adventures with kittens: commemoration, y'all

HAPPY ONE YEAR OF BEING OURS TO WEE LITTLE PENNYCAT!

We don't actually know Penny's real birthday, since she was born to be wi-i-ild in the wild in New Hampshire, but we estimate it is sometime in June based on what the vet told us. But we did kind of a shitty job celebrating then, so instead we are celebrating the day Penny came home to us.

Yes, one year ago today Brian drove back from NH with the tiniest little fluffbucket in the seat next to him. She was so scared and shy and I just wanted to LOVE HER OKAY. But eventually she decided we weren't so bad and now she pretty much runs things around here.

Here's a little retrospective of phone pictures:

These were the first pictures I ever saw of tiny Penny, when Brian was asking which kitten he should bring home. Look how pathetic she looks! I knew I had to have that tiny fuzzy being.

And here is the first time she was home and being sweet, as opposed to being home and hiding/trembling.

 Looking back on these, she is SO TINY.

 She fit in the windowsill!

Always resourceful, Penny figured out quickly how to keep warm when it got chilly.

 Sleeping, boozing, sleeping – Penny also quickly discovered the secret to the perfect life.

 Playing, napping.

Helping me study. 

And this is about the time Penny considered a career as a professional model. 

 ...But she quickly decided TV and naps were more important than worldwide fame.

Plus, quitting modeling gave her more time to get into (and onto) shit around the house. 

And here is Penny's first trip outside of Boston - we took her home to Mississippi for Christmas!

We also got her spayed while in the South, which led to some hilarious moments while she was super high on kitty anesthesia – she wanted to jump onto my bed but couldn't make it so she kept jumping and falling and giving me heart attacks because I was afraid she was going to tear her stitches. So I put her on the bed and she immediately wanted to jump off, and then fell over drunk as soon as she landed. I should have videoed it. It would have been bigger than David After Dentist. 

 She also discovered stairs for the first time and LOVED them.

Back in Boston, there was snow! And Penny watched it from the window for hours. Look how much bigger here than the first picture in the window!

I've never had a cat that loves to be upside down as much as Penny. She often sleeps upside down, and then when she wakes up and jumps off the bed she can usually only make it a few steps before she decides she is too sleepy to make it any further, falls over and rolls onto her back. Then she looks at us and demands to be loved.

 Sleepy, sleepy, face, put your hands up.

 

She also loves to get in boxes/bags/suitcases whenever they are available to her.

And although she doesn't fit into the windowsill quite like when she was a kitten, she still loves it.

Brian is probably going to kill me for including this picture but it cracks me up so much. Penny really has us wrapped around her little paw, to the point where I woke up one day to see her literally asleep on Brian's head.

All in a day's work.

And here she is, in her full fluff glory these days. We love you Pennycat. I'm so glad you're ours.

money and perspective

After getting another parking ticket the other day (we don't get these extremely often, but I'm always so mad at myself when we do) and accidentally waiting to buy some plane tickets to the point that they were VERY expensive and checking my bank account to find out I had a whopping $11 in it, I was feeling really down today about how I've been handling my fiscal and life-cal responsibilities.

I told Brian, "I'm terrible at being an adult."

He responded with, "No, people who abandon their children, who deal drugs and/or purposefully park in handicap zones suck at being adults. We, on the other hand, are just beginners."

Perspective.

leaving SLC

As I mentioned in another post, I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah (or I was when I wrote this - I was waiting on the pictures to post it and here they are, yay!).

Near the beginning of the visit, we held a little dinner get-together for the friends that I have kept in touch with and their families.  I have to admit, I was nervous about seeing my childhood best friends after so many years, but I shouldn't have been worried. We clicked back together like I had never left. We laughed about how awkward and young and WEIRD we were in middle school – seriously, we were so strange. And awkward. Proof?

This was my last night in Utah before moving to Mississippi. 

I really REALLY hope they don't hate me forever for putting that picture on the internet. We really were that awk though - fourteen was an unforgiving age. Luckily I can say that we have all grown into this:

God I never thought I'd be so happy to be in my 20s. Seeing my old friends was the best experience. I love that even though we are all totally different people than we were as kids, we still really connect and have so much fun. So many memories with these ladies.

Other things from the trip:

A couple of days ago I went back to visit my elementary school, which was a crazy trip. I attended that school for an entire decade, from Pre-Kindergarten to 8th grade. Up until recently that made up over half of my whole life (and the fact that it doesn't anymore makes me feel super old). Some things had changed – they stopped manufacturing the plaid of our uniforms, so all the kids wear new colors. They've built new art, science and music rooms down at one end, which is great because in my day the teachers of those classes had to cart around their gear from room to room. I'm sure I'll have more to explore on this topic later (including some awesomely terrible pictures of adolescent me in uniform).

Today myself and two of my cousins all tried on our mothers' wedding dress* (it's the same dress - our mothers, who are sisters, both wore their mother's wedding dress, so there is a great tradition involved with the dress). More on that later, too!

It's amazing how different it feels to be a guest in my parent's home rather than coming home to stay in my old bedroom. This is a wonderful house (holy shit their kitchen is amazing), but it's my parents' home and not mine – I really am an adult, with my own home. It's sad and exciting all at the same time.

* I swear I occasionally do things other than think, talk and blog about weddings, even if it doesn't seem like it lately. 

real talk: wedding planning

When I wrote this, I had stars in my eyes and wedding blogs on my mind and was so, so innocent. Now, seven months later, I am a little bit... emotional. Somehow both overemotional and emotionally drained at the same time, actually.

Weddings cost money.

source: Once Wed

A lot of money. Even when you don't want them to or plan for them to, they just surprise you. And of course the things I care about the most – photography, location, food & drinks – are the most expensive elements. And of course I have a giant family and Brian has a big family and we both have a lot of wonderful friends that we really want to be there to celebrate with us (and of course people tell you the guest list is the first thing to drive up the price but of course I scoffed and said I could figure it out and now I'm realizing what they tell you is one thousand percent true). And of course I want to be one of those laid-back, easy breezy brides but I'm not sure I've ever really been laid-back about anything in my life.

I'm a perfectionist and I'm neurotic and I'm type A and I'm my own worst critic.

All of these traits would make me fabulous at planning someone else's wedding, I believe. But when it's my own my emotions get too involved and I kind of freak out.

It's a hard thing to talk about. It's hard to say that planning this is making me do things and be someone I don't want to be. It's making me care way too much about things that are silly. In fact, a grand theme of wedding planning (at least when it is your own) is to care about things you don’t want to (and really SHOULDN’T) care about. And you know it’s totally silly to care about it, but you DO and you can’t HELP IT and you feel dumb but that doesn’t change anything.

For example, there is a surprising downside of wedding blog addiction (you know, besides millions and millions of hours of my time trickled away into the ether [and besides the inevitable envy at their Louboutin wedding shoes and multiple dresses and breathtaking decor (basically, all the things that half-million-dollar budgets can get you [seriously, do they think they are kidding us, calling a wedding "DIY-chic" when I can see that the shoes are Manolos and the dress is Vera?])])...

Where was I?... Oh yeah, a surprising downside is that it starts to seem like everything has been done before. When I first started perusing the wedding web, I found some engagement pictures that I fell in love with and immediately planned to blatantly rip off for our own save-the-dates. Then I saw similar ones on several other sites and started thinking I need to come up with something new and different and original (we ended up copying the idea after all). Same thing with the hanger for your wedding dress saying "Mrs. So-and-so" (will probably get scratched anyway for budgetary reasons) and peacock feather decor (will likely still be some, but scaled back from my original plan). 

It’s even worse when your friends beat you to it. Three of my favorite ideas for our wedding (Scrabble tiles and bridal TOMS and putting your mom's dress on display) have already been done by close friends of ours and even though we had the ideas completely independently and in the end it really doesn’t matter at all, I feel like if I do them I will be copying someone else’s big day. Which is dumb, but honest. 

On the other hand, flowers are something I never figured I'd care much about in the grand scheme of my wedding – not that I don't love receiving them in real life, hinthintBrian – because they are expensive and there are so so many things to buy. I just wanted something simple inexpensive, but beautiful. Then I see about seventy billion breathtaking bouquets on various blogs and suddenly I'm thinking, "well maybe I do want a fancy schmancy flowery thang to hold on to..." Which only leads me back to the budget and the millions of other things and I'm defeated all over again. 

I was never one to find eloping particularly appealing or romantic, but lately I've started thinking those people – the ones who reclaim their weddings from the hype and expense and all the people trying to tell them what they "should" do or what is "appropriate" and instead of worrying about offending people, they just go off to celebrate getting married and starting a marriage, which is the whole point of a wedding after all – might have the right idea.

Don't worry, I'm not eloping. I'm just saying I appreciate anyone who just says "screw it" and does it exactly how they want. After all, a wedding is about the bride and groom (or the bride and bride or the groom and groom, I'm all about equality) making a promise to each other, not about anyone or anything else. That's what I need to remember.

So there it is. Real talk. I promise to crop Penny's head on something ridiculous next time to lighten the mood, but it feels good to share. 

A Dream Wedding

I received this text message from one of Brian's fraternity brothers (and groomsmen) last week:

I had a dream about the wedding. It was western themed. Brians groomsmen were me, some KA and Brian's nephew. Molly and Nancy Yates were the only bridesmaids. We all wore chaps and cowboy boots. The flower girl just kicked a tumbleweed down the aisle and you rode in on a stallion. Wtf...

And I just have one question. Does anyone know where I can get a white stallion in Mississippi?!

I'm baaaaaaaaack!!

Which I'm sure 40% of my former readership will never notice, because you have stopped checking due to the lengthy lack of posts, another 40% will notice because I put this on facebook but react like, "oh yeah, that blog I never read anyway," 1% will pretend to care because you live with me and I tell you when I post and then stare at you, waiting until you go read it (hi Brian!), 2% will both notice and care because they are probably the only ones still checking this thing (hi Mom and Dad!), 10% will be super excited to resume filling their heads with my drabble, and the remaining [does math in head]... 7% are just here because they googled information about maine coons - seriously, I get so many hits from that post.

Note: Yes, I realize that by making my parents 2% I am assuming I have, or at least used to have, 100 loyal readers. A girl can dream.

So where did I go?

I never forgot about the blog so much as I went a few days without updating, and then I wrote a couple of half-posts that I intended to spruce up before posting for real, and then I didn't do that and then they weren't timely anymore and then it had been a bunch of days without updating and then I threw a couple posts up and wrote several more half-posts that never quite got finished or published and then I was traveling a bunch and then I got kind of used to thinking about blogging but not actually blogging and then all of the sudden it was August and I was like, "whaaaaaaat?"

Hey. Happy August.

Happy middle of August to be realz.

How has your summer been? Mine has been mostly uneventful, but punctuated by periods of busy/chaos. Brian has been working so hard, bringing home mounds and mounds of things to write and prepare and study each night and the weekend. And I have been... working. I am doing an internship at Art New England magazine three days a week, writing for the website and some upcoming print issues. I really enjoy it and have been putting a lot of effort into the writing, since it will actually be seen by more than my professors. But I also have been enjoying coming home and, for the most part, leaving work behind me until the next morning. I never got to feel like that when school was in session, and I'm sure as soon as things start up again in September I won't anymore, so I am taking advantage of it.

The busy part of life mostly has to do with wedding season being in full swing. For us, it involves a bunch of traveling, either preparing for it or being in the thick of it or recovering from it. We spent a weekend in Jackson and Hattiesburg for two friends' wedding, and managed to lock down our wedding venue and date in the same weekend (yay slash thank god). Then more recently I took five days off to be a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding in Florida (yay Tait Kellogg! I didn't even have to hold her hair or anything at the bachelorette!).

Also, I'm in Utah. Did I mention that? I am visiting mes parents for a week or so, and it is super nostalgic. Although I largely grew up in this state, I haven't been in it for six years and haven't lived here for over nine years. It doesn't really feel like home anymore, but there are elements of it that will always bring that feeling back. The mountains, certain sights, people. My parents live in a different neighborhood now than what I grew up in, so its not overwhelming as of yet, but I think when I visit other old sights it will be. My school, the library, certain restaurants... these are the places engrained in my brain.

In addition, I have been going through the last things I left at my parents' house when I moved to Boston,  which is mainly old pictures and memorabilia from middle school and high school. It is bringing back some of the (horrible, terrible, embarrassing, should-never-be-seen-by-anyone) choices I made growing up – mainly sartorial, but there are some pretty good hairstyles and even journal entires I am stumbling upon. Don't worry, there will be posts to come exploring these items in greater detail.

But for now, I just want to say hey. What's up. Let's hang out again.

awkward intern

Today is my last day of my summer internship. It was a good experience overall, something to keep me busy but that I rarely had to take home to work on overnight, something to get me published here and there without being too stressful, something to get me class credits while also being flexible enough to allow me to take off when I needed to be there for Tait at her wedding or visit my parents.

All truly great. There was just one liiiiiiittle thing.

Several different factors have combined to create the PERFECT STORM of awkwardness at this job.

First and foremost, the room is layed out super awk. There is a main part, and then I'm off in this little weird side nook blocked by a huge bookshelf. Which means I can hear but not see the two females that work in the same room. This makes me feel like I am constantly eavesdropping and also makes it very difficult to enter smoothly into conversation. Awkward.

Secondly, for about a week when I first began working, two of the people who work in my room and the Accounts Executive often discussed ads, coming up with different ways to make them dirty double entendres. I found this hilarious – however, could there be a more awkward thing to just jump in on a joke about? Especially when I'm just this random disembodied voice around the corner? And they only met me two days ago? So instead, I just awkwardly and quietly sat there, typing away.

I also don't really fit with any particular social group in the office. The people I am closest to in age (although they are all a bit older) are all longer-term, paid employees. I, on the other hand, am an unpaid intern [see: slave labor]. The rest of the unpaid interns are in high school, and when they aren't filing or being sent on assignments or making copies or whatever, they are clustered about giggling and facebooking. Yet I am still considered an intern, same as them. Being the only intern older than Justin Bieber = awkward.

Another issue: the fact that my computer tower is, for some unexplained reason, on the floor. But the cord connecting the keyboard to the tower is really short, so the tower has to be pulled really far forward - in fact, directly where my knees SHOULD go. This causes me to shift a lot, trying to find a comfortable position to look at the screen/type on the keyboard. So then I'm the awkward, fidgety intern.

Then, things get quiet a lot when everyone digs into their work, so I tend to put my headphones in and listen to music on my phone. Of course, as soon as I do, everyone else starts chatting again and I'm suddenly awkward and anti-social.

Another another issue: When I need a break from staring at the computer screen, I can either look at the white wall a foot to my left (ugly and not very interesting) or into the rest of the room to my right. Obviously I choose to stare off to the right, into the main part of the room and out the windows (which, in true city fashion, give us a fabulous view of the windows of the building right next to us). However, I fear that gazing in this direction makes Evan, the co-worker whose desk is the only one in my field of vision, think I am constantly staring at him. Awkward stalker intern.

And then there are the times another co-worker, Alex, comes in and chats with the other girls around the corner (this occurs pretty often). Randomly they will go from speaking at a normal volume to whispering almost inaudibly to each other. I'm sure they aren't talking about me though... right? RIGHT?? I swear I'm not paranoid and awkward.

In what might be the worst one, I get really thirsty at work, so I am often getting up to re-fill my water bottle. Unfortunately, this makes me also have to get up to hit the ladies' room pretty often too. I'm pretty sure my co-workers believe I have bladder issues (in addition to being obsessed with Evan). Extra awkward.

Finally, there are even some things that are awk but (surprisingly) not caused by me:

1. One of the wireless internet networks my phone picks up is called "PlunderBunny." What does that mean?! Actually, I don't want to know.
2. On days when I'm not here, another intern uses my desk/computer. Some of the things I have found in the recent Google searches include "how to remove corns on toes," "are scones bad for you," and "what size should women be." She also spends a good bit of time on Facebook it appears.
3. It is freezing in the office to the point where I wear normal clothes to commute here but pack a cardigan, jacket AND scarf in my purse. This is not okay.

So with that, farewell internship. Every awesome, yet awkward, bit of you.