The second season of Game of Thrones starts tonight. For those of you who want a recap:
Sadly, I will not be watching. Our apartment complex dropped one cable company and picked up another, so we don’t get the free HBO that we used to, and HBO is too expensive to pick up for one show, especially in a one-income household. We already know we’re going to be buying the DVDs, so we’re just going to have to wait until next year to see it.
Luckily, we do have the first season that I bought with my gainsharing check just a couple weeks ago. It’s still sitting unopened on the shelf. My plan is that while everyone else is watching season two, I’ll just be re-watching season 1. Since it’s been a year since I’ve seen it and I’ve got a terrible memory, it’ll be like seeing it new all over again, right?
Had to take cover in the women’s bathroom at work as more bad storms passed through the area just a couple days later.
Found out that my raise was bigger than I had expected, and my gainsharing was more than I had expected as well. (Jim and I did fist bumps when I showed him the numbers, heh.)
Found out that my mom lost her job. (She seems to be surprisingly okay with it, though.)
Been doing a lot of reading on my Kindle, trying to catch up with our book club.
By the way, I love my Kindle. I still and always will love regular old books, but now I’m wondering why I held out so long on getting an ebook reader.
And The Walking Dead tonight! My co-worker Ryan told me some of his predictions on the fate of a couple of characters, and I’m curious to see it is plays out as he thinks. I relayed Ryan’s predictions to Jim, and we agree: Very plausible.
We shall see.
Okay, time for more coffee and more Buffy. The marathon continues! I’m on season 4. Now, the question is, do I watch the Angel episodes along with Buffy (because, as you know, several the episodes between the two series “go” together), or do I later give Angel its own marathon? Ah, decisions, decisions…
ALERT! If you’re not caught up on The Walking Dead, you might not want to watch the below preview! Or read this post! You might want to check your priorities though.
SO:
The Walking Dead is tonight! As I mentioned on my (rarely used) Tumblr account, it’s really nice to have a show to be excited about again. I have to enjoy it now because I’ll be missing Game of Thrones in the spring. Boo to that.
By the way, I’m completely hoping that Rick kicks Shane’s ass. Shane’s getting a little crazy. Although, to be fair, who wouldn’t be under the circumstances?
So, that was it. My three day weekend. Damn, that was fast. I did manage to make some bread and get to the craft store, but my sewing machine is still sitting on the same box that it has been for the last year and a half. So much for that idea.
I did, however, finish crocheting Piper’s cat mat, polish off season 1 of Buffy with Jim (we’ve agreed that it’s high time we had another Buffy/Angel marathon), and we started watching season 2 of Justified. By the way, Jim has given me the heads up that season three of Justified starts tomorrow. I don’t know how many people watch the show, but if you’re not familiar with it, check it out here. It’s awesome.
I’m really glad it’s starting tomorrow, too. Tomorrow promises to be a hellish day as it is predicted be the busiest phone day of the year at my company. My thought? I’m going to need some cute guys in cowboy hats by the end of the day. Thank god Jim will be there watching it with me. It just makes everything better.
I forgot to mention that I saw a preview for this over the weekend.
It almost looked like it had promise…until Kristen Stewart showed up. Kristen is a pretty girl and all, but Snow White? C’mon. Jim’s right: Rose McGowan would have been a better pick.
Also, Kristen couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. But, hey. Some people get better with time, and with her, there is only room for improvement. Can’t get much worse.
That being said, this is one I’ll add to the “wait until it comes out on DVD” pile.
Okay, I’m feeling better since the last post. I think what I needed was a nap–a really nice, long nap, which I got yesterday afternoon, promptly after getting off work from overtime. Good thing, as I only got about 5 hours of sleep the night before.
Also helping my mood: Jim surprised me with a pumpkin that he had bought while I was taking aforementioned nap, I’m seriously thinking about updating the look of this blog and starting a crafting blog (yay for fun projects!), and the second episode of The Walking Dead is on AMC tonight.
Everyone keeps asking me how married life is going. Usually, I answer, “I haven’t screwed it up yet!” Then they laugh and walk away.
Here is the truth: Married life, so far, is so awesome and amazing, it’s beyond words.
I know what you’re thinking. I’ve only been married two weeks, right? Well, I will have you know that with my first marriage, I knew something was wrong within the first week. By five months, I was already considering divorce. But I hated the idea of divorce, so I pushed on. I pushed on for twelve freakin’ years.
Just a note: It’s probably not a good idea to marry to someone that you hadn’t seen in seven months because he joined the military. Military is good about giving you discipline and all that, but it does change you. By the time I realized this, it was too late. I was married to a man that I no longer knew.
But forget all that. That’s old stuff. The other night, I started to tell Jim about how I had been worried, but everything is different with this marriage–this is what marriage is supposed to be. I was about to say more, but he stopped me. “I know it’s different,” he said, smiling. “I’ve never seen you so happy. It’s very reassuring.”
I’m hoping the first couple of weeks are an indicator of things to come.
Speaking of being happy, this reminds me of Melme’s last post. She mentions that currently, she lacks the desire or energy to do anything she usually enjoys, and I joked about it being depression because I was like that through most of my adult life. It is one of the signs of depression. I don’t think that’s Melme’s case–I hope it isn’t–but I know it was in mine. And I realized the other day, I must be happier because now I want to do EVERYTHING. Now, I want to do so many things that I don’t have time to do. I remember several years back, moaning on my Myspace that I had lost interest in all my old crafting interests, but it wasn’t like I had replaced them with new interests. I simply wasn’t interested in anything.
But now? I just tried writing out my current obsessions, and it got so confusing, that I’m going to have to put them in a list format for readability:
Crocheting the Lego Pirate Ship blanket. This one, believe it or not, is actually nearing the final stages. IT IS HUGE.
I just started knitting a scarf. Hello, knitting, how I’ve missed you! How this project came about: We have something called a “DAP” at work, which is a personal goal. We will be rated on it, and it will count towards our yearly review. They said it can be anything; our company wants to emphasize the importance on self-improvement of any kind, and that can be outside of work. In fact, they encouraged it being personal. Some people chose weight loss; many chose to read more books; me, I said that I have a hard time completing projects, so I wanted my DAP to be to complete 5 scarves by the end of the year. Then, I’ll donate them to charity. People seem to think my DAP is a cool one, and I cannot lie: I’m exited about it.
All things related to A Song of Ice and Fire series. I’m finding it harder to put the books down. I’m still only on A Clash of Kings, but when Phil was over, I kept sneaking away to read it. (Well, I also snuck away for a nap. I’m not very sneaky; Jim and Phil knew exactly what I was doing.) I’ve also become a huge fan of the subsequent HBO series, Game of Thrones. I’m loud enough about it that I got an IM from a co-worker the other day, asking me about it–and have managed to convert him into a fan too.
Learning to sew. I can’t sew, but I do have Sewing for Dummies that I keep flipping through, while eyeing my unused sewing machine, trying to figure out how that monster works. I already know I want some nice, heavy curtains for my bedroom. Also, sometimes, I sneak and watch sewing videos. I think I’m good at sneaking about this–I’m pretty sure Jim has no idea.
Cross-stitching. I WILL conquer the shaky hands and the permanent blur in the left eye! I WILL.
Websites! Ah, an old love of mine. The problem? I don’t have the software I used to have to create images. (I used to have Dreamweaver for actually creating websites, but I don’t need that–I can code by hand, even though it’s been a while.) I really want to update the look of this blog. Also, Jim and I have an itch to take my other URL, chaoticspring.com, and do some stuff with it. Except for that, we’ll need some contributers who are good at writing genre fiction. We already have a couple people in mind.
Getting back to writing. Not unrelated to the last bullet point. I don’t know how well I would do at genre fiction. Heck, I don’t know how well I’d do at writing. I’ve always been complimented on my writing, but my stories were always just me working through my own issues. (Unsurprisingly, I wrote a lot about women in unhappy marriages, heh.) But now, I’m SO happy, I’m stuck. And I don’t know if I have what it takes to write anything other than literary fiction. But I want to try.
Gaming. Okay, more Jim’s thing than mine. But his and Karac’s Marvel game recently (and abruptly) ended, so Jim has mentioned to me that he would like to run a Deadlands game–and he wants me in it. And, honestly, it wouldn’t hurt for me to be a little more social, get to know my new husband’s friends better. Jim’s shooting for the fall, I think, but this time, I’d like to actually flip through the books prior to the game starting so I have an idea what it’s all about.
I also woke up thinking about how I needed to finish leveling Alsana to 85…and how I would like to try my hand at Jim’s XBox games. But you see how, with the size of this list, and the mandatory overtime we’ve had all week (including a divisional Saturday yesterday), I haven’t had time to do much with any of them.
Speaking of having no time, I really need to get this day started. It’s already after 10. I’m sure Jim would like to be up by now, and I really need to do laundry at some point, too. Preferably, before Game of Thrones!
By the way, if anyone else is looking for a short series to lap up, I highly recommend Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. Oh my god. OH MY GOD.
So, we’re back. We got back yesterday. No, we don’t have to be back at work/school until Monday, but we decided to come back a little early because while Branson is fun, by Wednesday, we were a little Bransoned out. Also, we were just plain homesick. One of the last stops we made before hitting the road was a used bookstore called Calvin’s Used Books. It turns out that Calvin is the bookstore owner’s cat, who immediately yowled at us when we walked through the door. We gave him pats on the head, looked around–and there was a LOT to look at, sooo many books–and visited the cat before we left.
Me: This makes me miss our cats.
Jim: Me, too. Let’s go home.
So we did.
Let me rewind from Saturday, since that’s where I left you all at. Our wedding wasn’t until 4 in the afternoon. It was wonderful and small and intimate, which is exactly what we wanted. Also, Jim’s mother dressed up her house a bit:
Lori's dining room, dressed up for our wedding.
We actually didn’t ask for any decorations; this was all Lori’s idea. And it was a good one. While I’ve posted the photos (that, admittedly, I swiped from Lori’s Facebook) on my newly created Picasa account, I’m not going to post them all here. Just this one because…well, you get the gist:
We got the giggles.
Someone on Facebook commented that this was their favorite picture of us. I have to agree. I got the giggles during the ceremony, not so much because of nerves, but because I could hear my little nephew Seth playing upstairs, which we were standing next to. While the minister read all the good stuff about vows and being with each other through thick and thin and death do us part, I could hear Seth’s little voice saying things like “Oh!” and “Look at that!” and “Mommy. MOMMY!”
It was awesome, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
So, Saturday was the wedding and food and cake. Jim and I went to the Hampton Inn in Carbondale, where I had booked us a room with a king-sized bed and a hot tub. We check in, go up to our room–and immediately, we see that there’s a problem.
Two queens, regular tub. WTF?
Go back downstairs, show them our confirmation from when I booked the room online several weeks ago. For some reason, although ours says “king” and “hot tub” all over it, they’re showing a standard room in their system. They apologize profusely and offer the room they’ve given us for free. It’s not a hot tub, but hey–I like free. We took it.
The next day, we headed out to St. Louis to go to the zoo. This is about when we realized that we had forgotten both of our digital cameras. Oh, well. It was alternating between a drizzle and a light rain, which is the best time to go to the zoo. You don’t get too hot, and there are no lines! Yup, we just breezed right through that penguin house. So THAT was nice, especially since the last time we were there, we never got to see it because–you guessed it–the line was crazy-long.
We drove about an hour outside of St. Louis, towards Branson, before we stopped for the night. This room had a king-sized bed, which was AWESOME. Funny how I didn’t really care about bed sizes until I slept on that king. Now I’m looking at my full-sized bed all wistfully. Admittedly, though, we’re going to have to upgrade the bed at some point. I bought the full-sized bed back in my single days, and it IS a little crowded for two people at times.
So, anyway, we had a huge bed, huge room, huge flatscreen, and we watched Game of Thrones. I’m seeing more changes from the book, which I do expect. After all, TV format is different than book format, so you do have to allow for that. They’re keeping pretty close, though, which makes me happy. So we watched that, then just happened to flip over to the news. I wanted to turn on the stuff about the royal wedding, as Jim’s always been interested in the royal family. Also, I think it’s cool that Prince William got married the day before us. But then, we saw this:
Our mouths dropped at this one. Jim and I were just talking about Osama bin Laden a few weeks ago. Jim was wondering how anyone could not find “an eight-foot tall man on dialysis” and was hoping they’d find him soon. And–well, there you go! It was like a wedding present from the White House. Thank you, White House!
Monday, we were in Branson. Normally, this would be a good time to post photos. But, as I’ve mentioned, we forgot our cameras. Later, we did buy some disposable ones, but we still didn’t take that many pictures of it. (Although I do have one of Jim “strangling” Edward from Twilight at the wax museum that I’m dying to have developed.)
Needless to say, this part went off without a hitch. Went to the Branson tourism place, picked up our tickets and motel room stuff. We have time before check-in, so, being nerds that we are, we start our honeymoon in Branson at the bookstore. Well, a really BIG bookstore. It was awesome. Next, we go to the motel, get checked in. Panic when we don’t find ashtrays (Jim’s a smoker), call the front desk, they confirm that it IS a smoking room (yay!) and bring down ashtrays.
We unpack. We nap. We get up, go to the first show, which is one with Chinese acrobats. We have amazing seats–second row. The entire time, I’m worried one of them will hurt themselves–or possibly fall into my lap.
“Don’t worry,” Jim says, “they’re teeny-tiny people.”
Needless to say, my time during that show was spent on the verge of a heart attack. It was awesome, though, and Jim surprised me in our room afterwards with a little teapot he had bought me.
Tiny teapot. Picture taken from my cell phone.
The show for the next night was the Hamner Barber Variety Show. Again, we had the amazing luck of seats in the second row. Jim and I both grew up loving magic shows, and although I’m not as into them as much now, Jim was still very excited to see a professional magic show. The only problem is that they do a lot of pulling people from the audience to be on stage, and since I was in the second row, I spent that show in a perpetual state of fear, terrified I was going to be pulled onstage. (Thankfully, I wasn’t.) During the halftime, Jim bought a deck of cards, got them signed, and confirmed something we suspected by the music: One if not both of those guys are Highlander fans.
For those not in the know, Jim is a HUGE Highlander fan. I guess some people used to call him Highlander Jim back in the day.
Anyway, those were the two shows we had picked. While we were in Branson, we went to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not, the dinosaur museum/haunted house (odd combo if I ever saw one), the wax museum (that’s where a bulk of our pictures were taken), and this haunted ride next to the wax museum, which was probably my favorite. You got 3D glasses and a gun (fake, obviously) to shoot monsters with!
Wednesday, we headed out to Silver Dollar City. Jim was excited; I, admittedly, was not. Weird because I used to love amusement parks, but now…I’m just not interested. To me, it’s just paying a lot of money to mostly stand in lines. But Jim really wanted to go, so we headed out there, parked the car, took the little train thing to the gates, looked at the prices–and turned right back around.
Yup. Even Jim couldn’t justify spending $120 just on tickets alone. Plus, although we hadn’t run into any lines at all during our stay in Branson, we could see that this wouldn’t be the case in Silver Dollar City, thus proving my point that we would just mostly be standing in lines with a bunch of screaming kids. We left. Jim was disappointed. I tried to think of other things we could do. Jim had wanted to take me to the Titanic Museum, but after spending a minimum of $40 on everything else–all things that I didn’t think were worth the $40 price tag–plus the minimum of $50 for eating out everyday, I put my foot down. Yes, I did want to see the Titanic Museum, but NOT for what they were probably going to charge me.
Jim complained. “But EVERYthing we’ve seen here was for ME. We haven’t done anything for you.”
“I’m with you. I’m good.”
“Spring, this was the ONLY thing that you showed any interest in–”
“And you know what they’re going to tell me? It was a big boat, it hit an iceberg, and it sank. I’m not paying $40 for that. Let’s go.”
New wife = 1 point; new husband = 0. We left. But Jim was wrong, by the way. I also had my eye on the Victorian Village shopping mall, and that turned out to be a bust, too. It was mostly just realty and crap like that.
So Jim, ever the wonderful man that he is, decides that he’s going to take me out for Indian food because, as we all know, it’s my most favorite cuisine EVER. He punches some stuff in Barb–er, Barb is our GPS, by the way–and she tells us that the nearest place is in Arkansas.
So he drives me there, all the way to Arkansas, a good hour and a half from where we’re at. The place we found had AWESOME atmosphere–and only served some Indian food during lunch. Other than that, they mostly just sold burgers.
Turned around, drove another hour and a half back to Branson, where Jim fumes most of the way, angry because he’s trying very hard to do something just for me, and nothing seems to be working. We finally settle on a fast-food Italian place. I’m grateful. One thing bad about Branson is that they’re not exactly vegetarian friendly. Most of the places we ate at were steak and/or chicken places. I had baked potatoes three meals in a row; the other meal was a salad. So the lasagna was a welcome change.
At that point, though, we had decided that Wednesday was a bust. Screw Wednesday. We went back to the motel and read books, ate candy, and napped some more. And you guys want to know a secret? That’s all I really wanted to do, anyway.
And then on Thursday, as you know, our last visit was the bookstore. Funny how we began and ended our honeymoon in Branson at the bookstore, heh.
Anyway, I’m home now…and starving. And I need to drop our marriage license off at the courthouse, see what I need to do to get my name changed over. Since last night, I’ve been going into accounts, changing my name and my e-mail address. There are just SO MANY. Every time I think I have them all, I remember another account I need to update.
But it does need to be done, and soon. Especially since we have checks with my new name on them. Oh, and guess what? You know that huge credit card bill that has been haunting me for several years now? The one that I had told Jim that if we ever paid it off, he could quit his job and go to school full time? Well, we got MORE than enough to pay that thing off in full!
So without further ado…I think I’ll get started on my new life, thanks!
Okay, how about talking about non-wedding stuff? Well, first let me get this out of the way: With the exception of shoes, I have my entire wedding outfit. Kind of a cream-colored shirt with a little lace. The shirt is kinda pleated in the front. I’ve got a brownish (?) sweater to go over it, then there’s a belt that came with the shirt, and a white peasant skirt. Honestly, I don’t know if this all “goes” together, but Jim swears it does, and he’s probably better with clothes than I am. I mean, hey, he used to LARP. I figured that while the rest of us non-LARPers might find it a strange hobby, LARPers probably have a better sense of fashion than the rest of us, since dressing up is something they do in their off-time.
At any rate, the point is that Jim likes it. So it doesn’t really matter if it does or doesn’t go together, now, does it?
Speaking of LARP, here’s an example of a crazy-small world: The woman behind me at work was looking at Facebook during her lunch. She told me she was looking at pictures of her niece–dressed up as a vampire.
Light bulb. “A vampire?” I repeated.
“Yeah,” she said, sounding almost a little embarrassed. “She plays some game…”
“Vampire the Masquerade?” I asked. “Does she LARP? Live action role-play?” I explained when she looked confused for a moment.
“Yeah!” she said.
I explained to her that my fiancé used to do it when he was younger. She admitted her niece was in her 30s, and I reassured her that plenty of older people did–it’s just that Jim mostly liked it when he was younger and not so much now. She seemed to be more confident once I told her that while, yeah, I think it’s an unusual hobby (and, admittedly, one I like to make fun of on occasion), truthfully, it’s not much different than those Civil War enthusiasts doing their thing or dressing up for Halloween.
“I’m of the opinion that life is too short to worry about what other people think of your hobby. If you want to do something and it’s not hurting anybody, then you should do it.” I paused. “Except for child molesters. They shouldn’t do what they want.”
She laughed. I think she was relieved I didn’t think her niece was a weirdo. And, c’mon, her niece is married woman with a baby and works as a NURSE. Which, as we all know, is one of the most hardest, thankless jobs ever. Dude. If ever there was a woman who needed a way to relieve stress, there you go. The woman helps to SAVE LIVES. Let her pretend to be a vampire.
That being said…I wouldn’t be caught dead doing it, heh.
(I did see the girl’s pictures as a vampire, though. Very pretty. I tried to find out if she was someone Jim knew, but as it turned out, she wasn’t.)
Okay, so that was…quirky. Let’s keep going on the game front, since we’re on that topic, anyway. Jim’s and Karac’s Marvel game was cancelled two weeks in a row. Ben is threatening to quit. (I can personally attest to this because I heard said threats when Jim and I met him and the Boyscout–er, Matt–for dinner the other night.) Jim is worried that if Ben quits, the game will fold.
I’m of two minds of this:
1) Yay, I will get Jim for Friday nights.
2) Boo, I won’t get my time alone.
Jim lately has been feeling torn between hanging out with his buddies on Fridays and hanging out with me. I have gotten to where I miss him, but I don’t know. It seems to me a little bit of missing is good for a relationship. Also, I don’t want him to lose all his old friends just because he’s with me.
Jim’s finally come out and admitted he would like me to game with them sometimes. It would make things easier on him; he wouldn’t feel like he has to choose. To which I’m always, like, “Dude. I have never made you choose.” In fact, most Friday nights, he debates whether or not he should skip, and I always convince him to go.
I sometimes do miss the D&D game we had, but Marvel? Not really my cup of tea. Also, I think the boys enjoy having a girl-free night. It’s probably healthy for them. Much like it’s healthy for me to have my alone time. Sooooo…yeah, I gave Jim a lot of non-committal grunts, but I just don’t see that happening.
NEXT–I got a haircut. My hair was so freaking long. The last time I got it cut was before Jim and I even started dating–over two and a half years ago. I don’t think he’s even realized how much shorter it was back then. At any rate, it’s still long, but there’s a few inches off it. Also? I got bangs.
Bangs
(By the way, I originally wrote this without the picture. Then I realized I couldn’t really complain about my hair if I didn’t show you what I’m talking about. Oh, yeah–and my hair isn’t really that straight. That’s all thanks to a flat iron.)
Honestly, I wouldn’t have opted for the bangs. They’re too much trouble. Jim, however, thinks bangs are cute, so I got them. And…I’m not sure how I feel about them. For one, I told the girl that I didn’t want a lot. If I had to get bangs, I wanted something, you know, kinda wispy. What I got wasn’t wispy, was way shorter than I wanted it, but Jim seems to like it, and let’s be honest. It’s not like it’s not going to grow back.
It’ll probably just take some getting used to.
What else, what else…OH. GAME OF THRONES WAS AWESOME. I love the casting so far. And this reminds me of Kyle and Zach, since they’re the two from whom I had first heard about this series–I wonder if they watched it? Or, more importantly, if they liked it?
Probably. There were a lot of boobs. You know how guys are about boobs, heh.
Okay! When I start talking about the plethora of cleavage on TV, I think that’s a sign that it’s time for me to quit writing. Until next time!
(Which, admittedly, will probably just be tomorrow, haha.)
I figured I should post now because 1) I feel like posting, and 2) Jim is still asleep. I have an easier time concentrating if Jim isn’t around while I’m writing.
A couple of things. One, I’ve been having some off-the-wall dreams. Yesterday, I slept until 11:30 (!) and had a dream about killer bubbles. Trust me, it was way more eerie in the dream. Upon waking, though, I was like HA. Funny. Then last night, I had a dream that Jim and I were too broke to go on our honeymoon because I had found out that I owed the government a bunch of money after doing my taxes.
Okay, that dream was brought on by the fact that over the weekend, I was pushing off doing my taxes because I kept thinking, “Well, I shouldn’t owe money” (I’ve never owed money) “but WHAT IF?”
Luckily, I’ve already paid for some of the honeymoon stuff up-front, so HA. No matter what the taxes come up as, it’s already done. Yup, the first week of May, we have a room booked at the hotel of our choice and tickets for two awesome-looking shows in Branson. At first, I was ehhh about the idea of going to Branson for our honeymoon, but now I’m stoked. Yeah, I said it. STOKED. We wanted something that wasn’t too far away and not too expensive. We nixed anything anything that involved going outside of the United States (too expensive), Florida (too expensive, too far, too typical, and we’ve both been there), and any place which would involve driving through areas where we would feel obliged to visit with family members. I love my family, but seriously? No visiting any family on our honeymoon. That’s our rule. The honeymoon is all about US.
Also, I should mention, no Internet, so you all will get a break from me the first week of May. Now, I have brought up the subject of possibly bringing the laptop with for writing, since we both find writing enjoyable on its own, and it’s not like we’ll be tempted because (for some reason unknown to me) our laptop’s wireless capabilities quit working a while ago. Jim’s balking at the idea. He’s really for no computer at all. But I think we need other downtime things to do when we’re not reading, swimming, or having lots of loud, rambunctious, newly-wedded sex.
Hey. You were thinking it. And you know we’re gonna be doing it. Why deny, friends, why deny…
Anyway, like I was saying: Jim and I are getting excited about going to Branson. The hotel we got was our top pick (smoking room, indoor swimming pool), the shows we’re going to see look great, and I’ve already discovered there’s something called the Victorian Village I want to check out while I’m there. And I’ve already decided I’m blowing my diet while we’re there because I am not dieting on my honeymoon. If I have to start over when I come back, then so be it.
Oh, I forgot to mention that–I’m on a diet. Started last week. Not nearly as bad as I thought I would be, which should clue me in as to how much of my eating was mostly just stress eating and not eating because I was hungry. And Jim’s been good. See, at first, it was hard because Jim would request that I get my (new) favorite chocolate stuff (marshmallow 3 Musketeers), knowing full well that it was my favorite, and while I can easily avoid most foods, that is hard for me to resist. Anyway, I had to have a little chat with my man. His view: “You’re really not that big. I don’t see why you can’t eat this.” My view: “You are blinded by love. The scales say I AM that big.”
Seriously, for a skinny guy, Jim has a very skewed vision of weight. I have gained forty pounds since I moved to Carbondale in 2003. Forty pounds is a lot of weight, especially considering that I’m barely five feet tall. But Jim just doesn’t seem to see it. He hasn’t noticed that twenty of those pounds came along after he and I started dating, either. In fact, he’s always complimenting me on my body.
(Aside: I sent Jim this picture via text on Friday night while he was at game, and he texted me back that I was the prettiest girl in the world. If I were the type of person who said squee, I would do it then. But I’m not, so I won’t, and don’t you do it either–I want to punch all squeers in the face.)
Back to my point. This skewed vision he has of weight, it’s not just me. He doesn’t really seem to think people are fat until they reach something like the 400 pound mark. Unsurprisingly, Jim isn’t much into thin women, lol.
Anyway, I reminded Jim that 1) I’m well on my way to becoming diabetic–look at my health thus far–and 2) he had an uncle who died because of obesity. I hope I’m not saying too much here by admitting this (I’ll edit this post if Jim does mind), but Jim blames his uncle’s wife for it. His uncle was constantly trying to lose weight, and she’d mess up his diet by giving him cakes. One could say that his uncle always had a choice in the matter, but still? Shitty thing for his wife to do.
Anyway, when I reminded Jim of that story, things changed fast. Jim went out and bought soups for all my meals (that is in part because of my tooth extraction), but he made sure they were all both vegetarian and low-calorie. When we stopped by McDonald’s earlier this week, he didn’t even ask what I wanted to drink; he made sure I had water. And, again, because of my tooth extraction, he asked for them to put it in a coffee cup, since I can’t drink from straws right now.
As a result? I’ve already lost 6 pounds!
Okay. So, there are other things, things more interesting than my diet, which I know is of no interest to anyone but myself…once upon a time, I had mentioned possibly going to Gen Con. Jim hasn’t mentioned it at all, so I’m not sure we’re going. My thought is that we’re not because we’re doing our best to knock out the credit card debt. Our goal is to have it gone by next year. Once it’s gone, Jim is going to quit his job and just go to school full-time. Poor guy–taking 5 classes and working 4 days a week while co-running a game with Karac is wiping him out.
And on that note…our Werewolf game is postponed indefinitely. It was supposed to run on Saturdays, but both Jim and Karac keep getting scheduled to work on Saturdays. That, and Jim usually needs to catch up on homework then. It’s really too bad because I think I’m really going to like it, but hell, I like just having Jim to myself on Saturdays, too. (Although, Phil, if you’re reading this, you’re always welcome to come over. Just don’t mind the mess.) But my guess is that we’ll pick it back up during the summer.
That’s okay. I can wait. Because right now, I have this to read:
A Game of Thrones
That’s right, A Game of Thrones. Oh my god, guys, a fantasy writer that knows how to write. I will neither hide nor deny it: I am a writing snob. Before you go thinking that I have no right to be a writing snob, I have to point out that my blog-writing is vastly different than my fiction-writing. And while there are lots of good fantasy stuff out there, most of those writers are good story-tellers, which is not the same as knowing what to do with the language. There is a difference.
By the way, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just telling a damn good story. In fact, I think our society needs it. But I personally love it when I have a writer that knows how to use foreshadowing, alliteration, imagery, all that good stuff that does more than tell a story, it plays with the reader’s imagination…SIGH. Love it.
Anyway, George R. R. Martin knows what he’s doing. I’m impressed. We just bought the first book a couple weeks ago, and Jim’s has already started on the THIRD book. Have you seen the size of these books? Jim is single-handedly the fastest reader I’ve ever known, surpassing even my mother, who, I have to say, it pretty damned fast when she wants to be.
So, yeah. Read them. I’m really excited for the HBO premier in April because (gasp!) I think I actually have HBO! (I’m not sure. I don’t really watch much TV, so I’m not sure what all I have, but I’m pretty sure Jim said we have HBO.) On that note, I’m going to leave you with a trailer to get you all excited:
