June 18th is Dead Dad Day.

Beer is mandatory on June 18th.

Not getting drunk, mind you, just having a beer. Dad was squarely in the cans of Busch camp. I can’t commit to drinking that beer on this day every year, but I can commit to having a beer. Often it’s Bud Light – the closest I can come to a can of Busch. Today it is a craft beer, Blueprint by Combustion brewery to be exact. I pass this little brewery every day on my way to and from work and have never stopped. With only one more day of driving home from that workplace, I swung my car into the lot on a whim today. There’s an adorable patio here and the building looks like a riverboat in a way with levels of fancy trim on it’s 2nd and 3rd floors. Seems like as good a place as any to drink the mandatory Dead Dad Day beer.

I think of my dad regularly, but there is something about this past year where I MISS HIM. It’s this last year of marrying Dreamy Husband and being sad the two will never meet. Dad would like Rich. It’s also the first full year of living with my step sons. It’s not until I’ve had kids around that I’ve thought about my own childhood this much. As a kid you are sure your parents are doing it all wrong. In my case, as an adult, I am sure they did a lot more right than I have given them credit for. I find myself thinking about Dad sending us outside to play, of showing us how to change the oil in a car, of giving us chores related to the paving business so we could make our own money and I want to do all of those things with Rich’s boys because I turned out pretty good. This is the first year I’ve considered parenting perspectives and let me tell you, that’s a complicated web.

I’m more emotional about Dead Dad Day than I’ve been in the last decade. Hmmm, moving on.

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Tomorrow is my last day at my current job. Between my time as a consultant and then full time I will have been there 2.5 years. That’s actually a pretty good stretch for me. I am not feeling sad about leaving. I am feeling very glad for the job that starts next. I am glad my next commute will be slightly better, I am glad the people I love from my current job will be my friends that I will still see, and I am very glad that at 4pm I can leave work and drink a beer on a Tuesday. 🙂

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I like the characters at this bar. I like the couple guys at the end who are clearly craft beer dudes and are talking to a guy behind the bar about the beers they’ve been drinking. One guy got out his phone and told the other guy to find these mini cans of beer that are finally being shipped from Nicaragua. The other guy said he likes this one brewery because there are seven IPA’s on tap. Then there was a conversation about the appropriate ratio of guest taps to establishment taps.

Cheers to dads. Cheers to dads whose memories are worth preserving. Cheers to being an adult and recognizing the folly of your youth. And here’s to my dad, who would have made fun of my blueberry muffin beer, and I would have been ok with that.

In an effort to hone in on the outside stuff I eluded to in Thursday’s post I started going through things I’ve saved on Instagram as I’ve scrolled. I figured surely there are themes there that I can use to hone in on my quest for the hobby I’m looking for.

Here is what I’m clearly drawn to:

• Bali
• Cake
• Alsace, France
• All recipes by Smitten Kitchen
• Cushion and Emerald cut engagement rings (safe to say that was a time and place interest – not necessary any longer)
• Cabins in the snowy woods
• Mini gingerbread house that are decorated like tiny cabins in the snowy woods
• Simple, but beautiful cake decoration (this is in addition to the cake category)
• Bullet journaling, specifically habit trackers. I had the same one saved 3 times.
• Doodles
• occasional motivational saying such as, “It’s going to be hard, but hard is not impossible” and “If cauliflower can somehow become pizza, you, my friend, can do anything.”
• Castles in Europe (so many pics of these!)
• State parks in Ohio
• Lots of things in Germany (in service to trip there this fall)
• Master bathroom tile work
• food photography featuring citrus
• Charcuterie boards
• Bras that I think will change my life
• Ads for the Easy Frame Hanger
• Book recommendations (I don’t know why I saved it in Instagram instead of just going to Amazon to add them to my wishlist or cart. This is why cleaning up your Instagram saved posts is a worthy exercise every 3 years. So many forgotten book recs!)
• Pin up photography
• Dresses I think will make my boobs/butt look proportionate (an impossible task – they’re all getting deleted)

In order to take some action immediately, I downloaded a new book and added several to my Wishlist for easy downloading. I also texted some friends the book I was going to start reading next to see if they want to join.

I think I’m going to paint our master bathroom over 4th of July weekend. It’s not the same as tile, but I would like a new paint color (still boring builder gray) and I could upgrade the mirror as well (boring builder mirror panel also).

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I went to my favorite event of the summer last night, the Columbus Arts Festival. Rex, Shannon and I have gone the last five years and it’s always the best way to kick off summer. I did not end up with a large painting. When I decided to go back for it, it had already sold. *sad face* I did get a beautiful pottery bowl and that looks perfect in our built in shelves in the family room. The giant blank wall remains a mystery for now.

Recently, two separate conversations with friends got to the point that your significant other cannot be all things to you and you need outside stuff. In these conversations that stuff ranged from other people (friends and lovers alike) to hobbies such as pole dance or magic or Pokemon. And in these conversations I realized I have stumbled on keeping up with my outside stuff. I pointed this out to Shawn who replied that writing was my thing and I should get on that.

So.

Here I sit in the window seat of a bar, with time to kill between a lunch meeting and a therapy appointment, and my new Chromebook (a thing I wanted to make portable writing easier to do) doing some writing. I have the blog open. I also have spent a little time looking into children’s book formats for a picture book since that is high on my list of things to complete. I have a triple berry Shandy from a local brewery and it is a very pretty color and also very enjoyable.

I said this earlier in the year right after the wedding and subsequent parties, but I think all the things that are going to really trip me up are now OFFICIALLY done. Stuff is always changing (more on that next week!) of course, but the major disrupters are hopefully coming to a halt now that the puppy has arrived at our house.

We have a puppy. A 26 pound 13 week old puppy, but a puppy nonetheless.

I admit that I am not taking to pup life as generously and kindly as I like to think I’ve handled other adjustments. The good news: I really did know myself when I’ve said I’m a cat lady and I should not have children. Both things were validated with gusto with the addition of Gus. He is a very cute dog, and I’m hoping will be a well behaved dog, but right now he is a puppy and I was not prepared for puppy. I had no idea. I don’t love having a puppy it turns out. Oh well, the decision is made, and again, it WILL be great. In the meantime I need to adjust to the fact that the rug you see in the picture is going to have a hole chewed into it. And it makes Rich happy to have the dog – so this is me making sure he has outside stuff to our relationship too, right? My children’s book probably won’t pee in the house…. again, I digress.

In other news, we returned from our first ever family vacation. I settle into step-motherhood with fits and stops. Most days my approach is to just be a good role model adult who loves their dad and makes sure they don’t throw things in the house. They have a mom close by and they have a dad and I don’t need to be another parent. I need to be their dad’s wife who cares about them, and they can ask for money for the football game, and who enforces rules – but sometimes that’s more me trying to get Dreamy Husband to commit and follow through with rules than it is me holding them accountable. I’m sure I don’t come across as much fun, and that’s because I think the kids need more structure and boundaries than they get. I also generally think they don’t do a great job of showing appreciation or gratitude or initiative or conscientiousness and it’s hard for me to deal with anyone in that space, even children it turns out. Good lord, I wouldn’t want to hang out with me if I were a kid either, I suppose. Oh well. We vacationed! Sometimes I was fun! I created a series of hand stand challenges for Kid 2. We bought ice cream for them every night, because vacation. I built a sandcastle with Kid 2 and made sure Kid 1 had his favorite foods stocked in the hotel room kitchen. I also made them have conversation with their aunt and asked them to not say rude things about their brother and made them eat the chicken fingers they ordered even though they really only wanted the fries.

We made it and now I have today and tomorrow off work to round out my week of summer vacation. Today that was going back for a nap after my 5am and 7:30am wake ups with Gus, then meeting a new colleague for a late lunch and now spending some leisurely hours with the blog, my planner and some blank screen just ready for 500 words of children’s picture book text. Tomorrow is one of my favorite annual events – the Columbus Arts Festival with Rex and Shannon. Saturday is a dentist appointment and a local craft fair and Sunday is a hair cut.

Highlights and more writing to follow. It’s the outside stuff I need.

That’s what the last four weekends have been. No Hugh Grant, just my handsome new HUSBAND! That’s right, I’m a married lady once again.

Wooooooooooo!

So corny, but it really was the happiest day of my life. I knew I wanted to have the smallest wedding possible. Actually, I wanted to elope at Niagara Falls because that sounded just cheesy enough to be awesome. Dreamy Husband being all sentimental and stuff wanted to have his mom there. That means my mom needs to be there. Obviously his kids were there, they needed to feel included. Then I didn’t want my mom to feel like she was all by herself so my sister Emilie came up also. But that’s it!

There are a billion more pictures I could share. I won’t for sake of time. Well, maybe one more…

Wedding day was mom, sister and I getting ready – meeting Rich, the boys, and his mom and step-dad at the venue (which was pretty much built for in town elopements – sweetest little place) and having a ten minute ceremony. There were still flowers and a photographer and a sand ceremony (we wanted to have the boys get up and have a part of the ceremony). All the best parts of a wedding and practically zero of the stress. We got family pictures and group pictures and artsy ones of Dreamy Husband and I after the ceremony and then since we had some time to kill before our dinner reservation we stopped at the burger restaurant across the street for a drink and some fries. All of us were hungry. A 1:30pm ceremony meant no one really at lunch. Dinner was at 4, but we had a bit of time to hang out. Our lovely photographer came over to capture some very casual shots of everyone hanging out and eating fries also. We headed to Forno for dinner – the same place Rich and I had our first date. We took a quick picture in the very barstools we first met.

Our group had a great dinner, the restaurant staff seemed pleased we returned to our first date place and took great care of us. Bonus – since we were there as soon as they opened (4pm) we were there for Happy Hour and all drinks and pizzas are half off. Cheapest wedding reception ever. We enjoyed dinner and then all went back to our house for wedding cake.

A few days before the wedding someone asked what I was most looking forward to, outside of actually marrying Rich. I said carrying flowers around all day and making the wedding cake. I really like a baking challenge where there is minimal risk of it impacting someone else if it goes badly. And, as it turns out, it was sooo great! You guys, I made strawberry mousse for the first time ever, I made swiss meringue buttercream for the first time ever. I looooved our cake. Funfetti cake with strawberry mousse filling, then a smaller chocolate cake with raspberry filling. Plus a small groom’s cake with all chocolate icing …mostly just because I had chocolate cake batter left over.

We threw a wedding party a couple weeks later. I won’t call it a reception because there was no DJ, no photographer, no trappings of “reception”. Just a party to celebrate with our friends. Months ago Jenna made me go look at this quirky event space connected to an iron forging shop and vintage decor store. The space is soo great. It’s laid out like a lounge – some booths, a couple leather sofas, a few long tables, a vintage fridge and a built in old wood bar. We brought in beer and wine, arranged for a food truck to be there, used a bakery to provide cupcakes instead of making them myself (which I originally planned on doing), and made a playlist. The best part – I also hired a palm reader. I imagine if I scrolled my archives I could find the first time I went to Wine & Psychick night where Debe foretold the BIG LOVE was coming for me and soon. That was May 2015. I met Rich in July 2015. I sure didn’t know he was the big love when I met him, but time sure figured that out for me. Anyway, I hired her to be at the party and told that story during my toast/speech. Everyone had a great time with her. Lots of compliments. Rich was surprised. He thought it was real weird.

I’m incredibly grateful that a few out of towners joined us for the wedding, Rich’s sister and two of my friends, plus people from all over Eastern Ohio.

The Yule Ball I mentioned in the title happened the weekend between the above two events. The Ohio theme party friends and I found a beautiful old library in a small town called Lithopolis. Their library is the Wagnalls Memorial Library – named after the Wagnall’s of Funk & Wagnalls dictionary fame. The library has a very Hogwarts feel. It’s lots of stone and timber and beams and archways. They have a Harry Potter club and they throw this fundraiser for the library. So we went. The party was a lot like a theme party I think my friends and I would have thrown. It was sweet.

The last wedding was a lunch my mom threw back in St. Louis. She invited my grandparents, aunts and uncles on both sides of the family for a lunch at a cute historic restaurant called Hendel’s. Rich’s mom and step-dad joined us on the road trip back to town and to meet everyone. It was very nice. We stayed at the Chase Park Plaza, one of my favorite places in St. Louis. Friday night we had dinner at a new seafood restaurant with my friend Ann who rocks being a 5th wheel like a boss. Not the first time I’ve invited Ann to help round out a dinner group. And she is delightful as always. Saturday morning we picked up donuts from my favorite donut shop, corsages I had ordered for the grandmas and moms, and headed to meet my family for pre-party family pics. We spent a few lovely hours introducing Rich to everyone and holding my newest neice, baby Brooke. This is pretty much the only picture I took all weekend.

I took Rich, Sally & Joe to the St. Louis History Museum and on a driving tour through Forest Park after the party. It’s obligatory that visitors learn about the 1904 World’s Fair. We rested up and then walked down to Pi for pizza and beer and fresh air. And thus ended the third wedding event and a very fast weekend in St. Louis.

And now, I get to just be a happily married woman with the dreamiest husband in all the land who takes my car to get gas when it’s low and makes sure there’s always LaCroix in the fridge. I cannot believe I’m so lucky to have this funny, clever, smart, supportive, handsome and affectionate guy as my own.

Dreamy Fiance pointed out that this is the week of lasts where I’m a single woman…making tonight the last single Friday night. And I’m going all in with pizza and renting a movie with my fiance. We’re already the old married couple – time to make it official.

Tomorrow will be slightly more exciting – I have tea and spa afternoon with Jenna and then I’m crashing Rich and Rex post-Hamilton to make sure they loved it and hear all about how it changed their life. I’ve subscribed to the last two seasons of Broadway in Columbus just to make sure I was guaranteed two tickets to see Hamilton when it was here. It’s nearly three years (!) since I saw the show on Broadway. I knew that I would give my tickets to friends who had not seen the show yet, and Rich and Rex are the benefactors. They are going to dinner first and I am very happy about that. Rex is my dearest friend in Columbus and I want him to know Rich more and vice versa. I keep teasing Rich that this is his bachelor party – dinner and a musical with my friend. It’s very much like the bro date episode of HIMYM when Marshall and Brad go to Cafe L’Amour and then see Mamma Mia and I love when life imitates art.

I cannot wait to be married. I’ve been looking forward to this for SO long and Rich will tell you he won’t feel any different from the moment before we’re married to the moment after…I will feel otherwise.

A while back I did some googling to validate my assumption that 2nd marriages were probably more successful than 1st ones because people knew better. They knew what marriage meant, how to compromise (or not) more, made a more solid & thoughtful choice. Turns out, the statistics do not support my hypothesis. Second marriages fail more often overall. And yet, I’m not anxious about this. One of the reasons they cite for that is people are often on the rebound and rush into the 2nd marriage. I can safely say that my solo decade between marriages means I have figured my stuff out. (For this exact reason I have accused Rich of not taking enough time between relationships, he promises he’s fine.) I have done all the finding myself necessary. I have been fired, I have moved, I have gone to grad school, I have changed careers, I have bought a house, I have maintained a house, I have made the most amazing friends, I have traveled alone, I have made fire…it was really a good decade.

Now I get to do the next forever decades with Rich, aka Dreamy Fiance. He’s just really wonderful and makes me laugh every single day. He’s good at hugging and let’s me pester him in the mornings when I’m full of energy and he is basically a hibernating bear. He understands that I’m slowly working my way into the idea of life with his kids and he doesn’t push or pressure me to be more involved than I need to be. He listened to the Hamilton cast recording for the past two days because it’s important to me that he love this show and he likes to be prepared. I don’t need him to complete me or to be my best friend. He’s going to be my husband and the person I adore waking up to and falling asleep to and the one I text the mundane and the exciting to throughout the day. I just really want to marry his handsome face in a week. I want the rings and to say he’s mine and I’m his and hell yes.

So long, last single Friday.

 

Part of the New Year plan was to start writing by the end of January. I have an hour left. I’ve done it.

2018 will go down as the lost year. I started blogging, jabbering, documenting or whatever in 2008, I believe. 2018 doesn’t exist. Which is bizarre – so much happened!! It would have been nice to document it. It would have helped to write with so much chaos. Alas, here we are and my time machine is broken.

I get married in 7 days!! I have something borrowed (birdcage veil), something new (dress), something old (going with old underwear – you’re welcome), and something blue (shoes).

I also get to see my sister in 7 days, which I’m almost as excited about as getting married.

I want to talk about 2019 objectives, compare to the list I made at the beginning of 2018. But that will wait until tomorrow. Yes! Tomorrow, when I write again! Tonight was about the act of doing the thing. Tonight is about clearing out the cobwebs and remembering how to do this.

I miss my Mac. I blogged with my Mac for so long and I liked the way the keyboard felt. I like the way the screen looked. I replaced it with a much more cost effective, perfectly fine laptop, but it’s not the same.

I’ve started listening to the How I Made This podcast. It is great for true tales of grit and hustle. I struggle with feeling vastly inferior as I listen to the tales.

Speaking of, Dreamy Fiance and Rex are going to Hamilton Saturday night! Lin-Manuel Miranda and I are the same age and that guts me with some regularity.

That went to a bummer place quickly. Unintended. I blame the cobwebs.

Tomorrow.