked in her purse, diaper bag, pockets – practically everywhere.

She started freaking out, but amazingly enough I didn’t. I had on a pair of camo flip flops, but I knew that the dress was so long the shoes would never be seen. My sister offered me her shoes and said she would wear the ugly ones, but since her dress was tea length I shot that idea down right away. Just as we were about to give up and head on to the church, my mom found them. To be honest, I can’t remember where, but I do remember feeling a twinge of disappointment that I had the heels to wear instead of the more comfortable flops.

Even before the shoe drama, we were running a few minutes late, so there was a little tension about getting to the church at 1:15 as we had originally planned. Of course I reassured myself that they couldn’t start without me! If we were late we would just have to push pictures until after the ceremony.

My parents:










We worried about traffic getting to the wedding – we were marrying in a church in Cades Cove in the National Park. Cades Cove is an 11 mile, one way loop. And I was getting married on the weekend that the leaves were the prettiest of the fall. With no traffic, the fastest that the road can be traveled is about 20 or 30 MPH. When people are stopping to take pictures, traffic can be a bear.

Literally in our case. About 5 miles before the loop, traffic in front of us came to a standstill. At first we were worried that the road was just that backed up from people trying to get to the loop road. Turns out, they were just stopping for wildlife. Two bears were on the side of the road up ahead. My father has never been a patient man, so on such a high anxiety day he was extra jump. He tried honking his horn to make noise to chase the bear away. Then he rolled down his window and screamed “if you wanna see a bear go to the d*mn zoo!”

Both actions were less than helpful. As we approached the spot where the bears were my mom yelled up at my dad “slow down, the princess wants to see.” So after berating the entire line of cars for stopping, my father stopped the car so my sister could get a picture and my niece could see the bears through her window.










Since there are no facilities at this one room church (no electricity either), we stopped at the camp ground parking lot before we headed into the loop. Safe to say, my dad was tailgating as we left the camp ground. The truck in front of us decided to be a smarty pants and go 3 miles an hour, even though there was no reason to. My dad put the pedal to the metal and passed the truck. As we zoomed by (at about 30 MPH) the driver of the truck gave us a big California howdy.  Even though I was already wearing my veil, I returned the howdy.

Once we got to the church, most all of the guests were there – got their early wanting to beat the traffic no doubt. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to share with you all of the church, or the gorgeous scenery. My sister took all the pictures that I’m posting. We got a CD of all the pictures from our professional photographer, but I’m not sure if I can post them for copyright reasons. Here is one that my sister took of my grandparents.







We did have a couple of hang ups. The florist shorted us one bouquet, so my cousin walked down the aisle empty handed. The princess apparently had a growth spurt b/c her ballet flats didn’t fit and she had to walk down the aisle barefoot. During the unity sand, the pastor said “and for that reason a man should leave his wife” when he meant to say “leave his mother and father”.

All problems aside, the wedding was perfect. Parking was less of an issue than we had anticipated, the music was great, the kids did wonderfully (a remarkable feat given that my niece aka the flower princess is only 4 years old and the ring bearer was my 6 month old nephew). We did a fair amount of pictures, but we were still able to get to the reception hall pretty close to the same time as the rest of our guests did. Due to park regulations we couldn’t invite everyone to the wedding, but tried to include friends/family in the reception even if they could be a part of the wedding.

to be continued...

Reader Questions - Part 2

While I'm off on the sunny shores of Cali, here are a few more insites into my mind.  Assuming you can handle it!

Now here's your reader questions...the married edition:

Kim - What's one thing about married life/your DH/or in-laws that you know now but you wish you knew then?


No matter what, he’s still their perfect baby boy. Never forget that.

Jen - Has marriage changed you in any way?


I’m not sure if it’s the marriage, or the dating process, but I’m certainly more mature. I stepped up and volunteered to help my sister cook for the BIL’s birthday party. Probably because I didn’t realize until Jay how much work being responsible/accountable to someone other than yourself was.

Life With Kaishon - Did your husband mind getting married in church even though he is not really into religion?


He actually loved the church that we chose for our wedding. I am a member of a large church (2,000-3,000 members) which I’ve always felt is too big for the intimate feel of a wedding. I’ve always considered a destination wedding in the back of my mind.

Jay and I visit Cades Cove frequently (as I’m sure you’ve noted by the almost weekly pictures of our trips out there) and we both agreed one of those old churches would be perfect. I’m not sure who first suggested it, but he liked the idea every bit as much as I did.

He loves history and nature and the churches in Cades Cove are surrounded by both. Also, since it isn’t currently in use as a church, it doesn’t have the strings of a specific belief system. (Although it was a Missionary Baptist Church in its day.)

To me it was still a house of the Lord. To him I think it was just more a beautiful old structure.

I hope that makes sense!!

Mari - Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What do you think you life will look like at that point?

I have hopes, things that are doable but won’t be easy. Then I have a more realistic look.

In 10 years I expect to be living in that farm house Jay and I have been discussing for a while. I would love (and think we can if we really push ourselves) to have it completely paid for in a decade. Realistically I though, I have no doubt that we’ll be in the house. Probably with a couple of kids cluttering the place up.

I don’t have lofty career aspirations. I work for the insurance, to make sure Jay is covered and we would go bankrupt if he were to have an accident. I’d be content still working at my same job in 10 years. Maybe a little bored, but appreciative of all that it offers me.

As far as personal goals, I hope to have completed at least one sprint triathlon and one full marathon. I haven’t worked those into the official plan yet, but their hanging out in the back of my mind.

Thursday's Ten - True Confessions

10. I don’t like sweet tea. Don’t let that get out or else they’ll revoke my Southern status.


9. I missed a run. Once. A couple of weeks ago.

8. I pick up after Jay way more than I would admit to my single self who insisted that it wasn’t her job to pick up after someone just because of her gender.

7. I’m a little burnt out on my weights class and think this two week vacation from it will do me good.

6. I would run from my sister when she would try to make me feel her pregnant belly. It grossed me out.

5. This morning I saw my leg in the mirror and thought “hey, that doesn’t look half bad.”

4. Then I looked at my abs and thought “d*mn you’re hot!”

3. I don’t like my church. Its where old people go to retire in the faith. There is no fire. But I go because that’s what it takes to get Jay to church.

2. I’m more like my father than I ever care to admit.

1. I’m not sure how I’m going to survive on vacation without being able to check in on the bloggy world!!

Head on over to Lora’s for some more true confessions.

Ask the Reader

Tomorrow is my first official day of vacation (although a big chunk of it will be devoted to traveling) so I thought I'd put you guys in the driver's seat today.

1. Are family vacations annual event for you?

2. Who goes with you on family trips?  Just the people in your household, or your extended family?

3. What was your favorite vacation?

Since I'm asking you guys to work a little, I guess I can do the same.

1. In my mind annual - Jay's not use to that, so it'll be a little work on my part.

2. Typically we do an extended weekend with my parents, sister, BIL, niece and nephew.  I'm also trying to do a full week just he and I.

3. My parents were great about taking us on vacation and making it special.  Hawaii is the most exotic place we've been together (Not sure Ireland counts since we were visiting the BIL's family.)  I loved the trips to the beach and my sister and I got to go with our grandparents and our parents stayed at home.  It made me feel so grown up!

Reader Questions - Part 1

Our first question comes from RRMama - I bet she didn't realize the answer would take up an entire blog post!

I know at some point you want children but do you have their names picked out and do you want boys or girls??


Girls are so much fun to shop for! Their clothes are cuter, their toys are more fun, and they are easier to relate to (for me at least.)

I joked that if either of my sister’s kids was a boy (she didn’t know the gender for either till they popped out) I was sending them back. For all my kidding, my nephew is a cutie whom I love dearly.

While for most people this is just a fun idea to bat around, I also have the added pressure of being married to a man with a genetic blood disorder. Hemophilia is carried on the X chromosome, but is a disease only guys can have. That means none of our children can get it from Jay. (Its in my family too, but that’s a completely different set of charts and graphs).

*Puts on Science teacher glasses*

Since its carried on the X, if we were to have a boy – he would get my X and Jay’s Y. And the disease wouldn’t be passed. We could pass it along if we had a girl – she would get an X from each of us. She couldn’t have the disease, but would be a carrier and would have the potential to give it to any sons she might have.

The chance of us having a girl, who has a son, who gets his grandfather’s crappy chromosome, is possible but not incredibly likely.

Jay’s mother (who knows firsthand how worrisome it is to care for a hemophiliac child) is already praying for little boys. I have no doubt that God will take care of my family no matter what. (Because I’ve seen it in my family – my hemophiliac grandfather had two girls – once of which was my grandmother, who had 3 girls – one of which was my mother, who had 2 girls. So far it hasn’t turned up yet.)

On to the fun part – the names.

If I have a boy I’d like to name him Cade. Funny I haven’t even mentioned that to Jay yet. I know it sounds a little romance novelesque, but driving into Cades Cove one afternoon I thought that would be a great name. And cool for the kid to know he was named after a place that was special to his mommy and daddy.

For a girl Ella Rae – I loved my great-grandmother dearly, and her name was Ellen. That’s a little old fashioned these days, but I would love a piece of her being represented in my daughter. Rae for my grandfather’s brother. He died storming the beaches of Normandy. He wasn’t married, and had no children – so he was survived only by his parents and his brothers and sisters. I think its important for someone in the family to be responsible for carrying on his memory.

Bridezilla?

Reposted from my wedding story.  For more great love stories, head over to Rachel's for Meetings, Marriages, and Memories.

Leading up to the wedding, I had several people comment about my bridezilla status. One friend even commented that I could potentially be the worst bridezilla in the history of the world, or at least she’s ever seen. While part of me was offended by the comments, I have to say that the assumptions were based on fact.


While I’m not proud of it, I do have an explosive temper. More than one hair brush has been beaten against the side of cabinet when I couldn’t get my hair to suit me. I’ve even cried for weeks about a bad hair cut (as a matter of fact I’m just now getting one grown out from bad in January). And then there was the cheeseburger incident…although I’ll still swear that I was provoked. So the possibility of the diva in my coming out was quite likely.

With 5 months till the ceremony I picked out a $25 dress at TJ Maxx for my bridesmaids. I also approved a hand-me-down dress that my niece’s baby sister had from a wedding her daughter was in. “Run with it now before I change my mind.” As easy going as I was at first, I thought there would come a point where I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it. Thankfully for all involved, that never happened.

I never met in person with my baker. I just picked out a couple of pictures of the internet and said “make it look something like this”. When they asked for specifics, I told them that I wanted strawberry cake with buttercream icing. With any other questions, from them as well as other vendors my common response was “You’re the professional. I’m sure you know better than I would.”

I thought that the stress and anxiety would kick in with a month to go. But it didn’t. Then a week. Nope, no stress, just a little excitement. Surely the day before I would start to get anxious/nervous/cranky/hateful. Ordinarily I would credit the mimosa, but since that wasn’t until later on the evening of the rehearsal dinner, that couldn’t be it.

The only sign of nerves was Thursday night/Friday morning. I woke up at about 3 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep. I consider myself an organized person, and I have an infatuation with lists. Going over the Friday to do list in my head, I had difficulty going back to sleep. There was that stack of laundry to put away and packing to do. Rather than lay in bed and waste precious hours, I got up and started on my tasks.

About 15 minutes into my chores, my mother knocked on my door. She has sleeping problems on a regular basis, so I was glad to see a sympathetic face. Until she told me to be quiet and go back to bed.

Thankfully, shortly after that my sister got up to feed my nephew and invited me to go out into the living room with her and the little man. She said she would have come and talked to me sooner because she thinks there isn’t anything worse than being awake and alone in the middle of the night, but she thought my mom getting up was to make me feel better.

Once the day got started, the nerves subsided and I finished off my checklist. My sister and I headed into town to get relaxing pedicures, and I got my nails done so they would look like their ragged selves for the pictures the next day. Then we headed to work to drop of some items for the reception with a friend/coworker. She is the queen of organization and event planning and so as I had in the past, I deferred to her professional opinion.

The plan was to meet my parents, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew at the rehearsal dinner site and all ride to the rehearsal site together. (We got married in the National Park, so it was a bit of a drive). Rehearsal was to start at 4, so we decided to meet at the restaurant at 2:30 to give us plenty of time.

2:50 my mom called.

They were still at the tux shop, as were Jay and his parents. The shop insisted they try on their tuxes before they picked them up. Good thing, because my future father-in-law popped a button on his trousers and my brother-in-law’s shirt sleeves would have properly fit a midget. Also, they had set aside white shirts, rather than the ivory I had requested, so the ivory shirts weren’t pressed.

My father, the expert negotiator, said that my mom would press the shirt if they would toss in a garter for free. The garter was a last minute purchase because I had misplaced the original. Not sure if my mom agreed to the deal, but like it or not they were in there car on the way.

In the mean time, my sister took me in CVS to show me her mad drug store deal shopping skillz. I got free and more than free stuff there all the time. I was not impressed with her two calming lemon waters and two chocolate bars purchase. “You mean CVS actually makes people pay for things???”

My parents finally arrived only we couldn’t leave until the princess went potty. My mom waltzed into the restaurant asking for the bathroom. “We’re not eating here now, but we will be later.” After a strange look from the hostess, she explained that we would be coming back for the rehearsal dinner. “We never got a final number. Is the bride with you? We need to talk to her.”

No really you don’t.

At this point I was more frustrated than anything. I had nothing to do with the rehearsal dinner, so I didn’t know numbers or menu or any other of their nitpicky questions they had. I gave them my soon to be mother-in-law’s cell phone number and suggested they call her with any questions.

Still not anxious. Maybe concerned that the preacher would actually be on time for the rehearsal and wonder where we were. But never anxious or nervous. The remainder of the night was a breeze. We walked through the wedding order several times and then headed to the rehearsal dinner. The food was wonderful and I think everyone had a great time.

Logistically Jay and I had figured that he would need to drive my car to the house, so that Sunday morning it would be there for us to leave for the honeymoon. I double checked that my honeymoon bag was in my trunk. My only mistake was not checking to see if I got everything OUT of the car that I needed.

Half way home I realized that he had the wedding bag.

The bag with everyone’s folders.

The bag with the marriage license.

The bag with my “to do” lists.

Being a control freak, it was hard to know that someone else was responsible for something so important. Thankfully, I had already given my sister and mother their folders, and they had copies of everything (marriage license excluded) that we needed.

Were I bridezilla, I would have demanded that he bring the bag to me. I decided that if I couldn’t trust him with this one detail of the wedding, how was I going to trust him with the rest of my life? Amazingly enough, I slept better that night.