First Anniversary (cont'd)

Just in case you guys were wondering, our day was perfect.

I was taken by surprise by how emotional I was from the moment I woke up...I just felt overwhelmed by my happiness and the fact that somehow I'd just been allowed to spend an entire year married to the love of my life. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I started crying as I snuggled up to JP and wished him a happy anniversary.

We went ahead and exchanged gifts before we even got out of bed. We'd decided that we would give each other the traditional anniversary gifts each year. (Everyone knows the 25th anniversary gift is silver and the 50th is gold, but there are others for years 1-15, then for every fifth year after that. You can view the traditional and modern lists here, and we went the traditional route.) So the first year is paper. JP made me a couple of origami hearts and painted them, plus an origami heart-lined picture frame that we plan to put on the fridge once we get some magnetic strips. I made him a "love jar" (although I didn't have any jars sitting around, so I used a Valentine's Day drink mixer) where I cut up pieces of paper that have things I love about him written on them so he can take one out and read one whenever he wants.

















After that, we spent the day being lazy. We'd just bought the Lego Pirates of the Caribbean game (we LOVE the Lego games) so we played that all day. Then that evening we got dressed up and went to our favorite Italian restaurant in Times Square.  Of course we had to visit the statue of George M Cohan in the middle of Times Square where we got engaged. It was nice since the tourists are all gone now. :-)

All in all, it was a very lovely day.

Love

 

"I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives." -The Holiday

That line right there is probably one of the major reasons why The Holiday is my favorite movie. It is so true for me. I'm a hopeless romantic at heart and I'm constantly aware of how love (or the lack of it) shapes people and the world around them. Love can be perceived but not truly felt. It can be withheld. Love can be lost, and not always by both parties at once.

I've been in love for more than 2 years, and I in no way consider myself an expert on the subject. However, I do feel like I've learned a lot about love in the past 12 months. Have you heard about the five love languages? They're the five main ways that we show and like to receive love: words of affirmation, touch, quality time, gifts, and acts of service. I've heard about these all my life pretty much thought everyone should know about them and focus on them. When JP and I first got married, we decided to take the quiz, thinking that it would help us to know more about each other.

It was fun to do and the results were interesting, but not long after that day I realized something. The way that I want to be loved most varies day to day. The result I got that first day was not the same result I would have gotten a week later. It became pretty clear to me that even though these love languages are interesting to learn about and to be aware of, they are not the be-all and end-all of loving relationships. The key is balance. Don't discover your spouse loves acts of service, then proceed to lose focus on encouraging them or spending quality time with them. By the same token, don't be upset when your spouse doesn't show you love using only the option you scored most on - you have to look at what else they're doing to show their love to you instead of focusing on the one way you've decided to expect.

www.mollymcgaughey.com

 

This is all leading up to today's special occasion. It's mine and JP's one year anniversary. Yep. We've been married a whole year. It truly is a milestone. The year has been a rough one outside of our marriage - a year ago, I would not have been able to imagine just how much I would come to rely on JP's quiet love and support. I know I've had my extremely crazy moments of freaking out, but he always has a way of calming me down, whether he's lending balance to my frame of mind or validating my freak out moment with other words of wisdom. This year has truly made JP my family and I can't imagine my life without him.

 So in light of these things I've learned about love in general, here are some ways JP has shown me love this past year. They're little things, but little things that spoke to me and made me feel loved.

- He's willing to walk home barefoot for me. One night we were getting home late after a night of dancing and I had been wearing heels that were killing my feet. It was too late to catch a bus from the subway, so we decided to walk it, but I was really having a hard time. JP offered to walk home barefoot so that I could wear his shoes. (Side note: He's offered many times since too, but it's never been bad enough for me to have to do that again.)

- He gives me the pickles from his Chickfila sandwich. He hates pickles (weird, right?) and I love them. He used to get the sandwiches without pickles, but now he gets them so I can have them. Yeah, I know that I could get pickles on the side, but it's not the same. I love that he just started doing it without saying anything.

- He makes phone calls. I HATE making phone calls. JP doesn't care for it either, but he's always willing to call to order food, to call our landlord with questions...anything that requires a phone call, he'll do it.

- He does random, silly internet things for me while I'm at work. When I found out I could get into Pottermore early, I was at work. I asked JP if he would go on to see if he could do it for me, and before I knew it I had a Pottermore screen name. Back when I played a lot of Facebook games, he would harvest stuff and gather coins for me while I was at work. (I'm aware this makes me sound obsessive...the point is he's willing to put up with it and help me out.)

- He understands that Colby and I are crazy together. He refers to her as my wife and understands that our relationship is a little...codependent. He puts up with the fact that sometimes we're going to obsess over little things and sometimes I'm going to annoy him by chattering about stuff he doesn't care about. But he respects us and what we have. Or maybe he just puts up with it. :-)

- In the same vein, he's willing to help me with videos. The first time I wanted to film some segments for one of Colby's videos, he rolled his eyes at me and laughed. But when we actually did it, he was into it and throwing out suggestions. We had fun shooting the segments together. Another time, he didn't even understand what I told him I was doing. He just set up the camera and shot it for me.

- He shops with me in the rain. There was one particular day that was going to give us plenty of time to shop for Christmas gift and it ended up raining all day. But he was a trooper, going everywhere I needed to and offering to carry bags.

- Those random moments when he says, "I'm so glad we're married." I know we're still newlyweds and this may not last forever. But I love it when we're doing something random like watching TV or cooking dinner and then he turns to me with this certain look on his face and says, "I'm so glad we're married," or "I'm so happy you're my wife." My heart jumps every time.

Here's to many more years with the man I love.

Turkey Day

Our first Thanksgiving as a married couple was a huge success.


My aunt Carla was in town, so she and I got up at 4:45am to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. The parade was amazing - my experience was so much better than last year, where I got stuck at the back of the crowd on a side street by myself. This year, we were right in front, on the side where the sun wasn't in our eyes, right up against the rail. We were able to high five people in the parade.
Plus, Kermit was there!It's actually very weird for me to see Muppets in real life because I really do feel like they're real and I feel like I'm seeing an actual celebrity in real life.

Anyhow, after the parade Carla and I headed home to nap and cook. When we got there, JP had already moved the living room furniture around and set the table and it was GORGEOUS. (Side note: That brown tablecloth? Yeah...it's a bed sheet. How awesome is that?) This is the first time we used our wedding china, which was so exciting. (Of course, several jokes were made about the episode of Friends when Monica is such a freak about her wedding china.) JP was also already working on the turkey. We arranged the flowers we'd gotten and set out the chocolate Thanksgiving-themed lollipops straight from Jacques Torres.

Our friends brought delicious food to go with our turkey, dressing, and roasted green beans. Molly brought squash casserole, her sister Katie brought sweet potato casserole, and Harper brought apple dumplings and pumpkin pie. It was all so delicious.

The whole day was far more perfect than I could have imagined. It really made me realize how thankful I truly am for the friends I have here and the life I have with my husband. I had a defining moment during dinner (I describe it as my movie moment). JP and I were sitting at the head and foot of the table (another first!) and at one point everyone at the table was laughing really hard about something. So there we are surrounded by friends who love us and the sound of their laughter and JP catches my eye across the table and gives me a little wink. Now JP will probably read this and roll his eyes at my sentimentality, but for me...it was just one of those awesome moments when you feel such a rush of happiness and contentment with your life.

I hope your Thanksgiving brought you happiness as well. Now on to the Christmas season!

Internet Etiquette

I was recently accused of poor etiquette on the internet. By a stranger, no less. Now I'm not perfect and I'm aware that my negative Slytherin attributes do show up every once in a while. However, I also know a lot about etiquette on the internet. Here are some things that are just plain annoying to come across.


Whining that you don't have time to post...in a post. You had time to post that you don't have time to post. If you really don't have time to post on your blog, then just stay off your computer.

Along the same lines...if you post fiction in a public forum, please don't introduce it by talking about how crappy it is. Don't whine and say you're such an awful writer and your stories are crappy, etc. Just put it out there and let it speak for itself. Especially if it's mostly your friends reading it anyway.

Going by a fake name. Don't get me wrong, I understand using a pseudonym for professional reasons. But using a "nickname" that you've given yourself (when no one in real life uses it for you, well, because it doesn't even fit you as a nickname) in conjunction with your real name (so it's not exactly to protect your identity, right?) is just juvenile.
Acting like you care about someone online then ditching them in real life. This just looks like you're more active online than in the real world.

Posting something you read in a forwarded email as though it's fact. Come on, people. Don't be stupid.

What about you? Any crazy stuff you've seen that's just really irritating here on the world wide web?

Stuck in my head.

Do you get songs stuck in your head? I find it fascinating that this happens. I don't know if it's the same for you, but I tend to hear really random songs that I haven't listened to in forever. Some days I'll have just one or two songs that hang out in my head. Other days...it's like someone made a playlist for a 10 hour road trip and pieces of every single song are played in my head. I don't get it.

So here's what I did. I decided to start making note of which songs showed up throughout the day. I did it a few of days of this week. A couple of days I only wrote down 2-4 songs. No big deal. But other days I had a whole list. So I picked the longest list to share with you. Oh and the list ALWAYS starts in the shower. I've never taken a shower without humming a song. I give you the songs in my head on October 4.


1. At This Moment - Michael Buble
Michael usually shows up on every list. I probably listen to him more often than any other band or singer (with Harry Connick, Jr, being a close second.

2. Fancy - Reba McEntire
Truthfully, I have NO idea where this came from. I couldn't tell you the last time I actually heard this song.

3. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia - Reba McEntire
For some reason, this song and Fancy always seem to go hand in hand in my brain. I can't think of one without thinking about the other.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Theme Song
Um, yeah. Not a clue.

5. I'm Coming Home - Michael Buble
See? More Michael.

6. The Ballad of Sweeney Todd
I'm guessing this was hovering around because I'd been watching The Office in the last week or so and there's an episode where Andy is in Sweeney Todd. But I'd watched it days before this day.

7. Beautiful - Christina Aguilera
???? I don't own ANY of her music and again, can't remember the last time I heard this song.

8. My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion
Ok here's one I can explain. I still reminisce about my awesome honeymoon most days. It was a cruise to Alaska. There were some bad weather days, and also icebergs/chunks of ice in the water (because it's Alaska), so we talked about Titanic a lot. So NOW whenever I think about my honeymoon, this song inevitably gets stuck in my head. It showed up on lists from other days.

9. Never Fully Dressed without a Smile - from the musical Annie
Don't know.

10. A song from the movie The Holiday. I don't know which song it was, but it was definitely one that was part of the score, not a song with words.


So there you have it. These all came while I was at work, because of lot of my work days are filled with me doing tests where I don't have to think a lot and so my mind is free to wander. The days with shorter lists were the days where I worked in the clinic, which meant I was actually talking to people the whole time (my brain was too focused on talking and writing, etc.). Once I leave work, I read my kindle on the way home, then usually watch tv and talk to JP before going to bed.

Oh and I'd also like to point out that sometimes I have two songs try to mesh together when they definitely shouldn't. For example, on this day, these lyrics were stuck in my head at some point: "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down...when the evil Shredder attacks, them turtle boys don't cut him no slack!"

So what songs get stuck in YOUR head?

Kayaking? In NYC?

Yes, that's right. Today I went kayaking in NYC. My friend Molly has been wanting to go so we went. JP and I were running a little late (of course) so by the time we got to the pier Molly and my other friend Katie had already gone out once. I was a little turned off to the idea by how soaked they were from the waist down, but I ended up doing it anyway since I did drag myself out of the apartment just for that reason.

So there are 3 (I believe) piers along the Hudson River where free kayaking is offered. We went to Riverside Park on 72nd St. Also, there's a long pier nearby for people to go hang out on that I'm really glad to know is there. It's a pretty gorgeous place to just chill and enjoy being next to the water. And there's a cafe that serves snacks, meals, beer, coffee...pretty great. But I digress. Back to free kayaking...

All you have to do is sign a waiver that will last you the year (you don't have to sign one every time you go), put on a life jacket, and you're good to go. If you have stuff you don't want getting wet (i.e. your purse, your phone, your wallet), they have lockers you can use that are also free. The kayaks aren't legit kayaks, because they're open. You're not tucking your legs inside something, so it's a lot safer if you've never gotten into a real kayak before.

Now, you'll definitely get your backside wet. There's no escaping it. I'd recommend wearing something besides denim - something that will dry quickly. But unless you're purposely slinging water everywhere because you think it's fun (and as long as you don't try really hard to flip your kayak), you can probably tuck your phone or camera into the front of your life jacket so you can take pictures...or text people to make them jealous.

So if you're bored and broke on a nice day, this can be something fun to do. I did have fun, but I must admit I got kind of bored with it. You have to stay within the set boundaries so that you don't end up down the river and out into the ocean. I'm used to being on a fast moving river where the scenery is constantly changing. Here, I just rode around in circles and got excited the couple of times waves came in. Otherwise...eh.

Ultimately, I'd go again. It's something different to do, especially if you're wanting to escape being in the city. And once again...it's FREE. That's a major draw. And when you're with good people, it will always be fun.

Naturally disastrous.

I've had a lot of people ask me about the earthquake and Hurricane Irene, so I thought I'd go through some details now.

Yes, I was home on Tuesday and yes, I felt the earthquake. JP and I were sitting on the couch and I snapped at him to please stop jiggling his foot because it was making the whole couch shake. He pointed out that he wasn't moving at all. That's when we noticed the liquid in our drinks sloshing, the blinds swaying, and our tall floor fan was wobbling back and forth. Because an earthquake was the furthest thing from my mind, I automatically assumed it had something to do with the fact that DirecTV had been drilling into our building that morning. But since JP is smart, he immediately said, no I think that might have been an earthquake. Yeah, he's the smart one in this relationship.

So now everyone is in a tizzy about Hurricane Irene. Lots of people have asked me if we're evacuating and/or what are we doing to prepare. The answer is no, we're not evacuating. We live in the middle of Queens, and according to the maps that show all the different zones (Zone A being the most at risk for flooding and other damage), we're not actually listed in any of the zones. So we have plenty of water, our stove is gas so we should be able to cook soup, etc., and if the wind ends up looking like it could shatter windows, we can hunker down in our windowless kitchen and hallway. We have flashlights and candles. Also, we'll fill our tub with water, so we'll be able to flush no matter what.

I personally don't think it's gonna be quite as bad as everyone here is thinking. I started following @NYCMayorsOffice on Twitter and I swear its sole purpose is to freak everyone out. For example, this was a picture they posted this morning and I'm posting it with the original tweet that accompanied it.

These are the kinds of boats used in Katrina. You don't want to end up in one. If you need to evacuate, do so now.

Also, the MTA has shut down all the subways and buses as of noon today. So now we just wait. Looking out the window, it's definitely getting darker and the sky is getting grayer. I'm very curious to see how it's all gonna go down. I'll try to keep everyone updated via Facebook.

Love you all - don't worry about us!