In a Fever

"We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout." - Johnny Cash

Yep, we sang that song the entire time on our honeymoon...but technically only that line as neither of us really knew the rest of the song by heart. If you've been following along, you probably know we were engaged on September 19. And then we got married on December 1. And yes, I did plan a wedding in two months. Which is really kind of a short time period for planning a wedding, but we were trying to keep the stress to a minimum (hahahahahahasob). So, two months to plan a wedding may seem like a very short amount of time, but it was the perfect amount of time for us. By not having a lot of wiggle room, there's no time for hemming and hawing. You make a decision and it stays made because there's just no time left to do anything else.

Thankfully, I had some really amazing people in my life helping me plan. I work in a very small office with mostly women my age, so they were all to willing to help me. Two of them even went with me to try on wedding dresses and even helped pick out the dress that I wore for the wedding. The dress was easily the easiest part of the entire wedding planning. Thankfully one of the few J. Crew shops that have wedding dresses on site just happens to be in Atlanta, so I was able to try on dresses there. And yes, I wore a grey dress. Several people have asked, why grey. For one, I didn't want to do the whole "white dress" thing again. It obviously didn't work out so well for me the first time. And, honestly, this might be the most important part, but the grey one was about $600 less than the white one in the same version. I think it worked out pretty well to be honest:

Wedding Bells

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ― Robert Fulghum

On the walking tour of the inn property

A year ago today, I would have never thought I would be planning a wedding. I was still so shell shocked from the divorce that even the thought of being married again was terrifying. But here I am, planning a wedding. I am marrying my best friend. In two months no less. I mean, shoot, we are going to get married anyway, why wait until next year sometime. Plus, 12/1/2012 just has such a great ring to it.

So, by this point, pretty much everyone knows we're getting married thanks to the wonderfulness that is social media. Jeremy wrote a beautiful post about our relationship that you should go read as well. But, I get to tell the story of the proposal. It's a sweet story, because Jeremy is the sweetest. I would like to preface the story by saying that I had informed Jeremy that when he proposed that it needed to be very romantic. I read a lot. I have high expectations. Also, I tend to micro-manage. I try to not do it, but alas, I frequently fail.

Back in the spring I purchased a Google offer for a bed-and-breakfast just outside of Charlottesville, VA. Due to work being crazy with the audit (I'm the finance director), we weren't able to use the coupon until a couple of weeks ago. We got up early on a Wednesday and flew to Richmond. Yes, it was almost two hours away from Charlottesville, but when you're flying stand-by, you take what you can get. After finally getting to the inn after a long day on the road, we pretty much crashed for a couple of hours. After we finally had enough energy to move, we took a tour of the property. The inn was pretty spectacular. There were chickens there, so we felt right at home. We took a hike through the woods,  sat for a while with the resident cats, and then decided to head into town for dinner. 

As the aforementioned micro-manager, I had prepared a list of approved restaurants for the trip. I do not enjoy eating at chain restaurants and I try to frequent restaurants that purchase their meats and produce from local farms. I'm a food snob. I can't help it. We headed to the first restaurant on the list...The Whiskey Jar. To say that it was the best food we've had in a long time would be an understatement. We had oysters wrapped in Virginia ham and covered with Gruyere for the appetizer. Then we shared the fried chicken and collard greens plate and the sweet potato dumplings plate. We also split a bottle of the best hard cider I've ever tasted.  After the amazing dinner, we headed down the road for some ice cream before making the trek back to the inn. 

Once we got back to the inn, we decided we would sit out under the stars for a while. The benches were all wet from the dew so we had to find an alternative to the bench. Jeremy found a log on the wood pile that was long enough for both of us and placed it on the bench. We used my stargazing app on my cell phone to find constellations  We couldn't really see them though because when you're in the country away from the city lights, there are millions upon millions of stars. We quickly gave up and decided to just talk and kiss and hold hands. We talked about how much we loved each other. We talked about how we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. Finally, Jeremy asked, "are you sure you want to be with me the rest of your life?". I answered that of course I did. He stood up and said "well, let's do this right then." He got down on one knee and asked me to "put this ring on your finger". And of course I did. I teared up a little and we had the sweetest kiss with him still on one knee. It was perfect.

Later back in the hotel room, I asked him if he had been nervous. He said that he knew I would say yes, but he was a little worried that it wouldn't be romantic enough. But being proposed to underneath the stars on a farm, yeah, that's pretty much perfection in my books.

Since we were on vacation, we decided we would wait about telling anyone because we knew we'd be overrun with Facebook posts, texts, phone calls, and emails once the cat was out of the bag. It was so lovely just being able to revel in the fact that we were going to get married. We spent two more glorious days together before we called "the mamas". I think my mama was prepared for it seeing as how Jeremy had asked my daddy if he could marry me. Jeremy's mama was over the moon. And his daddy was too, to tell the truth. 

So we're pretty excited. Jeremy would be happy to just go down to the courthouse tomorrow and get married. And I understand his urgency. I'm so excited to be married to someone who has filled me with so much love, someone who has already been there for me through ups and downs, someone who shares my values and my upbringing, someone who listens to everything that I say and even remembers most of it, someone who I want to stand beside until my last day. I love him. He is already my better half. I can't wait to make it official.

The boy boo, right after we called the mamas.

Growing on the Farm

Yes, I live on a half-acre. Yes, I live in the middle of Atlanta. And yes, I've decided to call my little plot of land a farm. I mean, shoot, I have chickens in the back yard and a garden in the front yard. I think that makes it a farm. And seeing as how I grew up on a farm, I think I have the authority to declare it so.

I already knew from some of my experiences with Crop Mob that the farming community is amazing. But until I started raising chickens and growing a garden, I don't think I knew the breadth and depth of the care and the helpfulness of the farming community. When I've had questions, like "why is nothing in my garden growing?" I had several farmer friends (and my parents) pipe up that perhaps I am watering the garden too much. Apparently, watering your garden every single day, and at night, is wrong. When I needed help trying to set up my front yard garden, I had a farmer friend go with me to the nursery to get plants and then come back to the house with me and help me plant them. When I've had questions about why my chickens feathers are falling out or why their combs are looking all dry, a farmer friend gave me great tips about how to help the hens. When my tomato plants starting looking droopy and like they were dying, not only did my farmer friend tell me how to fix them, but she gave me the necessary tool to fix them (kelp meal, if you're wondering).

The really cool thing is how much more I have to talk to my parents about now that I am farming. They've been doing this for years and years, and I think they are surprised at my enthusiasm. I think they are exasperated by my constant nagging that they should be growing their garden organically, but they just put up with my hippie ways. I mean, they raised me, so technically it's their fault. But there really is nothing quite like calling Daddy in the morning on my way in to work and talking about my garden. I think he's rather proud that I've decided to do something that he loves. I go home and help my parents in their garden every chance I get. Their garden encompasses several acres and they do most all of the work by hand, so they need all the help they can get. Although, I frequently wonder if it's really necessary to plant an entire acres of just potatoes. But, in the words of Daddy, "farmers feed America." And my parents may not be feeding all of America, but they are feeding my grandmother and other widow women in the community. As my Daddy always says, "if you plant enough to share, you'll always have enough." And goodness me do they have enough. My mother has four deep freezers full to the brim of food that she has put away from the garden.

Oh and one of the really exciting parts about growing a garden in your front yard...people will stop and ask you what you're growing. And then you get to tell them about your garden. One day last week my neighbors' five-year-old daughter walked over to see what I was growing. I got to show her what each plant looked like and was able to talk to her about what would grow from each of them. Then she got to pet a chicken, which was pretty much the highlight of her day. It was pretty awesome to experience a child's first time to pet a chicken. Which sounds pretty lame, and it probably is. But this is the life I've been wanting to live. And I'm loving it.

Front yard garden, freshly planted

Side yard garden, after I stopped watering it to death

My parents' garden

You can take the girl out of the country...and apparently the country out of the girl as well.

Last week Jeremy and I went on vacation to Seattle. It was beautiful and wonderful and we walked over thirty miles in total. And I learned something about myself. I have turned into a city girl!

The first part of our trip, we stayed at a beach house owned by Jeremy's old roommate's family. It was secluded and peaceful and basically in the middle of nowhere. The closest grocery store was about a twenty minute drive, as were the closest restaurants. We were a thirty minute ferry ride plus a fifty minute drive from Seattle. We were not anywhere near the city.

Now don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic place to stay. Jeremy and I spent our days walking on the beach and reading on the patio. We didn't even turn on a television for five whole days. We were able to unwind and relax. I even had my first s'more (and probably my last one as I feel like we ate our weight in s'mores). The views were incredible. We saw a bald eagle. We had the Olympic Mountains as a backdrop for our sunsets. I mean just look at what we woke up to every day...

But after living in Atlanta for almost seven years, I have become accustomed to everything being right at my doorstep. I can walk to three different grocery stores from my house. Now granted, it's about a thirty minute walk, uphill, but still, basically walking distance. There are probably around one hundred restaurants within a ten minute drive from my house. And after three days of being in the country, I longed for the city. I longed for the hustle and bustle. I longed to be able to walk to a restaurant. I longed for the diversity of the city. I longed for stores and coffee shops. I longed to be out of the car.

And boy howdy, did I get my wish. After our three days in seclusion, we headed back into the city. We walked from the hotel to the marina. We watched boat planes take off from and land in the water. We saw the Space Needle. We walked nine miles (round trip) to eat Mexican food. And quite honestly, it wasn't even the best Mexican food we'd ever had, even after we walked for hours to get there. We walked from one hotel to another, which wound up being a five mile trip. We walked to thrift shops. We walked to antique stores. We walked to book shops. We walked to several more restaurants. We walked to and during the Underground Seattle tour. We walked to the train station to hop on the train to subsequently run to the gate at the airport to come home. In three days, we submersed ourselves in the sights and sounds of the city. And it was wonderful..

 

The interesting thing is, I will frequently find myself lamenting how much I dislike living in Atlanta. I don't like the traffic or the great crowd of people. But I guess I just needed to get away from my normal life just for a couple of days to find out that actually, I do love the city even despite all of my aggravations with it. I grew up in the country, right smack dab in the middle of rural Alabama. I spent my entire childhood in the middle of nowhere. But I found myself in the city. And I like who I've become. City girl and all.

Keep on the Sunny Side

In the past ten years, I've lost a number of people to cancer or have had friends lose family to cancer. I've had friends diagnosed with and beat cancer. I have friends who are still struggling from the effects that cancer has wrought. Shoot, I found out just this last week that a friend is undergoing chemo. Everyone and their mother knows that cancer sucks. It takes away dreams. It takes away family. It does nothing by weave a path of destruction. However, anytime I hear someone talking about cancer I always think about my Uncle Richard.

Richard is Daddy's youngest brother. He was still in elementary school when his dad (my granddaddy) died from cancer (he was 45, if you're wondering). When I was born, Richard was probably about fifteen or sixteen. I remember we all even called him Baby Richard. He was the baby after all. And he was awfully spoiled. Everyone in the family pretty much took care of him. I also remember when Richard got married my mother sat all the nieces and nephews down and told us that we had to stop calling him Baby Richard because he was a grown-up now.

But being a grown-up hit him like a ton of bricks. First, he was shot. Through the head. Accidentally. Amazingly, the bullet went right through his mouth and just took out some teeth. No real damage, you know, other than having to have some false teeth put in and having some wounds that had to heal. He dodged that bullet, so to speak, but the next one that came for him, well, he wasn't so lucky. In his late twenties, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I think it goes without saying, that we all know what kind of surgery is done for testicular cancer. A couple of years later, he was once again diagnosed with cancer. But this time it was lung cancer. He went through the chemo. All of his hair fell out. He lost lots of weight. My 6 foot 5 inch, almost 300 lb. uncle became my skinny uncle. The man who could still pick me up and hold me upside down by my feet when I was in high school, became weak and frail. It wasn't pretty. He came through the chemo pretty well, and was pronounced in remission. And then a couple of years later, he was once again diagnosed with testicular cancer. Another surgery later...and we thought he was finally in the clear.

But then, more bad news. About five or six years ago, he was diagnosed with leukemia. About two years into the treatments, he lost his job because he had pretty much maxed out his health benefits and was costing his employer more money than he was making them. He is in remission now, thanks to taking chemo orally pretty much every day.