Snack time

Friday night is usually our date night. I came home tonight and asked Steve if he wanted to go to dinner.

"Sure, but why don't you have a snack now and we'll go later?"

"Because I'm hungry now. Aren't you hungry?"

"No," (sheepishly) "I had a snack."

"Really? Right before dinner?"

"Sorry."

"It's okay. What did you eat?"

(looks at his feet) This is when I remember we made bison burgers for dinner last night.

"Did you eat the left over burgers?"

Nods.

"Both of them?"

"Well...they were kind of small."

"So by, 'I had a snack,' you meant 'I ate dinner.'"

(still looking at feet) "Yeah...I ate dinner."

My husband cracks me up! So I'm currently looking for a "snack," and anticipating a lovely Saturday night out :)

Blonde bridge blunder

Earlier this month, Steve and I drove to Arizona for a friend's wedding. We decided to go the Vegas route and check out the strip since I hadn't been there in years (and I probably won't go back for years - I know the rest of Vegas is probably a lovely place, but I maintain the strip is just bizarre...like a cracked-out Disneyland). We stayed the night to break up the drive and early the next morning we headed over Hoover Dam and on to Phoenix.

There was construction everywhere, especially driving near the dam (of course during which time I heard every "dam" joke Steve could concoct) where they are building a new bridge. Steve, having passed that way more often than I have, knew all about the bridge construction. When you read the conversation below, you'll understand why, following said conversation, Steve told me I had to blog it. It's only fair, since I have called out some of his more impressive moments here.

Steve: Wow, that's going to be weird to drive over.
Me: What? The bridge?
Steve: Yep.
Me: Drive on that thing? No way! It's way too steep - they can't have cars drive on that!
Steve: Um...
Me: Seriously! You'd never make it up the side.
Steve: Yeah...so that's the support for the bridge. They're going to put the actual bridge on top.

Oh.

Yep, in my foggy early-morning daze, I thought this was the actual BRIDGE (sorry for the weird angle - we were driving):




Good thing I'm not an engineer. You can see my concern though, were this the actual bridge, yes?

Bragging rights

For what a hard time I give Steve about cooking, I really haven't cooked much lately either (and by "lately" I mean "since we've been married"). We do lots of quick meals, which I don't think can be considered "cooking." So I love it when something I do make becomes a new family favorite.

Thursday night when I came home from girl's camp, I was ready for someone to take me OUT to dinner, so we went to one of my faves, Zupa's. I got my usual - a fruity salad and the Yucatan Chicken Tortilla Soup. Steve tried the soup, but when I offered him more he made a face and said "no thanks."

"You don't like the tortilla soup?"

"Ew. No."

"But you like tortilla soup when I make it."

"YOUR tortilla soup is stinkin' good!"

Did I just out-soup Zupa's? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at least in the eyes of one man, I did.

Briefly...

• Yay!: Steve doing all the dishes and cleaning the kitchen before I got home.
• Whoops: Realizing he's used one of our nice (and seldom-used) place mats as a dishtowel.
• Wahoo!: Coming home to see the very tidy results of Steve pulling approximately 1.3 million weeds from our yard and mowing the lawn.
• Um...: Coming home to realize he has also pulled the one thriving plant in the yard - a beautiful, purple, flowering...some kind of bushy plant I can't recall the name of. It was glorious though, and had survived from my garden last year. Alas, now no one will believe I actually grew something without killing it.

It's good for me to be reminded about having a sense of humor sometimes. But that plant did NOT look like a weed. . . .I'm just sayin'.

Somebody get this girl a planner

On Saturday, I went to a baby shower for one of my college roommies (because EVERYONE I know is having babies right now - but that's beside the point). I hadn't seen this particular roommie in almost a year, so naturally I planned my day around the 10 a.m. shower. I set my alarm for 9 (you know, just in case I had a particularly late sleep in), but in my early morning grogginess, I set it for 9 a.m. Monday - Friday and didn't even touch the weekend settings.

I woke up at 9:30, noticed the time, and promptly began panicking. I jumped out of bed, sent Steve to run an errand for me, showered fast, wrapped the present (well, put it in a purple bag. Apparently I used all the tissue paper at Christmas or something. Whoops.), waited for Steve to get back with the car, and then dashed like a mad woman out the door. Half way to the car I turned around to get the invitation (and accompanying address). Scanning for the location, I noticed the phrase "from 2 until 4 p.m." Um...what? That's right folks, not only was I not going to be late, I was going to be 4 hours early.

Steve gave me the "you are silly" look, and fair enough, because this isn't the first time that's happened. (Yep, TWO stories in one post! Brace yourselves.)

We went to Cancun on our honeymoon. I knew our flight home left at 7:00 a.m., and since it was an international flight and we had a long shuttle ride to the airport, I scheduled the pickup for 4:45 a.m. We packed everything the night before, showered, and layed our clothes out so all we'd need to do at 4 a.m. was stumble out of bed and put some shoes on.

We arrived at the airport close to 5:30 and got in line to check in for our flight.

"I'm sorry, we don't have you booked on this flight."

"Um...what?" (Maybe that's a common phrase for me. So what?)

After some severe panicking and a bit more research, we discovered that we were, in fact, booked on a flight home, just not that flight (which, btw, wasn't even going to the right state). Our flight left at 11:00 a.m. and we couldn't even check our bags in until two hours before.

Why I was so certain our flight left at 7 is beyond me, but we had to tote our luggage around the tiny Cancun airport for nearly 6 hours. We ended up buying ridiculously overpriced breakfast just so we could sit in the restaurant for a couple of hours. I should mention that because we weren't allowed to check in and clear security yet, there were no chairs. There was floor, and there was ridiculously priced restaurant seating. So after nearly an hour of people looking at us like we were hobos, we opted for the latter.

I was pretty sure any husband of less than a week would contemplate leaving a girl right then and there, but Steve was a good sport about it. We did agree though, that on future vacations HE would be in charge of our travel itinerary.

I have to admit, I thought it was a fluke at the time. But after a repeat performance I'm not so sure. Turns out it might just be...me. Is that a personality flaw? Or can I get away with just being a little quirky?

He's at it again...

Those of you familiar with My husband vs. the kitchen may be wondering how my other half has stayed out of trouble for so long. Well, this has been a particularly eventful week for him, so you're about to get the update (love you sweetie!). Ready?

• I bought some oranges at the Sunflower Market last week. I didn't realize at the time that they were blood oranges, so Steve didn't get a warning. He took one to school for lunch, peeled it, found the deep red/purple-y inside, panicked and threw the entire orange away. When I came home I got the full, horrified account of the contaminated orange.
• My always romantic hubby got me a dozen roses for Valentine's Day (sorry ladies, he's taken). The packet of flower food says "add to water," but apparently does not specify that you should first remove the food from the packet. I got a lovely bouquet in a glass vase with a floating green and white plastic packet in the water.
• Last but not least, Steve cooked dinner tonight (thank you!). It was spaghetti, which has always been one of his specialties, but tonight he decided to keep it warm while I took a shower (he's romantic AND thoughtful)...by leaving it in the pot on the stove. I was a little surprised when I came downstairs and found it still cooking.
  "You can overcook spaghetti?"
  Apparently. On the plus side, we didn't have to chew our dinner!

To be fair, he also got the highest score in his class on his social psych test, aced two papers last week, and heated up a mean can of spaghetti sauce! Also, neither of us had actually eaten a blood orange prior to this week.

How to tell a MAN's man when you see one

I previously alluded to the adventures of decorating with a BOY in the house. Before I begin, you must understand two things. First, that I had never (and I do mean NEVER) lived with a boy before I got married. First there was just my mom, and then there was the typical montage of college-aged female roommates. (Those adventures are a whole different story. Or several.) Anywho, the point is that there were NO boys. The second necessary background item is that Steve is a sports FAN. Yes, that's FAN in all caps.

When we decided to get married, Steve said he didn't care about details like what color our comforter was or what pictures we hung on the walls. This was slightly (or a lot) less than accurate. Considering he thought I was making up a story when I told him we needed to choose colors for the different rooms in our house, the guy is surprisingly opinionated about where the furniture goes, which picture is appropriate above the TV and, ironically, what colors we use.

Looking back, I suppose I should have seen it coming when he suggested we change our wedding colors from black and silver to black and gold because he doesn't like the Raiders.

Anywho, well-assured the decisions would be quick and easy (since I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and my fiancee had declared himself un-opinionated), we ventured into the world of Wedding Registry (yes, this is now a proper noun). I was quickly disillusioned. We spent more time talking about the color of our future sheets than we had on previous conversations about having children. The multi-colored couch from his childhood (now completely threadbare in several places) turned out to be a dealbreaker - apparently it came with the husband, take it or leave it (I took it). And the comforter...oh boy. Let's just say we took SEVERAL trips to SEVERAL locations before finding one we both liked enough to look at for at least a few years.

The crisis moment came as I was explaining what it means when people designate colors for certain rooms (for those of you still in the dark on this one, choosing red as a color does not mean you have to paint your walls red or uproot the existing non-red carpet). I explained that in a living room, colors might have to do with what you hang on the wall, or maybe some throw pillows. Steve, unsuspecting of saying anything out of the ordinary, announced that he had some things we could hang on the walls.

"Great," I said. "We'll have to look at our pictures together and decide where we want to hang what."

"Yeah," he said. "And I have a bunch of jerseys we can hang in the living room."

I paused to evaluate. He was not kidding.

"What?"

"I have some jerseys we can hang up. And some model cars, too."

Mmmhmmm.

"You do realize that a result of getting married is NOT being a bachelor anymore, right?"

He failed to see what this statement had to do with hanging jerseys in the living room. It was quite a let-down for him to realize (after a lot of conversation on the subject) that living with a girl meant the living room would not be decorated with toy cars and sports paraphernalia.

I have to say that he had the advantage over me on this one - having grown up with both dad and mom, he had definitely lived with a girl before. And I have never seen jerseys on the wall anywhere in his parents' house, let alone in the living room. But living on one's own for a while does tend to give one ideas.

In the end, we came to a lovely compromise. No jerseys in the living room, but we have an office that he has free reign over. And I will say he has improved - he is no less opinionated, but he'll usually give me the benefit of the doubt when I make decorating decisions, even if he's not happy about it. Although I know he still questions my sanity for preferring the multi-colored, threadbare sofa covered in a simple black fabric (it looks MUCH better).

And I guess that's what marriage is all about - finding ways to let the other person have what they want even if you think they're a little bit nuts. That's what Steve does for me, and half the time I qualify as a lot a bit nuts! More on my quirks later; let's just say I probably got the better end of the stick on marrying into quirkiness :)