Prelude To A Road Trip

Some people might consider a 1,500 mile round-trip journey an actual, full-blown road trip. But our recent Canadian odyssey was a mere warm-up for the 2,300 mile one-way adventure that begins next week.

I can't even tell you the number of miles that Dave and I have racked up in the car both together and individually in the past seven years. A relationship that includes two years long-distance and families that live 750 miles apart is bound to require some long hours behind the wheel. And when you add our move to South Carolina, our move from South Carolina to California, and our drive home from California, we start to sound like real road warriors.

The trip between Brandon, Manitoba and Marquette, Michigan takes about 14 hours, and we almost always do it in one day. There's a lot of improvised singing, philosophical discussion and argumentation regarding the best song of the 1990's. There are blessed long stretches where NPR comes in clear as a bell, and we muse to the soothing sounds of Robert Siegel and Neal Conan. There are favorite rest stops and rest stops to avoid just in case we don't want some kind of communicable disease. There are nap-shifts and too frequent/too infrequent (depending on which party you ask) bladder-relief stops. There are hours that fly by and hours on end that drag on. Why oh why are there times when there is no mileage sign for an hour, and then stretches where they tell you ever 5 miles how slow you are going? The age old questions of the road.

Look! We are at the Geographic Center of North America!

Wagon wheels add that North Dakota charm.

The Real Boy takes his seat and smiles all the way home!

Wedding: The Prairies and Woodlands Version

Welcome to Manitoba. How can you not feel at home here?

One way to recover from the exhaustion of a 4-day wedding bender in Colorado is to immediately drive cross-country to a 4-day wedding bender in Manitoba. It's only logical. So we took our suitcases off the plane and put them in the trunk of the car. Let's roll.

My responsibilities at the last wedding consisted mostly of dancing madly, talking to relatives, and consuming everything in sight at an alarming rate, At this event my husband was the Best Man, so I wasn't sure what that mean for my role. I decided to go with what I know, and continue dancing madly, talking to relatives and consuming everything in sight at an alarming rate. The Best Manly duties kept Dave fairly busy all weekend, which gave me a chance to get my in-laws alone and show them all the reasons they should love me more than their biological child. So far, so good. The entire weekend was perfect for us and, much more importantly, for Matty and Age. They simply could not have been any happier without their heads exploding.Matty and Age grin through their ceremony! Lesya and I cry like babies.Everyone looks on as the sun shines down.Clear Lake, living up to the name.A summer sky in Manitoba.Centerpieces and place settings. Local artist Delores Orridge made these lovely plaques.The beautiful wedding party in the gorgeous tent.The best friend and his Best Man.How lucky is he? A canola field set under that gorgeous prairie sky, a perfect end to the weekend.

Wedding: The Foothills and Mountain Version

My blogging absence of the recent weeks can simply be explained by the fact that we are currently in the peak of wedding season. And so Dave and I over-packed and saddled-up to begin our wedding odyssey.

Last week we landed, rather bumpily, on the tarmac at Denver International Airport to begin the long weekend of debauchery that ensues whenever a Pappas gets married. My cousin Derek and his new wife Beth did their best to represent at our wedding, and damned if we weren't going to do the same at theirs. The maternal side of my family sets the bar quite high when it comes to partying. And being the only girls, and rather small girls at that, amongst a clan of all-male-over-six-feet-tall cousins, my sister and I certainly feel the pressure to bring it when called upon.
The shone brightly on the wedding day, so we slathered Dad and David in sunscreen and took our seats! The happy couple saying their vows.I can never pass up a photo op with a grain silo.Cupcakes and cakes. I was in my glory.Favors of almonds, a Greek wedding tradition.
Ouzo, the best way to get a Pappas on the dance floor.The tent looked gorgeous! The perfect setting for me to eat until the point of feeling ill!
The dance floor, hoe-down style.
Dave ponders the universe. And identifies cloud animals...see the dragon?Goodnight Colorado! Most simply put, a good time was had by all. A trip with my entire family, both nuclear and extended, is rare these days. But a successful trip, defined by good weather, great circumstances, and plenty of food to ward of crabbiness, is a thing to be cherished. We all flew home with a feeling of pleasant exhaustion, beginning the slow recovery until next year when the next of our crew ties the knot. OPA!

Not That Many

Remember in April when I reported to the blogosphere that I was determined to lose the pretzel weight I had accumulated in Germany? Turns out that under the pretzel weight was the cheese weight that I took home as a souvenir from my life in the Netherlands. Warm weather, new shoes and my sister as motivation (or at least a bit of sisterly competition) helped me get the ball rolling, and I eventually saw and felt the results. The onset of summer months also brings more fruit and salads, and our departure from Europe helped me drastically reduce my cheese intake. Once you've tasted the bounty of the cheese truck, you can barely stand the blandness of American cheese on your palette. And you can't afford, in good cheese conscience, to eat the delicious imported stuff.

So as I continue to battle the urge to eat poorly and move minimally, I always appreciate ways to change my routine. Truth be told, I can run a 5K for fun, do yoga for 90 minutes and dance madly for hours. But I'm not very strong. Don't get me wrong, I will attack you like a crazed spider monkey with the strength of five crazed spider monkeys if you really want to challenge me physically, but when it comes to something like pull-ups or chin-ups...I can't do any. None. And since well rounded fitness has to included, or so I'm told, endurance, flexibility AND strength, I'm going to take my muscular abilities up a notch. Or try to at least.

When I heard about the Hundred Push Ups challenge, I reacted with my favorite dismissive maneuver: eye rolling. Not possible. Or necessary. When would this ever come in handy? I have no G.I. Jane ambitions. When I mentioned it to Dave he said "You're going to have a GIGANTIC chest!" And he said it with fear, because he meant pecs not breasts. But then I read some health forums and other reviews, and women all over are raging. Not only did they NOT become Pec-monsters, but they found their overall strength in their arms, shoulders and core increased dramatically. The toning went from chest to upper back to triceps (you know, Oprah flaps) to abs. AND they could do 100 push-ups in a row, which is an awesome party trick in my opinion.

After I read the reviews, saw some testimonials with 'after' pictures, and secretly ate some Red Vines (because I needed sustenance while thinking of this strenuous training) I decided to do the 'initial test.' The program is based on the result of your initial test, with varying levels of difficulty for different levels of fitness. Even though the website instructs that 'alternative' types of push-ups are acceptable, I'm all about shaming people into doing true push-ups if they are going to do this kind of challenge. And shamed I was when I realized that a REAL, knees off the ground, nose to the floor push up is HARD. Really effing hard. I am, in fact, so shamed that I can't disclose my number but let's just say...I have about 95 push-ups to go.

So...WHO'S WITH ME!?

Skinny Dipping

Over the weekend, my sister had some friends visit. Of the five total guests, four were men. Untrained, unmarried men. Men who are recently out of college and still co-habitate with only other men. And besides the beer consumption levels and the crass practical jokes that often involve the first man to pass out and a permanent marker, there was the one twenty-something single-guy habit that all women who prefer their bum to remain dry dread: The Always Open Toilet Seat.

There are plenty of rather entertaining anecdotes that I or any number of my friends could share about the training of a new spouse. We women have our faults, but men tend to be the less tidy gender who prefer to decorate with athletic jerseys and use promotional Burger King cups as glassware. They're charming, they're adorable, they can reach things on high shelves. But I've never yet met one that comes completely ready for household use.

But I digress. The thing about the toilet seat is that when this is first explained to a man, he seems confused. True enough, the seat itself is on a hinge. And putting it down ourselves isn't incredibly difficult. When I walk into the bathroom with a clear mind in the broad light of day, I am fully capable of putting the seat down on my own. But when I shuffle in crustily through a sleep-induced fog, avoiding the lights so as to not burn my sleepy retinas, I don't notice the seat up. And I'm not sure if it's the sensation of falling that jerks me violently out of my sleep-walk or the resulting COLD, wet bum...oh wait, it's both falling AND ending up with clammy ass that I hate.

Bless his little heart, Dave is a toilet seat champ. Growing up in a household of women didn't hurt, but fearing the wrath of a woman woken by a violent ass-first fall into the toilet bowl completed the training. My dad, with even more years of similar fear-based training, is like a robot who was created for the sole purpose of closing toilet seats after use. I've been spoiled into complacency, but one too many damp cheeked situations over the weekend has led me to speak out, hoping any untrained men who read my blog take notice and save themselves from this particular lesson from the marriage syllabus.

Source.

I Was So Much Older Then,

I'm younger than that now. ~ Bob Dylan

As my time at my parent's house comes to an end, I am finally getting around to some of the chores my mom asked me to do two months ago. Although my childhood bedroom has already been 'cleaned out' twice before, I still managed to sneak a few drawers full of random clutter and clothes that will never fit/never be in style again. Despite some emotional connections to white-washed overall shorts, I got rid of most of the clothes with little trauma. But amongst the miscellaneous odds and ends I found my high school diary. Cue music of dread...DUN DUN DUUUUUUN.

Over the years, through the process of growing up and moving out, I've read countless notes passed in math class, letters recieved from pen pals and secret correspondence between my sister and I when we were both meant to be in time out in our individual rooms. All of said verbage included lots of bubble writing and silly polls (ie: Do you like me? Check yes or no) with minimal drama. But the diary wasn't something I was ready for. Turns out I had tons of crazy emotions in high school, and I felt compelled to write them down in detail. Turns out I took myself very seriously, and I felt compelled to write it down in detail. Turns out I was in love, out of love, heartbroken and re-heartbroken, and I felt compelled to write it down in detail. Turns out some of my friends betrayed me, and I let down some of my friends, and sometimes we made up, other times we didn't. I wrote all that down too.

Having a self-written record of my teen years sounds charming if I had been a charcter in the Babysitter's Club. But what I read was really sort of unsettling. Partly because I have very little recollection of EVER journalling, which is strange since there are almost-daily entries. And partly because the words written were extremely dichotomous. Sometimes I was decidely (and I suppose appropriately) immature, and other times I was shockingly insightful and adult. For example, I was all Lifetime Original Movie about love and the fact that I knew, just knew, that I would never find it after my first go-round. But I was sad, realistic and almost clairvoyant about the downfall of some of my lifelong friendships that never did recover from the divergence that occurs when children grow into women. I was decidedly over-dramatic about my academic pursuits, worrying over tenths when it came to my high school GPA (oh I had only known then what I know now), but consistently appreciative of the amazing family support I've always had.

Flipping through those pages was reminiscent of both an acid flashback and a gag reel of terrible teen years that we all were forced by chronology to go through. I wish I would have had a better handle of my insecurities that forced an already forceful personalitly to inadvertendly hurt people. I wish I would have wasted less time on friendships that were never meant to last into adulthood and nurtured those that I'm lucky enough to continue to this day. I wish I wouldn't have had really horrible bangs or worn tapered, high waisted jeans. I wish I would have discovered Frizz-Ease and a well-fitting bra sooner. And then I stop wishing and just remain thankful that Facebook wasn't invented until well after my formative years. That could have been ugly.

Now that the words have been read, there's really no reason to re-read them. The art of diaries is probably somewhat dwindling, what with blogs and MTV induced idiocy that plagues teenagers. Picturing myself with pen to paper so many nights makes me laugh and sigh simultaneously, picturing myself burning that journal with a legally bought drink in hand makes me smile and...want that drink to be a double.

Source.