Brotherly Love

cashier: Oh wow, you two look so much alike. You must be siblings.
me: Nope. We're husband and wife though. So that's not creepy.
cashier: Oh, uh. Well, they say significant others start to look more and more alike as time goes on...
me: So they say.  

Maybe it was due to the fact that we both have dark hair and that Mike was wearing his glasses at the time that the guy thought we looked alike. We've heard the sibling comparison once before. I've heard the look alike over time thing too, but really, it's just on the icky side of things no matter when you hear it.  

Good Things

Good news!
I accepted a full time library position yesterday! Full time! With vacation and sick time! And benefits! I finally, finally have a grown up job! (I may have jumped up and down while giggling and clapped my hands like a seal after accepting, so acting like a grown up, not so much. But that doesn't make my job any less grown up, just the person who has it now. Suckers!)  

And in other good, but sad to me news, I found a new family for Bailey. Someone my sister works with is going to adopt my girl and Bailey's new family is super super excited. So even though my heart is breaking over losing her, I am happy that she'll be happy and that her new family is happy to have her. It's the best possible outcome for such a sucky (for me) situation.

So. Good things. Yeah. Good things.

Hot Streak

So, I'm pretty used to be totally wrong on selecting a winner or calling something. So when it came time for my people to have babies, I would always predict one and it was always the other.  

BUT!

I was on a super hot streak for a while there. Ever since I was right that my friends' first would be a girl, I've been able to call future babies boy or girl. (Mike likes to point out that it's a 50/50 shot every time so the odds are really not in my favor, but whatever. He's just jealous of my skill. That and I may have said I thought we're going to have 2 girls and little girls scare him).

I was 100% convinced my friend would have a girl. Her son was born earlier this month.
And I ever since my sister told me she's pregnant I've been pretty damn sure a nephew is joining the family. We found out a few days ago it's a niece, surrounding my dad with even more women.

So oh well, my hot streak is over. But I've never been happier to be wrong though!

OMG

My mom doesn't text. Granted, I don't text much either because I am the slowest texter ever. I have a dinosaur for a phone that can only do one thing at a time, so it (ok, me) can't keep up with rapid fire group messages, plus I insist on spelling everything out since I hate text talk with the exception of STD because that is hysterical.  Though I on occasion I use btw or fyi for brevity's sake, and sometimes things happen and the only thing that can be used to describe something is an OMG.   

Anyway. 

After seeing my sister and I use/play/facetime on our ipads, my mom hinted heavily that she would definitely want one when there were grandchildren. And since my sister is due in September (!!!), grandchildren are no longer an abstract thing. So for Mother's Day, Amy and I (and our husbands) got mom and ipad. It was scheduled to arrive the day after Mother's Day, and we didn't give her any hints, so she said she would email us when she received her present. Mom's email subject line when she opened the packaging slip? OMG!

Frankly I am just amused that my mom a) used OMG and b) even knew OMG in the first place!

Painted Into a Corner

Home improvement, my train of thought/ideas: install wainscoting, add tile, frame something, put up shelves, rip out a pointless counter, move the shower fixtures, remove the stupid tiny shower and turn it into a closet, the possibilities are endless! Oh, and I guess pick a paint color. Ugh (I hate picking out paint colors).
Home improvement, husband's train of thought/ideas: paint.

Well, husband is practically chomping at the bit to paint the upstairs/loft/2nd family room since it's the last area of the house to be painted. And this is turning into a much harder process than it needs to be somehow.

One part is that I can't decide on a color/look feel in general. I get an idea then change it. Gray one day, yellow the next. Then I gravitate towards orange. Then I want gray and orange. Then I want dark blue instead of orange, but only if it's gray and dark blue. Dark purple and gray. Back to yellow, and I want yellow and gray. Or yellow and dark purple. So on and so forth, and when I look at the paint samples I can't find what I imagined/want. Granted, I can't decide what I want in the first place, but I know what I have in front of me isn't it.

Another part of that is the two of us like different color schemes in general. I'm continuously drawn to deep jewel tones, rich saturated colors that are warm and inviting, and red and yellow based colors in general. I love color and I'm not afraid to use it  So I'm at one end of the paint aisle pulling paint chips of yellow and rose based neutrals, warm soft grays, and bright pops of color. And husband is continuously drawn to the muted dusty blues greens and tans at the other end of the paint aisle.

Another difficulty is he wants things to match, but at the same time he doesn't want everything to be the same either. Which, I'm not really sure what that is. I think it's more coordination and flow he's concerned over and not so much "matching." But I don't think my design concepts make sense to him so he continuously refers to that as matching. So my solution for things to "match" is a neutral overall with an accent wall (or walls). Yeah, that same accent that we can't agree on. And a neutral that he wants to match the neutral downstairs but is different enough from the existing builders' white but not too different so that it stands out either. Which...once again, I'm not really sure what that is.

How did picking a paint color become so complicated? Pretty much the only thing I'm sure of right now is that I still seriously hate picking out paint colors.

*Edited to add- May 11 2013 *
Yesterday we found a blue that was bright enough for me to like, and a light warm brown neutral that matches enough that he likes. We got some samples, liked what we saw on the wall and bought 4 gallons to finish up the house. Oh thank god! 

Nothing to Report

The way I found my dog trainer is that I work with her mom. So on occasion Jamie will call the desk looking for her mom and we'll chat for a few minutes about the dogs. And right now, there's nothing to report. They are getting along fine. They don't play together, but since Mike tenses up and expects the worst to happen if they get close to each other they don't get the chance to play even if they wanted. But right now, they're just there, co-existing in the same house. They're not challenging each other, resource guarding or jockeying for the dominate position. They're just, there. They're just being. They go to "place," they walk on their pinch collars. They "sit" and "down" on command, and if they don't on command they get a pop with the pinch collar until they do. Usually reaching for the leash to pop is enough to get a compliance, but Jules still occasionally throws a fit if you correct her. Stubborn little ass that she can be though, she's no match for my bitter determination. The other day I even took them both for a short walk by myself. And nothing happened. There's really nothing to report.

And I almost hate that because it makes giving up my best friend Bailey seem that much more ridiculous and this heartache that much more unnecessary. But what does that matter? It doesn't lessen my grief in any way, turns out it exacerbates it. The one thing I want most of all there's no hope for. Which is why I'm so defeated and don't have the strength to fight for her anymore. It's the giving up on a nothing to report perfectly normal nothing extraordinary (but extraordinary to me) dog that hurts most of all. 

How Things Change

Relationships in your early/mid 20's are different in a few ways than relationships in your late 20's/30's. Dr soc has never been one of those untrusting annoying guys who has ever asked me if I have taken my birth control. Because no, the crux of that issue is that a guy who doesn't trust me, especially on that, is an asshole and I'm not going to put up with that sh*t. Not to mention that I've always been really really good about taking it. And even though my baby fever has sky rocketed to extreme heights and dr soc and I are planning on having a family in the not so far off future, he still doesn't ask that. Which, good. Because seriously, I won't put up with that sh*t.

What he does ask me about on occasion though, is if I have taken my lady vitamins (with folic acid so Sharktopus's spine has the best chance of developing just in case). But he has reason to do that because I am actually quite terrible at remembering to take those.

So I find this situation slightly ironic for both of us. Because here I am, chomping at the bit to have a baby, but I can't for the life of me remember to do something that would help that baby I want so much to be healthy. And there he is, not quite ready to have a baby just yet, but he's asking me to take something to help the baby's development just in case, not something to not have a baby.

How things have changed.