The Cheeky Bride

Look at these people:

Adults, right?  If you can look past the Converse sneaks at least.

Last night Tony’s best friend Matt came over. (Side note: guys don’t refer to each other as bff, which is unfortunate, but for the sake of males everywhere, I’ll use the boring term best friend).  We started talking about back in the day when Tony had long hair, which compelled me to grab the old photo albums and look for the one photo I remember of Tony with his hair in a ponytail, running all the way down his back.  It elicited a laugh from the boys and, before you could blink, they were back to playing Halo and yelling obscenities at the TV because it was totally unfair that the blue ranger guy just killed their men even though it was clear they had the better gun.  Life.  So unfair.  Good thing violent video games that take place in abandoned space-age warehouses prepare us for it.

As they went back to playing, I sat on the floor in front of the bookshelf flipping through my old albums.

I’ve mentioned before that Tony and I started dating when we were just teenagers.  Wee bebes.  I could get really deep on you in this post and talk about all the changes we made as we grew up together and learned how to navigate this crazy thing called life.  But instead, I’m going to take the shallow route and discuss how freakin crazy it was to look back on our hilarious fashion choices.  Our hairstyles.  Oh god, the facial hair (Tony, not me.  Unless you count my unruly eyebrows – thanks a lot for telling me, family.  Really, thanks.)

We went through Tony’s long hair phases.  The days when he grew a great big Grandpa Garcia beard.  Even the summer he spent as a pool boy and you’d be hard-pressed to find him ever wearing a shirt…even when driving around town doing errands.

I wasn’t much better.  Please see comment on eyebrows above.  I had crazy long hair that reached my butt in college.  I went through a phase of never wearing shoes.  Or a bra.  One summer was spent living in patchwork clothes, and because my mad skills at the helm of a sewing machine were lacking, I often had uneven hems and weird patchwork placement.

Oh to be young again.  So please reference the photo above if you become overwhelmed in the youth of the below pictures.  It’ll help remind you we made it through.  Just barely.

This was our very first picture taken together.  It was Homecoming 1999.  Yeah, I said 1999.  And yeah, Tony is wearing his hair parted down the middle.  Along with half his dad’s wardrobe, although I’m quite partial to the loafers.  I may or may not also have a small crush on him for wearing pleated pants.

I’m not much better.  The face-framing hair tendrils will always be so 1990’s.  And I couldn’t disappoint when reppin’ my decade, woot woot!

But, oh, our teenage years get so much better.

This was the haircut heard ’round the world.  Thank God, because the middle hair part and I were not seeing eye to eye.

Speaking of hair…

Whoa nelly-cakes!  These days the curls look a little less Shirley Temple.  I’ve also mastered a much cuter pout for the camera.  And finally discovered tweezers.

Thank God college came.  And brought along a rebirth of Tony’s long hair and Katie’s love of all things patchwork.

Leave it to underage college kids to pose so proudly with their big bottle of cheap ass Admiral Nelson’s rum.  I’ve upgraded to Captains now.  It was an easy break up with the Admiral.

No need to adjust your computer screens.  That is not a rat tail.  Although…close.  But, no.  Not a rat tail.  Just Tony in his ponytail days.  He also apparently might have taken a hankering to wearing sideburns, although I don’t remember that so much.  The brain does funny things when trying to repress memories of unfortunate sideburns.

Let’s pretend for a moment that this photo isn’t weird enough, what with me force feeding a Tootsie Pop to a skeleton and all.  You don’t even want to know what happened to that skeleton as we made our way through the college years.  Let’s just say she ended up with lipstick, painted nails and was once attached to a giant blow-up Chilly Willy doll.  Binge drinking brings out creativity apparently.

But here I am.  Obviously no one thought to teach me the fine art of matching vs. clashing when it comes to pairing your everyday tie-dyes and patchwork.  Boy am I red in the face now.

I also went through the bell bottom phase.  Only a few decades too late.

Can you hear that?  It was my split ends screaming.  Begging for a haircut.

This was taken on New Year’s Day, although I’m not sure which year.  All I know is we were ringing in the year as the Year of Facial Hair.  And Tony didn’t disappoint.

Looking back, it was probably not the best look for him.  There are better ways to wear a beard.  Ways that won’t make you appear to be channeling Charles Manson.

After the last year in college, the pictures start looking a little better.  I cut my hair to a more reasonable length.  I fell in love with stilettos.  Tony also cut his hair and started a job working for the man.  Like I said above.  We’re adults, or at least we’ve mastered looking like them.  Well…sometimes.

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow.  Our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, but definitely not our first rodeo when it comes to the holiday.  (11 years now, c’mon.)

In previous years we had a long-standing joke that he would always get me kitchen items.  And before you raise your pitchforks in a fury of feminist revolt, let me tell you that I actually asked for the kitchen items.  Because at some point I hadn’t already given into my natural instincts to stay far away from the kitchen.  It was during my rebellious period or something like that.

So I have a slow cooker, a mandoline and an avocado slicer sitting on some random shelf, taking up space and collecting dust.  I was into the quick fixes apparently.  Definitely not like my personality or anything.  Don’t eye roll me.

But because of our awesome wedding registry and our awesome guests who bought from said registry, we have kitchens gadgets and gizmos galore this year!   So poor Tony was left fending for himself in that harsh world of Valentine’s Day shopping.  So I took pity on him and spelled out what I wanted.  Fudge.  Chocolate fudge.  And maybe Season’s 5 of Grey’s Anatomy.

Well, the man doesn’t disappoint.  I’ve finished off the fudge and I’m already to the part where Dr. Torres and Dr. Hahn start their torrid love affair.  It’s a good man who gets his lady exactly what her little heart desires.  And he knows not to come between my heart and McDreamy.

So what did I get him?  Let me preface my gift by letting you in on a secret.  I’m the world’s best gift giver.

I know, I know, that’s not a very modest thing to say, but there’s no room for humility here.  I seriously AM the best gift giver.  Just ask him about his video game rocker chair I got him for Christmas.  He might be too busy still drooling over it to answer, though.

Back to V-Day.  Here’s the story behind the gift.  We didn’t get any cake at our wedding.  Which was the biggest bummer of the night.  If you remember from a previous post, we were both insanely excited about our cake because the cake tasting was fantastic.  After the wedding, the caterer sent us home with the top of the cake, which was chocolate.  Tony missed out on his layer of raspberry and yellow cake.  For 2 weeks straight, no lie, I endured his constant moaning over that raspberry yellow layer.  You would have thought someone stole his puppy, it was that pathetic.

So I went back to the bakery and had them re-make the middle layer.  With the raspberry cream.  They even remembered the white chocolate shavings we had on the outside of the cake.  He was thrilled, to say the least.

We’ve been living in a buttercream-induced catatonic sugar state all weekend, but…totally worth it.

P.S. – AWESOME gift giver.  Just had to throw it in one more time for emphasis.  And for modesty.

Our wedding cake. Props go to Front Room Photography for the photo and Delicately Delicious of Cedarburg for the cake.

Remember the Freshman 15?  Do they make a newlywed version?  Maybe it’s the pure bliss of being married.  Or the frightful weather outside.  Or a touch of both with a hint of “ha – I own you for life, sucka’ so just try to divorce me when I put on a few pounds and you see me push our child out of my lady bit parts.” (Sidenote for the fam: nope, not pregnant yet, you can resume your regularly scheduled programing…)

Last summer I was pretty good about going to the gym for…oh…about a month there.  And then the wedding planning stress kicked in and the two-job thing didn’t help and excuse, excuse, excuse and I pretty much fell of the bandwagon from about August onward.  After the wedding I promised myself I’d buckle down.  Call it the Wedding Year’s Eve resolution.  But then the move and the holidays were upon us.  And what’s a girl to do when face to face with Christmas cookies.

My god, they have sprinkles, people!  Don’t act so high and mighty like you’d pass up something with sprinkles.

So I maybe have lost a little…tone…since last year.  And it’s driving me nuts.  Because:  tone vs. hot fudge sundae icecream.  Which one provides the more immediate gratification?  You got it.  Pass me the Edy’s.

But I’m back.  On the wagon.  Sweating it out with the elderly in their penny loafers and jeans on the elliptical machines at the Y.  And not feeling quite as guilty when I treat myself to the hot fudge sundae.  So wish me and my untoned thighs luck.  I’m going to need it in order to keep up with these elderly.

It’s no secret that winter is not my season.  And while I’m a rational person and realize if Wisconsin did not have snow then we’d have bigger problems to worry about, like, “holy shit, what’s up global warming?!,” I might just take global-warming Wisconsin over sucky-ass-neverending-snow-god-damnit Wisconsin.

Yeah, that’s right.  I hate winter that much that I’m actually wishing freakishly unnatural warming trends upon this great land.  Big middle finger to the scientists right there.

It doesn’t help that we’re getting the Sno-gasm of the century tonight.  Over 20 inches.  And 50 mph winds. 

It also doesn’t help that the snow service contracted to plow our apartment parking lots comes at 3:30 in the morning.  I have proof from last night.  The only thing stopping me from leaping through my non-sound-proof window panes at 4 in the morning and inflicting serious physical violence on them was thinking about how they probably had kids at home.  Must…think…of…the…children…gah!

With the snowpacolypse raging outside, the only thing I feel like doing is conforming my body into a small ball on the couch and self-diagnosing myself with the help of Grey’s Anatomy episodes.  McDreamy has helped me come to terms with my headache producing brain tumor.  I’m also worried I might have ebola.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.

In all seriousness, my mood usually starts to divebomb around this time of year in this part of the country.  Just in case my barrage of whiny, irritable complaints found in the beginning of this blog doesn’t illustrate the point well enough.  February is rough.  Usually I handle December because snow is pretty on Christmas and it makes Santa Claus, Rudolph and the baby Jesus happy.  I claw my way through January, and by February…forget all this noise.  I’m all up in  Travelocity’s grill, booking tickets to the equator.

On a bright note.  I have a snow day tomorrow.  Remember being a little kid, getting up at the buttcrack of dawn to watch the scroll bar of the morning news, eagerly searching for your school’s name to announce that it was closed.  And then you’d go back to bed for awhile, wake up and build snow forts all day outside? 

I get that kind of day tomorrow.  But replace snow forts with TLC marathons of A Baby Story and you have yourself a proper snow day, my friend.  Amen to that.