Wedding Spectacular-Spectacular

Remember when you were like, 23/24 and EVERY weekend for the entire summer was spent at weddings. And odds were good, you were in one or four of them.
Yes - I remember it well. And there are still more than a few dresses hanging in the closet to remind me. And, no its not some 27 Dresses type thing -- There really is only like, 4 of em' in there.
Suffice it to say, I thought we were long past those days.
Not that I don't enjoy a good wedding -- or more importantly a good reception. But, I think we are pushing it this year.
I am a decade past the summer of 23 and all its Innocent, Martial bliss. So these days, its more like, 2 or 3 in a given year.
Until this summer/fall.
We had three this summer.
And kicking off last weekend......
One Friday -- AWESOME party Courtney & Rob
One Saturday - congrats to Tim & Emily.
We have one this weekend.
One the weekend of the 17th

--that makes 2 in Sept and 2 in Oct for those of you keeping score --
And then we hit the high mark -- 3 in November. Two of them destination, and 10 days apart. And I am in one, and Joe is in one.
And we just got a Save the Date for December.

That's 8 weddings between now and the holidays.
That boys and girls is a lot.
So our Saturday's for the next few months will consist of a few glasses of cheap red wine or keg beer, an over-cooked chicken breast or 4 -- and a few turns on the dance floor to either Wonderful Tonight or Wonderful World. With some Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feelin' kicked in for good up-tempo measure.
This is not complaining by any stretch of the imagination, just one of those -- holy cow sorta deals. I told Joe at some point we should try and plan a date night that doesn't include a wedding.
Novel idea.

Now Watching: The Colbert Report

Awareness

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Not to be Debbie Downer or anything, but sorta a big deal in the Smith household. For a lot of reasons. Its one of those things that is a little bit of a bitter pill. Part of me is always so proud and blown away by the courage of the survivors. And they should be celebrated. Part of me really struggles with why we had to be on the other end of it. What statistical, karmic influence decided my Mom was one of the ones that wasn't going to beat the odds? And why we still don't have an answer for something that plagues so many families.
Boo.

**dusts self off from moment of sadness**

That being said, we (my sisters and I) are very tuned in to what is going on in the world of research, prevention and care. For good reason. Its not just my Mom. My great-Aunt (maternal), my Aunt (paternal) and too many friends have fought the good fight as well. So we support things in whatever way we can. Which brings me to my advertising blog of the day.
Two events that need support. Both of them fun, a great time and the end result is money in the hands of the researchers and the organizations doing all they can to help care for those that can't afford it -- the whole national health care debate not withstanding. That would be a WHOLE separate post. Trust me.

So here they are in calendar order....


Ride for the Cure 2009
A spin-off of Komen's Race for the Cure this event takes me back to my rockin', motorcycle riding days. Oh how I miss them. Sturgis, leather, SeatCandy --- yep, it was a blast. That being said, this is an event for my more rebellious readers. Those who run with the wind if you will. And the really cool part of this, is a spin-off of the spin-off. The inaugural 2010 Young Riders Calendar.
The deal is you pay a small fee, and you take your kid in to get photographed. With the spin being rebel/motorcycle themed outfits, setting etc. Once they have all the pictures, there is going to be an online poll and the 12 winning photos make the 2010 calendar. With all proceeds -- you guessed it -- going to Komen. This is perfect for all my parents. If you are in the Des Moines area, consider it. I mean come on, how many of us out there don't want more pictures of our kids? Exactly. Crack the wallet open and get registered.


And the other big annual event is the actual 2009 Komen Race for the Cure here in Des Moines. I of course, have a team this year. But alas, it is not the Save Second Base of old. Nope, someone beat me to the punch and stole my team name.

Bastards.

So - we took things a new direction this year. With the creative juices of my good friend Liz G., we came up with
I Heart Boo Bees
And the following graphic to go along with it



So get registered already. And you can join my team if you want.
Go here: Komen Des Moines
Select the team, get your wallet and viola! You have joined the team. We are going to get t-shirts made with the above logo and of course, the usual breakfast back at the house on the day of the race. All in all, a good time and of course, the money going to a good cause.
Online registration ends on 10/02 so, get a registering...

Now Listening: to Finn bang toys together.

My Tween Vampire Crush.

Back from the right coast -- that's East coast for those of you not looking at a map. Or just unfamiliar with Meghan speak.
5 Whole days in Baltimore. Well -- not quite. 1 day for travel out and 1 day for travel back.
Some highlights - you mean I did things other than sitting in a conference room for 3 days, with the same 10 people talking about data models, data loads and ETL processes? Riveting as it may seem, yes we did other stuff.
The highlight of course was my dinner at Volt. I know I have mentioned on more than one occasion that we are sorta foodies at our place. Sort par for the course when one of you is a trained chef. This means we watch a lot of food shows. Top Chef having always been a fav. Seems this season of Top Chef has some crazy talent. Like James Beard winners and accolades like crazy. Additionally, this season seems to have culled talent from the Baltimore/DC areas only. I think like 4 or so of the chef-testants are from the area. Including one Bryan Voltaggio . He is one of the brothers that are competing this season. I think it is fair to say he is one of the early front-runners.
Weeeel - with a HUGE thanks to Heather & Sebastian -- we were able to score a reservation for dinner on Wednesday night. In the kitchen. It was a 5 course Prix Fixe Menu with wine pairings.
And it was
Ah-
May-
Zing -

No exaggeration needed, The menu was sublime. We had our choice of two tasting menus'. One "The Kitchen" and the other "The Garden". The differentiation was simple, one was all meat, the other all vegetables. I went with the meat but swapped my 4th course for the vegetable offering -- with the approval of our waiter. So I had --
Tuna Sashimi
Duck Foie Gras
Artic Char
Chickpea Gnocchi - this was my swap course. The others had Pork Belly
Filet Mignon
Dessert - it was this deconstructed Dulce de Leche -- a flan-like custard with a cinnamon tuille and dehydrated caramel. And it was fantastic.

Of course, all of this was started with a three amuse bouche
A Beet/Foie Gras gum-drop (my words, not theirs)
A gaspacho with cumin air
Avocado ice cream with salmon roe and basil

I think it is fair to say that it wasn't your run of the mill meal. Not to mention, we were in the kitchen so we got to see all the action. And I was personally served by the Chef twice
Yep - bragging.
I of course, didn't bring the camera, brought the cell phone and managed to snap a few pics of three of the courses. For whatever reason, cell phone pics can't be manipulated here, so I loaded them to the Flickr account -- check them out here. Keep in mind, cell phone and low light - but you get the idea, the plates were GORGEOUS.
And then we got to watch the weekly episode. That got cut short due to the fact that there were too many people there and we couldn't actually follow anything that was going on. But still, all in all -- an exceptional evening - both the food and the company.

The other highlight of my trip was an evening with Scott and Julie -
The menu that night
Antipasta plate
Peperoni Pizza
And it was lovely
But more importantly, got to just chill with them - catch up and hang with one very precocious 21 month old - Ms. SamKat herself.
She kills me. If she doesn't like something, she says "No Thank You"
At one point, I was sitting in "her" chair. And she comes up to me and says "Excuse Me, No Thank You"
Translation: Listen Lady, get the hell outta my chair.
I cracked up. Suffice it to say, she is polite, cute as hell and a handful. But was just thrilled to just spend a few hours with them. Don't see them nearly enough - so I take what I can get.
Oh, and work -- we got some stuff done.

And my last little update -- I am a reader. I think I have shared that with you in the past. Well, plane trips are just the perfect vehicle for easy reads. And last time I was out East, I was lamenting the fact that I had finished the book that I had brought along. Julie says to me - Have you read any of the "Twilight" series. I of course, say no. I had promised not to get sucked (pun not intended) into another series. I already had Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The whole Anne Rice series -- so No -- didn't need another series, and didn't need MORE vampire lore.
But she persisted. Its an easy read, take it here -- and shoves her copy of Twilight into my hands. And so I read it. In one day one the way back to Des Moines, Yep - easy read. And while I was curious as to how the other stories moved forward, I was able to move on. Until yesterday. Again, I had finished the book I brought with me and was in need of another. And there I was, at the gate at BWI and wandered over to the Hudson News. And wondering, what should I get? The new Ted Kennedy? The new Dan Brown? Nope. Those were all hardback. Too expensive. So I hit the best sellers section in paperback. A Nicholas Sparks chick-book? Not my style. Jodi Picoult? Couldn't handle another mom/family drama that would make me cry. And then my eye fell down a row. There it was - tempting me. New Moon. My immediate thought was no. And then I looked over the rest of the offerings. And came back to it.
Shit.
I was going to have to get it. And as added bonus, I got a poster with a picture from the up-and-coming movie. Which if is anything like the first movie - will be terrible. Or so I am told. So, I have a poster of Bella and Jake with the looming eyes of Edward to put up in my room and crush on. Joe will just have to deal.
So now I am on this crazy pop-culture path. Tween romance between a human and a vampire. Yep -- got sucked in (pun intended) and can't let go. So much so that when I got home and got Finn to bed, did I queue up a weeks worth of season premieres to watch? Nope. Finished the damn book.
Stoopid vampires.
Two more trips out East and I will have the whole series knocked out.

On a high note - after the whole cable saga - we finally got our cable via DirectTV. However, we were still down in the internet category. Which is very trying to me. But this morning, on a whim, kicked on the laptop and VIOLA! Wi-fi.
So thank you neighbor whomever you are that is currently allowing me to surf at will. I know, I know -- shouldn't steal internet. And its not secure -- but I needed a few minutes online to get the fix.

Now Listening: The Loft - the XM station on the DirectTV.

Who did I piss off now?

They say that good things come in threes.
What about bad things?
I think I am **this close** to wrapping up the techie-trifecta of doom.
So last week it was the cell phone.
Combined with the lack of Internet access at the house.
As I type, still no Internet and slowly getting all the contacts re-established in the phone.

And then .....

And then my leftover pregnancy brain kicked in. Or perhaps it was the brain cells that I have killed over the years with one to many shots.
I left my iPod on the plane.
Yep - the iPod that I always carry in my purse.
The iPod that I listen to in my car
The iPod that I fall asleep to.
That I work out to.
That I shower to -- ok that one is stretching it, but you get the idea.
I really love my iPod.
Now, I have to jump through the hoops of United Airlines to see if maybe, JUST MAYBE I can recover it.
Not gonna hold my breathe on that one.

Now all I need is for my computer to shit itself when I get home and we will be all set. And of course, the answer is, well you back up your music don't you.
Of course, but still. That one was a gift.
And well, its the principal.
Not to mention, I had to find a way to make it through the whole hour and half flight to Baltimore without it.
Not cool. Not cool at all.
So, on top of leaving the boys at home, and fresh off the insult of losing EVERYTHING (photos, videos, etc) on the old phone -- I am now without tunes.
I have seemingly pissed off the tech gods. Might be time to dig up some of those old floppy disks and offer them up the The Might Binary Deity. Or whatever anomaly in the Matrix I have upset.
Blech.

Now Listening: Well certainly not any music - MNF on the big flat screen in my hotel room.

The week in review

I know, I know – you all are probably going into some sort of shock at this point due to the fact that I am actually posting more than once in a given month. Or a given 2 months for that matter. But fear not intrepid reader, I have re-committed myself to all things blog-tastic and so on we go….

My first thought, why are short weeks always the longest weeks? With Monday being the holiday it just sorta set the whole thing off-kilter a little bit. Didn’t help that I didn’t get nearly as much done on Monday as I wanted to.

You see, as I mentioned we have begun operation Downgrade to Upgrade. So while some would argue that our new place is still a good size place, it is in fact smaller than what we had. By a considerable amount. And in all fairness, the house we were in was pretty effin’ ginourmous for a family of 3. So we have thrown away (2 trips to the city dump). We have Salvo’d – I am sure the many t-shirts we gave away will find a good home. And thrown away more. And yet, my house is still a cluster of the few remaining boxes we are not sure what to do with, more t-shirts and assorted crap than I thought two people could reasonably accumulate in a 12 month time span. Like I think the crap has spawned mini-crap. T-shirts are giving birth to other shirts I have NEVER seen before. How does this happen? Still noodling over that one – not sure I will come to any surefire conclusions on that one. However, once that all gets settled we will move on to Operation Family Budget -- now THAT should be a riot. Details later on that one.

Technology 101
I think it is fair to say that I am a little bit of a techie geek. I don’t necessarily have all the gadgets, etc but I do in fact envy those that do. One area that I have always been willing to spend a little extra on is my cell phone.

We don’t have a home phone – got rid of that years ago when it became readily apparent that only telemarketers called it. And I have had a pretty nice phone for the last year plus, but I have really been craving that new Palm Pre. My sister got one right when they came out and I am more than a little jealous. Silly really to crave after something as trivial as a phone, but little materialistic ole’ me can’t help herself.

Last Friday night, my phone sorta stopped working. And by sorta, I mean it stopped working. The screen just went *poof* and that was that. Saturday morning then had me high-tailing it to the cell phone store to figure it all out. Had to get the insurance claim filed for the old phone. They gave me a temporary phone (circa 1998 or something) to use in the iterim and off we went. Now – keep in mind I had no contacts in the temp phone and I was going from a full QWERTY keypad back to the T9 type keypad. And I am a texter – so this hurt. And no, I am not some 12 year old that sends like 5,000 messages a month or anything, but I do a fair share. Probably more than a fair share. Suffice it to say, it set me back a little bit. New phone arrived on Tuesday, so I spent Wednesday at the cell phone store AGAIN to get the loaner phone returned (so long 1998) and get my contacts moved from old broken phone to new shiny next-generation version of same phone.
With one teeny-weeny little snafu.
Seems they couldn’t pull my contacts off the old phone. Says helpful cell-phone sales person, “well you can just pull them off your PC, You do sync your phone with your PC don’t you?” And as he is saying this the self-righteous, I-told-you-so look is starting to permeate his visage.
Me: “Erm, no.”
Queue the angel of death, the knells of the final bells and enter the grim reaper.
You guessed it boys and girls – no contacts for Meghan. And we are talking like, 1.5 years worth of numbers. And I know I am prone to exaggeration, but I am thinking easily 200+ numbers. I don’t even know my Dad’s cell phone number for Pete’s sake. That’s how dependent I have become on my contact list. Of course, I got equally self-righteous back .
Me: “Well, if you offered online back up like other providers did, this wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe I should look into another service provider” The guy just looks at me and with total confidence informs me that no provider can back up smart phones. You have to sync them to a PC. Now this may or may not be true, but he was convincing. I wasn’t however convinced that there was NO way to pull those contacts off the phone, so I went to another store and asked them the same thing. The tech there proceeded to Frankenstein my phone into like, 8 pieces and rebuild it with like 16 parts of other phones and alas – we reached the same end result.

The phone wasn’t mostly dead, wasn’t in Davy Jones locker, wasn’t in limbo or any other purgatory like ethereal plane. This baby was D-E-A-D. Full stop. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

The moral of this story boys and girls, is back your shit up. Not in a back that ass up sorta way, nope – get the contacts on a computer, iPod, something, anything that will prevent you from having to send out the “I’m an idiot” email to your entire inbox.

Little Leprechaun Update: He is awesome. Really. Cute as hell. Funny as all get out – and we totally dig him. I should have a link to some new 6 month pictures here shortly. I think they might get me nominated for Mom of the Year or something, stay tuned.

And for your Debbie Downer portion of your programming…
Tuesday marked the 2 year anniversary of my mom’s death. Which is crazy for any number of reasons. I expect there will come a time when it isn’t such a HUGE deal and starts to become another day. Or maybe not. I can still remember every detail of that day. And at the same time sometimes it seems like it was SO long ago. I have said this before, its never the big things that trigger the sadness. Its always the little one. Big days like Christmas, Mothers Day, Tuesday… you are sorta prepping yourself in advance for those. So you manage to insulate a little bit. It doesn’t make them any easier – but I remind myself that in fact the world has continued to revolve. There are good (or great) things in my life and in fact, life does go on. But you still are a little sad, and more than a little glad when the day is over. Thanks to Beth for the offering of ice cream and wine to help the night along. And Joe for just being Joe. Also got the nicest note from Joe’s dad. I have to say, for as sad as it is – you have to celebrate the amazing people that are still in your life and that support us every day. We would be nowhere without them. And I can still hear my mom’s voice telling me to make the most of it and live my life. I still miss her. Every day. Not sure that will ever get any easier.
Deep, cleansing breath
Moving on. I think that about gets us current on this Friday afternoon. I am off to the East coast next week for work. Boys will be running solo, so stop on by and say Hi if you are so inclined. I am sure Joe will want the company. And now I have to go. Its food day at the office and its easily been 30 minutes since I have taken a lap around the buffet offerings.
Now Listening: To my iPod on shuffle – moving to Big Head Todd & The Monsters

Bass-Ackwards

Hello out there intrepid reader. I know, I know. Its been WAAAY too long since I have posted. And what you ask, has kept me from the keyboard and any relevant updates on this redheads world?

Trading gossip quips with Perez Hilton?
Snark-fest 09’ with Chelsea Lately?
Pilgrimage to LA for MJ’s funeral?
Lounging on the tropical shores of Ibiza with a cocktail in one hand and an attentive pool boy massaging the other one?

Nope – dear reader (or whomever of you out there just might stumble across this post), I have spent the summer in the hum-drum Midwest – nary an ocean or pool boy in sight. Hardly even a big puddle. And what has filled my halcyon summer days here in fly-over country? Work, work, kid, work, the occasional wedding and more work and kid. Yes, the mighty have fallen and they have fallen hard. I have managed an occasional night out or on the porch with a bottle of my favorite grape juice in hand. The only problem with those nights stems from parental rule #82(d) – you can go to bed at 9:30 PM , the kid gets up at 6:30 AM. You can go to bed at 11:15 PM, the kids gets up at 6:30 AM. You can go to bed at 3:00 AM because well, you really needed that 5th bottle of wine and you haven’t looked that sexy in a really long time and – you guessed it – kid doesn’t give a rats ass how sexy you thought you looked at 2:45 AM and gets up at 6:30 AM. This means that the evening out theory has shifted just a smidge. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, just another in the multitude of adjustments a mini-me brings to the table.

So what else is new in my little corner of the world? Well, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to major life events, we (Joe & I collectively) do things backwards. Like, Bass-Ackwards. I believe there is a somewhat agreed upon order in which your average adult does things. It goes something roughly like this

You meet.
You date.
You fall in love.
You get engaged.
You get married.
You move in together.
You spend a few years in wedded bliss.
You get in a family way
You buy a big house and live happily ever after.

I think you can probably move the “move-in together” portion of programming up a few rungs depending on the situation, but all in all that is how its suppose to be. According to whatever ruling body is in charge of these types of things.

Here is how we do it….
You meet.
You don’t date for like 8 months, you just dance around it.
You finally start “dating” after a serious make out session at a friends after-hours party.
You date for about 7 months officially.
You break up.
You keep seeing each other for oh, a year or so. Even though you are not together.
You discover one day that you are pregnant.
You then decide to move into together.
You have a kid.
You then decide that you moved into a house that was way too big for you at this point.
You downsize so at some point you can buy a house.
You set up savings to buy a house.
And that is as far as we have gotten.

So somewhere in there we will buy the house, oh and we might get married. Eventually. You see where I am going with this? Ass-backwards. It’s like we take all the things in the first list, threw them into a hat and then just pick them out at random. But dammit, we are going to get our happily ever after, just in a round-about sorta way. Details right? Just goes to prove, the best laid plans….

In the little leprechaun department, we are getting really big (7 months) have 2 teeth, sit up on our own, crawl/lunge after anything resembling electronics (the remote, the cell phone) and have plenty of personality to go with all that. Still not sleeping through the night. Not sure we are ever gonna get that one in check. And its not that he is up all night just screaming his head off. No, he is just up. Chatting to whomever will listen and wanting to play. Yep – play. At 3 AM. Its one of those falsehoods of parenting. They make that first few months just sound awful and then there is supposed to be this mystical, magical point when **poof** it all just comes together and the family is smiley and full of well-rested goodness.

Reality check: not so much. You get over the newborn stage and then you hit a growth spurt or two, then the teething kicks in, then another growth spurt. Have I convinced you all to go out and have like, 5 kids yet? Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I really don’t remember much of my life before he came along. Seems like I was doing things that I thought at the time were important, but realize now not so much. That’s not to say I wouldn’t love a crazy night out and more importantly the ability to sleep in the next day, but the parenting gig is pretty freakin’ awesome.

So there it is. My first foray back into the blog-sphere. Wasn't that painful at all. Just like ripping that band-aid off. Just gotta do it. Here's hoping there are a few of you out there still reading. I am gonna keep writing.

Now Listening: Vol I by She&Him