Wednesday, February 15, 2012

V-day. A day I can always be excited about (now)

Ahhhh, so after 27 years of on-again, off-again relationships with St. Valentine...I can finally be excited for the "Love Day" having a Valentine of my very own for the rest of my life <3

John and I had our very first Valentine's Day as a couple this year. It is still crazy that one year ago I was living up single-hood and today I am counting down the days until I marry my love. We didn't do anything too crazy, had a toast of Champagne thanks to our friend Liz Johnson and my Aunt and Uncle who gave us beautiful toasting flutes from Tiffany & Co. to celebrate our engagement! We exchanged valentines and then went to mass and dinner with some of our wonderful friends. It was a lot of fun!

On to other goings-ons around here. Maggie Smith left us last week to move back to the Mile High City. In honor of her going away, obviously her BFF from Texas was going to throw her a little going away party. Well Rowdy Raines is no regular bff. I had decided to spice the dinner up a little bit and warned all who were there to think of the most embarrassing story they could think of about Maggie since she had lived in Texas. After we ordered dinner, we all went around the table and shared her most embarrassing moments in Texas. It. was. awesome. Hahaha I seriously think I am too funny for my own good sometimes. Smith loved/hated me all at the same time about her going away shin-dig, but let's be honest. That is why our friendship is so great. Never before has the saying "opposites attract" been so true. Smith, don't worry, I won't share your embarrassing moments with the blog-o-sphere.

Let's see. What else? Oh, John survived his first "Gaschen Family" meeting this past weekend. My Godmother, Lulu, turned 50 this past weekend in Lubbock, TX. My Mom's side of the family has a huge party for each of their siblings (there are 8 of them) when they turn 50. So I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for John to meet my aunts and uncles on my Mom's side of the family. My Dad's side will have to be next...didn't want to overwhelm him with too much at one time. Long story short, he survived! And he even won over all the aunts by showing off his dancing skills <3 He's a keeper!

Well, hope everyone had a blessed St. Valentine's Day!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Saga of a Traveling Lady

Well, it's back to my life on the road this week. For those who don't know, I work for iKnowMed (an Oncology specific electronic medical record system) within McKesson Specialty Health. Right now, I am still working in implementation but will eventually transition into account management....what that means in layman's terms is that I travel, A LOT. Right now I travel 3 weeks out of each month (sometimes more, sometimes less) and you can pretty much call me the traveling queen, some would say diva. This week it is off to Staten Island, NY to train some nurses. And it is looking like it is going to be COOOLLLD. Awesome.

So this past couple weeks, since I was home-based (that's right, when I'm not traveling I work from home...don't be jealous. No seriously, don't be. If you know anyone who works from home, then you probably get me. I'll save all my funnies about working from home for another post!) I decided to tackle my next large get-ready-for-the-wedding task, which was......REGISTERING FOR GIFTS!
So, I have to start off by saying I have both pros and cons to this ridiculously harder than you think it is going to be task. So I'll start off with the negative and end with the positive. Always the best way to go.

Things that are annoying about registering for wedding gifts:
1. You feel like a total A-hole for picking out the nice stuff. I feel like I am saying, hello, thank you for supporting my marriage. Go ahead and drop some G's on us. Just saying, it feels a little uncomfortable.
2. If you are like me and research EVVVEEERRRYYYTTTHIIIINNNGGG to a T, it is soooo time consuming. I can't just pick out "pots", I have to research the best pot for your money. Let's just say I spent a lot of time online reading consumer reviews the past week.

OK, it wasn't that many negative...but those two are big!

Things that are awesome about registering for wedding gifts:
1. Contrary to my #1 for negative things, you DO get to pick out the nice stuff that my cheap ass would never normally want to dish out the dough for. haha
2. I have NEVER been more excited to be a domestic diva. Can't wait to cook my man some seriously delicious homemade meals and bake fun little holiday treats for his high school kidos.
3. I can't wait to decorate our home that we are going to have together. This could be a pro and a con for me because I will probably change my mind a million times on what color schemes I want to go with on things before our wedding...planning SO far in advance.
4. John and I had our first little tiff as an engaged couple, actually, I think since we have been together and we resolved it like veteran pros!  Because I can look back and laugh on it, I will go ahead and share the story with the class:

So, John obviously isn't as interested in all of the registry stuff. There are a few select items he wanted to pick: barware, grill, TV, Blu Ray, anddd I think that may be it? Anyway, so this was great for me because that meant everything else I could just pick what I wanted. Ahhh, sounds like I shouldn't be complaining, right? Well, I spent HOURS...seriously, hours, picking out all of these things that we are going to have in our home. So, when I want to tell John all about everything I picked he seemed like it was no-big-deal. Well, my feelings were hurt. I mean I didn't expect him to scream like a school girl when I told him the pots and pans I went with were Tri-ply stainless steel and next to All-Clad are the best you can have (duh), but I DID want him to acknowledge that I spent all this time picking this stuff out and be excited about how I will be cooking some pretty amazing dinner for him on those pans!

Needless to say, there was another emotional contributing factor that was contributing to my emotions that day, but that did not matter at the time. I was upset. John immediately felt awful after I cried and told him how much he just hurt my feelings. He apologized and told me sweet things for the rest of the phone call. (I know, he's so sweet!). And when I woke up the next morning, I had an email from him titled: Things We Need. It had about 10 links from our registry site of items he thought we should have. I clicked on the first link from my phone and it opened up a University of Michigan bed-set. I BURST out laughing, got on my computer and looked at the rest of the links. They included: a kegorater, beer glasses, a personal massager, and other man items. HAHA. I was laughing so hard, there was no way I could be mad any longer :)

Since then, anytime I say ANYTHING about registry stuff he makes sure he is excited. Last night I was talking to Sarah and Jayne about something and he turned around to them and said, "I want you guys to know, I am SO EXCITED about all of this registry stuff. Just want to make sure EVERYONE (looking at me) knows it!" hahaha. Heart that boy.

Well folks, I'm off to the airport to probably get my rights violated thru security. Have a good one! Annddd, in case you were wondering, these were the pots and pans I went with. I know you wanted to know.