Dear Me, Happy New Year, and Other News

Well, it's been almost a month since my last post.  Let's just say that I took December off.  Holidays, in-laws, hosting. It can be a rather stressful month and honestly, I didn't think I had anything interesting to say.

Had I started this blog last year.  I could have written quite the piece about my mother-in-law.  But this year, after 10 years of not getting along, we seem to finally be okay.  Of course, I have fallen for this before so there could be something to write at some point this year.  You just never know with her.  One day, I'll have to post my infamous email I sent her.  For those of you that have issues with MILs, I am certain you will enjoy it.  For those of you who don't, you'll probably think I'm an evil bitch.  You win some, you lose some.  But that's for another day.

One interesting thing that I did over the last couple weeks was I wrote a letter to my 16-year-old self.  A friend in New Jersey has a daughter that is turning 16 tomorrow.  While searching for a gift for her, I came across a book, Dear Me: A Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self.  I bought it for her and  flipped through it a little.  It's a really great read.  A bunch of celebrities (some I know and others I didn't) wrote letters to themselves at that age.  Some were funny.  Others were serious.  But either way, I think they had a lot to say about what 16-year-olds think are so tragically important and how much these things really aren't in the grand scheme of things.  So I decided to write my letter and stick it in the book for her.  I hope I had some wise words of wisdom, or at least made her smile a little.  Here it is:

Dear 16-year-old Me,

A few of things: 

1.       You’re currently obsessed with Mariah Carey and have been for nearly 10 years.
2.       You live & breathe for the NY Giants.
3.       You’ve “recently” (about 2 years ago) become obsessed with Matchbox Twenty & Rob Thomas.
4.       Your favorite shows are Friends & Seinfeld.
5.       You have a huge crush on Leonardo DiCaprio.
6.       Your close friends include R***, C**, K***, P****, N****, J**, and J***.

These things don’t really change much in the next 12 years. I’m glad you had such good taste at 16.

Some advice I would give you:

1.       Start thinking about college. You’re guidance counselor at school stinks and won’t be very helpful, and your parents just don’t know much about it because they didn’t do it. I know you don’t have the internet at home but take a walk over to the library and do some research on your own.  Or at least take some time at Daddy’s this weekend and look it up on his computer. Next year (junior year), you should start looking at colleges.  No decisions need to be made yet but this will help you make the decision when it’s time.
2.       That guy you started dating last November, well, he’ll make you cry a lot over the next couple of years.  It’s okay though.  It helps make you the person you become.  I don’t want to ruin the surprise or anything, but in a little over a year you’ll meet the man you’ll marry.
3.       Don’t worry about making mistakes.  You’re a bit of a perfectionist mostly because you don’t want to let your parents down.  It’s okay to make some mistakes.  Not big ones—like ones that will land you a Lifetime Original or an NBC Monday Night movie.  But some are okay.  You put too much pressure on yourself.
4.       You do this already, but I’d like to stress this. Have a lot of fun. You’re 16. Act like it. The memories you’re creating with your friends will last a lifetime. Enjoy every second of living so close to them.  It won’t be long before many of you are in different parts of the country.
Spoiler alert: No matter how much you love NJ, you’re one of the ones that leave. It’s okay but take full advantage of everything NJ has to offer—even being just a train ride away from the greatest city in the world.  One day you will meet a lot of people who have never been to NYC but “always wanted to go.”
5.       Save some money. You’re spoiled and for birthdays, Christmas, and graduations, you get a lot of money. Don’t blow it all.  At the very least, take half and put it in a savings account. Don’t touch it. You may need it while in college or even further down the road.
6.       And most importantly, know that you’re beautiful. You’re about to embark on a rather awkward stage. You’ll come out the other end, a bit of a knockout FYI. But without me telling you this, you won’t know it. You’re self image isn’t terrible but it isn’t as good as it should be. Stop comparing yourself to others around you and stop letting boys’ “disinterest” in you dictate how you feel about yourself.  Even just 12 short years from now, you’ll work pretty hard to try to get that teenage body back. Appreciate it while you have it.

Now you know what I know.

xoxo,

28-year-old Me

I won’t sign my current last name so that I don’t give anything away

PS. Apple Computers and Google. Invest some of that saved money in these. Seriously.

I encourage you to do the same and write a letter.  It was fun.  I even sent it to the website and it's posted on there.  They titled it "Obsessed with Rob Thomas" which is funny because if you know me, my title is more "Obsessed with Mariah Carey".  But since Rob Thomas did write a letter in the book, who knows, maybe he'll somehow read the entry.

Other updates:

I've become obsessed with Revenge (the show, not the act).  

We saw the Music Box Theater's Christmas show, Fruitcakes! and it was fabulous!  This is the second show we've seen of theirs and they did not disappoint.  If you're in Houston and haven't seen them, I highly recommend going to a show.  

My in-laws came and went for Christmas and my dad is here now.  

The Houston Texans are in the playoffs--which is very exciting for the city and their fans as it is their first time in franchise history.  

And most importantly, the NY Giants won the division when everyone picked them to be at the bottom.  GO BIG BLUE!  Rooting for a run like in '07 :)  

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and here's to a great 2012!

 

How We Spent Our 10th Dating Anniversary

WARNING: HUSBAND AND HUSBAND'S FAMILY SHOULD NOT READ THIS

Here's another way my in-laws screwed up my husband.  Well, let's be honest.  This is another way my MIL screwed up my husband.

Can I digress for a minute? What is with the mother-son relationship? I know I don't have a child yet so maybe I can't speak, but I don't know a single man that has a healthy relationship with his mother.  Ugghhh...

So, I've mentioned it before. My husband is ridiculously sensitive.  And not in the hunky dark and damaged way. No, in the whiny I-have-to-watch-every-single-word-out-of-my-mouth way.  I assume this has to do with not getting enough love as a child or not being hugged enough or not getting enough attention (or being loved too much as a child or being hugged too much or getting too much attention--although my hunch would be the first list in his scenario).

We've been together for 10 years now.  However, spending the first 7 years apart meant that I didn't see this side of him for a long time.  It was sexy that when we were leaving each other at the airport and his eyes filled with tears.  I was under the impression he was acting this way because he was just so much in love with me.

Nope.  When I moved to Texas and we moved in together, I found out that his really mature way to resolve fights was to stop speaking to me for DAYS at a time.  This made for an even lonelier time during my loneliest time.

Why do I bring this up today? Especially the day after I tweeted how excited I was that we were going to have a date night and celebrate our 10th anniversary (we officially started dating 9/10/2001).

The day started like it was going to be super romantic.  He said we should go out to dinner, a fancy dinner.  My pick. Wow, this is going to be good, right?

Well, I picked the Melting Pot.  We hadn't been there in a while, it's one of my favorites, and I've been begging to go for over a year.

Since we were heading into Houston, I wanted to do something fun there--not just travel for dinner and come back.  So I promptly went online and found The Music Box Theater.  We had the whole night planned.

When it was time to go, I was still about 15 minutes away from being ready.  Side note: I have NEVER been this girl. I was always the one waiting on all my other friends.  This started about a year ago.  I told my husband he might want to give me fake times from now on.

So we were on the road late. Whoops.  We went to the theater picked up our tickets and headed to dinner.  We got there about 20 minutes late.  Our waiter was awesome. I thought we were making great time. And then, he hands us the dessert menu--the real reason we're here. I check my phone (because who wears a watch anymore?). It's 7:30. Yikes! We need to leave now.  Well, the awesome part was that our waiter gave us a rain check for the dessert. PHEW!  We paid and then sped away.

We went to the show at The Music Box Theater. And let me tell you, it was AWESOME! The troupe was funny. They were talented.  To say we were entertained for 2 hours is an understatement.  You could hear my husband after many songs say, wow and there were times that I laughed so hard I cried.  My cheeks hurt at the end of the night from smiling and laughing so much.  If you haven't figured it out yet, I highly recommend the show and definitely plan to be back for all their next shows.

When it was over, we hopped back into the car and headed back to the Melting Pot for dessert.  We chatted about the show on our way.  We sat down in the restaurant and all of a sudden, my husband wasn't talking to me. Whaaaat? I had no idea what happened.  I tried to make conversation. But when it's one sided, it can only last so long. So we sat for most of dessert in awkward silence. Awkward silence?? We're celebrating 10 years together.  We should be able to talk about paint drying and still be able to carry on a conversation.

I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, "Did I say something? Are you mad at me? I really don't understand what's going on here." FYI, I'm a bit of a straight-shooter.  He mumbled, no. After more of this awkwardness, I asked him, "Are you tired? You're like a completely different person from before." No. That second no is the one that means, Yes, I'm mad at you but I'm not talking to you so don't try to blame this silence on me being tired.

Well, I STILL have no idea what happened.  I racked my brain.  Here are my two options that could have spurred this:

1. There was a bit with "Judy Garland" and "Liza Minnelli" during the show. My husband told me that he didn't get it. So I had to explain that they were mother and daughter. I was a little surprised that he didn't know this. So if at any point in my explanation, I said, 'oh, you didn't know that' it becomes that I'm a condescending bitch. But I don't remember saying anything like that in my explanation but as you can see, I could have said anything and the meaning can be construed to just about anything.
2. There was no parking near the restaurant so we had to park pretty far.  I was wearing these killer 5" heels.  Oh, they are they sexiest shoes I have ever owned! I digress.  So, as he parked, he asked, "Is this okay?"  It didn't really bother me. The restaurant is in a strip mall and we were like 2 stores over.  The problem was there was a HUGE crack in the pavement in the spot that neither of us saw.  When I got out, I [almost] took a pretty bad tumble.  Totally twisted my ankle (not the permanent damage way though).  So I think I mumbled something like, "Oh, yeah, great spot. I almost killed myself." Now please understand, I was mad at the SPOT not him. He didn't see it. I didn't see it as I was stepping out into it.  No what I've learned over these last 3 years, I might have hurt his feeling with that statement.  You know, the one I made while my ankle was throbbing. Awesome.

So these are the only things that I can come up with.  On our drive home, he becomes Chatty McChatterPants.  Where did that come from?  Well, here's the other thing I know about this man that I've been with for 10 years.  Somewhere between the walk from our table and getting into the car, he realized that if he keeps up the silent treatment, he isn't getting laid tonight.  This ride back is his last chance to patch that up.

It was too late.  I was pissed.  He took a really romantic dinner and a really fun night and honestly, ruined it for me.  If you had to sit across from that puss he was making, trust me, you'd feel the same way. PS That silent treatment/sit around with a puss on my face comes from his mother.  This is exactly how she resolves issues too.  Really excited about signing up for that fun trait.

When we got home and started getting ready for bed, I asked him one last time.  What was with you tonight? "Sometimes you have to understand that your sarcastic comments really bother me." Whaaaat? again!  Please remember, from the time we were talking to the time he abruptly stopped, all we discussed was the show. THE SHOW.  Or the parking spot. These are not topics I think warrant getting feelings hurt.

And to boot, I was right. He looked me right in the eyes at dessert, lied to me, and continued to ruin my night.  My only comfort in dealing with this crap is that I truly believe he's preparing me for CHILDREN. Ugghhh!

So that's how my really romantic husband--who yes, I love dearly but am really not liking him right now--ruined our 10th anniversary.  Awesome.