Today Jake turns 26 and I think I’m more excited than he is! 

photo by Howard Chen [HOWE CAPTIVATE]

A lot of people say that on their birthday they feel exactly the same as they did the day before, and I agree- but if you take that a step further and compare how you felt on your birthday the year before compared to now, hopefully its different... and hopefully it's because something has improved.   I was thinking about all the things that have happened with Jake since March 22nd, 2010 and I think it's a lot!

-He got his Cannondale cycle in April (aka Carmen, his baby)
-Graduated with his Doctorate of Physical Therapy in May
-Started his first job with Sentara in June
-We got our dog, Tank, in July
-He started a small business with another therapist in September
-We celebrated our 1 year anniversary in October
-Picked out our fresh Christmas tree together in December (this was a first for both of us; I'd always gotten a tree from NC and never with him and I don't think he'd ever picked out a real tree period)
-He “Retired” the terminator for a new Tacoma & spent two and half weeks in Haiti working on amputees through Physicians for Peace in February

Of course this isn’t nearly everything, but I’m sure when Jake really thinks about everything from the past year he will feel different (and hopefully in a good way).

Now as far as his birthday celebration goes, it’s sort of tricky because we are both part of a bible study on Tuesday nights and the guys' study is actually at our house!  With that in mind, we preemptively celebrated on Sunday with Alison and Will at Zushi in Town Center and splurged with dessert at Confetti!  Tonight my plan is to get off work early and cook dinner for him.  And trust me when I tell you that the act of cooking in and of itself is a great gift.  Not to mention the recipe has both multiple ingredients and steps, which will hopefully impress him as well!

Tonight’s menu is (don’t worry he won’t read this before then):

Cayenne-Rubbed Chicken with Avocado Salsa 

and Tomatoes Stuffed with Grilled-Corn Salad from Martha Stewart’s Food Everyday

I’ve actually told Jake that I made plans for us right after work and will text him the address right before he gets off to keep the surprise.  Of course, he assumed this meant eating out and started to complain that we’d already done the whole celebration charade on Sunday and he isn’t sure that we’ll have time to go out.  I reminded him that I’m a planner and I’d already taken all of those things into consideration before making the plans, so for him to trust me.  I promised he’d be home in plenty of time for the his bible study.. and I plan on keeping that promise.

He should be getting said text with our address any minute and I'm sure he'll call right away to see what I'm up to.  Hopefully, dinner will be timed perfectly for his arrival and the house may even be cleaned too (fingers crossed)!

Oh, and if dinner ends up looking like the above I may share some pictures with you, but based on my past experiences it probably won't so don't hold your breath!

Update:
Dinner was a hit and he of course appreciated the gesture!  Below is how it turned out... not to shabby if I say so myself.

there's a first time for everything

I have been with Jake just a few months shy of a decade (crazy, I know!) and I can honestly say that last week was the first time he knowingly watched an entire romantic comedy with me.  Notice, I put emphasis on knowingly and entire because in the past 10 years Jake could say that he has watched one with me before, but you and I both know that either he didn’t realize it was that type of movie OR he didn’t watch it all the way through… story of my life.

Well, for whatever reason this most recent attempt was successful.  After looking unsuccessfully for a few movies at the Redbox, I noticed Life As We Know It was in stock.  I’d wanted to see the movie for awhile so I asked Jake to rent it for me.   He gave me a look like, “Do you know what kind of movie this is?” to which I responded aloud, “I know it’s a romantic comedy but I’m not asking you to watch it, I’m just asking you to rent it for me to watch” and he did.

Once home, I waited a little while before making my next move.  You see I really didn’t want to have to wait to watch this until after he went to bed and I definitely didn’t want to have to watch it on the laptop, but it’s all in the art of execution.  So, I waited for him to watch that day’s DVR of the Paris-Nice Tour (it’s a cycling thing) and then start fumbling through the channels before asking if I could use his laptop.  He of course wondered why I had to ask and I explained that I would have it awhile so I could watch the entire movie and didn’t want to hog it if he needed it.  And then he said the magic words, “you can watch it in here if you want”.  BINGO.  I was so happy it probably took me 20 seconds to get everything set up and hit play. 

The next thing I noticed was completely new- he didn’t move.  This entire time my focus was on watching this movie on the plasma before 9:30 but this… this was a pleasant surprise.  Even after the movie was a few minutes in he still didn’t move.  Can you say best thing ever?  At one point he did turn around to see my expression during a sadder scene and gave me a look like I was being ridiculous.  I responded with a don’t bother me look and we both went back to watching.  He sat through the whole thing and then went to bed. If you know Jake, you are probably having trouble believing this, but there’s a first time for everything.

As far as the movie goes, and I'm aware I'm behind the game on this one (which is a price you pay when you prefer the price of a rental to the theater) it was adorable.  The crazy part is, apart from the whole raising a baby with someone you don't care for in light of your best friend's death thing, it seemed to be an accurate depiction of that first year.  Of course, I don't know for sure, but they certainly didn't make it look easy... and I hear it's not, so that in and of itself offered some validity in my eyes.

time for an upgrade

It’s been decided.  We are going to have to get a king size bed.  I absolutely, without a doubt, can’t take it anymore. 

This isn’t the first time you’ve read about this trouble in my life, but I’m hoping it’ll be the last.  Actually, let’s save the last official topic-related post for when we announce that we’ve officially ordered a new bed or had a successful night’s sleep in it.  Yes, that sounds more realistic.

The main thing you need to know is that neither Jake nor I are sleeping well.  Jake swears that Tank is the problem but since I mentioned this trouble once well before we got Tank, I’m not convinced.  I will say that Tank certainly contributes to the problem, but he can’t be the sole cause.   Not to mention that at this point I don’t know that I can break him of sleeping in the bed.  Not only would it break my heart, but when he cries and scratches at the door it’s unbearable- thus why he currently comes in and out of the room as often as he pleases (don’t judge me, you’ve never had to listen to him).  His current routine has him getting out of bed at 5:45am with Jake, going potty, eating breakfast, then coming back and crying at our bedroom door until either Jake or I lets him back in.   It’s awful.  But that’s enough about Tank; let’s talk about the other 4 letter word that contributes to our sleeping troubles, J-A-K-E.

Jake goes to bed super early (usually around 9:30 folks) so of course I don’t go to bed at the same time.  When I do finally decide it’s time to sleep, I go into to find him sleeping diagonally across the bed or he’s somehow taken over all 5 of the pillows on our bed.  Talk about terrible.  Every night I have to nicely ask him to scoot over and some nights when he is sleeping more soundly I have to yank a pillow right from under him.  I mean it is a battle to get a spot on the bed.

I can’t think of a better solution than a bigger bed and since we have a queen now, the next step is a king.  The best part is Jake is in totally on board.  He has trouble sleeping too and desperately wants more room… and I think more pillows.  The biggest challenge will be me having patience to slowly get a new bedroom set; we can’t buy everything all at once and I’m sort of weird about bedroom sets matching.  However, at this point sleep deprivation has taken over and I’m fairly sure I’ll get over that quirk fast.

I really like these beds (and overall room styles)...

 

desperate times call for desperate measures

This might be an over share, but I’m going to ahead with it anyway. 

The other day I came back from lunch and sensed that there may be some food in my teeth.  This being a peeve of mine I immediately went to the ladies room for a closer examination.  To my surprise, there was nothing there- what was there was an unnatural amount of eyebrow hairs.  Gross.

I’m not being dramatic either, this was a forest of wild (and certainly undesired) eyebrow hairs… it was awful.  But what was worse was that I made this discovery at work!  I mean what’s a girl to do at this point???   Well, after asking the two most responsible people in the office if they happened to have tweezers and coming up empty handed, I had to get creative.  One person offered her cuticle clippers instead and that’s when I knew what I had to do.

(PS do you see what I mean about them being responsible?  I mean she had them in her desk drawer for Pete’s sake, who does that?)

Anyway, I went ahead and accepted her offer and went right back into the ladies room to take care of the disaster.  That’s right folks, I started trimming my unsightly eyebrow hairs with cuticle clippers- I was desperate!  I managed to get rid of some of the major offenders but had to control myself since each clip left my forehead nice and red for all to see.  I figured that if it took me that long and getting that close to see the nightmare myself, then it was safe to assume no one I was meeting up with after work would notice.

The next morning I hadn’t forgotten about the hairs that had survived another night and with tweezers in hand, I took care of business once and for all (or at least for the time being)!  I was so zealous that at one point I actually made myself bleed and had the tiniest scar of shame all weekend.